Original Title: Tenkuu no Shiro Rapyuta

Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
Written by: Hayao Miyazaki
Music by: Joe Hisaishi & Hayao Miyazaki

Production Period: June 15, 1985 - July 23, 1986
Released on: August 2, 1986 (Japan); April 1, 1989 (limited U.S. release)
Running Time: 124 minutes

Budget: $
Box-Office: 774,271 admission, ¥583 million in film rental
 
 

CAST
 

Pazu... James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek)
Sheeta... Anna Paquin (The Piano, Rogue in The X-Men)
Muzka... Mark Hamill (Star Wars)
Dola... Cloris Leachman (Mrs. Tensedge in The Iron Giant)
Also featuring Mandy Patinkin and Michael McShane.
 
 

INTERESTING FACTS

  "Laputa" is a floating island in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", though according to Pazu, Swift's Laputa "is just a story in a book", and his Laputa is for real. In Swift's novel, Laputans are a people who literally have their "heads in the clouds". At first, Miyazaki wanted to make a film about a "flying Treasure Island", and he borrowed the name "Laputa" from Swift's book. He probably shouldn't have. "Laputa" is actually a (really) bad word in Spanish -it means "prostitute"-, and Swift apparently knew this when he named the island. It is not clear whether Miyazaki knew the origin of this word or not, but he could've avoided the problem only if he'd stuck to his original plan of spelling it as "Raputa" (the Japanese language doesn't differentiate between L and R).

  When the Walt Disney Company acquired the rights to distribute Laputa in the United States, the movie was understandably renamed Castle In The Sky.  A new English dub of the film, originally scheduled for video release in 1999, has been completed, and was trailered in the video release of Kiki's Delivery Service.  Still waiting to be theatrically  released, the English dub premiered in February 2000 at the New York International Children's Film Festival and screened again at the New Zealand Film Festival in the summer of 2000 as well as the Fantasia Film Festival in July 2001.
 
 

INTERVIEW WITH COMPOSER JOE HISAISHI

The music of Laputa: Castle in the Sky was composed by Joe Hisaishi back in 1986. Hisaishi redid the music for the English version of the film, Castle in the Sky -he started recording new pieces in March 1999 and wrapped up on May 10, 1999. Since Disney is now considering a theatrical release in the United States, they requested him to update and upgrade the music.

In an interview in the August 1999 issue of Keyboard Magazine (the Japanese version), Hisaishi said the following:
 

"According to Disney's staff, foreigners (non-Japanese) feel uncomfortable if there is no music for more than 3 minutes [laughs]. You see this in the Western movies, which have music throughout. Especially, it is the natural state for a (non-Japanese) animated film to have music all the time. However in the original Laputa, there is only one-hour worth of music in the 2 hour 4 minute movie. There are parts that do not have any music for 7 to 8 minutes. So, we decided to redo the music as the existing soundtrack will not be suitable for the markets outside of Japan.

If we just add new music, it won't go well with the music made in 14 years ago. So we completely re-recorded everything. Of course, we cannot demolish the melody of Laputa, so I changed the arrangement of it while keeping its integrity.

The American way of putting music in a movie is basically very simple. They just match the music with the characters. For example, when the army shows up on screen, you hear the army's theme. The music explains the screen images -that is the point of Hollywood music. Until this time, I avoided such an approach, as I felt that it would make music dull, although I understand such an approach. But when I redid the music of Laputa this way, I learned a lot.

We do not have a concrete plan for the soundtrack album release yet, but the completed soundtrack is great. Miyazaki-San was also very pleased."