Laputa: Castle in The Sky (1986) — Of Humanity and Technology (updated!)
Review film — Tugas Pendidikan Kineklub 2#
Laputa Castle in The Sky (1986) — Of Humanity and Technology
The earth speaks to all of us, and if we listen, we can understand.
Laputa Castle in The Sky –this movie title alone sparks imagination and wonder. It invokes our old childhood imaginations, of a grand castle floating amidst a sea of clouds. This animation, one of Hayao Miyazaki early works, more than delivers its premise in a thrilling adventure paced with contented and quiet moments (a key feature of Studio Ghibli movies) that bring the story to life.
The story of Laputa is a classic, reminiscent of films with children protagonists that discover fantastical things and gets involved with something bigger than their imagination (in the vein of ET, Up, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, etc). It follows along the story of Pazu (the hero), who helps Sheeta (the heroine) who he sees falling from the sky. After their meeting, they discover mysteries of the amulet that Sheeta wore and is promptly chased by pirates and the military, keen to capture them. The story continues thrillingly after that, and when they eventually discover Laputa they must keep away the military and Muska (the main antagonist) from misusing it’s power.
However, in its simplicity the film holds interesting themes that would be interesting to explore further. One of the key distinction of themes in this film that the writer takes notice of is about the film’s message on humanity usage of technology.
Technology is a complex tool that humanity has at its disposal. During the film, it is explored that this tool can be used for peace and for destruction.
Laputa in the film is clearly described and depicted as an utopia. It floats in the sky using a mysterious, advanced technology based on a miraculous crystal. The powerful crystal fuels and becomes the backbone of Laputa’s technology, which its previous inhabitants use to power their cities, robots, and armaments. Despite their powerful technology, the society clearly placed an importance in nature. The city and its armaments is built surrounding a gigantic tree and the gardens around it, making the garden the ultimate center of the town, and arguably of most importance. However, an unnamed factor one day made its inhabitants abandon the city.
In contrast to Laputa’s unreal, utopic setting, the world outside of Laputa is made up of grimy mining towns, villages, and steampunk technology. Clearly the society outside is something more realistic, or at least closer to our version of reality (something based on European cities).
What would happen then, if these inhabitants discover this reality? Discover the utopia that is Laputa?
That’s what sparked the events of the film. A robot fell from the sky. This event stimulated the military, and they were shocked when the technology was unknown to them had mysterious capabilities. Under the rationale of defence, the military started their investigations.
But during the course of the film, the duality of technology and the humanity behind can be most easily contrasted with the robots in Laputa.
In the start of the movie, the robots in Laputa are scary beings. When they came alive and brought devastation to the military base, we feel for the heroine, Sheeta who runs away in fear. The tension in the scene is brilliantly administered- the liberal use of red from the fire and dark surroundings of the military base, coupled with Muska words from the previous scene about the danger from the robots held. The robot pursues her, and it was a tense moment until Sheeta’s necklace shines. It forms a literal connection from the amulet (and Sheeta) to the robot.
One is a weapon of mass destruction and the other a forest guardian
At that point, the robot does not seem as scary anymore. Until the very end, all the robot did was try to protect the heroine. Here we are contrasted with the idea that all is not what they seem.
At the last half of the movie, when we finally meet the other robots in Laputa do we understand their actual true purpose: as guardians, protectors, and caretakers of the city. They are peaceful beings, carefully tending to a city with inhabitants that will never come back.
Then the military came. Muska, the primary antagonist reveals his card. He was aiming for the technology and power of Laputa all along. At that point, we, the audience do not feel fear anymore because of the robots, but what would happen when humanity gets hold of them.
The frame now shifts. Now what we question is not the technology anymore, but the humanity who holds the actual true power on how the tools are used.
How does “humanity” hold this responsibility? In the movie, there are 3 forces with their own motivations:
1. Muska, the primary antagonist of the movie. (also the military)
2. The Dola pirate gang.
3. Hero and heroine (Sheeta and Pazu).
Muska as the villain here definitely represents the worst sides of humanity. He represents humanity hunger and ambition for power. He lusts for the power that Laputa’s technology holds. He has no qualms of shooting and abusing children. As he reveals his ambitions, Muska also used Laputa’s robots to attack and kill the escaping military. This also shows the point that the originally peaceful robots only show their destructive nature as a direct response of humanity actions.
The scene of Muska taking control of Laputa by destroying the army is also another scene with great implications. When he demonstrated the power that Laputa holds, the explosion holds an unmistakable image of an atomic cloud. And thus, the the technology criticized in the movie gains a specific interpretation, which is the use of nuclear technology in war. This brings to mind of Hayao Miyazaki later works, like Grave of the Fireflies and Porco Rosso and its inherent themes of anti-war. Castle in The Sky is an earlier version of Hayao Miyazaki thesis.
Continuing on, the Dola pirate gang is more of a grey/mixed area. While they did pursue Laputa for selfish needs such as their want of fortune, they are not inherently bad. Several times in the movie we see their compassion and empathy for the hero and the heroine, and how that lead them to directly help the two children. While not perfect forces of good, the Dola pirate gang transforms from a wandering, dangerous rogue band of pirates to crew of people helping two children reach the mystery island of Laputa (and getting treasures on the side).
The hero and heroine represent the good side of humanity. Pazu and Sheeta intent to visit Laputa came from more intrinsic and personal gains such as of Pazu wanting to prove the existence of the island his father saw while Sheeta gains truth of her lineage. When they eventually reach Laputa and discover the gardens of the city, Sheeta and Pazu appreciates and admires Laputa for what it is, with no notion and designs to exploit it for their own means. That’s why when the military came and stripped Laputa down, their first idea is to look for a way to preserve the peace on Laputa and help Dola. Through the entirety of the movie, Pazu and Sheeta also show respect and deference to nature (ex. the scene in the mines and Laputa gardens), and looks for ways to preserve it.
Another interesting thing is on how young Pazu and Sheeta is. Hayao Miyazaki has a tendency to choose young protagonists for many of his movie, but I think how young they are also directly contributed to their perspective in the film. Pazu and Sheeta as a children are innocent and idealistic, with strong beliefs of peace and justice. In contrast, many of the adults in the movie are not so. In this sense, I believe Pazu and Sheeta can come as an example of Hayao Miyazaki hope for the future. By teaching our children the proper ways to face the future –by respecting nature and using technology responsibly, perhaps they can do better. Perhaps they can bring a better future than the adults before them failed.
As we can see from here, we see how each and every one of the stakeholders in the movie holds their own intention with Laputa. Dola holds a more pragmatic approach of personal gain. Muska represents destruction and in contrast Sheeta and Pazu represents peace.
So as you can see, there is a strong sense of black-and-white in Laputa: Castle in The Sky. Hayao Miyazaki films are always, in one way or another, connected with nature. But there is something different in Laputa. Different from nuanced and complex moral quandaries in Princess Mononoke, Laputa is more straightforward. While in Princess Mononoke the story of humanity and nature is presented from many sides and complex themes, nature in Laputa is corrupted and worsened with human influence. The climax is so straightforward it leaves no other room for interpretation.
This clear dogmatic perspective (compared to his other films) by Hayao Miyazaki is made clear by this particular climax: the confrontation scene between Sheeta and Muska in the throne room of Laputa. Sheeta, overcome with emotion, explained:
Now I understand why the people of Laputa vanished. This is a song from my home in the valley of Gondoa that explains everything. It says,
“Take root in the ground, live in harmony with the wind, plant your seeds in the winter, and rejoice with the birds in the coming of spring.” No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love.”
From that dialogue (albeit a heavy-handed one) and the rest of the movie the story of Laputa turns into a cautionary tale of us humanity and our technology. As a tool at our disposal, it is up to us to decide on how to use it.
Remembering the scene of Muska’s destruction and the atomic cloud, the analysis can be taken a step further: the film is a representation of Miyazaki’s hard stance of the use of nuclear technology in war. Miyazaki was a child in WWII, but the effects of it clearly shaped his perspective. The trauma left by the atomic warheads in Hiroshima and Nagasaki clearly made its impact, to this day, it can be seen on Japanese culture and media. In 2011, Miyazaki was featured on a magazine cover holding a sign that reads “No nukes” in Japanese. His films are environmentalist, exploring the themes nature and humanity intricately, but in this straightforward film there is only one answer: that he condemns the exploitation of nuclear energy.
At the end of the movie, we clearly know the choice that our heroine and hero used. They chose to destroy Laputa in order to keep its technology out of Muska and the military reach. As the city self-destructs, an interesting thing happened: it sheds all of the outer cities and its armaments. What’s left instead is the center –the trees and gardens. The rest of Laputa floats away, reaching far into the sky, leaving behind the possibility of anyone misusing the technology (and in this context: nuclear tech) ever again.
Laputa: Castle in The Sky is an entertaining action-adventure movie with interesting themes to explore. One of them specifically is how it represents the duality of technology and humanity and how its usage matters in the sense on how humans chose to use it. Not only that, the film holds a clear allusion of Hayao Miyazaki opinions on the exploitation of nuclear energy, especially for the purpose of war.
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Loved the movie for personal, nostalgic, and technical reasons. While this review ended up not discussing the misenscene of the film and picking it apart further, I enjoyed discussing the events and themes that I think are present in the movie.
The movie is straightforward. While I enjoyed it, Castle In The Sky is definitely meant for younger audiences (in contrast to Princess Mononoke).
Beautiful symphony by Joe Hisashi, gorgeous animation and colors by Studio Ghibli. Ghibli focus on the minute details (the cooking egg, the crystals in the cave, the gorgeous illustration of Laputa) never fails to enrich the world the characters live in. Let’s say they know what they’re doing, and they knew how since 1986.
