Laputa: Castle in the Sky is an adventure film drawn to evoke the feeling of thrilling discovery through the exploration of ages long past. It is almost like Miyazaki's version of Indiana Jones in that regard. Unlike most of the director's work, this film is mostly devoid of nonhuman characters, save for the only functioning inhabitants of the eponymous floating castle: the Robot Guardians. Only one of them plays a large part in the film, and it serves as one of many gateways the main characters come across on the road to discovering the lost Castle in the Sky. This robot is animated with loving simplicity, bearing a design that has striking visual similarities to the title character of The Iron Giant and the city guardians in Atlantis: The Lost Empire. But what this robot of ancient times has over its successors is how old and worn it appears. No gaudy or overdramatic design has been added to make this guardian more imposing, which allows Miyazaki to explore both its warrior side and its peaceful and good-natured side. Aged and half coated with moss, this warrior is a relic of a time long gone, but still manages to see the humans that discover it as people worthy of protection and understanding. Like the island it protects, it is capable of great destruction, and also great compassion.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
