Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky (1 Viewer)

[Rob Lutter]

Russel, sometimes PowerDVD is selective about what it plays (mine won't play Pioneer or Bandai anime DVDs for some reason). So I use both WinDVD and PowerDVD... between both, I can get all my DVDs to work

 

[Aaron Cohen]

Just wanted to see if anyone else's DVD did the same thing I mentioned above. It was a very strange effect.

 

[Ray Chuang]

I myself LOVE this movie.

Mostly because the movie has stunning background animation that is essentially all hand-drawn. The movie is primarily written as an "adventure" film, so don't expect the deeper meaning of the later Studio Ghibli releases.

By the way, I don't mind the redone score--it's not really that intrusive, and Disney did bring back the original composer to do it, thank the right person upstairs!

 

[Tony Stirling]

I have been waiting for these DVDs to come out for years, and I have not been disappointed in the least! Anyone who loves any kind of animation should at the very least check these titles out.

For those of you who are just getting acquiainted with Miyazaki's work on DVD and you thought Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away and Kiki were great, well, just you wait till you see Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa! You will all love it--it has great adventure, and that sense of charm and wonder that all of Miyazaki's works have. It will also be great to eventually, some day, have a fully realized DVD of Tonari no Totoro.

Look forward to them!

enjoy

tony

 

[Jon Smith]

any faults with Castle in the Sky ?

i heard something about subtitle issues.

i definately gonna get Spirited Away.

but not kiki cos of the sound sync issues.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Comments from a popular comparison page for this title.

This R1 release is closer to the R3 release than the Japanese release in terms of quality. Like the R3 release is features obvious edge enhancement and has much more damage than the Japanese release. Although the R1 release is progressive and gets one over the Japanese release on that factor. Still the general quality of this transfer is poorer than the Japanese release and it's a shame they didn't use that release and sort out its problem with interlaced scan encoding. It's also a shame they stuffed the extras onto the same disc as the film and not onto the second disc with the storyboards, as I think this has lead to a drop in quality in terms of how much macro-blocking and mpeg artefacting can be seen. Still, to many fans this will be the best they have seen this film looking like for years.

As expected, sound is as good as it can be. The original Japanese soundtrack is identical to the one found on the Japanese release. The English dub is the new Disney dub (more on that below) and is presented in glorious DD 5.1 which puts across the dub pretty well.


...

If you really want to see an amazing transfer of this film then go for the Japanese release. If you want to see a transfer which is still great, but not perfect, then the R1 or R3 releases will do nicely.

More info at the website.

 

[Rob Lutter]

Watched the DVD last night (watching Lasseter's intro is like looking in a mirror ).

Definately some subtitle issues. I saw lots of lost lines... but they were mostly a follow-up "Yes!" in response to a previous sentence. Just remember that "Hoy!" (sorry about my terrible romanji spelling) is Japanese for "yes" and you should be fine.

I don't think it is a big deal... I watched the DVD on my computer monitor and it looks much better than you guys make it out to be.

 

[JasonRH]

Rob,
What about the timing of the subs?

 

[Rob Lutter]

The timing was just fine. I was using WinDVD on my HTPC.

 

[Neil Joseph]

I have never seen any of Hayao Miyazaki's films. If I should check out one of the three recently released DVD's, which one should I check out and why? I must admit, something about this film draws me, is it good?

 

[TheLongshot]

Neil,

Of the ones that are out, I'd probably start with "Kiki's Delivery Service", but you can't really go wrong with any of them. They are all wonderful films.

Jason

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Kiki's J track is 2.0 stereo, as it should be.

IIRC, for reasons I don't quite understand the Japanese 2.0 track for Kiki appears on the storyboard version on the second disc while the new Japanese 5.1 mix is on the film proper on the first disc. I will verify this evening if I get a chance.

I suspect that Jeff's comment was either based on the storyboard version or simply a misfired synapse where he meant to type "Castle" instead of "Kiki".

Regards,

 

[Richard Kim]

Neil,

besides the three that were released recently, there's also Princess Mononoke, which has been out on DVD for quite some time. Unlike Miyazaki's other films, which are suitable for all ages, Mononoke is his most mature and violent. I agree with Jason, you can't go wrong with any of his films.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The Japanese track on Kiki is 2.0, misflagged as 5.1. Just another Disney screwup in a long list

Don't forget, Rock Criterion is labeled "DTS 2.0"

 

[Michael St. Clair]

If the JPN track for Kiki is mistakenly flagged as 5.1, then nothing comes out the subwoofer, right?

If so, you will want to engage the downmix function on your DVD player...this will downmix to stereo PCM (which is what DD2.0 does anyway) and allow your receiver/processor to extract bass for the sub.

 

[Brook K]

Something is seriously wrong with the subtitles. I may have a defective disc since nobody is mentioning it here, but I just watched it and accidentally had the caption track engaged because for some reason, it's subtitle stream 1 and I didn't think about checking for a 2nd track until later in the film.

Anyway, the caption track and subtitles differ quite a bit. The caption track includes several more lines which no one appears to be speaking, while these are left out all together on the subtitle track.

The example I can think of off hand is Mom and Sheeta run across a causeway, into Mom's room, and she opens a drawer and says something like (subtitle track), "you need new clothes" or "we have to change your wardrobe" and hands her a big pair of pirate pants. Than they leave the room and Mom takes Sheeta into the kitchen.

But on the Caption track as Mom and Sheeta run over the causeway there's a discussion about Sheeta learning "pirate language". When Sheeta is handed the pants Mom asks if something's wrong or are they too big, and Sheeta says it's ok. There are also variations in the kitchen and elsewhere throughout the track. The captions have more lines and also variations in the word usage.

Is the subtitle track in fact "dubtitles" while the caption track is the true translation and Disney has @##$ with the track and removed sounds? There are also multiple times on the caption track where the caption will say "soft piano music" or "dramatic music" and the track will be silent.

Jeff??

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I've found most recievers will allow you to force stereo Michael

The subtitle timing issue seems to be player specific.

EDIT AFTER A PM CAUSE I MISREAD

The dub track has around 10 minutes of new music added because Disney feels silence makes Americans uncomfortable (WTF?). This music, while written and directed by the original composer, Joe Hisaishi, severely alters the mood and tone of the scenes.

It's obvious that they also rewrote dialogue, adding in things and removing others. The subtitle track is a literal translation from the original script, but is done in a semi-fansub manner, in which sounds of agreement, and many singular "Hai!'s" are not translated, as the meaning is fairly obvious.

 

[SteveGon]

Bought this blind and wasn't disappointed. Picked up a copy for the nephews who will no doubt love it!

My one quibble with this release and the other two Miyazaki's (Spirited Away & Kiki's Delivery Service) are that the subtitles are hard to read - the font is rather thin and is difficult to concentrate on (and I watch lots of foreign films) especially when you're trying to take in the visuals. Yes, I listened to the English language track... :b

 

[EricW]

the captions track is for the hearing impaired, that's why it tells you when the music is playing. i made the same mistake in selecting subtitle 1 because i'm usually lazy and don't use the menus. the menus tell you which is the correct subtitle track. also selecting japanese audio and english subtitles in the menus from the start lets you see the original japanese titles as opposed to the english ones.

and yes, for some reason they (Disney) felt the need to change the captions from the subtitles. the captions add alot of "describing the story".

 

[Brook K]

I know what captions are, my questions was that they were describing things onscreen that weren't occuring - music where there was none or dialogue where no one appeared to be speaking.

But sounds like the explanation is one I hadn't thought of. The Captions are for the dub while the subtitles are for the Japansese track. That's fine, I was worried the subs were leaving out lines but typical of Disney, they just added a bunch of crap to the film.

I did pick the subs from the menu and it played the captions which was why I left them on for so long. I was thinking it only had captions.