Synopsis:

In 1998, after the film “Princess Mononoke” was met with critical acclaim both inside and outside Japan, Walt Disney Studios commissioned English dubs for the rest of Studio Ghibli’s filmography. Upon rewatching the studio’s first film, Castle in the Sky, Director Hayao Miyazaki and composer Joe Hisaishi agreed that the original, disco-infused soundtrack did not age particularly well, nor did it match the film's visuals. Hisaishi then created a remixed version of the soundtrack with a full orchestra, remaking the original cues while also reincorporating several entirely new ones. This enhanced soundtrack elevates what was already a great soundtrack into one of the finest film scores in animation. It is a shame that this new score is in service to an English dub that, while it certainly has its moments, is not up to par with the dubs from the other films from Ghibli. Just in time for Ghibli's 40th anniversary, this edit incorporates the new soundtrack from the English dub into the original Japanese voice-acting, creating the definitive version of this masterpiece. In addition to presenting the enhanced score in 5.1 surround sound, this edit has the original score in 6.1 surround sound, remastered from the alternate English soundtrack on the Blu-Ray.

Intentions:

It is claimed that, when Harvey Weinstein threatened to edit Princess Mononoke for the US release, Miyazaki mailed him a katana with the words "No Cuts" inscribed on the blade. As such, there have been no changes to the film's visuals to follow this philosophy. However, the soundtrack has been completely rebuilt. The main sources for the edit were the 5.1 surround sound English dub from the 2017 GKIDS Blu-ray, and the 2.0 Dolby Stereo Japanese track from the 2012 Disney Blu-ray (the sound quality is slightly better). The Dolby Stereo track was upmixed to 5.1 using foobar2000's freesurround plugin. The goal was to use as much of the English dub as possible, with the scenes that needed to be rebuilt from scratch matching the sound mixing of the dub. These scenes used the dialogue from the center channel of the Japanese track, music from the US soundtrack CD, and various free sound effects to fill out the soundscape. The alternate soundtrack was constructed similarly, using the 6.1 DTS-ES English dub from the 2012 Disney Blu-ray. Upmixing the Japanese track to 6.1 caused it to sound somewhat "whispy" and distorted. Thus, rather than upmixing the Japanese track again, the 5.1 Japanese soundtrack was reused, with the surround channels mapped (at a lower volume) to the center rear channel.

Change List:

There are very few outright changes to the film, outside of completely replacing the dialogue. The first major change is that, in the scene where the pirates start a brawl in the town, punch sound effects have been added where they were absent in the original film. Panning effects have also been added to certain sounds to match the English dub. For example, whenever a character is offscreen, their dialogue is panned either left or right, or it is mapped to the surround channels. The end credits music is sourced from the English dub, but it has been edited to match the timing of the Japanese end credits. Finally, a short description of the edit has been added after the end credits. Two scenes did not use music from the English dub, as the dialogue was too difficult to edit out due to panning effects and reverb. The first is the scene where the pirates celebrate not needing to work as hard. This scene uses the original music from the Japanese track. The second scene is at the very end, after Pazu and Sheeta reunite with the pirates. Here, a track from the symphonic version of the OST was used.

Additional Notes:

Feature-length storyboards: See Hayao Miyazaki's original storyboards for the film, synchronized with both of the edited soundtracks. Trailer

Other Sources:

2017 GKIDS Blu-Ray ->For the video and the 5.1 DTS-MA English dub 2012 Disney Blu-Ray ->For the 2.0 Dolby Stereo Japanese soundtrack and the 6.1 DTS-ES English dub. Laputa: Castle in the Sky Soundtrack ~The Mystery of the Levitation Stone~ Laputa: Castle in the Sky Symphony Version ~Huge Tree~ Laputa: Castle in the Sky USA Version Soundtrack ->For patches and sound replacements.