Laputa: Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ Tenku no Shiro Rapyuta) (re-titled Castle in the Sky for release in the United States) is a film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, released in 1986 by Studio Ghibli.

The Legend of Laputa

The film opens with a brief scene (detailed below) in which Sheeta, the heroine of the story, falls from a giant airship. The title and opening credits follow, during which the Legend of Laputa is told through a series of short animations.

According to the legend, humankind was fascinated with the sky. Humans created increasingly sophisticated modes of transportation, ranging from small aircraft to huge airships, inventing many different ways of lifting the craft from the ground. This eventually led to flying cities and fortresses, and soon, the skies were filled with such cities. Over time, the cities came crashing back to the ground, forcing the survivors to live on the ground once again.

One city, Laputa, is said to remain in the sky, concealed within the swirling clouds of a violent thunderstorm known as the Dragon's Nest. While most people consider it to be a myth, some believe the legend is true and have sought to find the ancient city.

Sheeta and Pazu

Aboard a giant passenger airship, a young girl guarded by sinister government agents is sitting in a room looking out the window, when she sees an air pirate flying toward the ship. The ship comes under attack from a group of pirates, and the man in the room with the girl (Colonel Muska) calls for help by way of Morse Code. The girl hits Muska over the head with a bottle, takes a small pendant from him, and attempts to escape to another room by climbing out the window and crawling along the outside of the ship. Pirates break into her room and attempt to seize her. The leader of the pirates, an elderly woman, says she must have the "crystal" that the girl possesses. Suddenly, the girl loses her grip and falls from the ship, but on her way to the ground, the pendant radiates a brilliant blue light and allows the girl (now unconscious) to descend gently to the ground.

Pazu, a young boy on his way to a mine (where he works as an engineer's assistant), witnesses the girl falling slowly from the sky. He is just in time to catch her, and is amazed by her apparent weightlessness. Soon after coming to rest in his arms, the pendant's light fades and the girl returns to her normal weight, nearly causing Pazu to fall. He sets her down safely and gets to work, then takes her back to his home when he's done.

The next morning, Pazu goes outside to play his trumpet. The girl he rescued at the mine wakes up in his house and finds him on his roof. She introduces herself as Sheeta, and Pazu tells her how he found her. He asks to try her pendant and promptly jumps off his roof, crashing through the ground into his basement. Both children have a good laugh and prepare breakfast. Sheeta becomes entranced with a photo of Laputa, the legendary flying city enshrouded in clouds. Pazu explains that his deceased father took the photo after being caught in a violent storm, but unfortunately no one believed him even with the photographic evidence. Pazu believes the city exists, however, and he explains that he wants to find it someday himself.

Before they can enjoy their breakfast, the pirates pursuing Sheeta arrive at Pazu's house, forcing the children to escape by train. Shortly after their escape, their path is blocked by a large government armored train, and the agents inside attempt to capture Sheeta. Pazu and Sheeta then escape off a side track, but are pursued once again by the pirates, and between the pirates' car and a shot from the government train, the rail trestle crumbles and causes the children to fall. They are saved, however, when Sheeta's pendant activates once again, allowing them to float safely into an abandoned mine below the town.

There they meet an old miner, long a recluse from Society, known as Uncle Pomme. He reveals to them that the mine contains large deposits of "volucite" ("aetherium" in Disney's English language dub), the crystal that was used to provide Laputa with power. The mine is full of such glowing crystals, but as Pomme demonstrates, the crystals become ordinary rock when exposed to air. When he sees Sheeta's pendant, he says that it is one of the largest such crystals in existence, and he directly links it to the existence of the ancient city. Pomme counsels Sheeta to remember that the crystal's power rightly belongs to the earth, and that she should never use it to commit acts of violence.

Believing that their pursuers have abandoned the search, Sheeta and Pazu emerge from the mine. Sheeta then confides in Pazu that she has an ancient "secret name", passed down through her family. Her true name is "Lusheeta Toel Ul Laputa" (Laputan for "Lusheeta, True Ruler of Laputa"). As Pazu begins to realize what this means, government agents (who have been spying on the children from the air) suddenly land next to them and take them both into custody. They are taken to a huge seaside fortress where they are separated — Pazu is placed in a prison cell, and Sheeta is locked away high in a tower.

The Chase for Laputa

In discussions between the general in command of the fortress and Muska it becomes clear that the government is sponsoring a concerted search for Laputa, and that Sheeta and her crystal are believed to be the keys to its discovery. Muska attempts to gain Sheeta's trust and co-operation by showing her the remains of a giant Laputan robot-man that are kept in a locked room beneath the fortress. He tells her of how in plunging from the sky the robot proved that Laputa's existence was not a myth, and that the advanced technology it represents could become a threat to world peace if left uncontrolled. He shows her that a winged symbol on the robot's casing is identical to the one inscribed onto her crystal. He also intimates that unless she co-operates with him in unlocking the crystal's secrets—which he believes can be used to physically locate Laputa— Pazu is likely to come to harm.

Seeking to protect her friend, Sheeta confronts Pazu, telling him that she has agreed to co-operate with Muska and the government, and asking him to return home and forget he ever knew of her and Laputa. Muska pays him three gold coins to "reward" his efforts in "protecting" Sheeta and returning her to him. Stung by this apparent rejection, an angry and confused Pazu returns to his village, only to find Dola's pirate family occupying his home, feasting.

An angry exchange between Pazu (who has been quickly restrained) and Dola ensues, and the chief pirate accuses the boy of betraying his friend for money. After learning the truth she, apart from guessing that Sheeta will probably be killed once the location of Laputa has been revealed, scolds Pazu for his ignorance of not knowing Sheeta has saved him from being harmed. Pazu recognizes this, and when the pirates decode a government radio transmission revealing that the following morning Sheeta, Muska, and the general are to depart the fortress in search of Laputa aboard the gigantic military airship Goliath, he begs Dola to let him accompany her. Dola agrees, and in no time they are heading for the fortress in flaptors (a kind of flying machine resembling an insect).

Meanwhile, Sheeta recites a spell her grandmother taught her to use in times of peril; promptly, the crystal emanates power in the form of light, pointing the way to Laputa-- her ancestral refuge. It also re-animates the robot, which proceeds to rescue Sheeta, causing massive damage in the process. As Sheeta tries to restrain it, the robot places her down gently and raises a hand to its heart, proclaiming its loyalty and obedience for her. Caught off guard, it is destroyed by cannon fire from Goliath. Pazu and Dola arrive in time to rescue Sheeta, but her crystal pendant is lost and recovered by Muska, who uses it to track Laputa.

Dola prepares to drop Sheeta and Pazu off at the mining town, but the children manage to persuade her to take them on the search for Laputa. Aboard Dola's airship, the Tiger Moth, they pursue the Goliath, with Sheeta serving in the kitchen and Pazu working as a mechanic and lookout. In the night, Sheeta comes to visit Pazu. She is enraptured by the beauty of the star-filled sky.

After morning, they encounter a huge cloud mass - a "dragon's nest" - and Pazu recognizes it from his father's descriptions as the place where Laputa is hidden. Trying to find a way in, the Tiger Moth is buffeted by the hurricane-force winds that form the cloud, and on top of that they are spotted by the Goliath and fired upon. The crow's nest glider Sheeta and Pazu are in at the time is separated from the pirate ship, and after a hazardous ride through the storm they reach the flying city of Laputa.

The Battle for Laputa

The children awake to find the city devoid of human life, with only a single robot among the massive ruins- similar to the one in the army fortress - apparently taking care of the grounds. Many animals and birds occupy the city, and the children also find a huge greenhouse with a gargantuan tree, whose roots have pervaded all of Laputa's base and whose crown forms a huge green roof over the entire palace. There are also intricate ponds and lakes that reveal, upon Pazu's looking in, that the city extends for miles beneath them, underwater.

The serenity of the place is rudely disturbed by the government soldiers. The storm protecting Laputa has dissipated due to the presence of Sheeta's pendant, and so the Goliath - and the wrecked Tiger Moth - was able to land safely. The children witness the soldiers plundering the city of its vast store of riches, while the Dola pirates have been captured and sit bound nearby. While the children attempt to free the pirates, Sheeta witnesses Muska and two of his men locating a hidden entrance to the black sphere that surrounds the city's core. She is subsequently captured and taken inside. Pazu manages to evade his alerted pursuers and frees the pirates. Since the soldiers block the most direct route into the black sphere, Pazu tries to enter it from the outside, and after many difficulties (including an artillery bombardment in which he is inadvertently caught up) he manages to get in.

Sheeta, with her hands bound, is taken by Muska into Laputa's core, a chamber holding a gigantic hovering Volucite/Aetherium crystal that serves as the city's power source. It is here that Muska reveals that he, like Sheeta, is an heir to the throne of Laputa. Consulting a small book, Muska uses Sheeta's pendant to take control of Laputa's formidable arsenal. He gets the attention of the General and his soldiers inside the city, then demonstrates Laputa's weaponry by firing an incredibly powerful energy beam into the ocean. He asserts that the immense destructive power of the floating fortress is the basis for the Biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as for the Vedic weapon "Indra's Arrow".

Muska then sends the general and his soldiers to their deaths by opening the bottom of the sphere, causing them to fall toward the ocean. When the remaining soldiers attempt to flee in the Goliath, he deploys Laputa's massive, hitherto immobile army of robots and orders them to destroy it. However, during his assault on the mammoth airship, Sheeta manages to get free and steal back the crystal. She runs away through the Laputan ruins with Muska in close pursuit. Eventually, she finds Pazu in another room and passes the crystal to him.

Finally, Sheeta is cornered by Muska in the city's throne room. She confronts him and declares that they will both die in that room if they must. Pazu arrives to defend Sheeta, then asks for a moment to talk to her, which Muska grants. Together, the two children decide to use the Spell of Destruction -- another incantation passed down by Sheeta's family, of which she told Pazu on the previous night. With a single word, the pendant releases an enormous power surge that hurls Sheeta and Pazu into the giant tree's roots, allowing them to narrowly escape death. The core crystal breaks out of its chamber and triggers the collapse of the city's core, causing the lower portions of the city to crumble and the roots to stick out from the bottom of the remaining parts (which consist of the top one or two layers or pavilions, out of the three or four that were there at the start of the assault). Muska, blinded by the pendant's energy burst, becomes trapped in the wreckage and falls to his doom.

After a few minutes, the city stops falling apart, the remaining pieces being held together by the roots of the giant tree. The city begins rising further into the sky, apparently due to its reduced weight. Sheeta and Pazu eventually awake and find their way back to the glider, which they use to depart Laputa.

The Dola pirates have also managed to survive Laputa's destruction, escaping on the Flaptors (all of which are joined together, making them somewhat unwieldy). While their airship has been destroyed, they are all still alive, and Dola herself seems to know what happened (she had listened when Sheeta had talked with Pazu about her family). They are overjoyed when Sheeta and Pazu join up with them again in the glider, and the pirates reveal that they managed to take some of the city's treasures in their escape. After reaching the next coastline, the pirates and the children bid each other a cordial farewell and part ways. Meanwhile, Laputa continues to rise, until it (in the closing credits) apparently establishes an orbit high above the planet.

From Wikipedia