My 300th movie!

Rating: 10/10 (30 September 2016)

As someone who loves great films, I felt bad about not having seen most of Miyazaki's masterpieces. I have yet to see any of them that I would give a score lower than three and a half stars and this is no exception as it's easily a four star movie. I really do think it's great that this film uses both celebrity voices and voice actors, as well as Mark Hamill who's actually both! The animation may not be as good as "Spirited Away", but it's still gorgeous to look at. I have been watching one movie a day since last December and decided to view this as my 300th movie overall.
It's because I bought a fairly expensive copy of it. I had heard this set a record for most Tweets about a single subject or something like that. Whatever the record, this was great to watch. It was actually pretty rare that Miyazaki movies had a story with an actual villain in it. They rarely have black and white morality. This film, however, was a great exception and I admit to liking the idea of a more traditional story from him. I've also never seen anything from him that was an outright action movie. Yes, this had great drama, but it certainly had tons of action and explosions!
I guess it's kind of weird being a fan of traditional anime like "Dragonball Z", but this appears to obviously be something more cultured. I just think they're both great in their own way and their genres well. I guess this is the closest Miyazaki ever came to a typical action movie. Needless to say, it still has the great emotion that makes his film a masterpiece. The characters are still pretty morally ambiguous. The air pirates seem evil at first, but you definitely lighten up to them as time goes on. It was great to recognize Jim Cummings' voice, especially since I actually met the guy at a con!
I love the designs of the robots. I was really impressed at how bad I felt for the original one. Robots are common in anime, but this was a truly emotional take on them. I really did feel sorry for this poor guy as he kept getting injured trying to help Sheeta. You briefly see some magic creatures that almost look like pokemon. It's great to see how such a great artist influenced all kinds of different anime. It takes a little while to get really good, but it's still flawless. This is for kids, adults, and anyone. ****