Sheeta (Anna Paquin) possesses a magical necklace which arouses many character’s interest. Because it is a rare crystal and can make people fly, many people want it.
Pazo (James Van Der Beek) and the others in the mining village are the only ones who do not want her crystal. He finds her necklace fascinating but doesn’t try to take it from her or take her for that matter. However, even he has heard of the “treasure” on Laputa.
The “pirates…that attacked the airship” want Sheeta’s crystal badly. The Dola gang even gets into fights in search of the girl.
Our main antagonist, Muska (Mark Hamill), has researched into Sheeta’s history and knows she is “the legitimate heir to the throne of Laputa”.
Although the Dola (Cloris Leachman) gang seems mean and scary, they actually turn out to be allies. However, this does not curb their greed for treasure entirely. They take in the two orphan children but still pursue Laputa to capture the “treasure”.
Turns out, “the city is full of treasure” after all. The military is a “greedy pack of thieves” and they try to take whatever they can find. There is plenty of “jewels” to go around.
He even uses “the thunder of Laputa” to show he has control over the power of the castle in the sky. Power is the only victory Muska sees. “It is useless to fight [him]” because he thinks he has all the control.
In the end, combining nature and technology together can be considered greedy. They cannot exist together; they must be independent of each other. After this is accomplished in the end, nature prevails; Laputa is a huge, flying tree.
Curbing greed is the key, in this movie, to surviving greed. Wanting complete power is asking too much. Just wanting some jewels to buy a new airship, like Dola’s gang, is more reasonable.
Another analysis I find fascinating in this movie is the equality of gender roles: Sheeta and Pazo both are active and strong. They both care for each other but equally. These characters both possess feminine and masculine characteristics. Just ponder that if you do not like the greed side of this movie.
An analysis of this movie drawing from the nature versus technology lens discusses how humans broke the harmony between these two.
Clothing, actions, and status can be interpreted many ways, but finding duality in characters is one of my favorite analysis techniques.
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See you next week!