🍿 Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) was a delight, even at 2 hours. As the first Studio Ghibli movie it has been overshadowed by what came later, but its influence is obvious. Inside Ghibli itself, there is one-to-one mapping of characters (Captain Dola becomes Yubaba from Spirited Away, her husband becomes Kamaji) and plot points (a boy protecting a magical girl in Ponyo). Externally, the robots are echoed in The Iron Giant and Wall-E. Doesn’t the latest Zelda have a flying castle? And of course it is one of the first popular steampunk anime.

I will also note that the movie is almost 40 years old: it came out the same year as Top Gun and Crocodile Dundee. But good luck getting your kids to watch either. Incredible how much more gracefully animation ages compared to live-action.