As promised, we watched Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind today, and it is still my favorite Studio Ghibli film, even though it's technically not a Studio Ghibli film (it was released in 1984, a year before Ghibli's official founding; however, it has since been grandfathered in and now carries the Ghibli branding).
Everything about this movie is fantastic: its setting, its characters, the animation, its main plot, and its central conceit.
Today, instead of giving a plot synopsis and a half-assed analysis like usual, I thought I would instead relate interesting factoids about the movie, like the one above about this technically not being a Ghibli film. We'll call that 1.
2. Hideaki Anno animated the Giant Warrior/God Soldier scene near the end of the film. He would go on to animate even more giant, rotting things that shot lasers out of their faces in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
3. The Nausicaan aliens in Star Trek: The Next Generation are named after the title character. Bonus: Captain Jean-Luc Picard had his heart stabbed by a Nausicaan; Sir Patrick Stewart, who played Picard, also voiced Yupa in the 90s English dub.
4. Because this was an original story and not adapted from any existing source, Miyazaki wrote a manga so he could get it produced.
5. The film has a World Wildlife Fund logo at the very beginning, praising it for Nausicaä's repeated attempts to save the giant insects from other humans.
6. There are over 56,000 traditional animation cels used in this movie.
7. Yupa entering the Valley of the Wind at the beginning of the film was inspired by JRR Tolkien's description of Gandalf entering Hobbiton at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson may have then copied this scene for his adaptation of the book, but that's pure speculation on my part).
8. There is an aviation group in Japan who has made a real-world version of Nausicaä's glider. Ghibli wanted to officially back them, but the group declined in case somebody got hurt; they didn't want anyone to hold Ghibli responsible. They have since made a successful test flight.
9. Only 263 colors were used in this film, which may explain why some viewers think Nausicaä isn't wearing any pants when in her blue outfit. The color of her pants just happen to be very close to the shade of her skin.
10. Miyazaki was so angry at the original English version of Nausicaä (called Warriors of the Wind), which had huge edits and re-writes, and cut about a half hour from the total run time, that when piece of shit rapist Harvey Weinstein asked to make similar edits to Princess Mononoke ten years later, Miyazaki stormed out of the meeting. Several days later, Ghibli head Toshio Suzuki sent a katana sword with the words "NO CUTS" engraved on its blade to piece of shit rapist Weinstein's office. The film was released uncut in the US. Miyazaki commented on the incident in an interview, smiling and saying, "I defeated him." This is my favorite Miyazaki story ever.
If you have, for some reason, never watched this movie, I urge you to do so as soon as possible. It is legitimately awesome.
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