Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind

Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind original poster

The film Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind is an animated movie of science-fiction, action, and fantasy. Based upon the manga of the same name, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The first draft of the screenplay was done by Kazunori Ito, but completed by Miyazai. Music was composed by Joe Hisaishi. The Studio Ghibli company produced the movie and distributed by Toei Kabushiki Kaisha. When Tokuma Shoten originally approached Miyazaki about adapting his manga for an animated feature he initially refused. He would later consent under the condition that he would be the one to direct the movie. It would become the first of many successful anime films produced by Miyazaki and cemented his status as a legend in the industry. One of the animators for the film was Hideaki Anno, who later would go on to produced Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The original Japanese release of the film was on March 4, 1984. In total the movie has grossed over ¥740 million ($9 million). When the movie was originally dubbed in the U.S. by New World Pictures, it was heavily edited and retitled as "Warriors of the Wind". A total of thirty minutes of the film was removed. Many of the voice actors had no idea of the plot of the movie. Backlash against this version of the film reached as far as Miyazaki himself, and prompted him to make a statement that fans should just put it "out of their minds". After this event, Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki would from then on hold a strict no cuts policy in all foreign distribution of their works.

In 2005, Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind was re-licensed for a U.S. release and redubbed by the Buena Vista Home Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Disney company. On March 8, 2011 the Blu-ray disk of the movie was release to the U.S. and Canada by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.

Story

Nausicaä on her glider

A thousand years after a great war, in a world dominated by the pollution-induced Sea of Corruption, Princess Nausicaä grows up in a peaceful valley shielded from the devastation by its prevailing winds from the sea. These keep the deadly spores that spread the Sea of Corruption away from its fertile lands-survival by a combination of geographical and meteorological chance. Terrible insect-like creatures roam the Sea of Corruption and the desert lands around. Mightiest of all are the huge crustaceans, the Ohmu. One of these can wipe out most human threats, but in a herd, they are unstoppable. Outside the valley, while smaller communities struggle to survive, factions within the Tolmekian Empire are fighting for supremacy. Princess Kushana of Tolmekia finds one of the superweapons that made the ancient war so terrible, the last God Warrior embryo, and plans to use it to ensure that her people stay on top, even if it means upsetting the fragile balance Nature has struggled to regain after the long-ago war.

When the ship carrying her superweapon crashes in the valley, it brings Kushana's army down on the agrarian enclave to retrieve the terrible cargo. Nausicaä's father dies in the struggle, but she can't give herself up to the lust for vengeance-she is the only one with the vision to see that understanding, tolerance, and patience might give a better outcome than aggression, not only with the Tolmekians, but also with the Sea of Corruption and its giant denizens. Faced with the God Warrior's awakening, an Ohmu stampede, and even the failure of the wind that has protected her Valley for generations, she must also face up to her own fears and make the ultimate sacrifice to preserve everything she loves.

It would have been easy to make this a hero-villain tale in the Hollywood mold (something the woefully inferior 1986 U.S. edit Warriors of the Wind attempts), but what emerges is a far richer, more complex world. Shunning more conventional firepower, Nausicaä uses her brains, her heart, and her courage to find a solution with compassion for everyone involved. The result is a film that is superbly put together on all levels, with messianic and ecological subtexts that don't weigh down a story packed with action and adventure.

After his initial success as a director-for-hire on Castle of Cagliostro, Hayao Miyazaki directed this short segment of his own epic 1982 manga, originally serialized in Animage magazine. Despite an ending that seems to owe a debt to David Lynch's movie of Dune (1984), Nausicaä draws on a variety of other sources, including The Princess Who Loved Insects (one of the Japanese Folk Tales) and, for its scenes beneath the poisonous-yet-cleansing Sea of Corruption, the 1959 adaptation of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. It even pastiches Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) with an opening montage that ends with Nausicaä in flight where Disney has a witch. As with many of Miyazaki's later characters, there are powerful echoes of the work of British historical fantasy novelist Rosemary Sutcliffe, whose hero-kings are defined by the extent to which they willingly live and die for others. Nausicaä has much in common with Ashitaka, her spiritual heir in Princess Mononoke, and the art direction of both films spares no effort in the quest for perfection. Nausicaä's access to cutting-edge technology, however, was more limited; the Ohmu were animated by a range of techniques which included cut-paper segments. Despite the notoriously short-lived attention spans of the anime-watching public (see Brave Saga), Nausicaä polled high in Japanese top-ten lists for two decades after its original release. It influenced many imitators, particularly the incoherent eco-babbling of Green Legend Ran, and even films with little direct relation-Wind of Amnesia and Wings of Honneamise both had their original titles altered to reflect the cadences of Nausicaä in an attempt to inspire Pavlovian ticket-buying in the Japanese audience.

review	Toho Gets Animated (4 out of 5)	etragedy
news	NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF WIND -- Retro Review	Tom_Pinchuk
forum	NAUSICAA OF THE VALLEY OF WIND -- Retro Review	Tom_Pinchuk
blog	List of the Week: Top 5 Miyazaki Movies	AgentJ
blog	Worst to Best: Ranking Studio Ghibli Films	Dream


		Hayao Miyazaki	Writer	Writer, Director
		Hideaki Anno	Animator	Best known for directing the Gainax series Neon Genesis Evangelion, Anno is an award-winning animator and director.

Name:	Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind
Release Date:	Feb. 1, 2005
Name:	Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä
Romaji:	風の谷のナウシカ
Release Date:	March 4, 1984
Rating:	PG
Runtime:	116 (mins)
Genres	Add a new genre Fantasy Adventure Drama
Themes	Add a new theme Post-Apocalyptic Philosophy
Aliases	Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind Warriors of the Wind

Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind

Story

Characters & Voice Actors

Credits

Original US Poster Art

Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind

Story

Characters & Voice Actors

Credits

Original US Poster Art

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