Region 4 Winners and Losers

    This title was released by Disney in 2000 in Region 1 as part of a similar collection of Studio Ghibli films. It uses the shortened title Castle in the Sky, reportedly because Laputa means something rude in Spanish.

    The Region 4 disc is missing:

• introduction by John Lasseter (0:51)
• advertising at the start of the disc
• a short (4:09) making of featurette with the English-language actors: Mandy Patinkin, James van der Beek, Mark Hamill, Cloris Leachman
• eight American trailers for Disney films.
• separate disc for the storyboards
• opening credits in Japanese if Japanese language chosen
• 5.1 English soundtrack
• French soundtrack

    The Region 1 disc is missing:

• the complete storyboards as an alternate angle, including subtitles
• reversible cover

    The Region 1 transfer is an original film transfer, so it doesn't show the interleaving of video conversion, but it has 3:2 pulldown, which is another way to introduce interleaving (we can't win!). Aliasing is still noticeable, possibly even worse, and it doesn't help that the image shows noticeable edge enhancement. Colour is even more vivid, which is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes not: colours look inaccurate at times — it looks as though someone over-emphasised the colour.

    The R1 has a much better layer change, at 73:04; it is placed between scenes. The appalling layer change on the R4 is distinctly offputting.

    The 5.1 English soundtrack on the R1 is pretty much a frontal effort, so it's barely different from the 2.0 soundtrack on the R4, although it does use the subwoofer at times.

    The storyboards (which are all that is on the second disc of the R1 — don't let one disc vs two discs confuse you) on the R1 release lack the subtitles, making the Japanese soundtrack less useful (unless you understand Japanese). If you are interested in the storyboards, I'd recommend the R4.

    This is a case of two imperfect choices. Maybe there's a better option in another region? Why can't we have a proper film transfer to PAL, with minimal aliasing, no edge enhancement, no interleaving, and all the extras? I'll call this one a draw between two versions, neither of them ideal.