Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (film)

is a 1984 Japanese post-apocalyptic anime film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, based on his 1982 manga. It was animated by Topcraft for Tokuma Shoten and Hakuhodo, and distributed by the Toei Company. Joe Hisaishi, in his first collaboration with Miyazaki, composed the score. The film stars the voices of Sumi Shimamoto, Gorō Naya, Yōji Matsuda, Yoshiko Sakakibara and Iemasa Kayumi.Kaze No Tani No Naushika
. ''bcdb.com'', 13 May 2012 Taking place in a post-nuclear futuristic world, the film tells the story of Nausicaä (Shimamoto), the young teenage princess of the Valley of the Wind. She becomes embroiled in a struggle with Tolmekia, a kingdom that tries to use an ancient weapon to eradicate a jungle full of giant mutant insects.

''Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'' was released in Japan on 11 March 1984. A heavily edited adaptation of the film created by Manson International, ''Warriors of the Wind'', was released in the United States and other markets throughout the mid-to-late 1980s. The Manson cut was derided by Miyazaki and eventually replaced in circulation by an uncut, redubbed version produced by Walt Disney Pictures in 2005. Though it was made before Studio Ghibli was founded, it is often considered a Ghibli work, and was released as part of the ''Studio Ghibli Collection'' DVD and Blu-ray range. The film received critical acclaim, with praise being directed at the story, themes, characters and animation. It is the highest ranked Japanese anime in a survey published by the Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2007.

Plot

One thousand years have passed since the Seven Days of Fire, an apocalyptic war that destroyed civilization and created the vast Toxic Jungle, a poisonous forest swarming with giant mutant insects. In the kingdom of the Valley of the Wind, a prophecy predicts a saviour "clothed in blue robe, descending onto a golden field". Nausicaä, the 16-year-old princess of the Valley of the Wind, explores the jungle and communicates with its creatures, including the gigantic, trilobite-like armored Ohm. She hopes to understand the jungle and find a way for it and humans to co-exist.

One day at dawn, a massive cargo aircraft from the kingdom of Tolmekia crashes in the Valley despite Nausicaä's attempt to save it. Its sole survivor, Princess Lastelle of Pejite, pleads with Nausicaä to destroy the cargo and dies. The cargo is an embryo of a Giant Warrior, one of the lethal, gargantuan humanoid bioweapons that caused the Seven Days of Fire. Tolmekia, a military state, seized the embryo and Lastelle from Pejite, but their plane was attacked by insects and crashed. One of the insects emerges wounded from the wreckage and poises to attack, but Nausicaä uses a bullroarer to calm it and guides it away from the village.

Soon after, Tolmekian troops, led by Princess Kushana, invade the Valley, execute Nausicaä's father and capture the embryo. Enraged, Nausicaä assaults and kills several Tolmekian soldiers and is about to be overwhelmed when the Valley's swordsmaster, Lord Yupa, soothes the belligerents. Kushana plans to mature the Giant Warrior and use it to burn the Toxic Jungle. Yupa discovers a secret garden of jungle plants reared by Nausicaä; according to her findings, plants that grow in clean soil and water are not toxic, but the jungle's soil has been tainted by pollution.

Kushana leaves for the Tolmekian capital with Nausicaä and five hostages from the Valley, but a Pejite interceptor shoots down the Tolmekian airships carrying them. Nausicaä, Kushana and the hostages crash-land in the jungle, disturbing several Ohms, which Nausicaä soothes. She leaves to rescue the Pejite pilot Asbel, twin brother of Princess Lastelle, but both crash through a stratum of quicksand into a non-toxic area below the Toxic Jungle. Nausicaä realizes that the jungle plants purify the polluted topsoil, producing clean water and soil underground.

Nausicaä and Asbel return to Pejite but find it ravaged by insects. A band of survivors explains that they lured the insects to eradicate the Tolmekians, and are doing the same to the Valley. They capture Nausicaä to prevent her from warning the Valley, but with the help of Asbel, his mother, and a number of sympathizers, Nausicaä escapes on her glider. Flying home, she finds two Pejite soldiers baiting thousands of Ohms into the Valley using a wounded baby Ohm. The people of the Valley take shelter while the Tolmekians deploy tanks and the Giant Warrior, but tank-fire does not deter the Ohms, and the Giant Warrior, hatched prematurely, disintegrates.

Nausicaä liberates the baby Ohm and gains its trust. She and the Ohm stand before the herd but are run over. The Ohms calm down and use their golden tentacles to resuscitate her. Nausicaä, her dress drenched blue with Ohm blood, walks atop golden Ohm tentacles as through golden fields, fulfilling the savior prophecy. The Ohms and Tolmekians leave the Valley, and the Pejites remain with the Valley people, helping them rebuild. Deep underneath the Toxic Jungle, a non-toxic tree sprouts.

Voice cast

Production

Hayao Miyazaki made his credited directorial debut in 1979 with ''The Castle of Cagliostro'', a film which was a distinct departure from the antics of the ''Lupin III'' franchise, but still went on to receive the Ōfuji Noburō Award at the 1979 Mainichi Film Awards. Although ''Cagliostro'' was not a box office success, Toshio Suzuki, editor of the magazine '' Animage'', was impressed by the film and encouraged Miyazaki to produce works for ''Animage's'' publisher, Tokuma Shoten. Miyazaki's film ideas were rejected, and Tokuma asked him to do a manga: this led to the creation of '' Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind''. Miyazaki began writing and drawing the manga in 1981, and it quickly became ''Animage's'' most popular feature. Hideo Ogata and Yasuyoshi Tokuma, the founders of ''Animage'' and Tokuma Shoten respectively, encouraged Miyazaki to work on a film adaptation. Miyazaki initially refused, but agreed on the condition that he could direct.

In the early stages, Isao Takahata, credited as executive producer, reluctantly joined the project even before the animation studio was chosen. An outside studio to produce the film was needed because Tokuma Shoten did not own an animation studio: Miyazaki and Takahata chose the minor studio Topcraft. The production studio's work was known to both Miyazaki and Takahata and was chosen because its artistic talent could transpose the sophisticated atmosphere of the manga to the film. On 31 May 1983, work began on the pre-production of the film. Miyazaki encountered difficulties in creating the screenplay, with only sixteen chapters of the manga to work with. Miyazaki would take elements of the story and refocus the narrative and characters to the Tolmekian invasion of Nausicaä's homeland. Takahata would enlist the experimental and minimalist composer Joe Hisaishi to do the score for the film.

In August, the animation work began on the film and was produced by animators hired for the one film and paid per frame.Studio Ghibli, ''The Birth of Studio Ghibli'' video, (included on UK Nausicaä DVD) One notable animator was Hideaki Anno, a founding member of Gainax who among later works wrote and directed '' Neon Genesis Evangelion''. Anno was assigned to draw the challenging God Warrior's attack sequence, which according to Toshio Suzuki is a "high point in the film". The film was released in March 1984, with a production schedule of only nine months and with a budget equivalent to $1 million.

Themes

Miyazaki's work on ''Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'' was inspired by a range of works including Ursula K. Le Guin's ''Earthsea'', Brian Aldiss's '' Hothouse'', Isaac Asimov's '' Nightfall'', and J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings''. Dani Cavallaro also suggests inspiration from ''The Lady who Loved Insects'' folktale, and the works of William Golding. Nausicaä, the character, was inspired in name and personality by Homer's Phaeacian princess in the ''Odyssey''. According to a number of reviewers, Frank Herbert's science fiction novel '' Dune'' (1965) was one of the inspirations for the film's post-apocalyptic world. Some online commentators have dubbed it "anime's answer to ''Dune''". Miyazaki's imagination was sparked by the mercury poisoning of Minamata Bay and how nature responded and thrived in a poisoned environment, using it to create the polluted world depicted in the film. Kyle Anderson of ''Nerdist'' describes the film's setting as a steampunk post-apocalypse, while Philip Boyes of ''Eurogamer'' describes the technology in ''Nausicaä'' and '' Castle in the Sky'' as dieselpunk.

The most prominent themes are the anti-war and environmental focus of the film. Nausicaä, the heroine, believes in the value of life regardless of its form and through her actions stops a war. Loy and Goodhew state there is no evil portrayed in the film, but the Buddhist roots of evil: greed, ill will and delusion. Fear is what drives the conflicts, the fear of the poisoned forest results in greed and resentment. Nausicaä, in addition to being a transformative force, leads people to understand and respect nature, which is portrayed as welcoming, spiritual, and restorative for those who enter it peacefully. Ian DeWeese-Boyd agrees, "Her commitment to love and understanding—even to the point of death—transforms the very nature of the conflict around her and begins to dispel the distorting visions that have brought it about."

The film was released in 1984, with a recommendation from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). On 30 July 1995, a subtitled version of the film was screened at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, as part of the "Building Bridges" film festival, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In her 25 March 2013 presentation at Colorado College, on "Tapestries of Apocalypse: From Angers to 'Nausicaa' and Beyond", Dr. Susan J. Napier places the film, and in particular the tapestry depicted underneath the opening credits, within the tradition of artistic representation of apocalypses and apocalyptic visions. She explores the role such expressions play in understanding apocalyptic events and post-event recovery.

Releases

The film was released by Toei Company on March 11, 1984.

In Japan, the film was released on VHS and Laserdisc in 1985 by Tokuma Shoten's "Animage Video" imprint. It was also included on the ''Ghibli ga Ippai: Studio Ghibli Complete LD Collection'' boxset, released by Tokuma Shoten in August 1996. The VHS was reissued as the third volume of Buena Vista Home Entertainment Japan's "Ghibli ga Ippai" imprint, on September 19, 1997.

Buena Vista released the film on three DVD sets, with a regular DVD and figure set released on 19 November 2003 and a collectors set following on 7 December 2003. By 2003, ''Nausicaä'' had sold 1.77million VHS and DVD units in Japan. Walt Disney Studios Japan released the film on Blu-ray on July 14, 2010.

''Warriors of the Wind''

Manson International and Showmen, Inc. produced a 95-minute English-dubbed adaptation of the film, titled ''Warriors of the Wind'', which was released theatrically in the United States by New World Pictures on 13 June 1985, followed by a VHS release in December 1985. In the late 1980s, Vestron Video would re-release the film in the UK and First Independent Video would re-release it again in 1993, with another minute cut from the film. The voice actors and actresses were not credited and were not informed of the film's plotline, and the film was heavily edited to market it as a children's action-adventure film, although the film received a PG rating just like Disney's later English dub. Consequently, part of the film's narrative meaning was lost: some of the environmentalist themes were diluted as was the main subplot of the Ohmu, altered to turn them into aggressive enemies. Most of the characters' names were changed, including the titular character who became Princess Zandra. The United States poster and VHS cover featured a cadre of male characters who are not in the film, riding the resurrected God Warrior—including a still-living Warrior shown briefly in a flashback. Approximately 22 minutes of scenes were cut for the film's North American release.

Dissatisfied with ''Warriors of the Wind'', Miyazaki eventually adopted a strict "no-edits" clause for further foreign releases of the company's films. On hearing that Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein would attempt to edit ''Princess Mononoke'' to make it more marketable, Toshio Suzuki sent an authentic katana with a simple message: "No cuts". ''Warriors of the Wind'' also prompted Miyazaki to allow translator Toren Smith of Studio Proteus to create an official, faithful translation of the ''Nausicaä'' manga for Viz Media.

English re-releases

On 18 October 2003, Cindy and Donald Hewitt, the scriptwriters of Walt Disney Pictures' English dubs of ''Spirited Away'' and ''Porco Rosso'', announced that a more faithful English version of ''Nausicaä'' was in pre-production at Disney, and that Patrick Stewart and Uma Thurman had been cast. Natalie Portman was originally intended to voice Nausicaä, but Alison Lohman was eventually cast in the role. The dub was directed by Disney executive Rick Dempsey.

''Nausicaä'' was released on DVD by Buena Vista Home Entertainment

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