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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 2 May 2024 .

Castle in the Sky

Nominator(s): TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 04:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Hayao Miyazaki's long and decorated career at Studio Ghibli has become the stuff of legend within animation circles, but Castle in the Sky (1986) – the studio's first work – was where it all started. Initially met with a lukewarm reception, the film has grown in popularity and earnings, becoming a cult classic with a still-devoted following nearly 40 years after its release. After a peer review from Z1720, an excellent GAN review from Rhain, and some pre-FAC copyediting from Vanamonde, I think it's time to complete my year of work on this article. I look forward to hearing your comments! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 04:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Note: I am a first-time nominator, so feel free to leave particularly detailed comments; the source review will require spot-checks; all that jazz. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 05:01, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Image review

• Suggest adding alt text

  Done. —TS

• File:Laputa_Castle_in_the_Sky_robot_at_Ghibli_Museum.jpg needs a tag for the original work

  Could you elaborate on what you mean by this comment? —TS

  This is a photograph of a 3D work in a region that does not have freedom of panorama. We thus need to account for the copyright of both the photograph and the original work, and the current tagging appears to cover only the photograph. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:46, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Nikkimaria: Thanks for the explanation. I see no evidence that the original work is freely licensed, so I've removed the image and nominated it for deletion on Commons. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:09, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

• File:Isao_Takahata_(cropped).jpg: the uploader has had a large number of works deleted for copyright concerns - are we certain this is own work as claimed? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:45, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

  Checking. —TS

  I'm checking on File:Isao Takahata.jpg, the file this was extracted from. It's been so long since this image has been uploaded that the results are a little muddy, but a reverse image search shows no uses of the file before 2014. Also worth noting is that the file was never mentioned during the many deletion discussions involving Boungawa's other files. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 05:09, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: Thanks for the review! I'm working on one and need clarification on another. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 05:01, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: Just a reminder that I've addressed your comments. Do you have any further suggestions for improvement? —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 04:10, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

No. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:23, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Draken Bowser

I liked the article a lot, but I have some concerns. I don't see anything detailing the script-writing process specifically, or any discussion on casting/actors for the original Japanese dub. There's also a lot of content on the design of environments and contraptions, but not so much on characters. Still, my overall impression is good. Will drop prose comments shortly. Draken Bowser (talk) 16:41, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Looking forward to the review! I'll also note that I'm also not super satisfied with § Production, as it lacks the detail one might expect from other film articles. However, this is due to the aspect not being extensively covered in sources, not because this information is simply missing from the article. This was also discussed during the GAN review. At your suggestion, I'll take another look through Miyazaki 2009 to see if I can dig anything out of the interviews, but I don't expect to find much. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 18:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose information on casting/actors might generally be more sparse for animated features as well. /DrB

Lead

• "It was well-received by audiences, being voted as one of the greatest animated films of all time in later years. The film also received several notable accolades." - Both sentences have been shortened at the expense of information. The first one is sorta fine, at least I don't immediately know how to "fix" it. The second one could use an ", including.."

  I've made a couple of additions, would you like to take another look? —TS

  That's better. /DrB

Plot summary

• suggest "..in a nearby mining town.."

  Nearby to what? I wouldn't consider the town to be near the airship, as the film depicts Sheeta falling a seemingly great distance. —TS

  Ok, can we add something else? I've managed to convince myself that the sentence could use an adjective before "mining town", in order to flow nicely. /DrB

  @Draken Bowser: How about "19th-century"? It's discussed later in the article, and gives a sense of the time period that wasn't present before. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 05:54, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

  Hmm, could we go with "..an industrial era.." since it's a fictional universe? /DrB

  This sounds fine to me, but I need to ask where you propose to remove text — your change would bring the plot summary a couple words above the 700-word limit. —TS

• "However, Dola's gang and Muska's.." - Might need to add "shortly" after the removal.

  Done. —TS

• "..the same insignia on Sheeta's crystal.." - Prefer "as on" or "as".

  Done. —TS

• "Pazu joins them to attempt.." - Prefer "in an".

  Done. —TS

• "..but is in turn destroyed by the military airship Goliath."

  Done. —TS

• "Sheeta and Pazu pass through the turbulent lightning storm." - Has been foreshadowed by "violent winds", but the introduction is still a bit abrupt as it is written.

  Changed "massive cloud" to "massive storm" earlier in the paragraph, which should help. —TS

• "However, he army arrives.."

  Done. —TS

• "..communicating with Earth.." - A bit unusal, maybe "their headquarters/base camp" (I don¨t remember the plot).

  Changed the whole clause to just "destroying their communications systems". —TS

Themes

• "..relationship with nature and the role of technology." - Prefer "dependence on technology" if the source allows it.

  Not done. Odell & Le Blanc (and other sources, for that matter) discuss these themes more as a relationship than a dependence. I've adjusted the page range of the citation to include some additional context within the source. —TS

  Sounds good. /DrB

• Prefer "..young children as the protagonists."

  Done. —TS

• "..with a younger protagonists generates

  Done. —TS

• "He considers this a focal point in his endeavors. The theme of innocence is explored more focally in Miyazaki's succeeding film My Neighbor Totoro (1988)." - Replace one or the other.

  Done. more focally → further —TS

Release

• "..which critics have noted to be somewhat lower than the performance.." - Which would warrant the removal of "also" in the next sentence.

  Done. —TS

That's about it. Regards. Draken Bowser (talk) 18:12, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, Draken Bowser! I have a couple of questions which I've left above. It might take me a couple of days to browse through the source I mentioned for § Production, but I'll keep you updated if I make any additions. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 19:54, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

With the addition of Hahnchen's comments to my extant concerns I'm gonna Oppose on comprehensiveness. Should these problems be addressed at some point in the future I'd be happy to continue the review. Draken Bowser (talk) 13:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

I still consider the absence of information on character designs a weakness, especially since it is such an influential animated feature. I don't think casting actually matters, but there should be sources allowing for some info on the actors' contribution to the film.

For comparison, Atlantis: The Lost Empire has info on all three, and Frozen II has info on character design and casting (not so much on the actors approach/performance). For what it's worth, this is a great article and the hard work shines through, I'm only being difficult because what FA-1b seems to demand from an article like this. I guess I could change my stance even without additional info on the actors, but I think there needs to be more on character design, not just on environments and contraptions. Draken Bowser (talk) 17:20, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I understand your concerns perfectly, and I also wish there was more to go off of on these aspects, but it's almost certain the sources do not exist — and I've looked very hard for them. Atlantis and Frozen have the distinct advantages of being more modern and being produced by Disney, which essentially guarantees comprehensive coverage of every aspect of the film in secondary sources. However, even looking through the archive volume I discovered recently (which isn't even indexed in some book databases), I was not able to find anything significant relating to the production stage. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 17:36, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the closest I got was a source commenting on how Sheeta's transformation is not reflected in her character design. Draken Bowser (talk) 18:27, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

@Draken Bowser: As we've discussed, I've done what I can to address the comprehensiveness concerns you and other reviewers brought up, and while I was successful in most areas, it seems that sources simply do not cover the production aspect in any more detail than is suggested by that section. You seem to imply that observation in your message as well. With that in mind, could I ask if there's anything I can do to change your mind about your opposition to this candidate? —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 01:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I suppose that a "cursory reading of the litterature" shows that character design is mostly discussed with respect to Miyazaki himself or his general impact on Studio Ghibli's character designs, and only from Mononoke onwards(?) in terms of the individual films. Given that, it seems reasonable to strike the oppose. Draken Bowser (talk) 15:21, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate it. Let me know if you have any further comments or suggestions for improvement. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 15:40, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Comments by TompaDompa

I'll try to find the time to review this. TompaDompa (talk) 18:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Hm. At a glance, the article seems to rather gloss over the connection to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Laputa is not linked anywhere in the article, for instance, which seems like an oversight. A quick look at Google Scholar seems to indicate that there is at least a decent amount of literature covering this aspect. The film's entry at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says that "curiously, references to Gulliver and his travels were removed in the English dub", which makes me think that there is a fair bit more that should be covered here (the article is not overly long at roughly 4,700 words as of my writing this). I see that other reviewers have raised comprehensiveness concerns, and this seems to be another instance thereof. Not enough for me to oppose the nomination outright (at least not without looking into it further), but it does give me some pause. TompaDompa (talk) 18:15, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@TompaDompa: Thanks for your comments. Like you mentioned, taken together with Hahnchen's oppose below, I am thinking seriously about the comprehensiveness side of things with this article. Looking through the sources you've linked, only a couple are reliable enough to include — the others are student work or not published in a peer-reviewed journal. I should be able to incorporate the paper in the next few days. As for the detail of the film drawing from Gulliver, most sources I've looked through mention the connection, but don't go any further, as the floating island in the film bears only a passing resemblance to its namesake. The references to the novel that were removed in the English version are, to my knowledge, only a single single in the original Japanese. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 02:48, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

@TompaDompa: § Themes now calls out the connection to Gulliver more explicitly, and I've incorporated a couple of new sources as well. Along with my response to Hahnchen below, I hope that now satisfies everyone's comprehensibility concerns. With that in mind, I invite you to continue (or start!) your review, if you're willing. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 23:39, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Time permitting, I will. Hopefully next week. I would suggest clarifying in-text that Gulliver's Travels is a novel by Jonathan Swift. TompaDompa (talk) 11:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@TompaDompa: Just a nudge, since it's been a few days. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 14:15, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

General comments

• I know that this is the English-language Misplaced Pages, but the amount of focus the English dubs get seems disproportionate to me and an example of WP:Systemic bias.
• There are several quotes that end with periods. If the periods are part of the original quotes that's fine per MOS:LQ, but it might be preferable to move the punctuation outside of the quotation marks anyway if the punctuation is not an integral part of the quote itself.
• I notice that the article is rather light on WP:REDLINKS. There are a fair number of scholars and whatnot that are unlinked; if these people are notable, I would as a matter of personal preference suggest linking them.

Lead

• "the first film to be animated by Studio Ghibli" – any particular reason not to just say it was the first film by Studio Ghibli?
• "Its production team included many of Miyazaki's longtime collaborators" – where they already longtime collaborators or did they later become so?
• "The young protagonists also provide a unique perspective on the narrative" – this is trying to say something about the themes of the film, I gather. I don't think it works.
• "earning over US$157 million" – avoid "earn" for revenue like this. Use "gross" instead. This recurs in the body.
• "It underperformed expectations at the box office, but later achieved commercial success through rereleases, earning over US$157 million as of 2021." – per the body, this figure includes other sources of revenue than box office, making this rather misleading.

Plot summary

• "Sheeta having seen the crystal's directions and being able to navigate to Laputa, she and Pazu convince Dola to take them there in exchange for temporarily joining her crew." – clunky.
• "The core of the castle is the epicenter of Laputa's ancient knowledge and weapons" – epicenter?

Development

• "Following the commercial success of Miyazaki's previous film" – this being the first mention in the body, a link to Hayao Miyazaki would seem appropriate.
• "he was eager to begin work on an old-fashioned adventure film that would be a "pleasure" to watch." – MOS:SCAREQUOTES, basically.
• "tentatively titled "Blue Mountains"." – italics or quotation marks, not both (in this case: italics).
• "Miyazaki's longtime collaborator Isao Takahata" – already longtime collaborator by then, or is that description only apt in retrospect?
• "Animation writer Dani Cavallaro" – "animation writer" suggests to me a writer of animation (such as a screenwriter for animated films), but our article seems to indicate that Cavallaro writes about animation (perhaps "animation critic" or "animation scholar" would be more appropriate). If that article is anything to go by, it also seems questionable if Cavallaro is the kind of high-quality source a WP:Featured article should rely on.
• "His experiences reflect in several supporting characters in the film" – I might say that the experiences are reflected in something or other, but saying that experiences reflect in something strikes me as an odd phrasing.
• "The film had a reported production budget of ¥500 million, equivalent to US$8 million in 2023." – how was this currency conversion and implied inflation adjustment arrived at? The cited source is dated 2020.
• "support for the in-between animation" – I would explain what in-between animation is in-text rather than requiring the reader to click the link if they are not familiar with the term and concept. This is not an instance where brevity needs to be prioritized at the expense of reader comprehension.

Themes

• "However, in contrast with the more optimistic conclusions of Miyazaki's previous works, Napier notes that the film ends with an "unsettling view" of the castle flying away, suggesting that humanity may not deserve to exist in the natural world." – I don't think this is an appropriate use of "notes" as it introduces not just a bare observation but also analysis based on that observation. I might write "However, writes Napier, " or something along those lines.
• "The characters of Muska and the army are used to criticize modern militarism in particular." – what does "in particular" modify here? Is it modern militarism in particular or modern militarism in particular (or something else entirely)?
• "eschewing the extremes of capitalism and industrialism, as well as radical environmentalism and conservationism" – is that "eschewing the extremes of on the hand capitalism and industrialism, and on the other hand radical environmentalism and conservationism"? Or is it "eschewing the extremes of capitalism and industrialism, as well as eschewing radical environmentalism and conservationism"? I gather that it is not "eschewing the extremes of on the hand capitalism and and on the other hand industrialism, as well as eschewing radical environmentalism and conservationism", though that parsing is also structurally plausible.
• "the island of the same name from Gulliver's Travels (1726)" – I would definitely work in a mention of and link to Jonathan Swift here.
• "the gardens and fauna" – is there a good reason not to write either "the gardens and animals" or "the flora and fauna" here?
• "Odell and Le Blanc conclude " – this is the first time they are mentioned; the full names and gloss from the next paragraph should be moved here.

Style

• "Additionally, Miyazaki was inspired by the literature of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson when considering the style of the film." – how so?
• "Many of these elements have become major influences on the steampunk genre." – this is a strong statement, and I don't think the sourcing is up to snuff for it. The cited source, apart from being from an outlet not known to me to be considered a high-quality one on the topic of science fiction or its subgenres, makes both a rather more restricted claim about steampunk specifically in video games (rather than steampunk in general) and a more unspecific one mainly about Studio Ghibli as a whole (as opposed to this particular film). I took a look at some sources on steampunk, and this is what I found: the "Steampunk" entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction does not mention the film, nor does the "Steampunk" entry in David Pringle's The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: The Definitive Illustrated Guide (1996), the "Steampunk" entry in Gary Westfahl's The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy (2005) or the "Steampunk" entry in Brian Stableford's Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia (2006), while Brian J. Robb's Steampunk: An Illustrated History of Fantastical Fiction, Fanciful Film and Other Victorian Visions (2012) mentions the film only in passing.

Release

• "In the United Kingdom, it was 2019's eighth-best-selling foreign language film on home video, below five other Studio Ghibli films." – this is a rather oddly specific metric, making it seem cherry-picked.
• "did not perform well in North American theaters" – see MOS:DOMESTIC about using "North America" in this context.

Music

• As a result, the American soundtrack is much longer, while the original Japanese version featured just an hour of music for a film exceeding two hours in length." – how long is the longer one?

Reception

• "Castle in the Sky has been generally acclaimed by film critics in the years since its release." – that's a fairly strong statement that is unsourced, and the text that follows does not really bear it out.
• "second-place winner" – oxymoron.
• "Castle in the Sky was the second-place winner in the Reader's Choice award category hosted by Animage in 1986." – should that be Kinema Junpo? That's what the table says. The table also says "Readers' Choice" rather than "Reader's Choice".

Legacy

• "Castle in the Sky is considered a keystone work of the modern steampunk and dieselpunk styles." – for one thing, this over- and misstates what the cited sources say; VanderMeer and Chambers merely say that it's a good example of airships in steampunk, Reinders says "Laputa is often cited as a key steampunk text", Greenberg says that "Many years after its release, Castle in the Sky was widely recognized as a seminal work in the genre that came to be known as Steampunk", and Boyes says "1984's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind features airships that are effectively gigantic planes, their aesthetic drawing heavily on the technology of the first half of the twentieth century in a way that's now often called dieselpunk. Even more influential is 1986's Laputa: Castle in the Sky. As well as more dieselpunk aircraft, we now have a wonderful array of airships." For another, this is highly dubious even if the sources had made this exact claim, for reasons outlined above.
• This section has what feels rather like a laundry-list of people who enjoyed the film. It gives the impression of trying to exaggerate the film's impact. Strive for more substantive things to say about it.

I am regrettably going to have to oppose the nomination at this point. In addition to the specific points brought up above, the prose needs a fair amount of polishing in general (I would suggest enlisting the help of the WP:Guild of copyeditors), and the article has a fairly superficial feel to it (which surprised me, given that the article is not really that short) that makes me doubt its comprehensiveness. I haven't conducted anything approaching a thorough spot-check, but given what I found in the handful of cases where I did look at the sources, I seriously doubt it would pass one. TompaDompa (talk) 20:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

@TompaDompa: Thanks for your comments! While there's an outside chance I could resolve the issues you've brought up here, I think it's evident that this candidate needs far more involved work than reasonable during an FAC review. I have a couple of questions about your review, but I'll bring them up on the article's talk page rather than here, as it's clear this article will not be promoted in its current state. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 00:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Hahnchen

• Oppose - The reception section is just a list of American regional newspapers. For it to be comprehensive, you need contemporaneous Japanese responses. It doesn't even include specialist press. - hahnchen 12:49, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Hahnchen: Thanks for your comments. I've done my best to include as many reviews as possible, but — not being a competent Japanese speaker — I've not been able to reliably search for or assess Japanese-language sources. It doesn't help that article, as long as it is, does not seem to have a reception section. Finding news sources from the time adds the additional caveat of looking through newspaper archives, many of which are paywalled. I'd ask for your help in finding a place to start with these kinds of sources, as once I get started, I should have a much easier time alleviating your sourcing concerns. Also, what English-language sources would you consider "specialist press" for this topic area? —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 21:59, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

  Against all odds, a lovely friend from the Ghibli community connected me with an archive volume that contains some newspaper articles that ran around the time of the film's release. I will be incorporating them over the next few days. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:12, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Hahnchen and Draken Bowser: § Critical response now includes five Japanese sources from the time. With that in mind, would you both be willing to reconsider your !votes and resume your reviews of this candidate? —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 07:13, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

  Striking the oppose because I'm not giving this a thorough review. The insertion of a Japanese point of view is welcome, but someone with more specialist knowledge shall have to review it as to whether or not it is comprehensive. I think the section is still too heavily American centric. Featured articles should use all the best sources, not just all the best sources that happen to be free, online, and in English.

  Regarding "specialist press", I meant publications that specifically cover film or animation. So publications like Kinema Junpo. They said it was the 8th best film that year, why? - hahnchen 21:29, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

  @Hahnchen: Thanks. I understand if you aren't able to go into depth with your review, but I should note that I've used as many sources from Studio Ghibli 1996 as is within my ability. Though the book contains dozens of newspaper and magazine articles, the vast majority of them are interviews or routine coverage, which are not useful for § Critical response. There are Kinema Junpo articles included in the collection, and the same applies to them. As for commentary related to the film winning the Best Ten, the source verifying this information is just a database, and so includes only the rankings. However, I am currently trying to get a hold of a 1986 issue of the magazine to check whether the primary source contained any more information. Also, the section includes reviews from IGN and The A.V. Club which, while not Japanese, are certainly considered sources that specialize in film. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 14:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Coordinator note

This has been open for more than three weeks and has yet to pick up a support. Unless it attracts considerable movement towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to thank all of the reviewers for their time and for providing feedback on this candidate. Hanchen and TompaDompa's reviews indicate to me that there are far deeper improvements that need to be made to the article before it can be promoted. I will seriously consider those comments, and I hope to be back at FAC in time with a much-improved version of this article! @FAC coordinators: I am withdrawing this nomination, thanks. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 00:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been withdrawn, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 06:39, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.