Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind: didn't suck, didn't blow

This film is a lot of fun. It's filled with classic adventure, beats of shocking action, complex wists of who's on who's side, and long beautiful moments of exploration. It's Miyazaki's graceful, zen, metered-out reveal of his world that impacts most powerfully. Age-old story constructs, set in bizarre new worlds. Like Star Wars, in it's paradoxical ingenuity.

His strange creatures and environment play before us so convincingly that their shocking bizarity is so beautiful, it hits us to the core. It silences us. There are moments in all of his films where I find myself mouth agape, unblinking, not breathing, just floored. Like a child. He creates--seemingly in front of us--things that have never been, and yet act close enough to the natural world that we know and trust, that is an assault to see. And it's in the context of being ancient , pre-human, so we are humbled. Like meeting God, and learning he's an abomination. Which, ya know, could probably be exactly what it's like.

This film is responsible for three things: Metroid, Chrono Trigger, and, most obviously, Princess Mononoke. We are all in a debt of gratitude to this relatively obscure 80's marvel of the proto-Studio Ghibli.

The American Disney dub was pretty golden, too. Having Patrick Stewart, Edward James Olmos, and Mark Hamill all interact, well... the gods of sci-fi were grinning brightly. It was like if Dumbledor and Gandalf hung out. But maybe less gay.