Last night we watched Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) for the first time in a while and I discovered a few things I hadn't caught the first time around.
The name Nausicaä, borrowed from Homer's Odyssey, means "burner of ships" according to Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausicaa
I'd only seen the subtitled version, in the English dubs Lord Yupa is voiced by Patrick Stewart. After the first line: "wait, is that Patrick Stewart??"
It's based on a manga written & illustrated by Miyazaki in 1982 and it pre-dates the founding of Studio Ghibli in 1985.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film)
The most striking thing is how relevant the story is today. Usually scifi feels very much "of its time," in response to themes that are easy to place in a particular moment in history. Pretty depressing how little progress we've made on militarism and environmental destruction since 1982.
