“With the way you fell from the sky, I thought you might be an angel or something.”-Pazu, Castle In The Sky
Hayao Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky is one of my favorite movies of all time. Not only does it have lovable characters, an exciting premise, and strong themes about power, society and the environment, it also has (in my opinion) one of the best opening scenes in all of cinema.
If you haven’t seen the movie already, GO SEE IT. If you have, let’s talk about the opening scene:
The first scene opens with a shot of a luxury airship and the main protagonist Sheeta gazing out the window. There is very little dialogue in the scene but we see a man in glasses who we later learn is named Muska sitting beside her. Another man in dark glasses in comes into the shot to offer Sheeta food and she doesn’t respond to him. Next, we see a group of pirates in separate flying vessels come to attack the ship. They pass by Sheeta’s window and one of the men in the room recognizes them as the “Dola gang.” The pirates proceed to infiltrate the ship cornering the guests with guns. Fola, the leader of the pirate gang who is leading the assault, charges forward claiming she’s looking for a crystal.
A few other men in dark glasses create a barricade to keep the pirates out of Sheeta’s room leaving only Sheeta and the Muska in the room. Muska rushes to send out a message via morse code but Sheeta knocks him out with a champagne glass and takes a blue crystal from his coat pocket. She then escapes out the window, climbing on the side of the airship. The pirates break through the barricade and get into the room to find Sheeta barely hanging on outside. She takes a wrong step and falls off the airship with the crystal to the dismay of the pirates.
Why does this opening scene work?
1. A great opening scene keeps the audience on a need to know basis
The best opening scenes do not overload the reader with dialogue or backstory, the best opening scenes ease readers into the story. Castle in the Sky opens in medias res or in the middle of the action. If the scene had opened up any earlier or any later it might not have had a greater impact.
Always ask yourself: how late can I start the story? This will keep the readers on a need to know basis and it will keep us in the story.
What do you need to know about Castle in the Sky during the opening scene? Everything the movie tells you, which is honestly not much. It wants you to know about the “Dola Gang” and that they’re dangerous by the way they infiltrate the airship with weapons. It wants you to know Sheeta wants to escape from the pirates and the men in glasses. Lastly, they want you to know that the men in glasses and the pirates are not on the same team but they’re after the same thing, which lets the audience know they have different motives.
Another great example of a story that keeps the audience on a need to know basis is the first
Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We’re first introduced to Captain Jack Sparrow in a tiny, sinking, boat claiming to be a captain but void of a ship or a crew. Where is his ship? We don’t know. Where is his crew? Also, don’t know. Why did he travel to that particular port? We’re not sure. But that’s what keeps us intrigued, which brings me to my next point.
2. A great opening scene creates intrigue
The pirates need Sheeta, the people in dark glasses are trying to protect Sheeta from the pirates, Sheeta doesn’t trust any of them and that’s all we know after the opening scene. It’s hella intriguing. The opening scene leaves us with a lot of questions: Who is this girl? Why does everyone want her? Where did the crystal come from? Did she steal it? Why is it important? Why doesn’t she trust the men in glasses?
Like I said in the previous point, an opening scene that lays out all the information right away is not doing its job, it doesn’t make the readers want to continue and it sure doesn’t create the momentum necessary to propel the story.
Every step of the way when crafting your opening scene ask yourself: What can I leave out? What can be explained later? Only give the audience as much information as the need to know in the moment.
3. Introduces the key players
In the opening scene, we are introduced to all of the main characters except Pazu. Creating a killer opening scene requires the audience to at least be aware of the key players in the story, whether that means having them physically present during the scene or merely talked about.
The later you introduce characters, the harder it will be to fully flesh out their arcs. The pirate crew is first introduced as domineering and dangerous, but as the story goes on they grow on Sheeta and Pazu, as well as the audience as lovable anti-heroes. If they had been introduced in the middle of the story, the audience might not have felt as much of a connection toward the pirates, or their eventual heel-face-turn would have needed to be rushed, and might have felt out of place. For readers to care about your characters and believe their change arcs, they need to be presented as soon as possible.
4. Showcases character attributes
Once you’ve brought your characters into the story you need to give them a characteristic moment. Every opening scene usually has the main protagonist in their normal world doing something that shows who they are and what they want.
Castle in the Sky sort of cheats the norm by beginning the story out of Sheeta’s normal world. But even so, she’s introduced to us in a way that showcases her personality better than her normal world would have. Being subjected to a high stress situation like she is at the beginning of the narrative, her characteristics are extracted for the audience to see. Sheeta is first shown as very relaxed and withdrawn in the beginning, sitting quietly by the window.
But even from that first moment, the audience is granted insight into her desire. By simply showing her gazing out the window the audience learns that she doesn’t want to be where she is, she wants to escape and once she has her chance, she does. Sheeta’s first physical action is hitting Muska over the head with a champagne bottle and taking the crystal from his coat. This act shatters the idea that she’s just a helpless little girl and it shows exactly how far she’s willing to go to be free. As a kid, you can imagine my face when I saw someone who was as young as me completely knock out an adult man. To me it was the highest form of bad-assery.
Muska’s character is revealed subtly in this scene as well. While the audience doesn’t yet know for sure that he’s the antagonist, Sheeta’s act of knocking out Muska displays all we need to know about him. She doesn’t trust him. We also learn that he’s in opposition to the pirates which is a vital part of the rest of the story.
Then when the pirates break through the guards and get into her room, Sheeta climbs out the window and falls off the airship to her presumable death. As she does, Dola wails about losing the crystal which displays her character extremely clearly. She doesn’t care about Sheeta’s life, she really only cares about the crystal and she will most likely kill whoever she has to to get it.
What’s your favorite opening scene? How did it inspire you?
