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  • When Dola attacks the airship to get the crystal, several crew members bravely fight back with a hastily-assembled Gatling gun and some clubs. The way the pirates bowl them over in a No Sale way is also pretty cool.
  • A Badass Bystander train engineer helps Pazu and Sheeta flee from the pirates. Then, during the Cavalry Betrayal immediately afterward, he pulls a lever to blast a bunch of steam at the soldiers pursuing the heroes.
  • After the opening credits sequence, when Sheeta falls from the sky (both scene and score piece are quite aptly titled "The Girl Who Fell From the Sky"), the original Japanese synthesizer score simply played normally with only a small difference in composition when the crystal around her neck activated and eased her to the ground, and whatever change there was wasn't even synched to the animation. What was supposed to be an incredible, spine-tingling moment is reduced to simply "huh, that happened". Not so with Joe Hisaishi's reworked orchestral accompaniment for the Disney dub, for when the crystal begins to glow, all music cuts out except for two notes from the strings and trumpets... and then the crystal blossoms into a grand display of blue splendor, the cymbals kick in, the strings and horns blare, and you are simply left with one of the most beautiful moments ever put to film. Gkids' Blu-Ray/DVD reissue provides viewers with the opportunity to view the Disney dub with either score.note 
  • The Sky Pirates "happily" arming themselves with a bunch of BFGs.
  • The seemingly dormant robot in Tedis Fortress comes alive thanks to a dazed uttering of a spell that Sheeta remembered from her grandmother. Crawling on hands and knees, it blasts its way out of the entire structure, advancing through the soldiers' attempts to stop it. Even as the cannons on the fortress dent its armor, it continues to rip explosions in every direction, until the Army's battleship Goliath shoots it down with one blast...at which point Sheeta realizes that the robot was trying to save her, not harm her.
  • The scene where Pazu's entire town leap in on the action and help Pazu and Sheeta get to safety.
  • The entire scene where Laputa is revealed for the first time, especially how the music swells with each second.
    • And just before that, Pazu and Sheeta manage to break through Laputa's lightning-ridden hurricane barrier in what amounts to a hang glider, with said scene also subject to a gorgeous Animation Bump leagues above the movie's already extremely high standards.
  • At the end of the film, Pazu and Sheeta decide to save Laputa by reciting the forbidden Spell of Destruction. The spell literally destroys the black dome containing the superweapons and its manmade walls. Muska falls to his death. At first we are led to believe that Pazu and Sheeta are dead, too, but we later see that they have been protected by the Great Tree of Laputa's roots in return for saving not only it, but the gardens as well.
    "Of course! We protected the tree, now it protects us!"
  • The shirt-ripping scene where one of Dola's pirate gang members ruins his shirt to show his muscles. Pazu's boss does likewise, showing he's equally strong. The two then duke it out with neither one breaking a sweat. Their fist hardly do anything when thrown into each others' bellies! Then, some of the boss's friend help with punching out the muscular pirate's accompanying fellows...followed by the whole town ganging up on the menacing trio. Now that's unity within a whole community.

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