Alternate versions

An English dub of this film was produced by the Walt Disney Company in 1999 (originally intended to be released that same year), but wasn't released on DVD until 2003. The English dub shortens the title to "Castle in the Sky," removing the word "Laputa," since it means "the whore" in Spanish. The voice cast includes James Van Der Beek, Anna Paquin, Mark Hamill, Cloris Leachman, Mandy Patinkin, Andy Dick, and Michael McShane.

When Disney dubbed the film into English, they asked composer Joe Hisaishi to rescore it. (The original score was only about an hour long in a two-hour-plus movie, so it was felt that it should be fleshed out some more). The reworking was done under the approval of Miyazaki himself. The revisited score is present in the English dubbed version on the Region 1 DVD released by Disney on April 15, 2003. However, purists can rest easy knowing that the original, unaltered score is present in the Japanese language track that is also present as an option on the DVD. The English dub also shortens the title to "Castle in the Sky," removing the word "Laputa". In 2010, Disney reissued the dub without the rescore or the occasional bits of extra dialogue (similar to "Kiki's Delivery Service") Oddly, however, while the American Blu-Ray contains the edited 2010 dub, all the other international BDs have the rescore on the English dub track without the extra dialogue.

An earlier dub was commissioned by Tokuma (and quickly produced by an unknown studio in 1989) and was given a brief US theatrical run by Streamline Pictures. This earlier version was only voice-dubbed leaving all of the music and sound-effects in their original state. However, it also omitted the reference to "Gulliver's Travels". Reportedly, Carl Macek was disappointed with how this early dub turned out. The only official release this older dub has seen was on the Japanese Region 2 DVD (because at the time, Disney's dub was not yet ready to be released on DVD).

The original Japanese theatrical release did not have the current Studio Ghibli logo at the beginning; it had the Toei logo instead.

In Spain was released directly on DVD on October 2003. "Laputa" was changed to "Lapuntu". On 2011 it was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray, a new dub was made and this time "Laputa" was kept on the dubbing.

Four minutes are cut from the Hong Kong version making the film 120 minutes.