The Artizan Airship Pirates are based on the anime film Laputa: Castle in the Sky apparently!
And that one must be one of Miyazaki´s finest. I saw it at the movies last summer, and it was an excellent experience, even if the German dub was... ah... average. I´ve seen worse, but I still prefer Japanese OSTs with subtitles.
Yeah - I wish I'd seen a subtitled OST version too. The English dub wasn't great either.
Plus I saw it on a black & white portable TV!