Fantastic Planet (1973)

Good movie but grossly overrated

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

In 1973, French animator/filmmaker Rene Laloux released his film adaptation of the book Oms en série by Stefan Wul. While it did undergo a troublesome production due to the film being coproduced in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) during the time of Russia invading said country, the final product went on to win the Grand Prix special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Nowadays, the film is regarded as a cult classic by film and animation aficionados alike, and while I don't regard it as a great film, I do admire it nonetheless.The film centers around the planet Ygam where humans, referred to as Oms, are an inferior species to the large blue android like Draags. However, one Om named Terr learns of the Draag's knowledge through a bracelet, and uses it to teach other Oms to rise up against the superior species. With this in mind, the film displays an allegorical message about taking other species for granted, but the story is carried through surrealism. The world of Ygam is harsh and cruel by how the Draag's treat the Oms as animals, some of whom dress them up in prissy attire and use them for fights once they're domesticated. Not to mention, the Draags learn their language through meditation, displaying psychedelic fantasies for all to question. In addition to the bizarre story, the animation is a visual splendor, mainly by how it looks like a series of moving illustrations. Throughout the planet of Ygam exist a variety of exotic creatures and dreamlike scenarios, complete with an avant-garde soundtrack. The character animation is pretty limited, but the unique visual style really helps the film stick out from any other, so it fits well enough in this environment. These surrealistic visuals help emulate the analogies alluding to the film's themes of fascism and war, mainly by showcasing the scary truth of the Draags and how they run their society.That being said, as much as I admire the film's method of visual storytelling, I do think the plot drags on in some points. Roughly half of the film is Terr growing up around his owner Draag named Tiwa, but up until he finally runs away from her, most of the scenes with them could have been edited out to add more momentum. Also, Terr and most of the other characters aren't really that memorable outside of their essential goals to trump the Draags, making them come off as two-dimensional. I know this film is meant to focus more on the allegories of racism and the trippy visuals, but a little more character development would be nice.Nevertheless, Fantastic Planet is a very distinct and worthwhile experience that you only see once in a blue moon. Sure, the characters aren't all that interesting and the plot can get a little slow sometimes, but the way the film tells its story of prejudice through bizarre animation and psychedelic ideologies makes the film quite a unique feature that is worthy of its cult status. If you're looking for an animated feature that embraces surrealism to get its themes across or you're into cult sci-fi films of the 1970s, then this is just the film to check out. Considering that this is one of the few animated features on the Criterion Collection, it's about time we got more of them on said collection to give underrated gems like this the attention they deserve.

This animated, Sci-Fi, Fantasy tale from 1973 was, in my opinion, clearly "less-than-fantastic" on all counts. From its cut-out, paper-doll animation; to its ugly and nonsensical story of survival and revenge; to its "far-from-likable" characters - Fantastic Planet certainly could've been a helluva lot better than it inevitably was.Even though the decidedly diminutive humans (aka. Oms) were the ones being portrayed as the oppressed underdogs in the story, I, for one, found it pretty difficult to root for their victory when they stood their ground in an all-out revolt against the red-eyed, blue-skinned giants known as Draags.Yes. Fantastic Planet did, indeed, contain some very bizarre and trippy looking imagery at times, but, in the long run, this certainly wasn't near enough to save its story from deteriorating into a monotonous bore long before its 70-minute running time was up.Apparently this French production won itself a jury prize (whatever that was) at Cannes.Anyways - Even though I would honestly be quite reluctant to recommend Fantastic Planet to others, I would say that it was at least worth one viewing.

I originally watched this film because it was a strange looking animated film that attracted my attention in a weird sort of way. To my disappointment, I found this movie boring, dull, and uninteresting. The storyline was so slow and completely unengaging. It was a unique concept for a plot but was not executed well at all. The quality of the film was extremely poor, especially the terrible animation. If you liked The Beatles' Yellow Submarine, this is probably a film for you. The film was a waste of my time and was worthless as far as I am concerned. I am struggling to draw this out because it was not even worth the ten lines of text that is needed to post this review.

I was just watching a GoodBadFlicks video yesterday where the guy was laughing at US movie studios for buying film rights for some stories and foreign films that they could never ever present in the US for fear of protests. For me it was a strange proposal, why wouldn't they be able to show something raw, uncensored, original? The answer was obvious, but I am not going to dwell on that point.La Planete Sauvage is probably a movie in this category. The film is short, just over an hour, but from the very beginning it starts with something controversial: a woman carrying a baby is being teased by giant humanoids that have fingers the size of the woman. It turns out they are children, playing with the human as a human would play with an ant. They accidentally kill her and her baby is being taken as a pet by one of these giants. They are called Tragg and they consider humans animals, to be petted or exterminated as they please. The very first scenes are brutal to watch and that's why I think this would never sit well with a culture that values superiority more than anything else.You have to watch it in French, if you get the language, I had a dual French/English audio film with English subtitles and, even if I didn't go through the English audio, there is something about the French language that just naturally blends with the arrogant culture of the Traggs. The Tragg culture and their planet were truly spectacular. To think that in 1973 someone thought of a superior technological culture that is truly alien while remaining humanoid, and did it well, was amazing. The concepts hold true even now, in 2014!I have to say that I have been thinking of writing a story about humans treated as pets by an alien culture, but after I've seen this I couldn't possibly do it, as it is perfect as storyline and concepts. It also makes me think of another subject close to my heart: dogs. In Romania there are still a lot of vagabond dogs and the heartless and pointless discussions about exterminating them are very close to what the Tragg are doing when considering the human vermin. There are also some ideas about the "wild human" society that hit close to this concept of groups of people gathering around the mentality of the lowest common denominator. So, in my mind, to add valid philosophical and moral points to an already brilliant story with fantastic drawings is like covering the icing of the cake with a ton of cherries!About the animation style. This is something that made some people rate this film a lot lower than it deserves. Are you aware that it was made in 1973, by Czech animators? Actually, besides the voice actors and the wonderful director René Laloux, there were almost no French people in the production team. The animation in the Czech Republic is a reason for national pride, but the way they do it was unique and certainly different from the US, French and Japanese animation styles. OK, so maybe you prefer the animation style of Robin Hood, with the animals, but really, this is so much better in so many ways that I couldn't possibly get snagged on animation.Bottom line: The imagination, the way it just threw out there idea after idea, no matter how uncomfortable, the storyline, the amazing creatures, the weird ways in which they were killing people... it was true sci-fi. The real thing! Watch this! It will take an hour of your life, big deal! You will see that your brain will churn all of those ideas for a while after watching the film. It will feel like a strange but amazing flavor on your tongue. Top rating!