Fantastic Planet (1973)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Fantastic Planet is famed French animator René Laloux's most famous film. This co-production between France and Czechoslovakia is a highly dream-like and imaginative work whose trippy visual ideas would make a mark in the psychedelic early 70's era. Set on the planet Ygam where the Oms (humans) are wild pests and domestic pets of the Draags, intellectual beings who tower above them. One Om escapes with a Draag learning device and uses it to assist other Oms to rise up and revolt against their overlords.There seems to be an analogy embedded within the narrative but I personally don't think the story is especially important or interesting. What this film is all about is the look and feel. The animation is truthfully very basic but the art work is beautiful. The fantastical world created here is a work of true creative imagination. Amongst many other things, we have the giant blue Draags with their red eyes who meditate and are carried sky-ward in bubbles, there are tall elaborate plants, weird creatures who produces pink foam which in turn generates clothing for the Oms, there is a giant winged creature and a planet of headless statues. All this visual invention is accompanied by a great sound design of alien sounds accompanied by a score of light prog rock. Fantastic Planet is a work of pure sci-fi creativity and one of the most distinctive animation films ever.

Fantastic Planet is a French-Czechoslovakian animated science fiction film. The story is simple and allegorical (which is more obvious when the French origin of some of the names is considered): the tiny Oms are tolerated as pets but ultimately seen as vermin by the towering, spiritual Draags. The imagery is outstanding: colourful, stylized, imaginative, and surreal. Not surprisingly, the movie had a rep (at least in my circles) of being best watched while stoned. I remember seeing this in the theatres in the 70's (straight) and the final images of the dancing statues stuck with me for decades. Definitely worth watching, if only for the artful (albeit not very 'hard scientific') depiction of an alien world. Note: the animated humanoid characters are frequently partially nude.

This film is made by René Laloux who is French. This film's original name is "La Planète Sauvage". This film's genre is in science fiction. The original story is novel by Stephen Ur who is French. Place of this film is in any planet. There are Doragu group of the giants and Om group of the little people in the planet. Doragu group's appearance seems alien and has the ears looking like fish gills. Om group of the little people look like human. This planet has been dominated by the Doragu group. Om group is often at the mercy of the Doragu group. This film begins from the scene that a mother of Om group holding a baby escapes from a person of Doragu group. Then, the mother cannot live, however, her baby can alive. The baby is picked up by the children of Doragu group. And, he is brought up by her for her pet. This film is very ideological. If you watch the film, you maybe feel the fear. Because, in this movie is drawn stupidity of human beings too.

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!