The Looking Planet (2014)

Thanks for the memories!

Simply A Masterpiece

Great Film overall

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

...and this whimsical but quite smart short is film-making, boy, not home movies. Auteur writer/director/animator/producer Eric Law Anderson, who ought to be a household name, has created a loving and lovely tale of "intelligent design" that both entertains and provokes thought, no mean feat. The premise, that a cosmic adolescent--albeit fourteen-billion years old--had a hand in constructing our reality, may not be unique, but Anderson's vision and informed sense of humor surely is. I'll not do any spoiling here; this 16-minute gem deserves an innocent eye on first viewing. I am bemused that IMDbers don't seem to be YouTubers, and possibly vice-versa. A mere hundred or so voters here, a mere seven reviews, now eight with mine, compared to 130K+ views on YouTube with hundreds of comments. It's kind of sad, really. We need more storytelling like "The Looking Planet," as well as it needing a much wider audience.If anyone reading this hasn't seen it yet, be assured that "The Looking Planet" is more than worth the brief moments it will take to track it down on YouTube. Highly recommended.

The Looking Planet "A tale translated from the Cosmic Background Radiation." That is the tag line for this really cute and very well animated 17 minute CGI short film. Why is it called "The Looking Planet"? Well, the film answers that question in a very interesting way, and at the center of the story is a young Cosmic Engineer named Lufo. He's creative but feels stifled doing the same thing millennium after millennium, so he finds a way to break up the monotony and discovers something unexpected in the process.Many human artists often feel they and their creativity are being wasted on the routine rut of day-to-day life, often desperately searching for a way to break out of the daily grind, if only just once, and let that wild creative scream out for the world, the Universe, to see and hear. It would seem that humans are not so unique in this, after all.Being someone who has been hooked on Astronomy since the tender age of eight and listening to the sound of the Universe as I look up at the stars twinkling in the night sky, I've wondered, as so many of us have, what might be out there? Are we alone in the Universe or are there other forms of life lurking among those distant stars? How did we get here? Why are we here? What are we doing or supposed to be doing? Through science fiction, the human imagination has sought increasingly creative ways to tell stories to perhaps come up with some plausible ideas. Are any of them right? Are we even close? Who is to say? But that doesn't stop us from asking those questions and finding more inventive ways to answer them as science grows ever more complex and we discover more and more secrets hiding in the Universe, waiting for someone smart enough, or perhaps creative enough, to find and understand them.Winner of numerous awards at more than 40 film festivals across the country and around the world, The Looking Planet is well deserving of those awards, I assure you. And if you pay careful attention, you will see hints of a much deeper and far greater story yet to be told. Imagine if this were to become a full length feature film - how much of the story could be told then? If you have not seen "The Looking Planet" yet, what are you waiting for? Perhaps Einstein was right; maybe imagination truly is more important than knowledge after all.Katt – Nerdversity 101

Ben and Keith (The Two Gay Geeks) who screened this short at the first Phoenix Loves Sci- Fi Film Festival along with 20 other shorts. This was one of the ones they chose as a standout among the crowd. This was part of the second block of films on the program. It is too bad so many people left during the break. This was likely the best on the program. Keith thought it was fun and a humorous look at our planet. I will say in this short, they did a lot of universe building (insert rim shot here). Nice to self expression at its best. Ben's thoughts: One of the most charming shorts I have ever watched with plenty of nods to Magrathea from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, but drawn from a very interesting premise regarding the science regarding Earth's own moon. It was heartwarming, beautifully animated, and left me with a smile on my face by the time it finished. No wonder this fine short is award winning, it truly is a winner. We look forward to seeing more form this director.

This film is incredible. It evoked more emotion in just 16 minutes than 99.9% of full-length movies out there today. Watching it is like listening to a masterpiece of music, including a moment when the music rises and reaches a note so pure and utterly, heart-breakingly beautiful it becomes transcendent. Beyond the fact that the story itself is thoughtful and poetic, the animation is gorgeous and the soundtrack ethereal. No words of praise can possibly do this work of art justice, for seeing it is more of an experience than anything else. Do yourself a favor and see it if at all possible. You absolutely will not regret it!!