Fantastic Planet

Theatrical Release Date: 1973 12 01 (USA) / 1998 10 09 (USA - Rerelease)

UPC: 736899110925

Studio: Accent Cinema

Summary: A French/Czech co-production, the dream-like La Planete Sauvage concerns the degradation of the Oms, human-like creatures on the futuristic planet Yagam. The Oms are kept as pets and beasts of burden by the Draggs, 39-foot beings who comprise Yagam's ruling class. The status quo is upset when Terr, one of the Oms, accidentally receives an education, whereupon he organizes the other Oms to demand equality with the Draggs. Based on Stefen Wul's novel Ems En Serie, Fantastic Planet was the winner of a 1973 Cannes Film Festival grand prize. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Science Fiction

Awards: Special Prize – Cannes Film Festival

Features: Optional subtitles
English language version
Les Escargots - a short by Rene Laloux
Fantastic Laloux - an interview with Rene Laloux
Trailer
Photo gallery
Would I Be the One - music video by Sean Lennon (inspired by Fantastic Planet)

Fantastic Planet

Format: Digital Video Disc (DVD)

Release Date: 10/23/2007

Audio: DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 72 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: English

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Fantastic Planet
1. Chapter 1 [:10]
3. Chapter 2 [7:03]
4. Chapter 3 [3:03]
5. Chapter 4 [7:57]
6. Chapter 5 [6:44]
7. Chapter 6 [10:11]
8. Chapter 7 [9:02]
9. Chapter 8 [11:07]
10. Chapter 9 [13:17]
11. Chapter 10 [2:05]

Derek Armstrong

Rarely has a titular adjective so accurately captured the experience of watching a movie as in Fantastic Planet. The film's alternate universe is both totally an element of fantasy, and fantastic in its vernacular sense: an absolute marvel to behold. Rene Laloux's animated French-language allegory takes trippiness to new levels of pure imagination, conjuring a planet where humans are both domesticated pet and outlaw nuisance to the native rulers. These rulers, the skyscraper-sized Traags, are blue humanoids with red eyes and vaguely aquatic features -- but who otherwise are pretty genial, intellectual beings. It's no coincidence we're supposed to see ourselves in them, but Fantastic Planet is no mere plea for us to trade places with the Earth creatures we so callously enslave and kill. Masterfully, Laloux's film also invites us to identify with the humans, whose spirit of determination inspires them to an against-all-odds uprising. But however many ways Fantastic Planet invites reflection, it's at least as interested in wowing its audiences with otherworldly technology, flora and fauna. The film pauses to flesh these out through atmospheric vignettes, featuring tall plants that whip the air aimlessly, intricate groves of multi-colored trees, small bulbous-eyed creatures that make clothing by foaming bubbles from their mouths, or giant winged beasts that scream in frightening bursts. (The sound design is a discussion in and of itself, consisting of excellently 1970s computerized beeps and boops, plus a soundtrack that could accompany a porn movie from that era, without that being the least bit silly). The Traags are a fully realized entity both familiar and unsettlingly foreign -- when their meditations carry them skyward in enclose bubbles, it's breathtaking. The one complaint is that the spell is broken slightly by the dispassionate and largely unnecessary narration of the lead character, reflecting on events after the fact, which tends to distance us from the bizarre immediacy of the story. Fantastic Planet is showing us so much, it doesn't need to tell us anything. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Hal Smith  Actor 
Olan Soule  Actor 
Barry Bostwick  Actor 
Nora Heflin  Actor 
Marvin Miller  Actor 
Mark Gruner  Actor 
Janet Waldo  Actor 
Monika Ramirez  Actor 
Anatole Dauman  Producer 
Steve Hayes  Screenwriter 
René Laloux  Director 
René Laloux  Screenwriter 
Roland Topor  Screenwriter 
Simon Damiani  Producer 
Andre Valio-Cavaglione  Producer 
Alain Goraguer  Composer (Music Score) 

Country: France,Czechoslovakia