Talk about a transition from American animation to a co-production between France and the former Czechoslovakia. Translated from French, Fantastic Planet is quite possibly one of the oddest and interesting animated films that I have seen. This has to be mentioned, much like other great films, it’s based on a novel which is translated to Oms Linked Together by Stefan Wul.
1. Alien Planet
By looking at the movie cover on top of the post, you know well that it’s a science fiction animated film. I honestly thought that the character would be the main lead and who we will be following. Well that’s not the case. The blue aliens are called Draags and they have possibly one of the most interesting alien designs. Not just by how they look but what exactly they do. Anyways, the film takes place in the future. The Draags have somehow made humans into their pets, since to them the aliens are giants.
That is where we see our actual protagonist Terr who we see as a baby. When his mother is killed by a few adolescent Draags. The Draag that we do see is named Tiwa, she treats Terr with respect and by following her father’s orders, she gives the baby a collar to able to control him. Unbeknownst to her or her parents is that Terr’s collar receives the same broadcast when Tiwa is using her knowledge headset to learn more about her planet’s history.
Eventually, Terr grows up and runs away from Tiwa and takes her headset to find other humans on the planet. Animation wise, the film is vastly different from Disney’s. The film has a sort of story book design with a limited animation since it’s not all that fluid but has an okay motion with what’s going on. Interesting though, instead of the film using celluloid with painted characters to animate, Fantastic Planet utilized paper cut outs. That explains how most of the animation reminded me of the animated segments of Monty Python. I will say, the film is not for children, even though it was released in the United States with a PG rating.
When Terr explores the planet, we truly see just how alien the Draag’s planet is. Everything we see in terms of vegetation and the animals are just plain weird. I wish I could use a different word than that, but bizarre is just being too nice. We see moments were the creatures eat the humans and even that is odd how the animals go about it. Again, just the stills from the film don't do it justice to convey how interesting and weird the whole movie is.
2. Rebellion
Reading more about the film, the overall idea of rebellion pops up. When Terr finally leaves Tiwa’s home, he still has his collar that Tiwa can control to bring him back. Our protagonist sees a woman who helps him get the collar off of him. From there, we see the women lead Terr to her clan and really be the one to expose the others to what the Draags are planning.
The whole rebellion is justified since we see the Draags have a council to discuss how to deal with the humans. Since they realize that they reproduce fast and may be out of control to contain. The humans then realize that they have to leave since they will all be decimated. As I mentioned earlier, the film was a co-production between France and the former Czechoslovakia. The latter country was invaded by the Soviet Union due to them attempting to crackdown on ideas that were anticommunist.
That event is probably one of the few instances where an actual event of cleansing inspired the making of the film. The entire process took five years to finish due to the invasion. Another example of the film being influenced is the Civil Rights movement in the US. For the reason that the event had a group of people wanting to have equity. It’s not in the least bit of a stretch since the humans in the film ultimately live among clans and once Terr shows them knowledge is when they decide to rebel for their sake of survival.
3. Possible Childhood Reference
Now this is a stretch on my end since I was talking to my friend about this movie and one show from Cartoon Network might have made a reference to the film. The show Courage the Cowardly Dog has an episode called "Tulip's Worm" where an alien worm is running amok and Courage the Dog tries to stop it.
Alien teddy bears, stick with me on this, try to get the worm as well. Near the end, all of them make it to the alien world where a giant blue girl sees Courage and his owner Muriel. As far as I know, there is no interview from creator John Dilworth explaining that he saw the movie or that the episode was an original idea on his part. I thought it was interesting notice when I watched the episode again.
4. Overall
This is a classic in foreign film and in animation. It’s unique which I will give it total props and it has a world that is unlike anything that I have seen in a while.
Fantastic Planet gets a five out of five.
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