This will be the third time we've posted La Planète sauvage, but each time has been a major upgrade, and now that this wonderful film is on BluRay, here's a stunning rip in 1080p x264 with a DTS audio track. Safe to say this will be the last upgrade, but if there ever was a film that needed to be viewed in the highest of clarity, then La Planète sauvage would be my pick. René Laloux has created a timeless masterpiece that defies genre with this film, and if there's a chance you've never seen it, please do yourself a favor and watch it. You will trip. Trust me on this one. You will trip...
From www.horrorphile.net:
I remember a pictorial book on the history of modern sf movies I owned when I was a lad and one of the images that stuck in my mind was a still from a French animated feature called Fantastic Planet. The bizarre grotesque imagery stuck with me, and I told myself one day I would find the movie and watch it.
Based on a French novel called Oms en Serie by Stefan Wul and adapted by Roland Topor and director René Laloux, La Planète Sauvage (1973, The Savage Planet), or Fantastic Planet as it was re-titled in America and subsequently the rest of the world, is a dark satire dealing with speciesism and intelligence, war and peace. Despite its simplistic, almost child-like animation style and technique, the subject matter – and much of the imagery – is definitely adult material. There is sexuality, cruel violence, and complicated socio-politics. Think a darker, hallucinogenic Gulliver’s Travels on an alien planet and you’re on your way...
The movie deals with a nightmare premise, but packaged like a psychedelic acid trip. The fact that it was made in the wake of the international counter-culture can not be dismissed easily. The movie was actually conceived as a huge metaphor for the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, and is in fact a Franco-Czech co-production. The deep satirical elements regarding one “superior” species using another “inferior” species as pets runs as a backbone through the movie’s narrative. But the basic story is thus: the terror, the confinement, the knowledge, the escape, the preparation, the revenge, the realization, the compromise, the peace.
On a distant planet live the Draags, giant blue humanoids with advanced intelligence, but they live amidst a cruel and destructive environment, a planet not their own. Their own planet, the Savage Planet, is too inhospitable for them to habit any longer, yet they still astral travel to it via meditation to conduct strange nuptial rituals.
The Draags have pets: tiny humans they called Oms (stolen from Earth it appears). There are the tamed Oms, and there are the wild Oms. Terr, a baby Om named after this young female Draag owner, narrates the entire story, describing how he was orphaned and raised as a pet, but inadvertently learnt much of the Draag’s complicated social patterns and history through a special knowledge tool, which he then steals and escapes with. He is befriended by a female wild Om, and ingratiates himself into her clan, eventually leading a revolt against the Draags, and eventually heading to the Savage Planet via re-built rocketships from the Draag’s abandoned rocketship city.
Despite the animation’s crude style, there is much to marvel at. The visual imagination of director Laloux is at times nightmarishly startling. Black humour is streaked through the movie, while at other times there is tenderness and poignancy. It’s a delicate balance of elements, and certainly not to everyone’s tastes. In fact I’d go as far as saying many viewers would be put off by the animation very quickly, especially in the digital Pixar climate.
Fantastic Planet is pure sf, but it’s no WALL-E. It could be described as a neo-hippie diatribe, but infused with an unbridled imagination of originality and innovation. Not too dissimilar to the kinds of otherwordly (yet Earthly clever) tales of greed, lust, power and abuse illustrated in pioneering French adult science-fantasy magazine Metal Hurlant (known to the rest of the world as Heavy Metal). The movie was nominated at Cannes for the Palm D’Or, and won the Grand Prix Award.
If you’re looking for something different when it comes to analysing the class struggle in an animated feature, but you’re not so keen on the Anime style, and don’t want the obviousness of Disney or Pixar, then try Rene Laloux’s Fantastic Planet, it’s “fantastic” in the pure sense of the word, but as its original title states, it's also savage.
DVD Technical Information:
Title: La planète sauvage (The Savage Planet/Fantastic Planet)
Year: 1973
Country: Czechoslovakia/France
Director: René Laloux
Source: DVD9 Retail
DVD Format: NTSC
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 5.96 GB
Length: 1:11:54
Programs used: DVD Decrypter
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Video: MPEG2 @ 8000 kb/s
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Audio 1: French- Dolby AC3 @ 192 kb/s
Audio 2: English- Dolby AC3 @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: English
Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras:
-René Laloux's short film Les Escargots
-René Laloux's short film Comment Wang-Fo Fut Sauvé
DVD Megaupload Links
BluRay Rip Technical Information:
Title: La Planète sauvage (The Savage Planet / Fantastic Planet)
Year: 1973
Country: Czechoslovakia/France
Director: René Laloux
Source: Blu-Ray Retail
Video Codec: 720p x264
Container: .mkv
Size: 4.36 GB
Length: 01:11:48
Programs used: Not Available
Resolution: 1808x1080
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Video: AVCHD H264
Frame Rate: 24.00 fps
Audio: French- DTS Stereo @ 1536 kb/s
Subtitles: English
BluRay Rip Megaupload Links
