Product Details

• Directors: René Laloux
• Format: Anamorphic, Animated, Color, NTSC
• Language: French, English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Accent Cinema / Inspired Studios
• DVD Release Date: October 23, 2007
• Run Time: 72 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (127 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000TZN7KQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,020 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Fantastic Planet" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Based on French science fiction novelist Stefan Wul's Oms en Serie ("Oms by the Dozen"), René Laloux's La Planète Sauvage (its title changed to Fantastic Planet for the U.S. release) paints an animated tale of humans kept as domesticated pets by an alien race of blue humanoid giants called Traags. The story takes place on the Traags' planet Ygam, where we follow our narrator, an Om called Terr, from infancy to adulthood, when he escapes his subjugation with a Traag learning device with which to educate the savage Oms and incite them to revolt. As a French-Czech coproduction, this story had much resonance for its makers as an allegory of Czechoslovakia's invasion by Russian troops in the late '60s, and had to be completed in Paris due to political pressure. While the story does not distinguish itself in the annals of science fiction, the imagination invested in the surreal backdrops, with its eerie creatures and landscapes, does. The animation technique--moving paper cutouts across backgrounds--contributes to the overall feeling of other-worldliness. Fantastic Planet won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. --Jim Gay

Product Description

René Laloux's mesmerising psychedelic sci-fi animated feature won the Special Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and is a landmark of European animation. Based on Stefan Wul's novel Oms en série [Oms by the Dozen], Laloux's breathtaking vision was released in France as La Planète sauvage [The Savage Planet]; in the USA as Fantastic Planet; and immediately drew comparisons to Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Planet of the Apes (both the 1968 film and Boule's 1963 novel). Today, the film can be seen to prefigure much of the work of Hayao Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) due to its palpable political and social concerns, cultivated imagination, and memorable animation techniques.

Fantastic Planet tells the story of Oms, a human-like species, kept as domesticated pets by an alien race of blue giants called Draags. The story takes place on the Draags' planet Ygam, where we follow our narrator, an Om called Terr, from infancy to adulthood. He manages to escape enslavement from a Draag learning device used to educate the savage Oms - and begins to organise an Om revolt. The imagination invested in the surreal creatures, music and sound design, and eerie landscapes, is immense and unforgettable. This release includes the early LaLoux short The Snails.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 77 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Best DVD version, but low bit rate transfer can cause issues. December 29, 2007

By RoomTenONine

Format:DVD

This is the best transfer I've seen to DVD for this amazing film, but there surely is room for improvement. I'm not going to go into details about how awesome this film is, if you are reading this you most likely already know all about it.

What I do want to address is the bit rate of this DVD. It dips really low and some players do not like lower bit rate DVDs. This is why a few reviewers couldn't get it to play on their systems. In my home theater my main DVD player can balk at low bit rate media. It typically only likes DVD-R for home burned movies as DVD+R gives a lower bit rate. This issue typically only rears its head with consumer burned discs as 99% of studios use top end media with good bit rates. That ISN'T the case with Accent Cinema and Facets Video and this movie.

My Onkyo player plays the movie, but during motion scenes you can literally see the picture break up into major digital macro-blocks, a true sign that the player is getting a low bitrate read. Again, some players just shut down and refuse to play movies with such a bad data rate signal.

To remedy this you can make a 100% uncompressed back-up copy if you have the right software and put it on media like a DVD-R that will give a better bit rate to your player. Use media you know is compatible with your player. Also, most PC DVD drives are more forgiving and you can easily watch this on them using something like VLC player (or your DVD software of choice).

I gave the DVD 3 stars. It would have been 4 if the media wasn't so lame, but this company should know better. I get the feeling they tested it on PCs, ran a bunch of copies off and never took the time to check the bit rate to see if it dips too low for the common stand alone players out there. It is a shame because I had high hopes for this version with its decent extras and wide screen aspect. Why is it so hard to give this movie the transfer and treatment it deserves?

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Childhood Influence. January 8, 2005

By R. Williams

Format:DVD

You know those bits of memory from your childhood that pop into your head from time to time and you wish you could relive them?

Bits of this movie were permanently etched into mind since childhood, waiting to be triggered. I vividly recall the opening sequence, the children's first meditation and the giant headless mannequins. I can't even remember where or when I first saw it but I recognized the images instantly.

This film resonates with me on a subconscious level. It's entirely my style. It is the very definition of what I consider to be good entertainment, and may have even predetermined my interest in sci-fi.

Remember those old UNICEF animated shorts? This style of animation always caused an emotional response with me and I didn't know why until I saw this film again so many years later.

I don't recall the frontal nudity the first time I saw it, so I guess it was no big deal.

This movie is like being "the one" no one can tell if you will like it, you either like it or you don't.

Its difficult to free a mind after a certain age.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful...Cruel...Surreal...Nightmarish...Fantastic Planet February 4, 2002

By Mars Velvet

Format:VHS Tape|Amazon Verified Purchase

Once there was a sophisticated race of humans who despite their intelligence...destroyed their homeworld of Terra.

Landing on an alien world of Ygam these humanoids called Oms find themselves in a harsh cruel enviroment. They become the lower order suppressed by the planet's inhabbitants...the Traags.
The Traags are blueskinned giants who rule over all creatures. Where the Oms become savage and wild...the Traags are cerebral and aloof and preoccupied with meditation.
The Traags domesticate some of the Oms for pets while exterminate wild "nests" of Oms in order to control their population...

This brings you now to the begining of this tale of one domesticated Om named Ter who steels knowledge from the Traags and delivers it to the savage Oms. Although Ter is an Om...he is at first isolated in a race he has never known. But, it is he who helps to bring about change in this strange world. And the mystery of Ygam's only moom Fantastic Planet holds the key to the Traag's ruin.

WHY SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Along with a superb soundtrack of jazz fusion rock mixed with sound fx, this annimated classic is art frame by frame. It is an allegory of the Russian invasion of Czecholslovakia directed beautifully by Rene Laloux.

WHY SHOULD YOU OWN IT?
Watch Fantastic Planet...and you will discover the reasons.