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.

Special Features: English Language version, Original Subtitled version, photo gallery, trailer, Fantastic Laloux, the new 26 minute documentary on director Rene Laloux, short animated film Les Escargots (The Snails), an animated segment of Sean Lennon's music video for "Would I Be The One", inspired by Fantastic Planet.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14721 in DVD
• Brand: FACETS VIDEO
• Released on: 2007-10-23
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Animated, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: French, English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 72 minutes

Review
Don't expect cartoon cutesy here: The focus is closer to Dali than Disney, with a touch of Che Guevara thrown in. --Wired

Review
Laloux's film is a provocative foray into the psychology of state-sponsored terror...it is difficult to watch any scene without being aware of its symbolic and metaphorical potential. --Senses of Cinema

Review
A theremin-toned time capsule...Although the visuals are worth the ticket alone, Fantastic Planet also crackles with emotional and political resonance. --Village Voice

Customer Reviews

Best DVD version, but low bit rate transfer can cause issues.
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?

Beware- DVD will not play on most US machines
A warning to all potential buyers of this edition of "Fantastic Planet". I received two copies of this edition, and neither would play properly on my DVD player, nor two players I tried at my friends' houses. The movie would play, but would freeze and jump every few seconds. The extras would not play at all. And again, this happened with two separate discs and on multiple players.

Unless you're content to play this on a computer, do NOT buy this disc, as you will most likely have problems. Shame on Amazon will selling what is, in effect, a defective DVD. BUYER BEWARE!

Great Film, Good DVD edition - finally with optional subtitles!
I am very relieved to say that this new DVD edition allows you to TURN OFF the English subtitles, something that you could not do in the previous DVD. This is one of the very few foreign films I prefer to watch with the dubbed English track (probably because I grew up seeing that way on cable in the 80s). The previous DVD forced you to watch the English subtitles, even with the English language track. The titles and the dubbing did not match, so it was distracting to the point that I could not stand to watch the movie.

The transfer is in anamorphic widescreen (not full screen as in the Amazon description) and looks good, though the print used was not cleaned of nicks and dirt. The sound is monophonic, but clean and about what you would expect for the early 70s. My only complaint is that I had some trouble with the programming on my disc. I had trouble accessing the menu at some times.

I have not yet watched the special features but they include an interview with Rene Laloux, a trailer, a short film (Les Escargots), a music video and a photo gallery. I would like to have seen something more comprehensive, but I am just glad to have a watchable version of the film.

As for the film itself, there is nothing else quite like it.