Review of Fantastic Planet (1973) by Victor M — 29 Feb 2016

This animated 1970s French film is highly creative but emotionally empty. Watch it if you want a short (60 min.) dose of psychedelic stop-motion animation, replete with imaginative alien species and a glimpse at humanity gone caveman.

While the oppressed people group motif makes for interesting cinema, here it falls short due to its underdeveloped social dynamics. How does the protagonist feel about the Draags or his master in particular? Is he fully accepted by the other Oms? These depths are never explored.

Instead, the storyline plods along, skipping a few plot points along the way, and then ends abruptly. The themes change abruptly too, moving from Bildungsroman to the cliché "oppressed people group fighting against oppressors" motif.

Even the protagonists' role changes midway as he himself becomes irrelevant to the plot. If the audience cared about him by this point, they would be wondering what happened to him-we're never told-but alas, the plotline is so flat, the emotion so sparse, that the audience hardly connects with him.

The other Oms barely seem to connect with him either, for that matter. In short, watch it if you're looking for a memorable merge between fantastical sci-fi and stop-motion animation. If you want a glimpse at human complexity, look elsewhere.