| rdfs:comment
| - Fantastic Planet is a film about... various things, and it's far too trippy and eccentric to do justice here. Basically, set on the homeworld of the Traags (or Draags), where humans - known as Oms - exist on their planet both as a troublesome vermin population but also as domesticated pets. The film follows one of those pets from his captivity to later living among the humans, and then later still things get even stranger, if that's even possible. Let's just say that it involves a ritualised engagement in intergalactic out of body experiences which is symbolically and probably literally both drugs and sex is threatened by an act of terrorism and that still doesn't make it sound half as surreal as it really is.
- The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as "Oms" (a homonym of the French-language word hommes, meaning men), are creatures on the Draags' home planet. The Draags are an alien species which is humanoid in shape but a hundred times larger than humans and they live much longer than human beings. Although some Oms are domesticated as pets, they are seen as pests and are periodically exterminated. Apparently they do just that, for in the very next scene, an Om steps down off an outstretched Draag hand, removes his silly hat and assumes a posture of confidence and self-assertion.
|
| abstract
| - Fantastic Planet is a film about... various things, and it's far too trippy and eccentric to do justice here. Basically, set on the homeworld of the Traags (or Draags), where humans - known as Oms - exist on their planet both as a troublesome vermin population but also as domesticated pets. The film follows one of those pets from his captivity to later living among the humans, and then later still things get even stranger, if that's even possible. Let's just say that it involves a ritualised engagement in intergalactic out of body experiences which is symbolically and probably literally both drugs and sex is threatened by an act of terrorism and that still doesn't make it sound half as surreal as it really is. Along the way, other stuff happens that you never really understand. It's almost indescribable, but just think Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind meets 2001: A Space Odyssey on mescaline, and you pretty much have it.
* Alien Sky: Typically brownish coloured.
* Aliens Speaking English: Well, French in the original, and they still use French words as the basis of naming a human in the English.
* Bait and Switch Credits: The film starts with trippy music and a tribal hunting/chase sequence containing some cool transition effects.
* Barbie Doll Anatomy: Some of the nudity in the film, though we do get some genitalia.
* Bizarre Alien Biology: Poisonous, moving blobs, bat-winged Om-eaters with long tongues for sucking up humans in their dens, sadistic laughing plants with human faces that beat winged beasties to death... and then you have the Draags with their meditation ritual where their bodies melt into the walls.
* Disney Acid Sequence: the film.
* Deranged Animation: And how! (To some, the style is reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's surreal animated work for Monty Python.)
* Duel to the Death: Disputes are settled among the wild Oms by using large jawed alien worms as weapons.
* Earth All Along
* Everything Trying to Kill You: Literally.
* Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Although strangely. The Om have a lit-up orgy (tastefully obscured), and the less said about the Draag sex, the better.
* G-Rated Drug: When the Oms eat the fruit in the desert and start to glow, and also the Draag 'meditation'. Or that thing they do where their bodies transform while sitting around. Some have suggested the name 'Draag' itself may come from drugs. Look, half the movie, okay?
* Humans Are Bastards: Played with. Humans are responsible for the destruction of their own planet and how the Draags treat the humans is in itself a rather ironic comment on how we treat other animals.
* Humans Are Interesting: As pets.
* Humanoid Aliens: They're much bigger than humans, and blue skinned, but they still fit.
* Humans Through Alien Eyes: How the Draags percieve us and our degree of intelligence is pretty important to the plot, such as it is.
* International Coproduction
* Kill All Humans: Reluctantly.
* Mind Screw: The whole movie. The imagery can be suggestive in ways you may not even be consciously aware of.
* Personal Raincloud: Terr was subjected to one controlled by Tiva.
* Planetary Romance: Gone insane, but definitely fitting the expectations of this trope, oddly enough.
* Sex as Rite-Of-Passage: The Draag coming of age ceremony, wherein a child pictures themselves floating off in a bubble to sit ontop a naked statuette that dances with statues from other galaxies... well, it's getting stoned and having sex all at once. Only weirdly!
* Scenery Porn: The animators take great pride in their bizarre, Krazy Kat-esque desertscapes.
* Spell My Name with an "S": The natives of the planet are called "Traags" in the original French version. The English dub calls them "Draags."
* THC Theater
* Techno Babble: The language is so purple prose-y "that even translated it needs subtitles".
* To Serve Man: Subverted, the Draags are obsessed with humans as pets until they become seen as vermin.
* Turned Against Their Masters: Thanks to the Draag Upgrade Artifact.
* Unusual Euphemism: "They're De-Omisating the park again." Then again, that's exactly what's going on.
* Upgrade Artifact: The Draag telepathic instruction device.
- The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as "Oms" (a homonym of the French-language word hommes, meaning men), are creatures on the Draags' home planet. The Draags are an alien species which is humanoid in shape but a hundred times larger than humans and they live much longer than human beings. Although some Oms are domesticated as pets, they are seen as pests and are periodically exterminated. A group of Draag children accidentally kill an Om woman during play. Unfortunately her death leaves an orphaned infant, who is taken in by an adult Draag as a pet for his child, Tiva. Tiva’s father just happens to be master Sinh, the Draag great Aedile and after some time, when the child and pet are playing, they surprise him and and several of his compatriots during a ritual melding session. It is revealed that many Draag children have Oms like Terr. The bond created between the Draag child, Tiva, and the Om, named Terr (word play on the French word Terre, meaning Earth) deepens as time passes by. Tiva's education is supplied by the use of a headset that transmits knowledge directly into the brain of the user. Because she enjoys having Terr in her hand when she is having her "infos," Terr begins to acquire the Draag knowledge. Terr begins to realize who and what he is, and escapes, taking the headset with him. He eventually finds other Oms and after some tribulation, is accepted into a tribe. Over the next several scenes, it is shown how the Oms have adapted to life on the Draags' planet. Snail-like animals weave clothes onto the Oms, predators that would eat Oms are in turn hunted and efficiently stripped of useful materials, and the gene pool is kept well-mixed. One day, the now-literate Oms reads a new sign on one of the walls, and learns the park is about to be "de-Omised." The de-Omising is accomplished using disks that release a poison gas. A great many Oms perish from this gas, but a sizable number still manage to escape. The Oms retaliate and manage to kill one of their Draag attackers. The death of the Draag puts the Council in an uproar. De-Omising is stepped up to a much higher priority, new technologies are developed, and extermination frequency greatly increases. Fatalities resulting from Draag attempts to de-Omise are minimized by the creation and organized use of shelters, but the Draags' updated technologies become ever more aggressive, and when an automated scout detects the persistent Om settlement, it summons an array of lethal devices. The Oms launch manned rockets toward the Fantastic Planet, where they discover headless humanoid statues. As Draag meditation bubbles descend to alight atop the statues, the statues begin to dance. This is the secret that animates the statues and allows the Draag to reproduce. When the feet of the dancing statues threaten the rockets, the Oms use energy weapons to shatter the statues, effectively killing thousands of meditative Draag. Pandemonium reigns in the Council chamber, for it seems the two species will destroy one another if they cannot find a way to live together. Apparently they do just that, for in the very next scene, an Om steps down off an outstretched Draag hand, removes his silly hat and assumes a posture of confidence and self-assertion.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)