Fantastic Planet

In the distant future, the gargantuan blue humanoid Traags[8] (in French and Czech spelling: Draag[9]) have brought human beings (who are called Oms as a play on the French word for "man", homme) from Earth to the planet Ygam, where they maintain a technologically and spiritually advanced society. The Traags consider Oms animals, and while they keep some as pets, others live in the wilderness and are periodically slaughtered by the Traags to control their population. Traags have much longer lifespans than Oms, but reproduce much less.

When an Om mother is tortured to death by three Traag children, her orphaned infant is found by Master Sinh, a key Traag leader, and his daughter Tiwa, who keeps the boy as a pet and names him Terr. Tiwa loves Terr and is careful not to hurt him, but, in accordance with her parents' instructions, gives him a collar with which she can pull him in any direction. She brings Terr to sessions in which she receives her education using a headset that transmits knowledge into her mind; a defect in Terr's collar allows him to receive the knowledge too. Around the time that Tiwa grows into her teens and first performs Traag meditation, which allows the species to travel with their minds, she loses some interest in Terr, who has become a young man and acquired much Traag knowledge. He escapes into the wilderness, stealing Tiwa's headset.

There he runs into a wild female Om, who cuts off his collar and introduces him to her tribe, which lives in an abandoned Traag park full of strange creatures and landscapes. Terr shows them how to use the headset to acquire Traag knowledge and literacy, winning the right to do so in a duel. The literacy they gain allows them to read a Traag announcement that the park will be purged of Oms, and, when the purge comes, some are slaughtered by Traag technology while others escape, joining forces with another tribe. They are attacked by two Traag passers-by and manage to kill one of them before escaping to an abandoned Traag rocket depot, much to the outrage of Traag leaders.

They live there for years, joined by many other Oms. Due to the knowledge acquired from Terr's headset, they manage to replicate Traag technology, including two rockets; they hope to leave Ygam for its moon, the Fantastic Planet, and live there safe from Traags. When a large-scale Traag purge hits the depot and many Oms are slaughtered, a group led by Terr uses the rockets to flee to the Fantastic Planet, where they discover large statues that Traags travel to during meditation and use to meet beings from other galaxies in a strange mating ritual that maintains their species. The Oms destroy some of the statues, threatening the Traags' existence; the genocide of Oms is halted on Ygam, and, facing a crisis, the Traags negotiate for peace. The Oms agree to leave the Fantastic Planet to the Traags for their meditations, and in return, an artificial satellite is put into orbit around Ygam and given to the Oms as a new home. This leads to an era of peaceful coexistence between the two species, who now benefit from each other's way of thinking.

The film's score was composed by Alain Goraguer. In a review for AllMusic, François Couture noted:[10]

The main theme is very reminiscent of Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother Suite" (same half-time tempo, mellotron, harpsichord, and wah-wah guitar), and the other two are a ballad and a circus-like waltz. The music is very '70s-clichéd and will appeal to fans of French and Italian '70s soundtrack stylings. Although repetitive, the album itself creates an interesting marijuana-induced sci-fi floating mood, blending psychedelia, jazz, and funk… [It] has been sampled by a few hip-hop artists.

The soundtrack was originally pressed on vinyl during the mid-70's in France. These original pressings command a high dollar on the secondary market given the soundtrack's limited release. In 2000, DC Recordings released the soundtrack on CD, and the soundtrack was later reissued on LP.

The film's narrative has been considered to be an allegory about animal rights and human rights, as well as racism.[11][12] Sean Axmaker of Turner Classic Movies referred to the film as "nothing if not allegorical", writing that "it's not a stretch to see the fight against oppression reflected in the civil rights struggle in the United States, the French in Algeria, apartheid in South Africa, and (when injustice takes a turn to wholesale annihilation of the 'inferior' race) the Holocaust itself".[11]

Liz Ohanesian of LA Weekly speculated on the film being a commentary on animal rights, using the Traag's treatment of the Oms as evidence and writing that the film places "humans in roles of pets and pests".[13] Mike D'Angelo of The A.V. Club wrote that "The Traag-Om dynamic is broad enough to be multipurpose, reflecting both racism and animal rights via 'How would you like it?' role reversal".[12]

Following various public domain VHS releases of the film, it was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on VHS and DVD on 16 February 1999.[26] In 2006, Eureka Entertainment released the film on DVD in the United States as #34 in their Masters of Cinema line.[27] It was released on Blu-ray in 2012.[28]

On 23 October 2007, Facets Video and Accent Cinema released a newly restored version on DVD, including many bonus features never available before.[29] In June 2016, the Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD.[30]

• Fantastic Planet at IMDb
• Fantastic Planet at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Fantastic Planet at AllMovie
• Fantastic Planet at Rotten Tomatoes
• Links to further resources
• Link to Masters Of Cinema
• Fantastic Planet: Gambous Amalga an essay by Michael Brooke at the Criterion Collection