Fantastic Planet (1973)

Fantastic Planet (French: La Planète sauvage, Czech: Divoká planeta, lit. The Wild Planet) is a 1973 cutout stop motion science fiction allegorical film directed by René Laloux, production designed by Roland Topor, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and was distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. The story, which shows humans living on a strange planet dominated by giant humanoid aliens who consider them animals, is based on the 1957 novel Oms en série by French writer Stefan Wul.

A working title for the film while it was in development was Sur la planète Ygam (On the Planet Ygam), which is where most of the story takes place, but the actual title (the Fantastic/Savage Planet) is the name of Ygam's moon. The film won the special jury prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. It had a total of 809,945 admissions in France.

Synopsis

In the distant future, the gargantuan blue humanoid Draags 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. They consider them animals, and while some Oms are kept as pets by Draags, others live in the strange wilderness and are periodically slaughtered by the Draags who wish to keep their population controlled. Draags have much longer lifespans than Oms, but reproduce much less.

Actors