Fantastic Planet 1973

Fantastic Planet (French: La Planète Sauvage; Czech: Divoká planeta, lit. 'The Wild Planet') is a 1973 surrealist adult animated science fiction art film directed by René Laloux. Its allegorical story, about 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 the French writer Stefan Wul. The film was written by Laloux and Roland Topor; the latter also made the production design. It was a co-production between companies from France and Czechoslovakia and was animated at Jiří Trnka Studio in Prague.

A working title while in development was Sur la planète Ygam (On the Planet Ygam), which is where most of the story takes place; the actual title (The Fantastic/Savage Planet) is the name of Ygam's moon. Production began in 1963. Fantastic Planet was awarded the Grand Prix special jury prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2016, it was ranked the 36th greatest animated movie ever by Rolling Stone.

In the distant future, the giant blue humanoid Draags[6][a] have brought human beings (who are called Oms)[b] from Earth to the planet Ygam, where the Draags maintain a technologically and spiritually advanced society. The Draags consider Oms animals, and while they keep some as pets, others live in the wilderness and are periodically slaughtered by the Draags to control their population. Draags have much longer lifespans than Oms, but reproduce much less.

When an Om woman is killed by three Draag children, her orphaned infant is found by Master Sinh, a key Draag 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 Draag 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 Draag 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 Draag park full of strange creatures and landscapes. Terr shows them how to use the headset to acquire Draag knowledge and literacy, winning the right to do so in a duel. The literacy they gain allows them to read a Draag announcement that the park will be purged of Oms, and, when the purge comes, some are slaughtered by Draag technology while others escape, joining forces with another tribe. They are attacked by two Draag passers-by and manage to kill one of them before escaping to an abandoned Draag rocket depot, much to the outrage of Draag leaders.

They live there for years, joined by many other Oms. Due to the knowledge acquired from Terr's headset, they manage to replicate Draag technology, including two rockets; they hope to leave Ygam for its moon, the Fantastic Planet, and live there safe from Draags. When a large-scale Draag 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 Draags 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 Draags' existence; the genocide of Oms is halted on Ygam, and, facing a crisis, the Draags negotiate for peace. The Oms agree to leave the Fantastic Planet to the Draags 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.

Character French English
Tiwa Jennifer Drake Cynthia Adler
Young Terr Eric Baugin Mark Gruner
Master Sinh Jean Topart Hal Smith
Adult Terr (Narrator) Jean Valmont Barry Bostwick
Om Yves Barsacq Hal Smith (old and sorcerer)
Master Taj Gérard Hernandez Olan Soule
Dragg Child Mark Lesser Janet Waldo