Gandahar

Plot synopsis:
The peaceful people of Gandahar are suddenly attacked by an army of automatons known as the Men of Metal, who march through the villages and kidnap their victims by turning them to stone. The resulting statues are collected and then transferred to their base. At the capital city of Jasper, the Council of Women orders Sylvain to investigate. On his journey, he encounters the Deformed, a race of mutant beings who were accidentally created via genetic experimentation by Gandahar’s scientists. Despite their resentment, they are also threatened by the Men of Metal and offer to help Sylvain.
Sylvain later saves Airelle, a Gandaharian woman. Together they discover the Men of Metal’s base, where the frozen Gandaharians are taken through a large portal and are seemingly assimilated into more Men of Metal. The two stow away on a nearby boat which heads towards the middle of the ocean where they encounter Metamorphis, a giant brain. Sylvain and Airelle are captured and confronted by Metamorphis, who tells them that although the Men of Metal believe that he is their leader, he did not create them nor order their attack. He states that he does not want to see Gandahar fall, and that he needs time to figure out the connection between him and the Men of Metal. He then returns Sylvain and Airelle to Jasper where they learn that Metamorphis, like the Deformed, was also an experiment by Gandaharian scientists. Due to his rapid growth and increasingly violent behavior, he was abandoned in the ocean. Sylvain is ordered to kill Metamorphis with a special syringe. Sylvain returns to Metamorphis, who maintains his innocence but reveals that the Men of Metal come from the future via the portal Sylvain saw earlier. He then urges Sylvain to kill him in a thousand years, as the syringe would have no effect on him now. A skeptical Sylvain agrees and Metamorphis puts him into stasis.
A thousand years later, Sylvain awakens just as they had agreed. He comes across the Deformed, who explain the true nature behind the Men of Metal: Due to Metamorphis’s now advanced age, his cells can no longer regenerate, which drove him to create the Men of Metal and order them to go back in time to capture the Gandaharians so he could absorb their cells to continue living, killing the Gandaharians in the process. The Deformed, however, were abandoned as they were considered undesirable. Sylvain and the Deformed then agree to work together. The Deformed fight off the Men of Metal and rescue the remaining Gandaharians while Sylvain goes to face Metamorphis alone. The Deformed destroy the reservoir supplying Metamorphis with new cells, distracting him long enough to let Sylvain inject the syringe into Metamorphis which kills him. Sylvain, along with the Deformed and the Gandaharians escape through the portal back to their time.

Tags: cult, psychedelic

Review:
'Light Years' is a work of sci-fi animation that really stands apart from the pack.
For those individuals such as Leonard Maltin, whom dismissed this movie as a pretentious 'talky' cartoon, you must understand that 'Light Years' tells a very human story about irresponsible inventions and ignorance in a completely ALIEN setting; this is the true magic of the film!
French animator Rene Laloux of "Fantastic Planet" renown, attempted to make another surreal sci-fi adventure with the 80's "Ghandar" or as Isac Asimov and Harvey Wienstien decided to call it for those of us in the states "Light Years", which since no...
space travel takes place, and since the movie is about a fictional country called "Gandahar" is probably a bad title.
"Light Years" I guess sounds more sci-fi-ish, and if this film was to succeed in the states(it didn't) it was gonna need every bit of conventionality it could muster.The story is a complex one involving the standard sci-fi tropes of eugenics, time travel, death, and utopia, and though it's certainly more involved than most animated sci-fi (a good deal of the time were watching the characters talk), it's really the visualization of the world and it's inhabitants which makes this movie worth seeing.Like "Fantastic Planet" before it, Laloux's environments are some of the most alien that have ever been imagined.
The landscape is often undulating Daliesuqe deserts, which strange trees which resemble simultaneously bodily organs and geysers, a young girl offering her breast to a new born who looks like a tapir, born out of a grown embryonic plant, a city of underground mutants who resemble Blemmyes, ancient African monsters with heads beneath their shoulders, an army hollow soldiers who turn people into statues, video camera like birds who can lift entire buildings in swarms, and of course a colossal mile wide sentient brain in the middle of the ocean.Laloux uses sci-fi story structures to create, very evocative images that do not look like anyone else's, ever, something few filmmakers in any medium or genre, can claim with straight face.That being said the English voice acting is just decent, not great but decent, it keeps the story moving, but doesn't draw you into any of the characters.
"Light Years" like "Fantastic Planet" or the animated films of Svankmajer are more concerned with form than content, but not oblivious of the latter.So if you like heady sci-fi, visually stunning design, and unique animation, this is not to be passed up.
If not it's probably not bad to see once anyway, just for the visual treat of it all, and the more I mull over the story, not the plot, I'm more impressed with how well and vividly it told me a story I've heard a hundred times before..
Animation shows us lifeforms and landscapes the likes of which cannot be seen on this Earth.
Anyway, this is an amazing film that should be checked out by all anime fans as well as fans of films like Heavy Metal, or master animator Ralph Bakshi's works.
Light Years is one of the most enlightening animated works on this planet..
This film was one of the first science fiction cartoons I had  seen.
If you have never seen a single sci-fi film before, then this is the perfect blend of action and thought provoking images to introduce you to the genre.
Most plot driven films and stories are like that: We're given the bare bones of our protagonist, and watch him or her weave their way through a story.Such it is with "Light Years." The animation is certainly above the quality of your typical commercial studio, but is not as dazzling as say a Japanese Anime space opera, nor a Disney Production feature; but it does have a certain quality unto itself.
Even so the movie could've used more shots (cutaways and general coverage) to help move the story and highlight the characters more.
In some scene the animation is very smooth, where other times is seems very long and drawn out, or just not well staged.The film itself has action, but some of the it is stilted and painfully slow, where other times it moves quite well.
The dubbing is adequate, though, like all dubbed films, one gets the sense that it doesn't quite catch the tones and inflections of the voices from the original French cast.Technology and regimented existence are pitted against the organic and under-dogs of Ghandahar in a typical sci-fi theme.
The film's worth a night's rental, and if you like collecting rare sci-fi this might be one to add to your collection.
The French film is more prosaic and "European" (for lack of a better term) in its presentation of a world in crisis.
A kind of ethereal drawn out emotionalism that you'd never see in an American film, but is fairly strong in Russian and Swedish cinema, and hits French and Italian films in a less powerful vein.I would be interested in seeing a DVD of the American version to make a more thought out and proper comparison.
A beautiful adult animated science fiction.
The best part about this movie is the animation.
The main protagonist has absolutely no personality throughout the movie and his voice acting isn't very good either,and his love interest has a bit more but still is more like a cipher.
Despite it's flaws, I think this movie would be great for animation and science fiction fans..
I've seen it for the first time when I was in my early teens (12 or 13, not sure), and I was really impressed by the animation and the plot.
Besides, I didn't have a chance to see a lot of sci-fi movies (let alone animated movies) back then.Now, that I've been able to see it again, I find it really outdated (or "old-skul") - pretty much, it felt like Kubrick's "Space Odissey" animated, only that "Gandahar" came out in late 80es, when "Akira" set a new industry standard.
The plot is more or less predictable, the sci-fi backgrounds looked like something from mid-70es, and the battle scenes are even worse than those of cheap Japanimation TV series.Despite all the bad things above, this movie got a touch of a master.
First, I have to admit that movement animation feels highly original (I can't think of anything similar) and is done with a lot of skill.
Finally, I find character design very good.To sum up, I don't think that this is quite the right movie to see "just for fun", but for those who are interested in animation it is definitely a must..
Even though the story was not originally from Asimov, for those who have read most of Asimov's classic science fiction (as a friend says, Asimov's Science fiction written in the 40's will always be science fiction even in 2006), the world 'Gandahar' represents an Asimov' Utopia-not in our galaxy- just like in the books, "The Gods Themselves", and "Foundation's Edge" (Gaia).
The movie is very surreal and artistic but compared to other contemporary science fiction animations, it is not that technically sound.
Some of the ideas I liked in the movie are: Before the beginning credits, one sees a fisherwoman using music to catch flying fish, the illustration of banished deformed people, and the use of genetically modified creatures in transportation, war and reconnaissance (one- eyed "mirror birds").
I haven't seen this film since I was about 11 years old (no rental store has it), however this is an excellent movie, filled with prophecies, rebellion, and good morals.Gandahar is set during a time when an empire rules the world with a steady fist, and a person is sent to the future to fulfill a prophecy created by the ruler 1000 years before.
If you like Dune, Blade Runner, Star Wars, The Matrix, or any George Lucas film, then this movie is definitely worth a watch..
Version watched: Gandahar - with English subtitles.I have a suspicion that most of the people who regard this film with such high esteem first saw it when they were kids and watch it now in a glow of happy nostalgia.
Coming to it for the first time as a middle-aged man this film is a clumsily animated, ponderously slow, soporific bore; the much lauded 'truly alien' landscapes and animals are disappointingly dull compared with the lurid and fertile illustrations that filled the pages of the SF magazines I grew up reading in the Sixties and Seventies, and the story is very clichéd and thin.
Which is a pity, because I came to Gandahar with fond childhood memories of René Laloux's 1967 film La planète sauvage and was hoping for some real screen magic.I always try to learn something from every film I watch, this time I think I learnt that maybe sometimes the memory of a film is more vital, interesting and real than the film itself.
I haven't seen La planète sauvage for many many years and having seen this I doubt if I ever will again, just in case I destroy the fond memories I have of it.I also learnt that if you read really really fast you can watch subtitled films on fast forward and not miss a sodding thing..
"Time Masters" is much better, but if you like "Time Masters" (and like it much more than "The Fantastic Planet") then you'll probably like "Gandahar" (aka "Light Years") too.
It's true, it has a lot of talk, but that's because it HAS a real story instead of other so called adult animation movies.
The music wasn't bad (I even find it good), but especially one music was getting on my nerves at the end of the film.
The animation isn't a breakthrough either, but with it's light effects and the fantastic backgrounds it was 100 times better than the animation in Fantastic Planet.
On the other hand it's falling to dust if compared to the best Japanese animation films at that time like "Akira" for example.Go and decide for yourself!.
While Rene Laloux's Fantastic Planet is his most famous film, I consider Light Years his best.
Like Fantastic Planet, it is extraordinarily imaginative and visually striking.
There are all sorts of odd moments; swirling brain cells forming shapes, a woman suckling a strange creature, a tribe of misshapen people, each one different in equally twisted and disturbed ways.However, this movie has a much more engrossing story than Fantastic Planet.
It is a weird tale of time travel and bizarre experimentation, with a hero who often seems more flukishly lucky than skilled.I saw the English-dub version, as opposed to the original French version called Gandahar.
I found the original on youtube and watched a little, and I would say the original score was better, but not by so much that it really effects the movie.
Since the youtube video was in French, I can't tell if the story or dialogue are especially different.For me, this is easily the best of Laloux's three features (followed by Fantastic Planet)..
Like the others I was only watching a minute here or a minute there to see how ridiculous or bad these movies really were, but when I found this movie it was different.
I eventually got to the point though where I stopped skipping around at all, I just watched the last half hour of the film in whole.
Now that night I had 0 plans of watching a whole movie, just spend maybe an hour jumping around different old animations on a playlist until a certain point that night where I had plans.
It feels too easy to call Rene Laloux's animated movies "trippy", as if one can only appreciate them while on drugs.
Unfortunately, Gandahar was his last feature film, and not his best.
But for animation buffs or fans of weird sci-fi, it's well worth a look.Gandahar uses a fairly straightforward, action-driven space opera plot line.
Most of the above-mentioned weirdness comes from a race of misshapen seers that speak in impossible tenses, and a plot that requires time travel to a point which is simultaneously past and future.
Between that and the violence, Gandahar is certainly much less child-friendly than Laloux's other films.Gandahar isn't really original as a whole, although there's a lot of fun absurdities like giant crabs throwing rocks at armies of metal men.
I rented this film because I am a fan of 'adult' animation, and because it was directed by Rene Laloux, who also did 'Fantastic Planet'.
The animation is not that good, and the music is very cheesy.
Skip this movie, and rent 'Fantastic Planet' instead..
This is the sort of thing that gives non-children's animation a bad name, and SCI-FI for that matter.
Although I've only seen versions of this with English subtitles, the masterpiece that it is kept me drawn in with interesting characters and awesome action sequences.
One of my favorite animated movies of all time!.
I have started watching all of the Rene Laloux animation films.
For me, Fantastic Planet was a perfect film, for example.
Gandahar starts with a similar story: sometime in the future, a colony of Earth where people have achieved nirvana by using biotechnology is attacked by metal men.
While in Fantastic Planet it lent authority to the race of Traggs, here it just sounds like lazy voice acting.
Perhaps the American voice-over, with huge stars like Glenn Close and Christopher Plummer would have been better, but I make a point of sampling the original version of a movie.My conclusion: after 15 years since La Planete Sauvage (Fantastic Planet) a movie with a similar alien theme, but a much weaker story and no real increase in animation quality, cannot impress me.
It is still a nice film to watch, but my expectations were very high to begin with.
Gandahar, aka Light Years DVD does exist!.
One of my all time favorite movies from my childhood.
Up there with Fantastic Planet, Hey Good Looking, and many other of similar nature.
The later have a speaking device which will not add to your comprehension of the ending of the movie about talking in then-now-later, "I will did are going gone went over under behind then now later." May well be as enjoyable with your favorite psychedelic music as soundtrack instead of that business, fun to watch high.
René Laloux never did make another movie as intriguingly bizarre as "Fantastic Planet".
It provides not only a sci-fi world, but one with no relation to our planet Earth.
Fantastic Planet's use of color, stop motion, and music emphasized the alien feeling.
The robots look like they came from the 50s, and the "rebellion" at the end has been seen dozens of times after Star Wars.Still, there are some cool, weird scenes and concepts in the movie.
Make sure NOT to watch the "Light Years" English dub cut!
The Harvey Weinstein-edited, American version of Rene Laloux's ambitious 1988 feature "Gandahar" is a lavish, mostly satisfying animated spectacle.
Having not seen the pre-Weistein version, it is frustrating to wonder how much of Laloux's original intent was lost in Weistein's decidedly Americanized cut, but what remains is an intelligent, fresh and well-layered fantasy romp.Weinstein seemed to hold "Star Wars" as a reference point, as he wielded the classical, Campbellian hero structure to ground its complex visual designs in familiar storytelling.
These designs immediately plunge the viewer into the peaceful alien civilization of Gandahar, a beautiful blue world inhabited by intelligent creatures who enjoy a blissful political harmony.
They pull their resources together and fight the army using their wits, giving way to a third act that puts its building ideas into a fine focus while also delivering the expectedly rousing action goods."Gandahar" grounds its thesis in the fact that a civilization's strength lies in a fully integrated sense of past, present and future.
As a political statement, the film works incredibly well, as its blend of sci/fi philosophy and politics fit together naturally - reminding one that great mythology is traditionally political.As an auteur piece, however, it's hard to ignore an overall lack of sheer, artistic wonder.
Weinstein's (or whoever's) familiar structuring balances the film's many layers elegantly, but there is a definite artistic compromise present that will likely be disappointing to fans of Laloux's "Fantastic Planet." Much of the movie has a Disney-like simplification of its world and logic that prevents it from fully captivating the viewer with its whimsical absurdities.
"Fantastic Planet" is spellbinding because it treats its viewer like a visiting alien, never over-explaining or belaboring its genuinely bizarre imagery and focusing mainly on an amazingly distanced, otherworldly mood – one which would have been suffocated by a driving, centralized plot.
In this way, "Gandahar" disappoints in its overall familiarity, favoring traditional story tropes over bold originality.To a viewer looking for a multifaceted, accessible science fiction fantasy, however, the film is a treat.
René Laloux was a very talented French film director of animation films.
His most successful film is Fantastic Planet (1973) La planète sauvage (original title).
This Gandahar, made 15 years later in 1988, is a success too, not at the same high level as the Fantastic Planet, but still successful.
It is a very good anticipation movie.
While renewing a 70's vision of sex, nature and happiness, the colors, sounds and pictures (a young girl offering her breast to a new born invented animal who looks like a tapir, born out of a grown plant).
Seen first when I was about 12 or so, Light Years (as it is known in the US) was a fantastic, dreamlike journey through a surreal Sci-Fi landscape.
A note to parents though, like an earlier comment mentioned, there is some partial nudity at a few points during the film.
Which isn't usually a problem, unless it causes me and my wife to lose over an hour of our lives on what essentially looks like a film school project.Animation:
Call it ground breaking as much as you like, "not very jerky for its time" is the best one can objectively say about it.
It would have been advisable for the soundtrack people to have actually watched the movie.Story: