Nonureva Really Surprised!

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

siderite I have started watching all of the Rene Laloux animation films. They are imaginative, intriguing, original. 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. They are in essence the Cybermen of Doctor Who. Spoiled by their perfect world, Gandaharians don't know how to defend themselves anymore. They send "their best, but inexperienced, agent", whatever that means, to investigate. Thus we get to see the strange alien planet, meet their nemesis and understand the story.So strange alien planet it is. Nice absurd ecosystem: check. Unabashedly naked women, European style? Galore. Weird and spooky soundtrack, too. But the story was weak, the cautionary moral not really well detailed and, worst of all, the arrogant cerebral intonation of all dialogue did not work in this film. 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. Also, for 1988, the year of Grave of the Fireflies and even Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the animation feels really outdated.

junk-monkey 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 very much doubt if this is a new idea but I'm not going to put it to the test. 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.

arsenick It is a very good anticipation movie. the part describing the lovely and environmental gandahar is wonderful. 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). the story: mixing future and past, threatening the present by having itself created in the past, the elements that will be dangerous in the future. It is also a huge criticism of the liability of the human being regarding its evil habit to master the nature, th human body and science. In the end, scientific rubbish save the human beings from a great scientific discovery they made years ago. Happiness is conditioned by assuming one's mistakes. A great philosophical tale. The blue skinned woman with head-wings is very impressive, as well as the very beautiful nude females.

andriy-tanatar Well, I have to admit that I hunted this particular movie for 10 years. 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. Second, the voices (in French) are much better than anything I've heard. 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.