[ News
| Homes
| Life
| Entertainment
| History
| Science
| Community
| Shop ]
| Sport
| Culture
| Cars
| Money
| Broadband
| Learning
| Health
| Dating
| Games ]
[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
Animation would seem the perfect medium for creating imaginary worlds, yet outside Japan there is scant feature film tradition of drawn animated sci-fi and futuristic fantasy. Its contribution in the West is mainly in manipulating film frame by frame to create special effects in live action sci-fi movies, enhanced now by digital technologies to a point that some claim make big Hollywood spectaculars as much animation as live action.
A rare exception is French director René Laloux, whose three sci-fi features all use designs by famous French comic book artists: the 70s cult classic, Fantastic Planet (Roland Topor), Ghandarar (Philippe Cazar) and for Les Maîtres du Temps, this week's Hot Shot, Moebius.
Under attack
Moebius' own themes cross into social political issues, questioning the future of mankind in the face of totalitarianism, or technology gone mad. Satire is the chosen weapon of Phil Mulloy in his savage attack on human stupidity, set on another planet, for his film Intolerance and its sequel The Invasion, screening in the Sci-fi night.
The recent computer animated feature, Final Fantasy, is another parable on the human race's capacity for self-destruction. Derived from a successful interactive video game, it is the first time that a spin-off film has been directed by the original designer: Hirobu Sakaguichi. Four years in the making in a custom-built digital studio, the film attempts to combine Japanese anime aesthetics with Hollywood movie conventions, with many American artist veterans of 3D features Antz and Toy Story. Some might question the point of creating photo-realistic and 'believable' human characters, although Sakaguichi maintains this is essential to match the fantasy environment created in CGI.
While the issue of 'synthespians' makes for good debate, getting star names to voice characters is now seen as indispensable to the success of animated features, for instance Robin Williams' genie in Aladdin, or Eddie Murphy in Mulan. Sakaguichi wryly points out that since they spent around US$8 million getting the hair right on their lead female character, synthespians don't save much money on the budget!
Miniaturisation - the subject of cult sci-fi classics like Fantastic Voyage or The Incredible Shrinking Man - seems to have entered the animation world as a potent force for direct communication with the Palmation movement (see Toon Commandments).
Moebius
Moebius (aka Jean Giraud) is regarded as a leading author in France, free of the UK's intellectual snobbery of comic culture. A founder member of the influential Métal Hurlant magazine, his books - or albums - often deal with futuristic themes. Given his graphic imagination it is not surprising he is now working on his own feature film.
Moebius' first film experience was with legendary director Jodorowsky (El Topo) who asked him to production design a film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. That version never got made, but special effects artist on the project Dan O'Bannon later got Moebius to do some designs for Alien, which brought him to the attention of director Ridley Scott. Moebius was unavailable when Scott asked him to contribute to Bladerunner, and it wasn't until Aliens that they worked together. In 1984 Moebius moved to the USA for a while, working on Disney's Tron and James Cameron's Abyss, and designing a number of characters for Ron Howard's Willow.
| Palmation | |
| First Commandment. | Free the film |
| Second Commandment. | Less is more |
| Third Commandment. | Silence is golden |
| Fourth Commandment. | Power to the people |
| Fifth Commandment. | Beam me up Scotty |
Best of British | Sci-fi | Japan | Blaxploitation
| Outrageous | Music
Access
advice
For web users with disabilities.
Graphic version
Includes layout and images.