The Wild Planet is a product of its time. The 70s, the era of the “new wave” of science fiction, absorbed the philosophy of psychedelic culture and the aesthetics of surrealism. The era when Alejandro Jodorowski and Hans Rudy Giger created, David Lynch began his career, the great madman Dali, who had already become a classic and patriarch of avant-gardeism, was still alive. In short, the era when templates, clichés, standard images and settings were considered bad taste – more than ever.
And there’s nothing standard about Wild Planet: experimentation and provocation. Alien decadents, a parody of the aristocracy. A slight touch of eroticism, half-naked heroes. The acutely raised issue of the oppression of one race by another (then it did not look as bold as it did in the sixties, but the fight against racism was not yet trivialized by the marasm of political correctness and legislative excesses as it is in our time). The aesthetics are just as rebellious – the flora and fauna of an alien planet, the culture and art of giants look truly alien, alien. Everything we see on the screen is devoid of template, unusual, exotic. How is this lacking in modern animated and film fiction (yes, in literature and video games, the situation is not better), looking at which you dullly note: “it was still in Star Wars, they stole from DOOM, this is from anime, and this is from Marvel comics!”. .
As for the story told in the cartoon, it is about the mind striving for freedom, development and exploration of new spaces, both physical and mental. The Wild Planet optimistically states that no matter what conditions a person is driven into, he will always strive to throw off oppression and become the master of his fate and his future. Found in the picture reflection and theories about the cyclical life of civilizations – reborn of savagery humanity thanks to its spiritual youth, drive, bravely and successfully confronts the blue-skinned aesthetes-decadents with their pretentious art, strange science, blind confidence in superiority and impunity. In the slumbering calmness and fascist complacency of the giants, the seeds of the death of a civilization that has forgotten how to change, lost its openness and thirst for progress grow.
The bottom line: social and philosophical fiction, embodied in the aesthetics of psychedelics and surrealism. Fans of both the NF and intellectual cinema are required to watch.
9 out of 10