A Franco-Hungarian sci-fi animation film by director Rene Laloux, based in the Stefan Wul's book The Orphan of Perdide.
Time Masters is the story of a space voyage to rescue child Piel, stranded in Planet Perdide after the death of his parents, led by Jaffar -a friend of Piel's father-, Jaffar's friend Silbad, deposed mean Prince Matton and his sensitive daughter Bella.
The visuals of the movie are great and they have aged well. They mix the oniric-like colorful landscapes typical of Laloux with the visual style of comic master Moebius. In fact, the atmosphere and the desert landscapes, with orange-ish colors, and the design of the spaceships and space landscapes are very Moebius, but the paradise-lost-like colorful creative planets, its vegetation, fauna and creatures, are very Laloux.
The general storyline was good and with many good ideas and elements, but they are not harmonically or coherently put together. The script is too simplistic sometimes, confusing and twisted some others. The story of the stranded kid is simple but beautiful and allows us to explore planet Perdide with him, and also to see the planets that Jaffar pass/stop by during his voyage to Perdide. This part is more ethnographic, so to speak, and beautiful to watch, but the story told is very simple. Some philosophical digressions -a Laloux's film signature- are superimposed to that simple story. Firstly, we have the charming and playful conversations between the two human-like plant-derived "gnomes" Jad and Yula, which focus on the corruption of human thoughts, which, literally, stink to them most of the time, and the prevalence of economical value over beauty, which they don't understand and consider ridiculous - very New Age. Secondly, we have the pompous ceremonious robot-like winged faceless beings of planet Gamma 10, a bunch of mentally abducted people turned into a uniform mass of sameness that hates individuality and destroys any individual landing in the planet by turning him/her into one of them.
None of these elements seem to glue together, as they have different narrative and visual styles, messages and stories, without internal logic to make them believable.
I found the original French dubbing completely dull for most characters, except for the voices of Silbad, and the adorable Yula and Jad. Most importantly, despite the movie being a sci-fi one, and being filmed in the 1980s, when special effects were well developed, the ambient sound and editing are dreadful, so much so that, if we close our eyes, we don't feel that we are watching a sci-fi movie at all. It doesn't help either that some silly childish songs are put in the middle of the movie for no reason.
The end is fantastic, and one wonders why the tempo wasn't built to display it better.
It is an interesting movie to watch, for its individual elements (drawing of the planets, vegetation, fauna and creatures associated to them, and the philosophical bits), but pretentious sometimes, and poorly edited.
By the way, the design of the patrol cruiser of the Interplanetary Reform Federation characters and some of the "pirate" characters reminded me of Star Wars.
Time Masters is the story of a space voyage to rescue child Piel, stranded in Planet Perdide after the death of his parents, led by Jaffar -a friend of Piel's father-, Jaffar's friend Silbad, deposed mean Prince Matton and his sensitive daughter Bella.
The visuals of the movie are great and they have aged well. They mix the oniric-like colorful landscapes typical of Laloux with the visual style of comic master Moebius. In fact, the atmosphere and the desert landscapes, with orange-ish colors, and the design of the spaceships and space landscapes are very Moebius, but the paradise-lost-like colorful creative planets, its vegetation, fauna and creatures, are very Laloux.
The general storyline was good and with many good ideas and elements, but they are not harmonically or coherently put together. The script is too simplistic sometimes, confusing and twisted some others. The story of the stranded kid is simple but beautiful and allows us to explore planet Perdide with him, and also to see the planets that Jaffar pass/stop by during his voyage to Perdide. This part is more ethnographic, so to speak, and beautiful to watch, but the story told is very simple. Some philosophical digressions -a Laloux's film signature- are superimposed to that simple story. Firstly, we have the charming and playful conversations between the two human-like plant-derived "gnomes" Jad and Yula, which focus on the corruption of human thoughts, which, literally, stink to them most of the time, and the prevalence of economical value over beauty, which they don't understand and consider ridiculous - very New Age. Secondly, we have the pompous ceremonious robot-like winged faceless beings of planet Gamma 10, a bunch of mentally abducted people turned into a uniform mass of sameness that hates individuality and destroys any individual landing in the planet by turning him/her into one of them.
None of these elements seem to glue together, as they have different narrative and visual styles, messages and stories, without internal logic to make them believable.
I found the original French dubbing completely dull for most characters, except for the voices of Silbad, and the adorable Yula and Jad. Most importantly, despite the movie being a sci-fi one, and being filmed in the 1980s, when special effects were well developed, the ambient sound and editing are dreadful, so much so that, if we close our eyes, we don't feel that we are watching a sci-fi movie at all. It doesn't help either that some silly childish songs are put in the middle of the movie for no reason.
The end is fantastic, and one wonders why the tempo wasn't built to display it better.
It is an interesting movie to watch, for its individual elements (drawing of the planets, vegetation, fauna and creatures associated to them, and the philosophical bits), but pretentious sometimes, and poorly edited.
By the way, the design of the patrol cruiser of the Interplanetary Reform Federation characters and some of the "pirate" characters reminded me of Star Wars.