IMDb RATING
7.0/10
5.7K
YOUR RATING
An evil force begins to destroy the idyllic paradise of Gandahar, where the citizens are in perfect harmony with nature.An evil force begins to destroy the idyllic paradise of Gandahar, where the citizens are in perfect harmony with nature.An evil force begins to destroy the idyllic paradise of Gandahar, where the citizens are in perfect harmony with nature.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
Glenn Close
- Ambisextra
- (English version)
- (voice)
Christopher Plummer
- Metamorphis
- (English version)
- (voice)
Catherine Chevallier
- Airelle
- (voice)
Georges Wilson
- Métamorphe
- (voice)
Anny Duperey
- Ambisextra
- (voice)
Jean-Pierre Ducos
- Blaminhor
- (voice)
Christine Paris
- Porte-parole
- (voice)
Dominique Maurin
- Transformés
- (voice)
- (as Dominique Maurin-Collignon)
Jean Saudray
- Transformés
- (voice)
Frédéric Witta
- Transformés
- (voice)
Philippe Noël
- Transformés
- (voice)
Philippe Duclos
- Transformés
- (voice)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe film is based on the 1969 novel "Les Hommes-machines contre Gandahar" (The Machine-Men versus Gandahar) by Jean-Pierre Andrevon.
- Alternate versionsThe Miramax Dubbed version is edited from the original French release. Most of the editing is from the first 36 minutes from the film. In the Miramax cut there is a new introduction of a quote by Issac Asimov, and an extended ending using footage from earlier in the film. The French cut ends with the head floating through the air. The French version contains roughly 6 minutes and 37 seconds more footage than the Miramax version(not including the Opening Titles and Credits). A lot of this is dialogue and more intimate scenes between Sylvain and Airelle in the nest and on the ship to Métamorphe. There is also a sequence cut of the black robots which is also shown in a montage inside Métamorphe later in the film.
- ConnectionsEdited into The History of the Hands (2016)
Featured review
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.
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.
- How long is Gandahar?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $370,698
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $48,665
- Jan 31, 1988
- Gross worldwide
- $370,698
- Runtime1 hour 18 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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