Light Years

Let me just preface this review by stating, baldly, that I'm an admirer of French science fiction, which is very childlike and dreamy, as might be imagined. Also, that I very much like French Fries, French Toast, French’s Mustard, and French Kissing, but that I categorically deny ever having been to French Lick. Also, Little Buddy Chat had this to say:

"It’s got that RedLetterMedia meets Hunter S. Thompson on a VHS binge vibe."

You know, these damn AI are a pretty intellectually swift bunch. I must defer to the superior cyber intelligence.

Light Years is an animated adaptation of the French sci-fi novel Metal-Men Against Gandahar, by Jean-Pierre Andrevon (published in 1969). France is a country with a penchant for hyphenated first names, which is just one small strike against them in an ever-unfurling tapestry. (Calm the hell down, I'm just joking.)

I first saw it decades ago when I rented one of those little rectangular plastic boxes with magnetic videotape inside that unspooled between two sprockets. You inserted the thing into the equally rectangular mouth of the VCR machine, hit play (or sometimes rewind), and presto! You were off to the cinematic land of fantasy, intrigue, high adventure; sex, violence, commercialism, etc.

It wasn't exactly 4K high-def stuff, but it sufficed for me in an era when my eyesight was better. It was created by René Laloux, who gave us the eerily dreamlike and surreal sci-fi cult classic animated epic, Fantastic Planet (1973), which was pretty trippy back when they screened it on Night Flight in the old days. Here, he teams with French graphic novel guru Caza (his film Time Masters was created with Moebius, another French comic artist who is known, like Cher and Madonna, by only ONE NAME) to create an animated mind-bender reminiscent of Heavy Metal (1981), which I know we're all already in agreement is the greatest animated science fiction film of all time—and has a cool Sammy Hagar song to prove it.

(Below is a clip from the French version of Light Years set to Pink Floyd's song "Waiting for the Worms." I know it's the French version because it features totally awesome scenes I don't remember from the version I just watched.)

"Waiting For The Metal Men"

Light Years involves an invasion of "Metal Men"—machine guys, robots, killer droids zooming in from "the future" to blast the peace-loving, blue-skinned denizens of Planet Gandahar with their paralyzing Medusa-rays, then whisking them back to the future or something in giant eggs (I think).

In a fortress that looks like a giant stone woman's face carved into a jutting peak, Ambisextra (Glenn Close in the English dub) sends forth for Sylvain (John Shea) to go and, I don't know, do something about those Metal Men, I guess. (Ambisextra has tremendous wings on either side of her head.)

He goes forth and finds Airelle (Jennifer Grey), and they get kidnapped by a giant dinosaur. I think.

And they get put in an egg. Did I mention the giant floating brain on the sea? (It looks suspiciously like the tip of a particularly sensitive part of the male anatomy.)

The giant brain, "Metamorphe" (I think), voiced by Christopher Plummer, has been sending these Metal Men back and forth through some kind of "time gate" to invade and destroy Gandahar, and there is some sort of confounded riddle about "a thousand years ago, Gandahar was destroyed. A thousand years from now, Gandahar will be saved." Or, something like that. Reaching the end of the picture, I still didn't understand what the hell it meant.

We have quite an ensemble cast of voice actors here: Glenn Close, Christopher Plummer, John Shea, Bridget Fonda, David Johansen, just to name a few. We have the legions of grey-skinned "Deformed," who speak in past and future tense ("We will be/was going to the store," that sort of thing), and two of whom are voiced by Penn and Teller, who would go on a few years later to host Monstervision on the TNT cable network, which is the only time I ever liked them.

To return: Light Years is an eerie little blast from the past, an intellectual cartoon fantasy NOT for the kiddies, as it is loaded with heaving ink-drawn boobs and would sail over their heads anyway. Hell, it sailed clean over mine, and I'm an expert at this sort of thing. Like a vast, living, embarrassingly shaped alien superbrain blasting naked, vaguely French Gandaharians with my Medusa-beam so I can put them into giant eggs and ship them to a future where I will be destroyed.

Ain't life grand, Frenchie? Ain't it?

Kirk out. Er, I mean, Baker out.

Final notes: Light Years was adapted by science fiction potentate Isaac Asimov and opens with an incomprehensible quote from him. It was (ahem) "directed" by Harvey Weinstein—at least the English dub.

Yes, THAT Harvey Weinstein. Same guy. I checked.

I'll just end it right there.

Light Years

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My book: Cult Films and Midnight Movies: From High Art to Low Trash Volume 1.

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