2003, Ages 13 and Up
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of an alien music group who must escape the clutches of an evil tech wizard.
(3/7/25)
Gather round and I’ll tell you the tale of an alien music group who must escape the clutches of an evil tech wizard.
(3/7/25)
When I heard that Daft Punk was retiring in 2021, my heart ached a little, as I harbor very fond memories of my phase with the French electronic duo. I remember when I first heard their famous hit, “One More Time,” on the radio; admittedly, though I liked it, my mind wasn’t exactly blown, not at first. But then came the night of my 9th grade Homecoming dance—my favorite of the four I attended because I heard more than just Rap the entire night. Also, unlike the dances of my sophomore, junior and senior years, at this one they set up a screen on the gymnasium wall on which music videos of the songs played were projected. One of these was the aforementioned Daft Punk song, whose video I now saw with surprised delight was an anime. Even better, as Toonami Midnight Run: Special Edition later confirmed, it was no stand-alone short. Now my mind was blown.
On a distant planet in another galaxy, a race of peaceful, blue-skinned humanoids enjoys a concert performed by their local pop group, comprised of Octave, the smooth-singing lead vocalist and keyboardist; Stella, the kind and lovely female bassist; strong-willed guitarist, Arpegius; and comical, short-statured drummer, Baryl. The tower guards also listen in with great pleasure from their post—not realizing until it’s much too late that their planet is being invaded. The crowd is knocked out and the quartet kidnapped, but not before a desperate SOS is sent out to Shep, a brave space pilot out on patrol. Determined to rescue the band (particularly Stella), he follows the invading ship through a wormhole all the way to planet Earth. There, the helpless four are transformed physically and mentally into humans by the evil Earl de Darkwood, who forces them to perform as the hottest new music sensation, the Crescendolls, for his own nefarious purposes. With Shep’s help, Octave, Stella, Arpegius, and Baryl must find a way to restore their memories and their forms in order to stop Darkwood from using them and their music to realize his insane dream of universal conquest.
In the process of recording their second studio album, 2001’s Discovery, and considering ideas for the tracks’ music videos, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo—known collectively as Daft Punk—decided they wanted to create an accompanying film which would blend sci-fi with entertainment industry culture. Eventually settling on the format of animation, the duo recalled their childhood love of anime, especially that of legendary Japanese manga artist, Leiji Matsumoto, one of their favorites being his acclaimed 1978 space opera series, Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Through a connection with music company Toshiba EMI (now EMI Music Japan, Inc.), Daft Punk was introduced to Toei Animation in Tokyo, where they at last got to meet their hero in person in hopes of a collaboration. Matsumoto, for his part, was touched by the duo’s praise of his work, not to mention fascinated by the robot disguises they were known to don in public. He himself had been greatly inspired by French films and had a wish of his own to create a piece of animation set to his other great love, music, living by the belief that “musicians are magicians.” Needless to say, he was more than happy to join the animation team as visual supervisor. The result was Interstella 5555 (that’s “four-five” as opposed to “five-five-five-five” or “quadruple-five,” likely as an homage to another famous work of Matsumoto’s, Galaxy Express 999, pronounced “three-nine,” as opposed to “nine-nine-nine” or “triple-nine”).
Funny side note: I see this movie as sort of a reversal of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine: the blue music-loving creatures in this Pepperland-like paradise equally praise their futuristic equivalent to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, while the human Darkwood and his followers make the music-hating Chief Blue Meanie and his minions look like Gru and his Minions. Somehow, I think I’d rather endure Chief’s bleak utter silence than Darkwood’s warping of music for evil.
The film is presented much like Walt Disney’s Fantasia: a compilation of short films whose events are portrayed through music and visuals alone. But instead of a batch of unrelated pieces with wildly differing plots and tones all strung together, here we have the official music videos of all fourteen of Discovery’s tracks in chronological order, each one a separate episode which makes up part of a sort of hour-long miniseries. Though there is no dialogue, sometimes a character will be seen “singing” via the tracks, like when Octave is vocalizing the lyrics performed by American DJ and singer, Romanthony, while the film’s band is “playing” “One More Time,” or when Shep is jamming to Daft Punk’s own vocals of “Digital Love” while cleaning his ship (and fantasizing about Stella) in outer space.
While this is an innovative format for a feature film, I imagine that anyone watching the individual videos for the first time and out of order may feel confusion due to a lack of context, like starting an unfamiliar movie or show at the halfway point. The only video I think feels the most complete on its own story-wise is “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” during which we see the unconscious band’s transformation process inside Darkwood’s underground science facility.
There is a minimal, but frankly, distracting, use of sound effects. This isn’t quite so bad when it’s done during silent intervals between songs, like the evening rainfall preceding “Nightvision,” but rather than enhancing a tone of some scenes as clearly intended, I find them jarring and annoying when right in the middle of a track I’m trying to listen to, like the car crash toward the end of “Superheroes” or the thunder storm in “Veridis Quo.” Mussorgsky got Chernabog’s point across quite clearly without sound effects, thank you very much!
Speaking of distraction, I wasn’t very familiar with Matsumoto’s work when I first saw this movie. But having since watched Harlock and Galaxy Express, along with early aughts’ miniseries like Cosmo Warrior Zero and Gun Frontier, his distinctive character designs—from his tall, slender ladies to his wide-mouthed, beady-eyed boys—make it near impossible for me now not to think of some of his most iconic characters here, Stella and Beryl, for instance, being dead ringers for Maetel and Tochiro, respectively. In a much more subtle example of intriguing character design, I believe the four humanized bandmates each represent a specific music genre. Now I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but the idea came to me after putting together the Earthly attire and the fake member bios shown on TV for the human fans. Stella represents Country, being “from Memphis” and dressed in a slim, tasseled jacket, miniskirt, and cowgirl boots; Arpegius represents Rock, being “from London” and sporting a torn-sleeved shirt, studded wrist bands, skinny black jeans, and sneakers; Baryl was harder for me to determine and this might be a bit of a stretch, but I’d guess that he represents Metal, being “from Munich” and wearing ragged clothes, a neck towel, fingerless gloves, and combat boots; and Octave represents Funk, being “from Brooklyn” and looking sharp in a Motown-era frilled shirt, jacket, and bell-bottoms straight from the Jackson Five.
Along with a mutual love and clear respect of science fiction on their parts, I think what makes this collaboration work is that Daft Punk’s initial concept of overcoming oppression and rebelling against an overly mechanized existence is one that Matsumoto often featured in his own stories. This idea is portrayed surprisingly well in the literal down-to-earth setting of the rich and glamorous but brutal profit-driven music industry. “One More Time” establishes the happiness the bandmates feel as they play for themselves and their people, via the song’s optimistic lyrics and jubilant tune and the bliss plain on their faces. Compare that to “Crescendolls”: the band, now humanized and brainwashed by Darkwood, is dragged from gig to gig, their expressions blank and lifeless despite their skyrocketing worldwide fame, all to the song’s constant background shouts and frenetic beat. This is followed by “Nightvision,” somehow both relaxing and sad at the same time, in which the group, even in a lush hotel room, move as if drunk or dying, as they’re forced to autograph countless pieces of merch without respite. However, the final track, “Too Long,” whose lyrics speak of freedom of mind and spirit after a long time without, shows a segment in which the band, safe and reformed but exhausted after their harrowing experience, gradually find their groove again, their sincere and relaxed music-making in a small but comfortable room gaining traction along with the song itself.
I think enjoyment of this film is going to depend largely on the viewer’s taste regarding not only Japanese animation and science fiction, but Daft Punk music and electronic music in general. Clocking in at sixty-five minutes, you’ll effectively be hearing the entirety of Daft Punk’s Discovery album from start to finish with no breaks between songs, which may or may not be your cup of tea regardless of the fantastic and exciting visual story going with it. Still, I think it’s always a beautiful thing when two masters of vastly different crafts come together like a classic anime mech of old to create a whole new duet for both the eye and the ear.
CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison
On a distant planet in another galaxy, a race of peaceful, blue-skinned humanoids enjoys a concert performed by their local pop group, comprised of Octave, the smooth-singing lead vocalist and keyboardist; Stella, the kind and lovely female bassist; strong-willed guitarist, Arpegius; and comical, short-statured drummer, Baryl. The tower guards also listen in with great pleasure from their post—not realizing until it’s much too late that their planet is being invaded. The crowd is knocked out and the quartet kidnapped, but not before a desperate SOS is sent out to Shep, a brave space pilot out on patrol. Determined to rescue the band (particularly Stella), he follows the invading ship through a wormhole all the way to planet Earth. There, the helpless four are transformed physically and mentally into humans by the evil Earl de Darkwood, who forces them to perform as the hottest new music sensation, the Crescendolls, for his own nefarious purposes. With Shep’s help, Octave, Stella, Arpegius, and Baryl must find a way to restore their memories and their forms in order to stop Darkwood from using them and their music to realize his insane dream of universal conquest.
In the process of recording their second studio album, 2001’s Discovery, and considering ideas for the tracks’ music videos, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo—known collectively as Daft Punk—decided they wanted to create an accompanying film which would blend sci-fi with entertainment industry culture. Eventually settling on the format of animation, the duo recalled their childhood love of anime, especially that of legendary Japanese manga artist, Leiji Matsumoto, one of their favorites being his acclaimed 1978 space opera series, Space Pirate Captain Harlock. Through a connection with music company Toshiba EMI (now EMI Music Japan, Inc.), Daft Punk was introduced to Toei Animation in Tokyo, where they at last got to meet their hero in person in hopes of a collaboration. Matsumoto, for his part, was touched by the duo’s praise of his work, not to mention fascinated by the robot disguises they were known to don in public. He himself had been greatly inspired by French films and had a wish of his own to create a piece of animation set to his other great love, music, living by the belief that “musicians are magicians.” Needless to say, he was more than happy to join the animation team as visual supervisor. The result was Interstella 5555 (that’s “four-five” as opposed to “five-five-five-five” or “quadruple-five,” likely as an homage to another famous work of Matsumoto’s, Galaxy Express 999, pronounced “three-nine,” as opposed to “nine-nine-nine” or “triple-nine”).
Funny side note: I see this movie as sort of a reversal of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine: the blue music-loving creatures in this Pepperland-like paradise equally praise their futuristic equivalent to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, while the human Darkwood and his followers make the music-hating Chief Blue Meanie and his minions look like Gru and his Minions. Somehow, I think I’d rather endure Chief’s bleak utter silence than Darkwood’s warping of music for evil.
The film is presented much like Walt Disney’s Fantasia: a compilation of short films whose events are portrayed through music and visuals alone. But instead of a batch of unrelated pieces with wildly differing plots and tones all strung together, here we have the official music videos of all fourteen of Discovery’s tracks in chronological order, each one a separate episode which makes up part of a sort of hour-long miniseries. Though there is no dialogue, sometimes a character will be seen “singing” via the tracks, like when Octave is vocalizing the lyrics performed by American DJ and singer, Romanthony, while the film’s band is “playing” “One More Time,” or when Shep is jamming to Daft Punk’s own vocals of “Digital Love” while cleaning his ship (and fantasizing about Stella) in outer space.
While this is an innovative format for a feature film, I imagine that anyone watching the individual videos for the first time and out of order may feel confusion due to a lack of context, like starting an unfamiliar movie or show at the halfway point. The only video I think feels the most complete on its own story-wise is “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” during which we see the unconscious band’s transformation process inside Darkwood’s underground science facility.
There is a minimal, but frankly, distracting, use of sound effects. This isn’t quite so bad when it’s done during silent intervals between songs, like the evening rainfall preceding “Nightvision,” but rather than enhancing a tone of some scenes as clearly intended, I find them jarring and annoying when right in the middle of a track I’m trying to listen to, like the car crash toward the end of “Superheroes” or the thunder storm in “Veridis Quo.” Mussorgsky got Chernabog’s point across quite clearly without sound effects, thank you very much!
Speaking of distraction, I wasn’t very familiar with Matsumoto’s work when I first saw this movie. But having since watched Harlock and Galaxy Express, along with early aughts’ miniseries like Cosmo Warrior Zero and Gun Frontier, his distinctive character designs—from his tall, slender ladies to his wide-mouthed, beady-eyed boys—make it near impossible for me now not to think of some of his most iconic characters here, Stella and Beryl, for instance, being dead ringers for Maetel and Tochiro, respectively. In a much more subtle example of intriguing character design, I believe the four humanized bandmates each represent a specific music genre. Now I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but the idea came to me after putting together the Earthly attire and the fake member bios shown on TV for the human fans. Stella represents Country, being “from Memphis” and dressed in a slim, tasseled jacket, miniskirt, and cowgirl boots; Arpegius represents Rock, being “from London” and sporting a torn-sleeved shirt, studded wrist bands, skinny black jeans, and sneakers; Baryl was harder for me to determine and this might be a bit of a stretch, but I’d guess that he represents Metal, being “from Munich” and wearing ragged clothes, a neck towel, fingerless gloves, and combat boots; and Octave represents Funk, being “from Brooklyn” and looking sharp in a Motown-era frilled shirt, jacket, and bell-bottoms straight from the Jackson Five.
Along with a mutual love and clear respect of science fiction on their parts, I think what makes this collaboration work is that Daft Punk’s initial concept of overcoming oppression and rebelling against an overly mechanized existence is one that Matsumoto often featured in his own stories. This idea is portrayed surprisingly well in the literal down-to-earth setting of the rich and glamorous but brutal profit-driven music industry. “One More Time” establishes the happiness the bandmates feel as they play for themselves and their people, via the song’s optimistic lyrics and jubilant tune and the bliss plain on their faces. Compare that to “Crescendolls”: the band, now humanized and brainwashed by Darkwood, is dragged from gig to gig, their expressions blank and lifeless despite their skyrocketing worldwide fame, all to the song’s constant background shouts and frenetic beat. This is followed by “Nightvision,” somehow both relaxing and sad at the same time, in which the group, even in a lush hotel room, move as if drunk or dying, as they’re forced to autograph countless pieces of merch without respite. However, the final track, “Too Long,” whose lyrics speak of freedom of mind and spirit after a long time without, shows a segment in which the band, safe and reformed but exhausted after their harrowing experience, gradually find their groove again, their sincere and relaxed music-making in a small but comfortable room gaining traction along with the song itself.
I think enjoyment of this film is going to depend largely on the viewer’s taste regarding not only Japanese animation and science fiction, but Daft Punk music and electronic music in general. Clocking in at sixty-five minutes, you’ll effectively be hearing the entirety of Daft Punk’s Discovery album from start to finish with no breaks between songs, which may or may not be your cup of tea regardless of the fantastic and exciting visual story going with it. Still, I think it’s always a beautiful thing when two masters of vastly different crafts come together like a classic anime mech of old to create a whole new duet for both the eye and the ear.
CREDITS:
Special thanks to KTWH 99.5 Two Harbors Community Radio. All images, audio, and links belong to their respective owners; no copyright infringement is intended.
MAIN THEME:
“The Call” - Briand Morrison and Roxann Berglund
https://www.briandmorrison.com/
https://www.facebook.com/BriandMorrisonGuitar/
https://www.youtube.com/user/briandmorrison
EPISODE SONG:
“Alien Pulse” - Alex Nelson
https://www.facebook.com/alex.j.nelson.7
“Alien Pulse” - Alex Nelson
https://www.facebook.com/alex.j.nelson.7
All other music and sound clips are from Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi; production by Toei Animation, Daft Life Ltd., Wild Bunch, and BAC Films; distributed by EMI/Virgin Records).
OST SONGS (all by Daft Punk, from Discovery [2001]):
“One More Time”
“Aerodynamic”
“Digital Love”
“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”
“Crescendolls”
“Nightvision”
“Superheroes”
“High Life”
“Too Long”
Download the full 15-minute episode here!
Interstella 5555 on Wikipedia
Leiji Matsumoto on Wikipedia
Daft Punk on Wikipedia
Interview with Daft Punk and Leiji Matsumoto
Interstella 5555 on IMDb
Interstella 5555 on Rotten Tomatoes
Interstella 5555 on Tv Tropes
Interstella 5555 at Barnes & Noble
Interstella 5555 on Amazon
Interstella 5555 on eBay
^^ Back to Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema
OST SONGS (all by Daft Punk, from Discovery [2001]):
“One More Time”
“Aerodynamic”
“Digital Love”
“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”
“Crescendolls”
“Nightvision”
“Superheroes”
“High Life”
“Too Long”
Download the full 15-minute episode here!
Interstella 5555 on Wikipedia
Leiji Matsumoto on Wikipedia
Daft Punk on Wikipedia
Interview with Daft Punk and Leiji Matsumoto
Interstella 5555 on IMDb
Interstella 5555 on Rotten Tomatoes
Interstella 5555 on Tv Tropes
Interstella 5555 at Barnes & Noble
Interstella 5555 on Amazon
Interstella 5555 on eBay
^^ Back to Movies, Short Films, and Other Works of Cinema
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