I just ran across this on youtube and don’t recall knowing anything about it before. I guess there’s a Fantastic Planet connection as well, but this is a more elaborate production, or at least by more standard animation criteria. Quite amazing for something seemingly so obscure.
Few aesthetic parallels to Panzer Dragoon, but tons of very subtle echoes of the story revealed in Azel. Also a lot of parallels to other games and stories, I was seriously reminded of the characterization of the Necrons from Warhammer 40k for example.
Anyway while it’s still up there figured I’d give a link for anyone interested, and maybe give a warning of some imagery that may offend delicate sensibilities for form’s sake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eucpelkpuiY
That was a strange movie. I’m surprised it was ever made. No one would make something like that these days.
The main character could have stopped everything from happening if he’d killed the giant brain in the present time. Unless I’m missing something and it was more moral to kill him in the future when he had changed, but even in that case he was only one life compared to many.
‘It’ claimed that ‘it’ was too strong to be killed by that weapon, and even for the future incarnation, it took more than that to actually kill ‘it’.
Glad you saw it, with the temporal anomalies and the theme of bio-technology gone out of control, any deja vu? I haven’t researched it, but I noticed a comment there suggesting it’s the same director as Fantastic Planet, which Moebius also worked on, though not on this one. Still that recurring French connection…
I see Panzer Dragoon’s story a lot differently these days. When I stood back and tried to look at the bigger picture I didn’t see bio-tech gone out of control as the main theme of the story anymore. For me I see it more as humanity becoming the victim of its own obsession with efficiency and playing God. Mutants were merely a side effect of that. The Ancients created their own demise rather than lost control of their own technology, but it depends on how you look at it. But yeah, there are definitely parallels.
The art has an alien feel to it probably because it’s so old in my eyes. It’s probably quite unique for that reason alone.
Now what would be interesting to find out is how the mutants could see into the future in the first place.
I can agree with that generally, so I meant it more in the sense of the conceit of the creators that they can ultimately control their creations at all. Was the dragon under human control in the end; if so, was it fulfilling the agenda of the same humans who created it; if not, was it betraying another purpose or betraying its own?
We can’t fully know the truth of those questions, all we really know is that humanity eventually was able to make a new choice, one which was at odds with, and born of the mistakes of previous choices.
But the most striking, if hard to pin down parallel to me, was simply the duality of the ‘enemy’. It was one, yet represented opposing beliefs. It chose to be the enemy of its future self. In that sense one of the most ingenious time paradoxes I’ve ever seen dramatized.
And it’s also subjective, since that’s a pet theme I’ve never been able to put to rest one way or another. I still believe Sestren and the Heresy dragon are in some sense the same, so then in that sense it is also like attacking itself.
It’s hard to say whether the dragon was programmed to do what it did or was given free will. We’ve had this discussion before on the forums. The more moral thing to do is to let it make its own choices but I think it’s more likely that the rebels believed that the ends justified the means and just hijacked an existing creation and downloaded their vision onto a blank slate. It depends on how much time they had.
I honestly don’t know, but I know what the moral and ethical thing to do would be. Anyone who believes in free will and personal liberty can’t violate another person’s free will without sacrificing their beliefs. Maybe I am looking at this differently than you.
It seems that the giant brain knew that he’d change in the future. People can change a lot over time. It’s even possible for someone to not even recognize themselves anymore. It depends on how much potential they have to change. Needless to say, a giant brain would probably have a lot.