dudemaninc Imagine the barbaric Fire and Ice! The epicness of Heavy Metal! The acid-laced mystique of Fantastic Planet! All of these wrapped into one powerhouse of an animated classic! You'll watch this movie, and wonder if you're watching the prequel to the story of Rush's 2112. It has an undertone of a monolithic society, but with sentinel invaders from the future trying to kill them off like thousands of Sara Connors. Although I've only seen versions of this with English subtitles, the masterpiece that it is kept me drawn in with interesting characters and awesome action sequences. I showed this movie to many of my friends and some people that love '80s animation, and they added this to their Top 10 animated list. As a kid, this is one of the styles that made me want to be an artist and animator. One of my favorite animated movies of all time!

Charles Herold (cherold) While Rene Laloux's Fantastic Planet is his most famous film, I consider Light Years his best. Like Fantastic Planet, it is extraordinarily imaginative and visually striking. There are all sorts of odd moments; swirling brain cells forming shapes, a woman suckling a strange creature, a tribe of misshapen people, each one different in equally twisted and disturbed ways.However, this movie has a much more engrossing story than Fantastic Planet. It is a weird tale of time travel and bizarre experimentation, with a hero who often seems more flukishly lucky than skilled.I saw the English-dub version, as opposed to the original French version called Gandahar. The voice acting is good, particularly Christopher Plummer. For some reason the American producers threw out the original score for a synth-heavy new score. I found the original on youtube and watched a little, and I would say the original score was better, but not by so much that it really effects the movie. Since the youtube video was in French, I can't tell if the story or dialogue are especially different.For me, this is easily the best of Laloux's three features (followed by Fantastic Planet).

andriy-tanatar Well, I have to admit that I hunted this particular movie for 10 years. I've seen it for the first time when I was in my early teens (12 or 13, not sure), and I was really impressed by the animation and the plot. Besides, I didn't have a chance to see a lot of sci-fi movies (let alone animated movies) back then.Now, that I've been able to see it again, I find it really outdated (or "old-skul") - pretty much, it felt like Kubrick's "Space Odissey" animated, only that "Gandahar" came out in late 80es, when "Akira" set a new industry standard. The plot is more or less predictable, the sci-fi backgrounds looked like something from mid-70es, and the battle scenes are even worse than those of cheap Japanimation TV series.Despite all the bad things above, this movie got a touch of a master. First, I have to admit that movement animation feels highly original (I can't think of anything similar) and is done with a lot of skill. Second, the voices (in French) are much better than anything I've heard. Finally, I find character design very good.To sum up, I don't think that this is quite the right movie to see "just for fun", but for those who are interested in animation it is definitely a must.

Logan San It's not as bad as some people want to make you think. "Time Masters" is much better, but if you like "Time Masters" (and like it much more than "The Fantastic Planet") then you'll probably like "Gandahar" (aka "Light Years") too. It's true, it has a lot of talk, but that's because it HAS a real story instead of other so called adult animation movies. The music wasn't bad (I even find it good), but especially one music was getting on my nerves at the end of the film. The animation isn't a breakthrough either, but with it's light effects and the fantastic backgrounds it was 100 times better than the animation in Fantastic Planet. On the other hand it's falling to dust if compared to the best Japanese animation films at that time like "Akira" for example.Go and decide for yourself!