Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem is an anime-style visualization of the Daft Punk album Discovery. A group of blue-skinned extraterrestrial musicians are kidnapped, brainwashed, and altered, mind and body, to be identical to ordinary humans. Under the control of their abductors, they become rock stars on Earth, playing their music and skyrocketing to massive fame. Can an alien pilot rescue the band, return their memories and get them home? Or will they be forced to play their part in the scheme of the evil, greedy Earl de Darkwood?This film features no dialogue, yet the animation is expertly synced with music, making for an easily followed yet captivating film. The music tracks are the same as the Discovery album:
Alien Blood: It's golden yellow, even though their skin is blue and Shep blushes red.
All Just a Dream: The last scene implies that the whole movie may be what some kid imagined his toys were doing while he listened to a Daft Punk record.
Amazing Technicolor Population: Aside from those with blue skin, other aliens on the planet are shown to be green, purple, pink or orange.
The Cameo: Daft Punk show up in animated form at the Gold Record Awards. They're nominees in the same category as the Crescendolls... and lose. They don't seem unhappy about it though, and somewhat pleasantly surprised they were nominated in the first place.
Well, Bangalter is quite happy about it, anyway. As for Homem-Christo, when he finds out they lost to The Crescendolls, he claps politely, but still has a "heartbreak" symbol on his helmet.
Cool Shades: Subverted; they're part of the brainwashing process (that's why they're screwed into place). If they break, it wears off.
Cosplay: In one scene during "Crescendolls", you can see two little kids dressed up as Octave and Stella. Shortly afterwards a kid dressed like Arpegius gets an autograph from the man himself.
Earth; all of the Crescendolls' fans hear great music, and have no idea about the brainwashing.
Arguably, their homeworld; everyone was too busy enjoying the concert to worry about planetary security in the first place.
Cross-Cultural Handshake: Happened in the later half between Arpegius and the Crescendolls' human manager.
Deal with the Devil: Earl de Darkwood made a deal with an unidentified supernatural entity during his childhood, in which he gives 5,555 award-winning musicians to it in exchange for cosmic powers. The main characters will be #5,555 if he isn't stopped.
Humans Are Bastards: Seemingly played straight when it turns out the malevolent invaders are from Earth, then subverted when the rest of the population is informed to the Earl's plans and do everything they can to help the Crescendolls.
Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Or in this case, a very funky and psychedelic place with big shiny objects that can heavily damage your ship.
Instant Sedation: The knockout gas subdues everyone within seconds.
Knockout Gas: The band is kidnapped with the aid of sleeping gas which somehow keeps them unconscious during the lengthy "processing" which turns them into the Crescendolls. Though the band's prolonged sleep may be due to the pods they were transported in.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Conducted not by just wiping the memories, but by rewriting them to take place on Earth.
Load-Bearing Boss: Earl de Darkwood. Justified in that his falling into the lava beneath his mansion could conceivably... somehow... make it explode. Maybe.
Male Gaze: Stella gets tons of it; her first close-up is of her backside. And again in the finale, the camera lingers on her rump for several seconds before panning out.
Manly Tears: Octave's, Arpegius', and Baryl's reactions when Shep is dying.
Masquerade: Enforced by the Big Bad until near the end, where it gets crazy subverted.
Rousseau Was Right: After humanity learns the true identity of the Crescendolls, they spare no expense in setting things right. Although they also get access to the Earl's tech that's still working, plus possibly some of the tech from repairing and relaunching Shep's starship.
Self-Deprecation: Daft Punk appear as themselves in a cameo at the music awards ceremony, where they lose to the main characters. In case you don't get the significance of that, in a 65 minute video (opening and credits included), they have a five-second cameo, and then they lose to a fake band playing their music.
Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: Octave, when sneaking into the record company is confronted by security guards and gets tasered when he reaches into his jacket for the papers about the memory disks he's trying to retrieve.
The guards at the record company watch a soccer game between France and Japan. This is a subtle nod to the cross-cultural cooperation that produced a Japanese anime set to the music of the French Daft Punk. (Note the score: 2-1 for the French — the Daft Punk duo and the one Leiji Matsumoto.)
Several shout outs to Leiji Matsumoto's works:
The hand-on-heart salute of the alien is similar to the one in Uchuu Senkan Yamato.
During the music award, Baryl's disguise includes Captain Harlock's coat and hat.
Toward the end, Shep's ship uses a lengthy trail to take off, a reference to Galaxy Express 999.
Several allusions to 2001: A Space Odyssey with Shep's space walk and the psychedelic wormhole. Discovery was released in 2001.
The "Crescendolls" logo is inspired by Coca-Cola's.
When "One More Time" climbs to #2 on the charts, #1 is "High Anxiety" by Mel "Bean" Brooks — High Anxiety being the title of an actual Mel Brooks film.
The cyborgs' car is crushed by a truck, and when emerging from it, the damaged cyborg has a red eye behind sunglasses, like in Terminator.
Victoria's Secret Compartment: The Earl drops a business card with some plot info on it. Stella's the only one in the room and she's wearing a cleavage-heavy dress. Down it goes.
0 reviews