Mune: Guardian of the Moon is a 2014/2015 (its wide release was in the latter year) fantasy CGI family animated film from France, known in its native language as Mune, le gardien de la lune.
Long ago, the world was without light. Then, the legendary hero harpooned the sun out of the sky and brought it to earth, and carved the moon from rock inside the world of dreams. With this, he gave the world day and night. Now, the sun and moon are carried throughout the world on the backs of two massive titans, and they are guided in their journeys by the Guardians of the Sun and Moon. The movie begins with the old Guardians getting ready to retire, and they are holding a ceremony to name their successors. The Guardian of the Sun names his eager but arrogant apprentice, Sohone, as his successor. But although Yule, the Guardian of the Moon, intends to name his apprentice Leeyoon as the guardian, the Creature Purest of Heart, the emissary of the moon's choice, instead picks Mune: a mischievous, awkward boy who is totally unprepared for the job of being Guardian.
On his first night on the job, Mune accidentally breaks the tethers holding onto the moon, and in the chaos that ensues, Necross, Lord of the Underworld, sees the perfect time to strike. He poisons Leeyoon's mind with jealousy and steals the sun from Sohone while Leeyoon distracts him. When the world is plunged into eternal night, Mune decides to set right what he's done wrong and recover the sun from Necross. He reluctantly teams up with Sohone to travel into the underworld. The two are joined in their journey by Glim, a girl made of wax who lives in neither day nor night, and who is a huge history buff — which is good for them, since neither Mune nor Sahone knows much of the lore of their world. Together, they must save the sun and moon before their world erupts into complete chaos.
Mune: Guardian of the Moon provides examples of:
- Almost Kiss: Mune and Glim almost kiss in the dream world, but wind up back in the real world before it could happen.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese version uses the song "Rescue Me"
by Julie as its ending theme. - Anti-Villain: Leeyoon was promised by Yule that he'd be the next Guardian of the Moon, but Yule chooses Mune to become the Guardian at the last minute. Then he gets corrupted by the snake spirits, something no being can resist, into doing evil.
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Sohone, very much so at the start.
- Art Shift: The legends of the world are told with 2D animation instead of the CGI of the rest of the movie. The Land of Dreams is also 2D.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: This seems to be what happens when Yule, the old Guardian of the Moon, passes his torch onto Mune — he morphs into a kind of flower that becomes one with the Moon Titan.
- Base on Wheels: The sun and moon are ferried around on the backs of giant Titans, which are both creatures and living temples to the celestial bodies they protect.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Mune and Glim kiss on the edge of the moon temple as the scene pans out to the night sky dotted with stars.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool:
- A lot of the fauna and flora of the night sight are bioluminescent, including the Moon Titan, adding to the eerie beauty of the place. When the light of the sun and moon dwindle, so is the inhabitants' bioluminescence, plunging the world in darkness.
- Phospho and his tentacled pet too, as they are based upon creatures of the abysses. Although Phospho can operate on the surface too.
- Blind Mistake: When Xolal starts his speech during the ceremony, he's facing the wrong way and his assistant has to turn him around. Before that, he almost falls from the Titan and confuses his assistant for a nearby rock.
- Broken Pedestal: Glim has a crush on Sohone to start with, but she soon realizes that he's mostly just bluster.
- The Casanova: Sohone is very popular with women. When Phospho the ex-Guardian asks him why he's trying to save the sun, Sohone even claims he's doing it "for the ladies." Glim briefly crushes on him, but she reconsiders when she sees what he's really like.
- Chirping Crickets: When Xolal, the old guardian of the sun shows up at the ceremony, the people of the day are seen cheering... while the people of the night stay silent, with only crickets chirping heard on their side.
- The Corruption: The Dark Corrupters, actually very pale-looking snakelike spirits that can "find darkness in even the calmest heart" and turn it to evil. Necross uses them to corrupt Leeyoon. Sohone nearly falls to them, but is saved by Phospho... and it turns out, Necross was a victim of them himself.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The People of the Night are entirely peaceful, and of course, the Guardian of the Moon is just as important as the Guardian of the Sun.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo: Though the snakes appear throughout the movie, there're few instances where they're directly acknowledged, and there's very little explanation on them. They simply appear as a Plot Device. But how and why, and what are they? Given the end of the film, they're almost certainly some kind of parasite. They're also seemingly never fully rendered in full-3D unless out of convenience.
- Didn't Think This Through: It really was a dumb idea for Yule to give Mune the role instead of Leeyoon without at least preparing him for the job.
- Disney Death:
- Mune's pet/friend Garou is seemingly one, as it's stepped on by the Moon Temple after the moon dies, but ends up in the Underworld later on in the film.
- Glim relights the sun, but melts. Luckily, Mune is able to resculpt her.
- Dream Weaver: Mune has the ability to calm people down and get rid of nightmares in those sleeping. In the dream world, this essentially makes him all-powerful.
- Dying as Yourself: Necross reverts back to his normal form as a rock creature before he peacefully passes on.
- Elemental Embodiment: All of the people of the world seem to embody some element, such as plant, rock, fire, or water.
- Evil Overlooker: The Big Bad, Necross, is shown at the top of the poster looking down at the heroes.
- Face–Heel Turn: Necross used to be a guardian of the sun before he was corrupted.
- Family-Unfriendly Death:
- Phospho overloads himself with energy and explodes.
- Even though she's re-sculpted at the end, Glim melts after heating up the sun. It's pretty eerie to see to be honest.
- Fangirl: Glim is a fangirl of the guardians and the history of the sun and moon in general. She's even shown writing fanfiction at one point.
- Fantastic Racism: Done very briefly, where Sohone distrusts Mune because he's a Child of the Night.
- Fire-Forged Friends: As the end credits montage shows, Mune and Sohone end up becoming good friends, just like their predecessors were.
- Fisher King: When Necross is purified from a Magma Man the Underworld is transformed with him from a dark volcanic wasteland into a bright and lush oasis along with all his minions.
- Forging Scene: After the prologue, Sohone's introduction is a scene of him forging a harpoon. Note that he doesn't hammer it into shape with any tool, but with his bare fist.
- For the Evulz: Necross wants to kill the sun just to sow chaos and destruction. Or rather, the Corrupter possessing him does.
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: There is a race of cute, fluffy spider-like creatures that assist the current Guardian of the Moon. Although they occasionally display Silent Snarker personalities, they are still shown to be benevolent and helpful.
- Friend to All Living Things: The Guardian of the Moon is chosen by "the most innocent of creatures" approaching and cuddling up to them. The plot is kicked off when this fawn-like creature completely rushes past Leeyoon and harasses Mune hiding in the bushes. Makes training up a replacement at all seem kinda pointless compared to a Sun Guardian, who is directly chosen by their predecessor.
- Fuzzball Spider: The creatures that assist the current Guardian of the Moon are spider-like things with fluffy, round bodies, six spindly legs, two large eyes, and oddly enough, beaklike mouths. They are never specifically referred to as spiders, but they do spin webs.
- Helium Speech: When about to dive in the waters of the Big Blue Hole, Mune picks up some glowing fungus that he describes as rich in oxygen, and that will allow them to breathe underwater. However, as a prank the first batch he shows to Sohone are actually rich in helium, and when the big guy promptly eats one, his voice gets all squeaky.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- Phospho gives up the last of his power to save Sohone from the Corrupters.
- Glim stands close enough to the sun to warm it up, which makes her melt. Luckily, Mune is able to resculpt her.
- Ignored Confession: Leeyoon tells Mune and Glim that he's the one who helped let the sun get stolen due to a deal with Necross, but they're too focused on getting another moon to care.
- I'm Melting!: While Mune and Sohone are fighting Necross, Glim is the only one free to warm up the sun. Since she's made of wax, the tragically inevitable happens....
- Instantly Proven Wrong: When Glim points out to Sohone that he's making them going in circle, the latter protests that he knows perfectly we're he's going... just as he's stepping past a cliff edge.
- Light and Mirrors Puzzle: Glim sets up a series of mirrors in her own room, so that the light of the morning sun would unfreeze her first, before her father who stayed downstairs, so that he can't stop her going out to see the succession ceremony.
- Light Is Not Good: The Corrupters, the evil snake creatures Necross controls, are the palest and most luminous things in the movie.
- Literally Shattered Lives: This is Glim's biggest fear, being made of wax. Too cold, and she freezes and could crack. Too warm, and she'll melt.
- Minion with an F in Evil: The smaller of Necross's two imp minions loves flowers and nature. In the end, he becomes a nature spirit.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Mune has a friend/pet Garou who looks similar to a griffin, already a mix-and-match critter, but who has a beaverlike tail.
- My Beloved Smother: Gender Inverted. Glim's dad is one. Of course, he has the valid concern in that they're both made of wax. They melt if the temperature gets too warm and solidify beyond moving when it's too cold.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Mune accidentally hits a few of the strands of moon spider silk holding up the moon and causes them to break. And that's to say nothing of the damage the Moon Titan causes when it goes out of control....
- Night and Day Duo: The film takes place in a world where the sun and moon are carried by titans, who are guided by guardians. The society itself is divided between Children of the Day and Children of the Night, however both sides are at peace. More specifically, the protagonist Mune is chosen as the guardian of the moon, and he ends up having to ally with Sohone, guardian of the sun, to save the world from eternal night.
- Official Couple: Mune and Glim become this by the end of the movie.
- Plant Person: The inhabitants of the day seem to consist of both rock people and plant people.
- Power Trio:
- Id: Sohone. It would be accurate to say that he thinks with his fists.
- Ego: Mune. He's a pretty average guy, who is cautious but ready for action when it's necessary.
- Superego: Glim. She's the smartest of the group, and the only one to really know the history.
- Pulling Themselves Together:
- Glim and her father might be made of fragile wax, but they can reassemble missing bits just by heating them and sticking them back. As demonstrated when Glim's father accidentally rips off her arm, and she just sounds annoyed, asking in a deadpan voice to give it back, before putting it in place.
- The assistant to the Guardian of the Sun is a Rock Monster made of several stone slabs simply stacked together and holding thanks to gravity. It just takes a push or a trip to disassemble him completely into disparate pieces, but he can just will himself back into shape. It happens several times in the movie, and he implies that he's very much used to it.
- Quizzical Tilt: Mune does this quite a few times throughout the film.
- Redemption Equals Death: Mune removes the Corrupter constricting Necross's heart. He briefly reverts to his normal form, giving Mune one last smile before passing on.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The moon spiders who spin the threads that carry the moon around.
- Rock Monster:
- Sohone is one, though he appears to be made of a smooth, jasper- or sardonyx-like material instead of solid rock.
- Krrrack is also one of these, as are his assistant and several of the other people of the day.
- The Sacred Darkness: The conflict here isn't between the day and the night, which are treated as equally important aspects of the natural order. The night is depicted as beautiful and softly luminous, contrasted heavily with the absolute darkness desired by Necross in snuffing out both the sun and moon.
- Scenery Porn: This movie is oh so very pretty.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Mune, Sohone, and Glim initially don't get along at all. But Sohone Takes a Level in Kindness and Glim and Mune end up falling in love.
- This Is Reality: Sohone derisively asks Glim if she thinks she's "living in a fairy tale."
- Tragic Monster: Anyone corrupted by the snake spirits. Although Mune manages to redeem Necross, while it wears off for Leeyoon.
- Wall Crawl: Mune, and certainly the rest of his species, are excellent climbers, sharing traits with squirrel and/or monkeys. Mune can climb to the head of the huge Moon Titan in almost no time, and even dangle upside-down just with his feet.
