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Idea: La Planète Sauvage (aka Fantastic Planet) project?

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 (Edited)

Putting out my feelers to see if there’s anyone else as obsessive about this film as I am.

I won’t bore anyone with a fan’s stories of Fantastic Planet vhs releases in EP speed, with fluctuating sound levels, and one with a painfully obvious film splice. I was the Fantastic Planet king when I found my splice-free VHS copy in SP speed and in HiFi!
Moving into the DVD era, fans were treated to a release with non-removable subtitles.

Two of the most recent releases are finally presented anamorphically & with the correct aspect ratio (and with <span class=“Italics”>optional</span> subtitles). One PAL R2 by Arte Vidéo (France), one NTSC R0 by Eureka! Masters of Cinema (UK):
dvdfreak technical comparision w/ screen shots

Note the MOC release is in fact NTSC despite having been released in UK.

<span class=“Bold”>The project proposal</span>, then, is primarily to find the best sources for both the original (French) audio, and the dubbed English version. That probably (but not necessarily) means the least compressed, and again it will likely come from the AV & MOC releases unless someone unexpectedly discovers a better source.

Here are all the DVD releases with any known sound information (FO = French original audio, ED = English dubbed). This is mostly unverified & incomplete:

  • Arte Vidéo (France 2006): FO = Dolby Digital 2.0 mono / 384 kbps; ED = n/a
  • Eureka! Masters of Cinema (UK 2006): FO = Dolby Digital 2.0 mono / 224 kbps; ED = Dolby Digital 2.0 mono / 192 kbps
  • Force Entertainment (Australia): ? Can’t find anything about this release…anyone?
  • Gaumont/Columbia Tristar (France 2001): FO = Dolby Digital 2.0 mono; ED = n/a
  • Anchor Bay (USA 1999): FO = Dolby Digital 1.0 mono; ED = Dolby Digital 1.0

There was also a laserdisc release before the first DVD release, but I have never been able to find out any details. Before the recent DVD releases, I was still very interested since it might have been the best available version of the film without engrained subtitles. The video is no longer an issue, but is it possible that the laserdisc has uncompressed sound that might be better than any DVD release?

A secondary goal for this film could be to determine (if even possible) which of the two releases (AV & MOC) offers the truest representation visually, since there is a discrepancy in the overall image quality, mostly in regards to color it seems. Again see the images in the first link.

Finally I would like to have the best elements together on one DVD, removing any extras if necessary to preserve quality of image/audio.

SO…any FP freaks out there?

dvdbeaver review of MOC release
dvdtimes review of MOC release

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You can find some basic info on the Australian DVD right here. Hope that helps.

To contact me outside the forum, for trades and such my email address is my OT.com username @gmail.com