Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem
Theatrical release poster
Japanese name
Katakanaインターステラ5555
Transcriptions
Revised HepburnIntāsutera Fō Faibu
Directed byKazuhisa Takenouchi
Written by
Produced by
  • Thomas Bangalter
  • Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
CinematographyFumio Hirokawa
Edited by
  • Shigeru Nishiyama
  • Olivier Gajan
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed byEMI/Virgin Records
Release dates
  • 18 May 2003 (Cannes)
  • 28 May 2003 (worldwide)
Running time
65 minutes[1]
Countries
  • France
  • Japan
LanguageEnglish
Budget$4 million[2]

Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (インターステラ5555, Intāsutera Fō Faibu, "Four Five") is a 2003 anime musical science fiction film. The film tells the story of the abduction and rescue of an extraterrestrial pop band and serves as a visual companion to Discovery, Daft Punk's second studio album. The film was produced by Toei Animation, directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi and supervised by Leiji Matsumoto.[3] The film's audio has no dialogue, but instead consists of the entirety of Discovery with minimal sound effects.[nb 1]

Plot

The main points of the story coincide with the Discovery album. On an alien planet populated by blue-skinned humanoids, keyboardist Octave, guitarist Arpegius, drummer Baryl, and bass player Stella are playing to a packed audience ("One More Time"). A military force from Earth invades the planet and kidnaps the band ("Aerodynamic").

A space pilot called Shep is seen daydreaming about Stella while working on his guitar-shaped ship. Interrupted by a distress call about the kidnapping, he pursues the culprits through a wormhole and crash lands on Earth ("Digital Love").

Meanwhile, the band is taken to an underground facility where their memories are moved to disks and their blue skin changed to make them resemble humans. They are fitted with mind-control devices hidden inside sunglasses ("Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"). Their captor, Earl de Darkwood, poses as their manager and presents them as a new band called The Crescendolls, who take the world by storm ("Crescendolls"). The fame has its disadvantages as the exhausted members of the band are forced to sign large amounts of publicity material. Meanwhile, Shep finds his way to the city and discovers what has happened to the band ("Nightvision").

Shep flies into a Crescendolls stadium concert with a jet pack and fires a beam at each band member, freeing all of them except Stella from the mind control. During his escape, he is mortally wounded by Darkwood's robotic bodyguards ("Superheroes").

Still under Darkwood's control, Stella finds a card with the address of Darkwood's home, Darkwood Manor, which she hides in her dress. She is then taken to an award ceremony where the Crescendolls win the Gold Record, a coveted music award. Baryl, concealed in the audience, frees Stella with the beam, and they make their escape with Octave's help ("High Life"). The band returns to Shep, who reveals their true identities before he dies ("Something About Us"). They bury him, and his spirit rises into space. Driving away in a stolen van, they use the card Stella took earlier to make their way to Darkwood Manor ("Voyager").

While exploring Darkwood Manor, the band discovers a secret room, in which they find a journal revealing Darkwood's plans entitled Veridis Quo. He has been kidnapping alien musicians from various worlds and passing them off as human musicians in order to acquire 5,555 Gold Records, with which he can rule the universe. Darkwood captures them and attempts to sacrifice Stella to complete the ritual required to unlock the Gold Records' power; however, Arpegius manages to throw the final Gold Record into a lava-filled chasm. Darkwood follows it into the abyss, apparently killing him. His henchmen follow after him, killing them as well ("Veridis Quo"). Following this, Darkwood Manor collapses in on itself. The band narrowly escapes and travels to their record company to retrieve their memory disks. Octave sneaks in to steal them but is tased by a guard while escaping the building, and his skin reverts to its natural blue color ("Short Circuit").

The authorities find Shep's ship along with Veridis Quo and mount an operation to restore the Crescendolls' memories and send them back to their home planet via the same wormhole that Shep used ("Face to Face"). As they enter the wormhole, the spirit of Darkwood appears and attacks their ship. Shep's spirit also appears and defeats Darkwood, freeing them. The band returns to their home planet to great acclaim, and a statue of Shep is erected ("Too Long"). At the film's end, it is implied that the whole story was the dream of a young boy, inspired by the Discovery album and toys in his room.

Characters

  • Stella – The bassist of the Crescendolls and the only female member.
  • Arpegius – The guitarist of the Crescendolls.
  • Baryl – The drummer of the Crescendolls. He is noticeably shorter in stature than most of the other characters.
  • Octave – The keyboardist and vocalist of the Crescendolls.
  • Shep – An alien astronaut on a mission to rescue the captured Crescendolls. He has a crush on Stella.
  • Earl de Darkwood – The human captor of the Crescendolls and the main antagonist of the film.
  • Record Co. Owner – The supposed owner of the record company. He is giddy and excited in most of his on-screen time.
  • Daft Punk – The masked musicians themselves make a cameo appearance in "High Life".

Production

The idea of making a feature film to visualize Discovery came about during the album's early recording sessions. Daft Punk's concept for the story involved the merging of science fiction with entertainment industry culture. The duo had initially conceived of a live-action film featuring themes of overcoming oppression and rebelling against the machinery of life.[4] After the live-action approach was discarded, several styles of animation were considered before settling on that of Daft Punk's childhood hero, Leiji Matsumoto.[5][3]

The film concept was further developed with Daft Punk collaborator Cédric Hervet, with Bangalter and Hervet writing the script. A team consisting of Daft Punk, Hervet, Pedro Winter and Gildas Loaec were introduced to Toei Animation through a connection at Toshiba EMI. The script was brought to Tokyo in July 2000 in the hope of creating the film with Matsumoto, who remarked that he in turn was inspired by French filmmakers.[5] After Matsumoto joined the team as visual supervisor, Shinji Shimizu had been contacted to produce the animation and Kazuhisa Takenouchi to direct the film. With the translation coordination of Tamiyuki "Spike" Sugiyama, production began in October 2000 and ended in April 2003.[3] Daft Punk commuted to Tokyo on a near-monthly basis as Toei produced the storyboards.[5] The cost of the film is said to have been $4 million.[2]

Four segments of the film were released to serve as music videos for Discovery's singles, and were shown on Cartoon Network on 31 August 2001 during the "Toonami Midnight Run: Special Edition". Cartoon Network later hosted the episodes online as part of their short-lived Toonami Reactor project (later revived as Toonami Jetstream).[6] In December 2003, Interstella 5555 was released along with the album Daft Club, which served to promote the film and provided previously unreleased remixes of tracks from the Discovery album.[7] A Blu-ray edition of the film was released in September 2011 and contains similar artwork packaging.

Many elements common to Matsumoto's stories, such as romanticism of noble sacrifice and remembrance of fallen friends, appear in Interstella 5555. Daft Punk revealed in an interview that Captain Harlock was a great influence on them in their childhood. They also stated, "The music we have been making must have been influenced at some point by the shows we were watching when we were little kids."[8]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."One More Time" (edit)4:57
2."Aerodynamic" (extended intro)3:42
3."Digital Love" (edit)4:30
4."Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"3:44
5."Crescendolls"3:32
6."Nightvision"1:44
7."Superheroes"3:58
8."High Life"3:22
9."Something About Us"3:51
10."Voyager"3:48
11."Veridis Quo" (extended)6:45
12."Short Circuit"3:27
13."Face to Face"4:00
14."Too Long"10:00
15."Aerodynamic" (Daft Punk remix, end credits)2:08

Reception

The film was well received by critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 86% based on 7 reviews (6 positive, 1 negative).[9]

The BBC gave the film four stars out of five, saying that the film is a "visual and aural treat of intergalactic proportions".[10] MovieMartyr.com said that the film was "the best animated film made in 2003, and a true testament to the artistry possible in two very different mediums."[11] Mania.com concluded by stating that the film is "a unique feature that shows just how well music can be blended to animation to make a compelling story."[12]

Empire said the film was "Fine if you like the band – you'll be treated to some cartoons playing over the top of their Discovery album. For everyone else, just daft."[13]

Notes

  1. ↑ Although no dialogue is featured in the film, some characters are depicted to be talking or singing. Some examples with main characters: Shep sings "Digital Love" and "Something About Us"; Octave sings "One More Time" and appears to convey information in "Short Circuit"; Darkwood talks to Stella during "Crescendolls" and in "Veridis Quo", he reads from the eponymous book as part of the ritual.

References

  1. ↑ "Amazon.com: Interstella 5555 – The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem". Amazon. December 2003. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
  2. 1 2 Eric Ducker, "The Creators" (2007). The Fader, issue 47, pp. 115. Retrieved on April 25, 2009.
  3. 1 2 3 Interstella 5555 DVD insert, 2003.
  4. ↑ "Poolside Presents: Pacific Standard Time Episode 11: Todd Edwards". Twitch. 26 February 2021. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 Shimizu, Tomoaki (September 2001). "Interview with Daft Trax". Plus81.
  6. ↑ Toonami: Digital Arsenal Archived February 14, 2016, at the Wayback Machine toonamiarsenal.com Retrieved on April 14, 2007.
  7. ↑ Interstella 5555 at Discogs
  8. ↑ "Daft Punk Interview". Cartoon Network. Archived from the original on 27 June 2004. Retrieved 7 June 2008.
  9. ↑ "Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  10. ↑ Jamie Russell (13 October 2003). "BBC – Films – review – Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5system". BBC. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  11. ↑ Jeremy Heilman (28 February 2004). "MovieMartyr.com – Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem". MovieMatyr.com. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  12. ↑ Beveridge, Chris (19 October 2009). "10 Great Anime That Are Not Miyazaki". Mania. Demand Media. Archived from the original on 14 February 2015.
  13. ↑ Nick Dawson. "Empire Reviews Central – Review of Interstella 5555". Empire Magazine. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
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