Back in the "good old days", when MTV was actually Music Television and not a channel for "Reality TV", Kazaa and Napster made piracy popular, and you had to go out of your way to record your favorite music off the radio just so you could have a tape of your favorite music in one place, music videos were awesome. And they were so huge that they would draw in huge ratings to channels with music programming, and studios would sell music videos on VHS so people could have them along with their vinyl, cassettes, and/or CD collection
Studios would invest a ton of money into them because they doubled as promotional material for the band, and as a result, you would get music videos that were essentially awesome short films with an awesome song attached, such as Michael Jackon's Thriller, A-ha's Take on Me, and Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Interstella 5555 hearkens back to these days by essentially being a 60 minute music video.
Interstella 5555: The 5story of the 5ecret 5star 5system (what a mouthful) is an hour long music video telling the story of an alien band to the music of Daft Punk. Interstella 5555 was developed by Daft Punk along with legendary creator Leiji Matsumoto, and was released by Toei Animation.
The story follows a group of blue-skinned extraterrestrial group of musicians who are kidnapped right after one of their concerts, and are brainwashed and altered to look human by an evil music manager. Soon after, a space pilot from their planet, who happens to be a huge fan of the band, tries to save them after receiving a distress call sent out during their kidnapping.
As far as stories go, it's on the simple side, but it doesn't need to be more complex than it needs to be. It is, after all, an extended music video. Any more complex and it would get in the way of the music and feel completely unnecessary. It's also completely void of any dialogue, letting the visuals and music do all of the storytelling.
The music, which consists entirely of Daft Punk's Discovery album, doubles as both the soundtrack and some of the storytelling. The rest of it is told through the visuals, letting the characters actions and expressions do most of the work, which is done masterfully. And considering the complete lack of any dub, anyone can understand whats going on.
It's animation and art style looks fantastic, with Leiji Matsumoto's style shining through. It definitely feels like a '70s era anime, considering that quite a few of the directors works were released.
That said, with all of the praise i gave Interstella 5555, it's not for everybody. If Daft Punk isn't your thing, or having a simplistic story puts you off, you probably won't like this. If you can get past the band, maybe pretend this is a silent film. Interstella 5555 is worth checking out.
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