Time Masters 720p - (1982 Lang: English)

Les Maîtres du temps (lit. The Masters of Time, a.k.a. Time Masters, Az idő urai in Hungarian) is a 1982 Franco-Hungarian animated science fiction feature film directed by René Laloux and designed by Mœbius. It is based on the 1958 science fiction novel L'Orphelin de Perdide (The Orphan of Perdide) by Stefan Wul.

The film centres on a boy, Piel, who is stranded on Perdide, a desert planet where giant killer hornets live. He awaits rescue by the space pilot Jaffar, the exiled prince Matton, his sister Belle and Jaffar's old friend Silbad who are trying to reach Perdide and save Piel before it is too late.

A man named Claude is driving a six-wheeled, insect-like vehicle over the desert surface of Perdide very fast. He attempts to communicate with Jaffar, saying that "they attacked" and that "Annie is dead." After a crash that wrecks his vehicle, he lets his son Piel down from the wreckage; he cannot extricate himself. Piel is too young to comprehend the red and white, ovoid interstellar transceiver that Claude hands him. So Claude tells him that it is named "Mike" and will talk to him, and to do whatever Mike tells him to do, but first to run to a coral-like forest and stay within it. After Piel has reached the forest, the crashed vehicle explodes.

Jaffar is piloting a spacecraft, the Double Triangle 22. He plans to reach Perdide by being pulled along by the gravitational field of the Blue Comet. But he's several planetary systems away, and does not go directly to Perdide or the Blue Comet. Instead he heads for a planet where his friend Silbad resides, as Silbad has experience of living on Perdide. Jaffar's passengers, Prince Matton and his sister, Princess Belle, have been deposed from their planet; they bring with them a treasure the Prince took along to fund his restoration. Matton is not at all happy about being diverted and makes no attempt to hide his displeasure; throughout he is depicted as a lazy, arrogant and deceitful individual.

Each contacts Piel with the transceiver; when they meet Silbad, he sings Piel a song as well, as does the Princess. Whilst on Silbad's planet, they witness the metamorphosis of a water-lily like organism into dozens of empathic, sentient, primary coloured homunculi, two of whom, named Yula and Jad, stow away on Jaffar's spacecraft seeking adventure. Unknown to the Prince, Yula and Jad play with and then dispose of the treasure via the airlock.

When Matton speaks with Piel, he nearly convinces the trusting boy to drown himself in a lake, but is discovered by Belle, who stuns him with a pistol weapon and talks Piel to safety.

In order to rendezvous with the Blue Comet, Jaffar pilots his craft to the planet Gamma 10. Prince Matton escapes in a shuttlecraft to the surface of Gamma 10, which is inhabited by faceless, identical white male angels. They capture both Matton and Jaffar, who followed in a space lifeboat. The men will be thrown into the living, thinking amorphous being which controls the planet. Although they are unable to rescue Jaffar, Yula and Jad are able to forewarn him of the fate intended for the captives: they are to become one with the controlling being, dominated entirely by it, losing all sense of individuality in the process and becoming one of the angel-beings. They instruct Jaffar to resist being assimilated with all the hate and contempt he can muster. When Jaffar tells the Prince to do so as well, Matton leaps into the being and does so, not only destroying it and the building but causing the skin and wings of all the angels to peel away to reveal that they were originally scruffy spacemen reminiscent of pirates. Rescued from the surface of Gamma 10 by Yula and Jad, the freed captives are taken to the Double Triangle 22, where they are given food and drink, and the presence of their minds cause comical problems for Yula and Jad.

Thereby Jaffar acquires a crew of misfits on the journey to Perdide. Soon afterwards, a patrol cruiser of the Interplanetary Reform catches up with the Double Triangle 22, pursuing the fleeing royals and the treasure the now-deceased Prince stole. Jaffar considers that the 'pirates' from Gamma 10 should be able to hijack the Reform cruiser and take it for themselves. During the discussion of this plan, one of rescued beings from Gamma 10, Onyx the Digeed of Gnaz, is revealed to be able to change his shape to resemble any other object. Onyx will impersonate the missing treasure, allowing the escapees to access the Reformist ship.

Jaffar's vessel is boarded by massive numbers of troops, and as he presents his "captured" pirates and the "treasure" to the commander of the other vessel, none of the Double Triangle 22's crew is able to converse with Piel, who begins to wander without supervision, encountering amiable native lifeforms. Aboard Jaffar's ship there is congratulation as the docking tube between the two vessels retracts, and they speculate on how long it will take the pirates to take control of the military vessel. The military have overlooked the presence of Belle aboard ship, and in fact only seem interested in the treasure itself, rather than the fugitives.

Realising they have lost contact with Piel, the crew attempt to contact him, but this is now impossible: traveling with his native companion, Piel has lost his transceiver (and his companion) inside a cave filled with predatory hanging tentacles. He wanders, despondent, back to the lakeside, which takes him out of the forest his father had instructed him to stay within.

The Double Triangle 22 closes on her destination, but the planet is being transported through time by a bizarre race of aliens known only as the Masters of Time. Perdide and everything on it, including Piel, is sent back 60 years through time. The effect of time travel means that aboard the approaching Double Triangle 22, the starfield appears to go into flux, and the unprotected crew are knocked unconscious. They awake in a vast space-station, two halves of a bisected sphere the size of a planet, surrounded by a constantly rotating cube described by vast luminous edges. The crew have been treated for exposure to the time-travel area, but Silbad is dying. Yula and Jad, telepathically, reveal how Piel was attacked again by the creatures which killed his mother, losing part of his skull before a passing spacefarer came to his rescue. Silbad, when first describing Perdide to Jaffar and Belle, had revealed a metal plate on his head to repair the damage of this attack, but never demonstrated explicit knowledge of Piel, his parents' death, or time travel. It is now obvious to Jaffar and Belle that Silbad and Piel are one and the same person at different points in their life, which ends shortly thereafter as the unconscious old man dies. He is "buried" in space, and his funeral is observed by one of the Masters of Time; a tall luminous-green biped with a drooping, beak-like snout.

Animation is the perfect medium for sci-fi. Unfortunately, few animated sci-fi films have lived up to their potential. French animation master René Laloux is definitely one who let his imagination run amok in his medium. He is best known for his 1973 film Fantastic Planet. He must have had a difficult time getting funded for other projects, because he only ever made two more features. He died just a year ago. Time Masters is his second feature (he made another in 1988, called Light Years). The animation is very primitive, and not in the inventive primitiveness of Fantastic Planet. But, what it lacks in animation, it more than makes up for with its imagination. It's simply wonderful to behold. I especially love those two little telepathic creatures, referred to as "gnomes". The story is good, if not great. The ending is quite clever. I was wishing that it had gone on for at least a half an hour longer, but I won't complain, given the limited amount of material Laloux was able to produce in his lifetime.

"Les maîtres du temps" is as good as french animation movies are rare. Designed by Moebius (Fifth Element...), inspired from a novel of Stephan Wul (french science fiction writer) "L'orphelin de Perdide", it remains one of the most powerful animation movie I have ever seen.

Evidently, It is pretty old and the animation cannot be compared to today's movies, but the rest is very impressive. Characters are mature and have interesting personnalities, the design of ETs and plants is original and the scenario is full of surprises. This movie is different from all others and it is a real victory to be better than the book it has been taken of.

I saw this film when I was about 15 when it was shown on British television. I was already a big fan of Alien and Bladerunner but didn't realise then that Jean Giraud (moebius), the concept artist behind some of the costumes on those films was the artist behind this film. The film made a big impression on me and I spent years trying to find out what it was. Finally I described it to an anime-fan friend of mine and he knew it. Although animation has moved on I still think the look of the film is really good, and the story is quite unsettling especially when you're on the planet with the boy, there is a real sense of menace. There's a body count! okay so it's a little bit dated, there are two pretty cheesy songs in it and a cute moppet kid but that's part of it's charm. Don't forget it was made in the early eighties (in fact it looks more seventies). I'll give it an 9/10, i'm afraid it loses one because of the songs.

As much as I did love Fantastic Planet, I think Time Masters is the better film. It is a spectacular sci-fi film and as an animated film too. While the incidental music is great and fits with each scene very well, the songs for me are nothing special and one or two don't do much to enhance the story.

That said, the story is wonderfully creative, imaginative and clever with a promising intense atmosphere and a convincing twist, and the characters are all likable with great personalities. The dialogue is simple without being too simplistic and mature without being too convoluted. The best asset about Time Masters asides from the story is the animation. The character designs are good enough, but considering when it was made the backgrounds and colours are quite stunning.

Because of budget and time reasons, this cartoon, is not as good as he could have been. Yet this cartoon amazed me when I was a kid. it is very atmospheric, it's a good short sci-fi cartoon...

René Laloux is well-known as well for "la planète Sauvage" and "Gandahar" aka "lightyears" in the US ; Moebius (alias Jean Giraud) is a well-known comic strip drawer, he made for instance "l'incal" (check it out if you like Sci-Fi comic strips) and he collaborated on several well-known sci-fi movie (recently the 5th element).

you should check it out, despite its flaws it is nice sci-fi moment.

Be prepared for a quite surprising ending ...