Rating: 
Summary: One of the most original films of 2003
Review: "Interstella 5555" is a brilliant take on music videos, movie musicals, and anime. "Interstella" is "Fantasia" for a new generation, but instead of orchestrated music, you have the sound of Daft Punk.The film follows a rock band of four blue humanoid looking aliens. During one of there concerts on there home planet, they are kidnapped by a evil record producer named Earl de Darkwood. He takes them to Earth and forcefully transforms them into a band for humans. There only hope is another alien space jockey named Shep, who is the only one who can save them. The art in this movie is gorgeous. Leiji Matsumoto's work in "Interstella" is a perfect example of why 2-D animation is not dead yet. The character models are very nice looking and the backgrounds flourish with depth and color. Daft Punk's music is a matter of taste. You ether love the club/funk/rock genera, or you do not. Because there is no dialog, the music not only must set the mood, but also tell the story and if you don't like the music, then you probably won't like the film. All the music is taken form the album "Discovery" and fits very well with the themes of the movie, being space, love, mystery, and others. My only complaint would be that the music does not fit totally sometimes with what is happening on screen. When you have a song the is somber and slow, but you have the screen filled with action scenes, it doesn't fit as well. I wish they could have fit everything together perfectly like in the "Fantasia" films, but the music is mostly beats. It would just be too crazy to have so many jump cuts. If you enjoy great dance music and anime, or just want to see something that is different from everything else coming out this year, check out this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: When French Meets Japanese
Review: "Musicians are magicians. That's what I always say," says legendary anime creator Leiji Matsumoto at the beginning of the film. It's a musical. It's anime. I had a hard time finding it in the store, but when I got it, I watched it continuously at home. The French duo Daft Punk (my favorite electronica group), meets the Japanese artist Leiji Matsumoto (I love his work). I already owned many electronica albums and many anime DVDs, so I thought I'd give this a try because I was a big fan of the music videos from Discovery. Now, this is currently my favorite DVD yet! It's about a band from another planet in a faraway galaxy. An evil man from Earth, sends his army to bring the band to Earth, brainwashes them, and gives them human appearance. They are a major success and become #1, but when a man from the same planet as the band tries to rescue them, they all try to stop the evil man from conquering the universe. This whole story is told entirely without dialogue. Don't believe me? Go buy it and see for yourself! I still keep on watching it continuously. It has a lot of replay value. I highly recommend it to fans of anime and electronica.
Rating:
Summary: When French Meets Japanese
Review: "Musicians are magicians. That's what I always say," says legendary anime creator Leiji Matsumoto at the beginning of the film. It's a musical. It's anime. I had a hard time finding it in the store, but when I got it, I watched it continuously at home. The French duo Daft Punk (my favorite electronica group), meets the Japanese artist Leiji Matsumoto (I love his work). I already owned many electronica albums and many anime DVDs, so I thought I'd give this a try because I was a big fan of the music videos from Discovery. Now, this is currently my favorite DVD yet! It's about a band from another planet in a faraway galaxy. An evil man from Earth, sends his army to bring the band to Earth, brainwashes them, and gives them human appearance. They are a major success and become #1, but when a man from the same planet as the band tries to rescue them, they all try to stop the evil man from conquering the universe. This whole story is told entirely without dialogue. Don't believe me? Go buy it and see for yourself! I still keep on watching it continuously. It has a lot of replay value. I highly recommend it to fans of anime and electronica.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent DVD for Daft Punk fans
Review: And really a fan is what you have to be to really enjoy it. As you may or may not already know, the DVD is an extension on four previously released music videos for tracks on Daft Punk's Discovery album. Now the entire album has been animated and tells a more fleshed out and complete story, which has twists and turns and moreover a respectable ending. There is no dialogue in the entire presentation except in the opening credits, where Matsumoto talks about his dreams. Sound effects have been added in certain parts, and are unobtrusive to the music. But it's due to this lack of dialogue that the story itself is very boring. Not to say that the visuals are boring themselves - quite the contrary; the artwork is beautiful - but they rarely succeed in exposing the characters' personalities. A group of extragalactic musicians are one day captured by unknown forces and returned to Earth, where an evil producer turns them into the world's most popular band. They are pursued by the female band member's shy lover, who sets about freeing the band from the producer's clutches and winning the female lead's heart. The transfer quality is great, however the audio is somewhat subdued. Fortunately you can enjoy the DVD in a variety of audio formats, including 5.1 surround sound. The extras are confusing to navigate, however. The menu is represented by a series of undetailed buttons with no explanation as to their purpose. But the extras are generally uninformative and unimpressive, especially the character profiles. There's also karaoke, if you're into that. But given the limited appeal of the music itself, alongside the subpar story, the DVD really has little to offer to non Daft Punk fans and even anime fans in general. But to those who have spent the last few years wondering how it all ends, you owe it to yourself to pick this up.
Rating:
Summary: Good Mix of Music and Anime
Review: Animation done to music is nothing new, but "Interstella 5555" does a great job of breathing new life into this tradition. Essentially an hour-long music video animated to Daft Punk's album "Discovery", it tells a good story about kidnapping, theft, rescue, love, and adventure across space. Music being the central theme, the highly stylized anime (brought to life by the legendary Leiji Matsumoto of "Harlock", "Space Cruiser Yamato", and "Queen Emeraldas" fame) and music mix makes this a fun way to spend an hour. Epic almost on the scale of Chage and Aska's Studio Ghibli animated video "On Your Mark", "Interstella" is something relatively new, something fresh in both anime and music circles. Hopefully the success of this DVD will inspire a new generation of stylish and fun music videos. While the album itself has its high and low points, and the movie lacks any major dialogue, mixed together these minor flaws really don't matter. I would recommend this video for any anime fan or music video enthusiast. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A stunning merger of fandoms.
Review: Anime and Daft Punk fans have been anticipating this DVD since the first four videos hit MTV in 2001. We never expected a merger like this, but after seeing the videos, we were glued to our seats, ready for more. It comes to a huge surprise that Discovery was semi-produced to work as a musical, which actually made me like the CD even more. So finally comes the complete musical. It's non-vocal the whole way through except for lyrics which lip-synced... humorously. There is, in fact, a story only Leiji Matsumoto could think up, and it works tremendously with the music. The designs are just as innovative as anything Matsumoto, as is the storytelling. The only detractors from the whole experience are the same as what you would get from other musicals anyway, such as plot holes, really fast editing and pace (though details are given enough screen time so the story isn't lost). Also, you can't go about watching this without bumping into cliches. Still, the pros outweigh the cons more than enough to make these passable. It asks a lot of a man to create a musical where instrumental music is constantly the foreground. In this standpoint, Interstella 5555 is excellent. For those who haven't heard Daft Punk's Discovery before, the album is House with extra doses of funk. It heads more into disco and shameless dance than in their last album, Homework, but it is a steady progression in their sound. Songs have more of a pop appeal this time around, repetitive minimalism is toned down a step to make way for more varied compositions. There are also a couple tracks that undoubtably were meant for cinematic treatment ("Aerodynamic" being the biggest example), which tend to make the album drift in a different direction. Most of the songs are catchy and memorable and definitely worth sitting through as a soundtrack. It should be noted that this is one of the last cel-animated works in anime. This is during the digital takeover in anime so the compositing and motion will look a little dated. The colors, effects and tone, though, are picture-perfect. The DVD transfer is gorgeous. A surprise to me are the extras. No commentary or other traditional DVD extras, but a heavy emphasis on interactivity, something reminiscient of Daft Punk's first DVD, D.A.F.T. The interactive game is cute, though passable. There is another feature, though, that mimics The Matrix DVD where an icon appears and once 'play' is clicked you get a look into the designs and backgrounds from the animation. Also included are biographies, the trailer, Karaoke (smart thinking), and others. There's been a long wait for this musical, but the end result is something miles beyond expected and truly delivers. I think it goes without saying what kind of audience would appreciate a DVD like this, but it's garaunteed to get more dance music fans from the hardcore anime fans and vice versa. From the standpoint of a fan of both sides, this is a dream come true.
Rating:
Summary: I love DP!
Review: continuing there success with a an electropera, Daft Punk puts there ablum discovery into a captivating full length movie. I became DP fan at the age of 12, and today I still watch the DVD every week or so. with good movement/animation correlation, this is a must have for any DP fan and any one who owns the discovery album or likes anime movies.
Rating:
Summary: Two great things that go great together!
Review: Ever since I saw Vampire Hunter D and Tenchi Muyo back when they first came to the US, I've been hooked on Anime (and just about anything subtitled since my TV had no speaker back then). Ever since I heard 'Around The World' I said "ooh, something different". And I seeked out all things Daft. Then Discovery came out. It was another different move for Daft Punk, but that's exactly what I liked them for in the beginning anyway. I found small samples of the videos online and enjoyed them greatly. There was always something in the back of my head telling me that these 'videos' were a little too well produced to be left alone. There had to be a feature-length story here. Boy, was that little voice ever right. I'm sure there are a lot of Anime fans out there that like Daft Punk already. This is the Peanut-Butter Cup of entertainment. I'm going to be listening to the voices in my head more often!!!
Rating:
Summary: Perfect
Review: Every moment of film goes perfect with every sound you hear. The plot is easily known without even the use of context clues. Perfect in every aspect, I hope they do something like this again. Hoorah for Daft Punk.
Rating:
Summary: really good
Review: I am not sure if I heard the music or saw one of the videos first, but anyway whatever the order, they ended up blending together into something that for me was intriguing and beautiful at the same time, like any contemporary art should feel.
I have to admit, although, that without the first three or four videos suggesting that there was a story behind the music and the anime I wouldn't have probably even noted this DVD, but I would have also probably bought the CD anyway, that powerfully echoing this music is. After seeing the DVD I can only say buy it. You like Daft Punk and anime? you must buy it. You like Daft Punk? buy it because with the added animation it feels like a mature and round work. You just happen to like anime? well there are other DVDs that you should probably dig first (starting with AKIRA), but this one has no reason to envy them at all, and maybe you will end up liking Daft Punk music too.
The style of the anime is a real pleasure, reminding me of all the japanese cartoons of my childhood (I didn't know they were called anime at that time), that's a plus.
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