These spindly and fragile looking spacecraft are still’s taken from the 1982 French Animated Film ‘Les Maîtres du temps’ (The Masters of Time, a.k.a. Time Masters) directed by René Laloux and designed by Moebius. I have to admit that I’d never actually heard of this until I saw it featured over on Eric Carl’s excellent Blog.Sans-Concept.
Full post here: http://blog.sans-concept.com/?p=293 and check the full stills set at: http://flickr.com/photos/mr_carl/sets/72157612581774973/
In my opinion, pretty much any French Sci-Fi automatically qualifies as extremely interesting, and ‘Les Maîtres du temps’ certainley fit’s the bill! Also worthy of more reading; the career of Animator & Director René Laloux (July 13, 1929–March 13, 2004) most famous for ‘La Planète Sauvage,’ (Fantastic Planet 1973). Check his wonderfully bizarre 1965 Short film ‘Les Escargots’ : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiXn6d13YC0 a parable of Nuclear Holocaust?
Top left: “Duke Leto Atreides”
Top right a “Sardaukar” – I still prefer this depiction
Bottom left “Feyd” – played by Sting in Lynch’s 84 Version
Bottom right “Kynes”
All concept Art from Mobieus for the aborted Alejandro Jodorowsky 1976 version of “Dune”. With Mobieus in charge of Costume Design and Storyboarding, Chris Foss taking care of Spaceship’s and Vehicles and H.R.Giger creating the evil Harkonnen Homeworld + a Pink Floyd soundtrack & starring Mick Jagger and Salvador Dali amongst others! it goes without saying this is definitely the greatest film never made. The project stalled when funds dried up and other assorted spanners randomly flew into the creative machine. Truly a project of immense scope and scale – alas never to be, at least not in this Universe!
Read all you need to know about the project, see all the art, interviews and more at this amazing site: http://www.duneinfo.com/ - Thanks Dan for the tip on that! The Mobieus feature is at http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/moebius.asp
It’s also well worth having a read about Alejandro Jodorowsky himself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky -
Also some more at:
Manny Z’s Cininite Blog: http://citinite.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/jean-moebius-giraud/
And the excellent io9.com http://io9.com/5088014/costume-designs-and-storyboards-from-the-dune-that-never-was
Dovetailing nicely into Bladerunner comes some of the original visual inspiration for that film – ‘The Long Tomorrow’ – a 1976 Proto-Cyberpunk Comic with art By French Artist Mobieus and a script from Dan (Alien) O’Bannon. Many Thanks to Dick Hogg for putting me onto this, and supplying the scans.
Read much more about ‘The Long Tomorrow’ and the birth of Cyberpunk here: http://www.brmovie.com/FAQs/BR_FAQ_BR_Influence.htm
Costume Concept Art for the Ridley Scott Movie ‘Alien’ 1979 from French comic Artist Moebius AKA Jean Giraud.
