'Interstella 5555': The Daft Punk Animated Movie You've Probably Never Heard Of
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Former French Electronic Music duo Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homen-Christo, collectively known as Daft Punk, are regarded as one of the most influential acts in dance music between 1993 and 2021, having produced several hit songs and albums that blended all kinds of music, including funk, disco, techno, and synth. Their talents also extended well beyond merely producing their music, but they also composed the chart-topping score for Disney’s Tron Legacy (2010), a sequel to their earlier visually groundbreaking film, Tron (1982). A third Tron film, Tron: Ares, is currently in production (expected release date October 2025) and will use music composed by another music group, Nine Inch Nails. However, what many people may not know about Daft Punk is that they also collaborated with Leiji Matsumoto (Galaxy Express 999, Captain Harlock, Space Battleship Yamato) and Toei Animation to produce the Japanese animated film Interstella 5555, with their 2001 album, Discovery providing the tracking audio for the film’s sequence.
Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, which debuted in 2003, is a Japanese animated film about four talented blue-skinned alien humanoid musicians (Octave, Stella, Arpegius, and Baryl) who are kidnapped by a villainous record producer, The Earl of Darkwood, who disguises them as humans and has them reprogrammed to forget their real identities and play soulless corporate pop as The Crescendolls on Earth. A fellow alien, Shep, receives a distress signal about the abduction and follows their captors to Earth in his guitar-shaped spaceship to save them. In the process, the aliens discover that The Earl of Darkwood has been doing this sort of thing long before them with other historically important musicians. The film does not feature any dialogue, however, the vocal and instrumental tracks from Daft Punk’s album, Discovery, play chronologically during the film, and the animated sequences are more than enough to help viewers understand what is occurring in the story.
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The film was initially released in theaters on May 28, 2003, received a DVD release on October 04, 2011, and, most recently, on December 12, 2024, the 4K restored film was released globally in over 1,500 theaters as a limited-time special movie event. Six (unrelated) Daft Punk music videos were also exhibited along with the film event: Daft Punk: Da Funk (1997), Daft Punk: Around the World (1997), Daft Punk: Burnin' (1997), Daft Punk: Revolution 909 (1998), Daft Punk: Fresh (2000) and Daft Punk ft. Julian Casablancas + the Voidz: Infinity Repeating (2013 Demo) (2023). The film, although not extremely well-known outside of Daft Punk fans, is held in high regard, currently holding an 89% critic rating on the Tomatometer and a 96% audience rating on the Popcornmeter. Although it is unknown whether Interstella 5555 will receive a new home video release, snippets of the film can be seen on video platforms such as YouTube and iTunes in music videos for the Daft Punk songs from Discovery as accompanied by the film.
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Source(s): IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia
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