Planet Unknown (2016) User Reviews

Average Story

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 25 March 2019]

While not ground breaking or earth shattering (pun intended), it is nicely animated. The robots that have been sent to see if plants can grow on the terrain of another planet seem to have personalities. When meteors start striking the surface, they are left to avoid destruction. Unfortunately, we've seen this all before and even the precious moment at the end doesn't make it particularly special.

Animation really convincing, story-wise merely okay

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 13 June 2017]

"Planet Unknown" is a Chinese 9-minute short film from 2016, so still relatively new and fresh. The director and writer of this award-winning work is Shawn Wang and it is an animated movie of course. Schience fiction is the genre here as we see two explorer robots on the lookout. From the description here on IMDb I see that they were sent by humans to search for new living space and resources too and it seems as if it is a bit of a race between them. I think the film's biggest strength is the animation. The story isn't bad, but certainly not on par with the film's visual side. So yes it is a bit of a parallel to Wall-E where the animation is also by far the best aspect and makes up for some weaknesses in story-telling. As a whole, I don't think the film really gets his meaningful approach and importance through, but it also doesn't fail. For a first time filmmaking effort, Wang did a fairly convincing job that makes curious about future projects. I recommend checking this one out.

Entertaining but more fantasy than SF.

[redpin-70557 · 7/10 · 23 August 2019]

I found this short entertaining enough and it did get me thinking about the scenario. If this was a real mission, a geosynchronous satellite would provide communication links and GPS Each bot would know where the other one was. Also, a satellite could detect imminent threats such as meteors. But I guess with such technology available we'd have little drama, and that just leaves us with a search till we find story. Enjoyable. Thanks Shawn 'Zixiao' Wang.

well craft

[Kirpianuscus · 28 June 2018]

The story is familiar, the characters are from Wall - E tradition. short, at the first sigh, no surprises. but a decent work, well crafted animation, nice story, hopefull end. enough for a good short film.