Repeat after me: you’re not better than. No, you’re not. This should be an obvious thing, and yet, again and again, we see stuff like this movie, where someone takes an acknowledged classic and tries to “improve” upon it by telling the story their own way, or even their own story piggybacked on top of the original tale. It never really works, and while this film represents a valiant effort, and one where a certain reverence for the original material is evident, the effort is not entirely successful here, either. The movie is at its best in the scenes where, in expertly rendered stop-action animation, it relates the core of Saint-Exupery’s fairy tale. In the CGI animated frame story, the work is less effective, probably because that part of the proceedings looks and feels too familiar (the character and world designs are straight out of the now-standard computer animation playbook) in contrast to the older yet somehow fresher look of the stop action, which hews more closely to the style of the original author’s “decorations.” That’s not to say the frame is without any impact; certain aspects of the more modern tale hit home with the viewer. But it just doesn’t compare to the creative vision that lies at the heart of the fable. The wind, sand and stars are, indeed, essential elements of the world, and you just can’t improve upon them—even if you think you’re so much better than those who walked the earth—or any asteroid—before you.
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