Proof that sometimes, you don't even need dialogue to make a character particularly monstrous and detestable.
Hi folks. So I recently got reminded of this very unique and experimental film I really like and decided to rewatch it. Upon doing this, I unexpectedly noticed it actually has a potential PE candidate in it, albeit a somewhat bizarre one. Now, there’s a couple potential reasons why he might not completely count, but after really thinking about it, I’m pretty sure they don’t hold up, so whether he’s approved or rejected, I think he’s worth at least bringing up to get an opinion on. If anything, I’m actually quite interested to see how this plays out.
What’s the work?[]
Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, or Interstella 5555 for short, is an animated film that serves as a visual companion to Discovery, the second album by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk. Produced and written by none other than Thomas Bangalter and Guy Manuel de Homem-Christo, the duo themselves, directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi and supervised by Leiji Matsumoto, the film uses anime-style visuals set to the songs from the album to tell a cohesive (and surprisingly engaging and intricate) story about an alien pop band getting abducted from their home planet and rescued later on. Therefore, apart from the lyrics in some of the songs, the movie is completely devoid of dialogue and even has minimal sound effects otherwise; the best way to look at it is either a just over one hour long music video, or a fairly short silent film set to Daft Punk. Since none of the characters actually have dialogue, you might think that would somewhat limit how good and evil they can be, right? Believe it or not, that does little to impede its villain from being surprisingly vile.
Who is he and what does he do?[]
Earl de Darkwood is the main villain of the film who at first, appears to just be an ordinary, greedy businessman, but more on that later. He is introduced invading an alien planet on a large spaceship where a 4-piece alien band consisting of Octave, the keyboardist and singer, Arpegius, the guitarist, Stella, the bassist, and Baryl, the drummer, are performing One More Time to a packed and happy audience. By the end of the song, he has a military force sent down to knock out the members with some sort of gas and kidnap them, with the military also using it to temporarily knock out many other adult and child aliens alike in the process to do it more smoothly. He then has the unconscious band taken to an underground facility where their memories are removed onto disks, they’re disguised as humans and are outfitted with mind-control devices. He then labels them as the Crescendolls and poses as their manager to some unnamed music producer on Earth, who is instantly impressed by footage sent to him of their performance of One More Time (of course, it’s been modified to show them in their human disguises).
Soon, the Crescendolls explode in popularity, and the Earl forces them to do constant performances, interviews and autograph signings, which is later shown to have run them ragged. Despite appearing affable with them in public, he essentially treats them like slaves, having them constantly monitored by a couple of bodyguards, who abuse and force them to do what they’re told, even when they’re utterly exhausted from all that. The Earl then has them perform a stadium concert to increase their popularity and ensure they hit the top of the charts even more, but it is during this concert that Shep, a member of their race who is both a big fan of theirs and implied to be something of a local hero, infiltrates it and rescues Octave, Arpegius and Baryl by destroying their mind-control devices with some sort of gadget he has on him that emits a beam. However, just before he can rescue Stella, the Earl stands directly in front of her and sics his two primary bodyguards on them, forcing them to flee. They manage to escape, but one of the bodyguards manages to fatally wound Shep in the ensuing car chase. Meanwhile, the Earl attends the Golden Record Award ceremony with Stella as one of the nominees. Surely enough, they win the Golden Record over the other candidates (including Daft Punk themselves, lol), with the Earl donning a particularly malevolent grin while accepting it onstage, though not before deliberately leaving Stella with a business card that has the address of his home, Darkwood Manor, on it. Thankfully, it’s revealed Baryl snuck into the audience and uses the same device Shep used earlier to destroy Stella’s mind-control device while onstage, and she manages to sneak out of the ceremony with him and Octave.
After comforting Shep in his dying moments in some abandoned warehouse and finding a nice tree to bury him under, the band members notice the card the Earl left with Stella, and use the van they took to initially escape to travel to Darkwood Manor. It is upon entering the manor and discovering a secret room that they find a journal titled Veridis Quo that details the Earl’s plans. And this… this following part is the real kicker and what truly cements him as a potential PE candidate; some time ago, after losing both his parents when their home was destroyed by some sort of bright object that crashed down on it (probably either a meteor or a spaceship), he grew up independently and quickly educated himself on the existence of wormholes that allow one to travel to various places in the universe much more quickly. He also became very knowledgeable and skilled with technology, hence why he owns such a large spaceship that he uses to travel around, was able to create androids disguised as bodyguards, soldiers, etc., and has either discovered how to make himself immortal, or at the very least, prolong his life. The band then finds out, much to their collective horror, that he’s been similarly kidnapping and brainwashing many other alien musicians just like them, disguising them as humans, taking credit for their talent by acting as their manager, and using them to win Golden Records. Oh, and when he’s done with them, he disposes of them by sacrificing them in cult-like rituals, usually by commanding them to fall into a pit of lava while brainwashed. The purpose of this is to collect 5555 Golden Records (hence the significance of the number in the title), which will somehow give him the power to conquer the universe, ending with a picture of him looming over the Earth with a deranged smile.
Right when they finish, having anticipated and counted on their arrival, the Earl’s bodyguards enter the room, threaten them at gunpoint, and escort them down to the caves where the Earl is holding what may be the last ritual to gain the power he desires. He then forces Stella into a machine to use her as a sacrifice, and as it causes her great pain, presumably by sucking her life force, he is, likewise, given what may be the last Golden Record he needs. However, the other band members manage to defeat the bodyguards, with Arpegius disrupting the ritual by tackling him, causing him to drop the Golden Record into the lava pit below. Despite Arpegius, believe it or not, trying to stop and save him, the Earl desperately leaps after it, plunging into and perishing in the lava below, with all his followers mindlessly leaping in after him.
While this mostly marks the end of his part in the story, later on, once most of the other humans, including the unnamed producer I mentioned earlier, find out about the aliens’ true nature when they try sneaking into the record company to get the disks with their memories on them, as well as about the Earl’s plot, they’re surprisingly accepting and helpful, with the authorities mounting an operation to turn them back to their normal selves and providing them with a ship to return to their home planet. It’s while they’re making the journey home and travelling through a wormhole that the Earl returns as a vengeful spirit and attacks their ship, electrocuting and causing them great pain, but thankfully, Shep’s spirit comes to their aid and fights him off, allowing them to pass through safely.
Mitigating Factors[]
Okay, so here’s the first point I want to address, and the one that’s most likely to cause dissonance with regards to if he qualifies; at the end of the movie, the whole story is implied to at least possibly have been a dream by some young boy who was listening to Daft Punk and owns toy versions of many of the characters. However, even if it’s supposed to be a dream, it’s so vividly realized and focused on for the whole movie that the world feels just as “real” as any other work of fiction. Likewise, I feel like all the characters, including the Earl, can be treated like characters who have moral agency, know right from wrong and act accordingly since that’s how the dream itself portrays them. The way I see it, since all the works we evaluate are works of fiction as it is, the story being a work of fiction of sorts within the work itself just adds one extra layer between us and it, if that makes any sense.
Other than that, we also see a brief flashback when the band first views the Veridis Quo book that depicts the Earl having lost his parents as a child, including his father, who was the previous Earl, in an accident, and looking at least a little sad about their deaths. However, in both the flashbacks following that and the present tense of the story, he no longer shows any signs whatsoever of being sad about losing them, so he seems to have just stopped caring. Plus, being orphaned and losing them has absolutely no relevance or connection to his present motives at all, so no, I don’t think this brief bit serves as an excuse for his actions, nor does it hold up as a mitigating trait; if anything, its purpose seems to be solely to highlight the sheer dissonance between who he used to be, and the utter monster that he grew up to be in the present.
When you get past those couple of points, this is an easy pass. He’s portrayed as a deranged megalomaniac of the highest order who’s nearly constantly smiling malevolently as he commits his atrocities. Yes, he has bodyguards, soldiers and followers, but by the time he meets his end, they’re all revealed to be androids that if anything, he created to follow his orders without question. This is made explicit with the bodyguards, but the soldiers at the beginning and the followers at his rituals are also heavily implied to be this since you never see their faces, they all have similar glowing red eyes, and the others at the ritual even mindlessly commit suicide by following him into the lava pit after he recklessly dives in after the Golden Record. So yeah, there’s nothing implying he actually cares for or sees them as anything other than mindless followers to carry out his orders and help him achieve his goals. And of course, any affability he shows to others like the producer or anyone else in public while acting as a manager to all these alien musicians is just a façade that he puts on while internally gloating about getting one step closer to his selfish goal.
Heinousness[]
I’d definitely say he’s heinous enough to stand out, both by the work’s standard and by the general standard; he’s the main villain, so he’s the source of all the conflict and anything his followers do is on his orders. As for what he does, hoo boy… for starters, he’s eventually revealed to be an aspiring galactic conqueror, and that’s not even what stands out about him the most. No, without details of what that would involve, that alone might seem pretty generic, but what truly makes him stand out is exactly what he’s revealed to have done to meet that goal; he’s kidnapped at least hundreds, if not thousands of alien musicians from their respective homes across the universe and brainwashed them into becoming his popular music acts, with Octave, Arpegius, Stella and Baryl only being his latest victims. And if his treatment of them is any indication, he treats them all like slaves that he’s constantly forcing to perform, give interviews and sign autographs to the point of being run ragged. Even worse, whenever he gets another Golden Record by making them popular enough to win it, he ultimately disposes of them by having them throw themselves into a lava pit as sacrifices in cult-like rituals before moving on to someone else (or in Stella’s case, putting her in a machine that drains her life energy). We not only see part of this in flashbacks, but when the band is taken to where he’s performing the ritual, we see both the walls of the caves and the machine in the center completely decorated with Golden Records. Oh, and we know he needs 5555 of them to somehow acquire the power he desires, with them possibly providing him with the last couple that he needs…. so yeah, that paints a pretty horrifying picture/pattern of how many victims he’s accumulated in this manner over who knows how many years.
Final Verdict[]
I can see why some people might have an issue with him qualifying due to the couple of points I addressed under the Mitigating Factors section, but for the reasons I gave, I don’t personally think they prevent him from qualifying. At the very least, he definitely seems awful enough to be worth proposing, considering and getting a verdict on, so even if he’s rejected, I have no regrets. Thanks for reading this, hope you enjoyed it and have a great day!