Kaena: The Prophecy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

promotional poster for US release of Kaena: The Prophecy

Kaena: The Prophecy (also known as Kaena: La prophétie) is a 2003 French-Canadian computer-generated fantasy movie. The United States release of the film is distributed by Sony Pictures and features the voices of Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, Anjelica Huston, Keith David and Ciara Janson.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film begins with an alien ship crash landing on a desert planet. The alien survivors, known as Vecarians, are quickly killed by the planet's predatory native inhabitants, the Selenites. The ship's core, Vecanoi, survives, and from it sprouts Axis, a massive tree reaching up into space.

600 years later, a race of human-like tree-dwellers have evolved living in the branches of Axis. One of them, a young girl named Kaena (voiced by Kirsten Dunst), is an adventurous daydreamer who longs to explore the world beyond the confines of her village. Kaena's inquisitiveness is opposed as heresy by the village elder, who commands his people to stay productive and toil for the villager's gods (who are, unbeknownst to them, the Selenites living in the planet below).

Led by prophetic dreams of a world with a blue sky and plentiful water, Kaena eventually defies the elder and climbs to the top of Axis. There, she encounters the ancient alien Opaz (voiced by Richard Harris), the last survivor of the Vecarian race that crash landed on the planet centuries ago. Opaz has used his technology to evolve a race of intelligent worms to serve him and help him escape the planet. Upon learning of Kaena's dreams, Opaz enlists her help in retrieving Vecanoi, which contains the collective memory of his people.

However, Vecanoi rests at the base of Axis, where the Selenites dwell. The Queen of the Selenites (voiced by Anjelica Huston) blames Vecanoi for the destruction of their planet, and has spent most of her life (and sacrificed the future of her people) attempting to destroy it.