Walt Disney Animation Studios Review: Treasure Planet

 

Walt Disney Animation Studios 43rd feature film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4K_pjwPZLQ http://www.cornel1801.com/disney/Treasure-Planet-2002/movie-film.html

My opinion right after watching film

My opinion right after watching the film is that it is in the middle of the canon to me. There is a lot of good in it, but there is a lot that I did not really care for as well. This is not a favorite of mine, and I do feel like some of this film reeked of Marketing or Executive Meddling, as some parts were a bit gimmicky. Overall, it is a very decent film that holds up. Just not my type of flavor.

Production

Production started in 1997, after they finished their work on Hercules. They have been pitching the idea since 1985, but John Musker and Ron Clements were forced to do The Little Mermaid instead, since Katzenberg was not interested in the idea. It makes sense why they greenlit this project in 1997 because by then, Atlantis: The Lost Empire was getting out of pre-production, and they wanted to change their audience.

They were having a bit of trouble with the film at first, as they had a hard time trying to update many things from the novel to a space setting, and they had to modify many things to suit the audience of the early 2000s which I am sure the producers had a HUGE involvement with the many changes in this film. Later in production, they again made many changes to the story and characters. The crew had a law of 70/30, meaning 70% of the film, whether it is animation, sound, and story would be of traditional telling, while 30% of it was sci-fi.

Story

The story starts with a narration from Tony Jay about us being in another world, and about Captain Flint raiding ships that float in the sky, and stealing their treasure, as they are approaching Treasure Planet. We soon realize that a 5 year old (I only say this because it says so on Wikipedia) Jim Hawkins (Austin Majors, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is reading a book about Treasure Planet, and when his mother Sarah (Laurie Metcalf) goes in his room, she initially tells him to go to bed, but she soon reads with him when he begs her.

So we are introduced to Older Jim, and we skip 12 years, meaning he is 17. I am 17, and I thought he was 15 at the most. Anyways, he is sky……..surfing? Anyways, this scene reeks of “look little boys, Jim is so cool. Look boys, we could make a bunch of toys off of this”, and it just REEKS of marketing people’s influences on this film. He soon gets caught by the police because he is flying in prohibited land.

He is dragged to his mother’s home and restaurant, as she is talking to her good friend Dr. Doppler (David Hyde Pierce) about how she thinks Jim is doing better since his father left, only for him to be escorted in the house by the police. They warn her about him potentially going to jail if he continues, and everyone in the restaurant is watching the scene. She lectures him about him needing to do better, and he goes outside to find a ship crash, and someone dying, muttering about the Treasure Planet, and Beware the Cyborg. Jim is given a sphere, and when a group of people attack their home, they flee to Doppler’s house.

Jim plays around with the sphere, to only find out that it is the map to Treasure Planet. His mother and family friend witness this, and he wants to go. He apologizes to her about screwing up all the time, but this could make it up to her. Doppler is overly cheery and excited, as he pushes Sarah to make him go, which she eventually does, because she has nothing else to lose.

Apparently, this is where the main town is, where they have to fly to it. There are so many questions about this world, how it functions, the biological and the issues with the physics which almost never get answered. It is very hard for me to understand certain things in the film, because the world and the atmosphere only gives me a lot of questions instead of answers.

They reach the boat-ship, and they meet the commanders and crew they hired for, meeting Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson) her aide Mr. Arrow (Roscoe Lee Browne), and she takes the map to keep it safe, and she demands Jim to work with the crew, where he meets the chef John Silver (Bill Murray). Jim is very suspicious of him because he took in the warning the person told him about Cyborgs; which John Silver is.

So they sail the ship into space, and for no reason, Jim almost gets beat up by John Silver’s colleagues, but is saved by Arrow. John Silver loses it on his crew when they almost blew their cover. So Silver and Jim talk, and we learn that his father abandoned him and Sarah for reasons unknown, and never came back. He did not die, but just left. We get a montage song of I’m Still Here.

So the song is showing is that Jim is looking up to John Silver as a fatherly figure, and we also see that when his father was there, he did not pay much attention to Jim. Their relationship is done well enough.

A Supernova takes over, and it causes everyone to try to go through it with as minimal damage as possible. They tie themselves to a rope on a ship, so they can make it, but Arrow’s is cut off by a worker of Silver’s named Scroop (Michael Wincott) and he flies to his death. After they make it all through, Captain Amelia calls for him, and when she realizes what happened, she is visibly distraught. Scroop frames Jim to make it seem like it is his fault that Arrow died and the teen does not take it well at all. When Silver tries to assure him, it does not work, as he continues to freak out. Silver gives Jim a pep talk about having greatness in him, bu he needs to believe in himself.

The next morning, he wakes up to go to his work area to hear Silver’s crew confronting him about having a soft spot for Jim, which of course John Silver denies and says that he only cares about the treasure, which hurts Jim’s feeling, and reassured that he is the cyborg that the guy that died warned him about.

They land on Treasure Planet, and Jim makes it known that he now hates Silver. He tells Amelia and Doppler that the entire crew are pirates, which causes them to prepare to escape the ship. We engage in this long chase scene with the crew and Jim trying to get the map, with him escaping to Treasure Planet with Amelia and Doppler.

When they land, we soon realize that Amelia is injured, and that the invisible sidekick of Jim and Silver’s left the map of Treasure Planet on the ship. It is around here when the rest of the film becomes an extremely long chase between Silver and Jim. It becomes really slow, and the plot becomes a bit thin at this point. I always get bored and unengaged from this point on in the film.

The pirates land on Treasure Planet to look for Jim, and he bumps into a robot called B.E.N. (Martin Short). The robot does not have a memory, since his owner took it out. He takes Jim, Amelia, and Doppler to his house. Jim thinks it is a good idea to go outside and to confront John Silver. He tells Jim that he did not mean a word that he told his crew about not caring for the lad, as they thought he was going soft. Silver asks Jim for the map, which causes them to argue, and the cyborg makes an ultimatum; get him the map by dawn tomorrow, or he will kill everyone. Back at the house, Amelia compliments Doppler’s eyes, and we realize that they have feelings for one another.

Jim goes back onto the ship and looks for the map, when he comes face to face with Scroop. They fight for a little bit, and Jim is about to be cut into the sky to die (like Arrow was), but he jumps to the pole, and pushes Scroop to fly to his death. He returns to B.E.N.’s house to see Doppler and Amelia tied up by John Silver and his crew, and he demands Jim to open the map (after he fails to open it himself). Jim opens it, which reveals where the treasure is, but closes it soon after, and tells Silver that he has to go with them as well.

So the map shows a bunch of portals, and reveals that the treasure is in the middle of the planet, and is only accessible via portal.

When they reach the treasure, they find B.E.N.’s memory, and when it is installed in his head, B.E.N. reveals that his master set a bunch of booby traps so no one could take his treasure, which is also why he ripped out B.E.N.’s memory. While the booby trap goes on, Amelia and Doppler untie themselves, and Silver goes after Jim, who falls and ends up in a position where he may die. Silver saves Jim over the gold, and they all try to escape and head towards the portal. Jim skysurfs to open the portal to take them home, and they escape just in time.

Silver decides that he needs to leave, so he takes a boat, and right as he is about to leave, Jim stops by, and he offers the lad to join him on a never ending look for treasure, but Jim declines, saying that he needs to chart his own course (I swore this message was already in Pocahontas). So they have a warming goodbye, which you can tell that they both realize that they will never see one another again.

So the ship lands in the town, and Jim reunites with his mother. A few years (or months) later, Captain Amelia and Doppler have quadruples, Sarah opens a new restaurant, and Jim returns with a nice haircut, and as a military cadet. They all have a party, and Jim sees Silver’s face as a cloud, and he smiles.

Do I think this film is bad? No. Do I think this film deserved it’s abysmal flop in the box office? No. Is this film the major reason why traditional animation is pretty much obsolete in WDAS? Yes. Do I think this film is mediocre? Yes. The story gets overly slow in the last half of the film, the characters are decent, but I have seen better, the setting is not that well explained, and a bit scientifically impossible, but there is a charm and heart this film has, which lacks in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Emperor’s New Groove, Dinosaur, and its immediate successors. There is a lot of gimmicks in this film though. This is so not what Disney is used to doing, and while it is better than I thought, I do not see myself watching this movie much (if at all) after this review.

Characters

The characters for the most part are likable, and they do have some depth to them, but for some reason, a lot of them has a gimmick to them. I cannot really fully engage in them or like them for some reason. They are just eh, and I do think I might forget some of them.

Jim is the typical troubled, rebellious teenager, but there is something that makes him different. He does hear what authority figures are saying, wants to change and do better, and is not overly obnoxiously rebellious and troublesome. He is a good enough lead for me, but he does not really stand out to me compared to other characters. He does have a cool design though. He learns his lesson, and his development is nice to see. His voice actor did a really good time with Jim.

For some reason, a lot of people do not like John Silver in this film, and I cannot really see why. It is probably because I have never watched or read the original or any other Treasure Island adaption. He is deceptive, sympathetic, a bit soft, but aggressive and intimidating. With what they need to do with his character is done well. As an antagonist, he does his job well, without losing his bad side as well as seeing a good side to him. A lot of villains do not get that.

Doppler is pretty funny. He is eccentric, smart, a bit naive, a bit cowardly, but can be quirky and a bit of a badass. His relationship with Amelia is definitely rushed, but as a character, he is an entertaining character, who has a vibrant personality.

She is very funny. She is chirpy and energetic, but bossy and a bit controlling. It would have been nice if we saw more of her though. She is brilliantly voiced though.

She is the typical mother, but you do sympathize with her, and she is likable.

Animation

The animation is……..very good. The character designs are very good, the backgrounds (which are mostly CGI) are very detailed, intricate, nicely designed, and aged really well. The animation adds a lot to the theme and the feeling of the film. I have to say that it is very fluid, and the CGI and traditional animation blends really well together. They really pull off the 18th century/futuristic settings and bringing them together, though I do not understand why they merged the two styles in the first place.

Music

There is only one song in the film called I’m Still Here, and……..it is okay. It does have a typical pop-rock style, instead of the adventure and pirate-y theme that the entire score has for itself. The score is good, but for some reason, I kept on thinking that it sounded familiar, and that I heard it from several other films.

Reception at Release

When the film was released on November 27, 2002, it was a box office bomb, and is still known as one of the biggest flops in existence. It only made an embarrassing amount of $38 million domestically, and $71 million overseas, leaving the amount of $$109,578,115 worldwide. This is an issue because the budget was $140 million, and the marketing was another $40 million, meaning they lose over $70 million on this film. This is what officially sunk traditional animation. With this and the underperformance of Sinbad a few months later, WDAS and DreamWorks soon stated that traditional animation is dead. Disney made plans to close off their traditional animation studios almost instantly. They took a huge hit with this. The failures of Atlantis and Emperors already made the first 2 years of the 2000s rough, but this was a huge hit to the company.

Critically, it got favorable reviews. Many praised it for it’s action, story, and visuals, liking how it did not completely ignore the book, while others criticized it for having a crappy script, and the fact that it had an overly gimmicky feeling to it.

It surprisingly was nominated along with Lilo and Stitch by the Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, but both lost to Spirited Away. It was also nominated for a bunch of Annie awards.

Reception Today

Out of all the Disney canon, I would say that this is the film that the company hides the most (actually, The Black Cauldron might fight with this film for the one that is deeper in the Disney Vault). Despite that, many has mixed thoughts of this film, as a lot do not see it as bad, but not good either. It does have a big fanbase and a cult following nonetheless.

Final Score

Story: 7/10

Characters: 7/10

Animation: 9/10

Music: 7.5/10

= 30.5/40 = 76%

Next Time…

Review: October 13th, 2014

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