Treasure Planet

"Now, you listen to me, James Hawkins. You got the makings of greatness in you, but you got to take the helm and chart your own course. Stick to it, no matter the squalls! And when the time comes you get the chance to really test the cut of your sails, and show what you're made of! Well, I hope I'm there, catching some of the light coming off you that day." -John Silver

Disney's Treasure Planet is a futuristic sci-fi version of Robert Louis Steven's Treasure Island, a tale about Jim Hawkins who is part of a crew in search of Captain Flint's treasure only to discover that the ship's cook, Long John Silver, is a pirate planning a mutiny in order the get the treasure all for himself. In this particular version, Jim Hawkin's is voiced by my future Hollywood bestie, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which on its own would make it worth watching. However, this also came from an interesting time in Disney animation. Having only intermittent success since Aladdin, Disney was now being challenged by Fox and Warner Brothers as the dominant family animators. And the threat wasn't coming in their typical genre.

In 1999, Warner Brothers released The Iron Giant, a sci-fi adventure film directed by Brad Bird. Though it was poorly marketed and under released, this charming story about a boy and his giant space robot gained a level of critical acclaim that Disney had not seen since 1994's The Lion King. The next year, 20th Century Fox released Titan A.E., a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure film about Cale (Matt Damon) and Akima (Drew Barrymore) as they search for a space station that can save mankind. Though this film also underperformed due to poor marketing, it must have been a blow to Disney's ego and consequently forced them to expand into the heretofore untouched sci-fi adventure genre with strong male leads searching for excitement and their spunky female love interests to help them.

Thus, Disney released Atlantis: The Lost Empire in 2001. Michael J. Fox voices Milo who, on the eve of World War II, has found a map to Atlantis. However, when he gets there, he discovers that Atlantis may need more help than it can give. Although Atlantis did better than the other two movies in theaters, it still did not make enough in the US to cover its production costs. Unfortunately, Disney could not blame this on poor marketing like The Iron Giant or Titan A.E. as was reinforced by the generally average to poor reviews it received. Accused of having a general lack of character and plot development, perhaps Disney had just strayed too far from what they knew. They were willing to give it another shot the following year with Treasure Planet.

With this, finally, they had done it. By using their already established skills of adaptation, they too had produced an family-friendly animated sci-fi film that had relatively good reviews on par with Titan A.E. Disney even went all out on the animation, layering 2D animation over 3D to create a unique and stunning visual effect. Plus, they made a new first by simultaneously releasing it in regular theaters and IMAX. It was a success! In everything but box office figures that is. High DVD sales and good reviews weren't enough to make up for a box office flop and Disney washed its hands of that crazy fad to return to more comfortable movies like 2003's Brother Bear.

And so the animated sci-fi genre ended soon after it began, but not without leaving a few gems worth watching. The Iron Giant and Titan A.E. of course but I would personally add Treasure Plant for it's stunning animation, well-adapted plot, and charming lead. If you can forgive the feel-good Disney end added to the original Treasure Island story, I think you'll find the lack of romance an interesting twist to the Disney formula. It's an adventure story pure and simple with the most developed relationship that of father/son. These short-lived sci-fi films show a great deal of potential in children's entertainment that could be equal to the Disney princesses given the right marketing. Each of these thrilling tales has it's own cult following and hopefully that will be enough to respark interest in the genre soon.