Why in the *world* is every critic and his brother whomping on “Treasure Planet?” Why are people acting like it’s the biggest snorer since “Black Cauldron?”
I took Ariel to see the one local showing of it available since it tanked at the box office, expecting to be bored out of mind. Not at all. Sumptuous to look at, enjoyable character designs, enthusiastic voice acting (Emma Thompson is a standout), and–as always–a story that spends most of its time trying to stay the hëll out of Long John Silver’s way since he dominates it as always (he’s a cyborg this time around.)
Is it the greatest animated film to come down the Disney pike in years? Lord, no. But the story’s pretty much there, and hey, people actually die along the way, so there’s serious stakes here. And for old time Legion of Superhero fans, there’s a morphing blob from the planet Proteus. God knows it’s better than “Atlantis” and, at the very least, it doesn’t remotely deserve the critical drubbing it’s received. At the most, it’s a fun way to past ninety minutes with your kid.
PAD
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Have to agree with you. I took my 8-year old daughter to see it a few weeks ago. For a Disney flick, I was actually looking forward to it – and I wasn’t disappointed. Visuals were fun, story was pretty decent. Michelle – who really wasn’t that interested in going except that the two of us were going to see a new movie – was also suprised. She was thrilled with it.
Too bad that Paramount couldn’t get me more excited about Nemesis than Disney could about Treasure Planet
I don’t have kids and I enjoyed the movie. It doesn’t have the intelligence and wit of Lilo & Stitch, which is probably why it’s being trashed–L&S set the bar pretty high, and TP doesn’t compare well as a followup. But it was a fun romp and I had no complaints.
I’m a big fan of all Disney animated fare (at least since the release of the phenomenal “The Little Mermaid,” the exceptions being “Pocahontas” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” I as well thought “Treasure Planet” was really good, and I certainly don’t think it deserved to be trashed by pretty much everyone. It’s good to see Disney branching out in their animated movies, especially the exploration of the sci-fi realm.
Oh, and Peter–“Atlantis” was a great movie. I’ve seen the DVD several times, and I love it. What didn’t you like about it?
I was a bit confused about “critical drubbing” since I thought it was getting mostly positive reviews. Not raves, but generally positive.
Double checked rottentomatos.com. It was a 72% critical approval rating, which isn’t bad at all. Better than Nemesis, which is in the low 40s, but not quite Two Towers which is at about 96%.
Myself and my girlfriend saw it and we both loved the movie. We told friends, family and co-workers to see it. I thought it was much better than Lilo and Stich, which had good moments, but the animation looked surprisingly cheap for Disney.
Other than Two Towers (which is in another category of filmmaking altogether) it was the most fun we had at the cinemas this season. And that included Harry Potter, Bond and Nemesis.
It’s a great little flick.
_craig (who just got Season 1 of Babylon 5 in the mail today. Likely won’t be sleeping much this weekend)
“Treasure Planet” cost more to make than “Lilo & Stitch” by about $60 million. Normally a bigger budget doesn’t automatically mean better animation — the $40 million “Iron Giant” looks far better than the $100 million and micro-managed-to-death “Quest for Camelot,” for example. I think the extra money did find its way onscreen in “Treasure Planet,” though.
The budget for “Treasure Planet” shows in the complex crowd scenes and animated backgrounds. “Treasure Planet” also boasts the amazing spectacle of John Silver — a seamless blend of CGI and hand-drawn animation. The animators rendered out his cyborg eye, arm and leg in a computer and stitched it together with Glen Keane’s hand-drawn animation. Beautiful stuff.
That said, I liked “Lilo & Stitch” more than “Treasure Planet.” 😀 I thought “Lilo & Stitch” had better characters and storytelling, as well as a good dose of humor.
I loved it, myself, though I’ll agree with Peter that it’s far from true greatness. But it’s the best all-out Disney adventure story since “Aladdin.”
I particularly liked how closely the adaptation hewed to the Stevenson novel, even as far as small details like Jim hiding out in the fruit basket to listen in on the plot. Aside from the space element, this was a more faithful adaptation than the great majority of books-to-film.
I don’t know what to think…”Black Cauldron” is my favorite Disney movie and I loved “Atlantis”….so now I have to see what “Treasure Planet” will hold for me.
I don’t hold much to critics anyhow, they all seemed to love “Maid in Manhattan”.
Col
“God knows it’s better than “Atlantis” “
You must be kidding me. Atlantis stomps Treasure Planet. I’m not saying Treasure Planet is bad, just that Atlantis was far better.
When I first saw a preview for this movie, and that opening shot of a curved metal city lit on one side filled the screen, my jaw dropped and I thought, in astounded delight, “Oh my goodness, they’ve made a movie out of Ringworld!”
Needless to say, it was all downhill after that!
I’ve taken my three sons to see TP twice already. We all loved the movie. The stunning visuals, combined with some well-drawn (no pun intended) characters to make for an entertaining movie. There were the usual plot holes you could drive a train of elephants through, but it still towered over “Atlantis” in terms of plain just being a good movie.
I saw it and liked it but the problems with Treasure Planet were numerous. #1 Disney didn’t support this in their normal manner. Hëll, the McDonald’s Happy Meals didn’t even come out until weeks after the movie came out. #2 Mainstream critics don’t like any animated movie that doesn’t have cute animals and singing. #3 Straight adventure animation has never done well in theaters at any time in history. Transformers the Movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and Titan A.E. all flopped at the box office, even though they did have a healthy home video life.
This is not related to TP, but it needs to be in a blog. A Cinescape review calls Keith R A DeCandido “the second coming of Peter David.” Check it out here:
http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Books&action=page&obj_id=37369
KRAD, any comments?
I very much enjoyed ‘Treasure Planet’…and ‘Atlantis’ as well. It’s too bad they didn’t do better at the box-office but that doesn’t take away from them IMHO.
Rich
Different strokes. “Atlantis” bored the crap out of me. I liked James Garner’s character, but other than that, all the endless prattling about crystals and such was just mind numbing.
And I agree that “Pocahantas” was dull. On the other hand, I thought “Hunchback” was brilliant. I saw it at the El Capitan Theater in LA, and when Frollo did that song about being tempted by Esmerelda, I knew I was seeing a Disney film on a whole different level. Although I really could’a done without the gargoyles, I suppose…
The “Second Coming” of me? Did I go somewhere?
PAD
I like Treasure Planet, but hated Atlantis and Hunchback…everyone has their own tastes in Disney movies 😉
Aladdin is still my favorite with Lion King a close second. I was always a sucker for Hamlet…
“Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt…”
I agree with PAD – I >>loved<< Hutchback of Notre Dame. I thought the villain was the scariest villain to come out in the “new generation” movies. He was really, really evil but truly believed that he was doing the right thing – that’s scary! The song about his temptation still gives me the heebie-jeebies. The opening to it was breathtaking, too. Haven’t seen TP, though.
Re: Treasure Planet – I liked it to a degree, but I never quite warmed up to it. I think the mixing of genre types always throws me, much as the mix of SF and western gave me agita at first on Firefly. Since we tend to rewatch everything Disney, I’m likely to give a second chance on videotape. My wife and most of our friends, though, agree with you, Peter.
Re: Other animation – I think that I would place TP at about the same level as Titan, and slightly below Atlantis. Titan had the story, but Atlantis had characters I genuinely liked. I was looking forward to the now-aborted Atlantis series, which was going to use a lot of history from the WWI and post-war era, and was also going to include a crossover of sorts with Gargoyles.
Most of the serious works, however, don’t hodla candles to the best musicals and comedies. The one exepction is The Iron Giant, though I also have a huge fondness for Prince of Egypt (OK, it’s a musical but a darned serious one).
Oh, and I just read the new issue of Captain Marvel. Peter? OW! OW! OW! OW! My head hurty now. You no do that to readers. 🙂
I haven’t seen Treasure Planet, but I really enjoyed Atlantis.
Lilo and Stich is my all time favorite Disney movie. And I’ve seen just about all of them (not including some of the more recent made for video sequels)
I make no bones about being a huge Disney fan. The only Disney animated feature I didn’t see on opening weekend….if not opening day….since ‘The Jungle Book’ in 1967 was ‘The Fox And The Hound’. And no less a reason than coming down with hepatitis-A ( contracted from working in a seafood restaurant….long story. I recovered very quickly, and the only real lasting effect is that I can never ever donate blood. ) the Saturday morning of opening weekend stopped me!!
I….really wanted to like ‘Pocahontas’ more than I did. Actually seeing ‘Hunchback…’ dispelled any misgivings I may’ve had going in…based primarily on the savagely funny send-up of a ‘Hunchback…’ Broadway musical on ‘The Critic’ as much as a year or so before!
I saw ‘Atlantis…’ by myself opening day, then a few days later with my then-girlfriend, her mother and her visiting five-year old nephew, and loved it both times.
And I adored ‘Lilo & Stitch’!!
But for some reason, I haven’t seen ‘Treasure Planet’ yet!! Granted, I’ve been busy….but this is Disney, dammit!! Glen Keane!!
( Then again, I consider myself a huge ‘Star Trek’ fan as well, having seen all the previous movies on opening weekend, if not opening day. And I’ve yet to see ‘Nemesis’ either!! )
Did I actually let the tepid reviews sway me, even on a subconscious level? Did I let my purist bias against CGI ( hey, it looks good most of the time….I’ll give ya that. But it moves like, by turns, ‘Thunderbirds’ and audio-animatronics…weightless, herky-jerky, and artificially ) talk me into procrastination? I can’t put my finger on it. But now that the hubbub of the holidays has come and gone, I plan to see ‘Treasure Planet’ tomorrow.
But, ‘KC’….I seem to recall the Happy Meal toys coming out a few days-to a week before the movie hit theatres ( even though I didn’t manage to get all eight….another rarity for me!!! Ah, well….) !!
Links for Disney fans:
Dan Pruiskma, an animator who worked at Disney Feature Animation for 20 years, offers an interesting perspective on the current situation at Disney here:
http://www.pruiksma.com/justdesserts.html
Another Disney animator wrote a spoof article about recent Disney layoffs. It got posted online here:
http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=dadafcec.0204230901.403dcb3b%40posting.google.com
Also, Animated-Movies.net has cool interviews with Disney animators Glen Keane (Ariel, John Silver) and Andreas Deja (Scar, Lilo). Check ’em out here:
http://www.animated-movies.net/GlenKeane.html
http://www.animated-movies.net/AndreasDeja.html
Harlan Ellison once wrote about his disgust with a Star Trek (Classic) writer who had boasted about adapting a submarine movie script into an episode; Mr. Ellison voice his disgust that the writer chose to take the easy way out and rewrite old material rather than write something original. I haven’t seen Treasure Planet, so I am in no position to judge whether or not I find it to be a good view. Admittedly, though, I see a similar situation here. I treasure (forgive the pun) the live action Treasure Island that Disney did way back when with Robert Newton. Since Disney did TI before, why the need to do it again, only with the space opera trappings? (Besides, it irks me that Treasure Planet will probably see DVD well before Treasure Island.)
While some posters are busy trashing ‘mainstream critics,’ it should be noted that Roger Ebert did say some very complimentary things about TP, though, ultimately, he was turned off by the apparent need to gussy the story up with the SF element, which, I gather, struck him as gimmicky. I understand his point and tend to agree with it, though I will see TP when it comes out on video if only to see if I was wrong. Liked ATLANTIS, but didn’t love it and had no regret about waiting for home video on that one. Hunchback, for me, gets better with every viewing, probably because its musical score is the richest in a Disney animated movie since Beauty and the Beast. Grew to appreciate Pocahontas more as I heard the songs away from the movie, though it’s not in the absolute favorite category.
I’m not saying that the people who have enjoyed TP are wrong; to each his own. (On Amazon.com I have found posters who thought that The Happiest Millionaire was the coolest thing since yogurt.) I just feel the need to note that these are the reasons for my misgivings, and that it’s not the need to ‘whomp on’ the movie.
Just a thought …
PAD, was it accident or intention that your title line “Dammit Planet!” sounds like “Dammit Janet!” – a song from the “Rocky Horror Show”?
I really liked Treasure Planet, it stayed close enough to the original story to give it some depth of character that Atlantis lacked.
I couldn’t tell you anything about that movie 15 minutes after it was over.
I think TP may have came out too close to Atlantis so people bored by the first one had no interest in the second.
but the main thing ,in my opinion, that hurt TP and most other Disney product in the last couple of years is that their both flooding and confusing the market place with their re-edits( at least the 3rd for Poohs Christmas video),strait to video and strait to theaters “sequels”( it sounds like Atlantis 2 is going to be a re-edit of stuff they did for their failed series. just like their Cinderella 2 was.)and their obvious second tier stuff( country bears, recess and anything that has “Disney’s…” prominently displayed over it because you’d never know it was Disney otherwise.
And off topic, sorry about Supergirl, but I was glad Genis did what he did.
he was really getting to be a dìçk.
I work at Feature Animation, so ignore me if you want… 🙂
IMHO, Treasure Planet was a great story, beautiful to see. Ron and John did a great job mixing a classic tale with a really fun space-opera feel… and I loved seeing an animated science fantasy film, where the aliens aren’t actors with facial prosthetics, there were no limits on the vision of the directors.
I was working on “Reign of Fire”, stinker that *it* was, at the time, but I had a lot of friends working on TP, and we all thought it would do a lot better than it did.
Sigh. Unfortunately, I fear it’ll just be another nail on the coffin for traditional animation. I’m on the 3d/CGI side of the fence, but I love the traditional stuff, it’s a sad thing to watch it dying out at Disney, at Dreamworks, everywhere… 🙁
All IMHO,
Hank.
I really liked Treasure Planet. Thought it was an all-around great adventure cartoon.
Atlantis bit, though. The art style was horrible. Funny thing, though, the VCR fritzed and I lost picture but not sound. If you didn’t like Atlantis, don’t watch it, listen to it. The sound track is terrific. I can’t help but think if they used the traditional art style, as in TS, it would have been great.
And, okay, I’ll bite: what were the giant plotholes you can run a truck through? I thought it was pretty faithful to TI.
Sorry, but in one great sense “Treasure Planet” was a disaster. It was a reproduction of Disney’s live-action film with a few science-fiction character bits added. It was very pretty, but it was a remake with very little new stuff added. As in the live-action version, the (Long) John Silver character stole attention away from the putative lead, Jim Hawkins. Whose story was this, anyway? And Martin Short’s robot navigator was almost as annoying as Martin Short’s old daytime talk show. The reports about how this project was kicked around the studio for ten years (with almost everybody hating it, but not enough to stop it) are the biggest warning signs of trouble at Disney.
It may be too much to say, as some have, that this will mean the end of cel animation. But it sure doesn’t do it a lot of good. (And with the Disney-Pixar relationship souring, it will only get worse.)