Disney Movie Challenge: Bolt (2008)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Bolt (2008)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

With Bolt it feels like Disney finally figured out how to do Computer Animation.  The movie looks great and has a lot of good action sequences that feel like they wouldn’t have been able to pull off in past movies.  

The movie is about a dog named Bolt (John Travolta).  Bolt is an acting dog and has his own TV show.  The problem is that Bolt doesn’t know he is in a TV show and thinks he really has superpowers. When he thinks his owner Penny (Miley Cyrus) is really kidnapped he escapes. While running around the studio he gets lost and ends up being placed in a box and shipped to New York.  There he begins a perilous journey back to Hollywood with some new friends, a cat named Mittens, and a hamster named Rhino.  Along the way Bolt learns that he isn’t a superhero and other valuable life lessons. 

Bolt had a similar development as Meet the Robinsons.  Both movies started production prior to John Lasseter joining Disney and both underwent significant changes based on suggestions by Lasseter.  Director Chris Sanders (who previously directed Lilo and Stitch) did not appreciate the suggestions and didn’t want to change anything.  Lasseter removed Sanders from the project and the directing duties went to Byron Howard and Chris Williams.  Also similar to Meet the Robinsons Lasseter told the production they had an abbreviated timeline to finish the project (it’s reported that he told them to do what normally takes 4 years in 18 months). 

Somehow in the compressed timeline they put together a good looking movie.  It has the best action sequences in a Disney computer animated movie up to this time.  Pushing the limits of computer animation, new technology was developed for the movie.  Instead of trying to make the movie photorealistic as most computer animation does, this technology did the opposite. The program was used to make the background look like painting and added brush strokes into animation.   They also used different styles to show the difference between the fictional world of the Bolt TV series and Bolt’s real world adventures.   The finished product has a unique look that still holds up. They also decided early on that this film would be in 3D and was animated with that in mind. Previous films were made in 2D and upgraded to 3D. Making the movie with 3D in mind from the beginning gives a more sharper look as the animators can spend time getting the details right.

Probably the weirdest thing about the movie is the premise.  It’s like someone saw The Truman Show and said let's do that except with a dog.  But once the movie turns into a road movie it feels more organic.  I love the ragtag feel of the team he gets together.  It’s still bizarre to me that Rhino would just run away from home to join Bolt, but the whole Bolt and Mittens dynamic works really well.  

Overall:  Despite all the retooling and a weird premise the movie works pretty well.  The action is fun and the cast has some great interactions.  

Random Facts

Even though Chris Sanders was removed from the project he ended up a Dreamworks and helped create the popular How to Train Your Dragon series so things turned out pretty well for him.  In a weird twist of fate his first live action film was Call of the Wild  at Fox.  After Disney bought Fox the movie was technically released by Disney.  So even though Disney fired him he still found a way back.  

Chloe Grace Moretz did all of Penny’s dialogue but then was replaced by Miley Cyrus.  They did keep her as young Penny.  

Both James Lipton and Randy Savage have small parts in the film. This would be the last film for both of them.   

At one point Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered for the role of Bolt.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Meet the Robinsons (2007)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021.

Starting with Meet the Robinsons we enter a transition period for Disney.  The 2000’s saw Disney struggle and be overshadowed by animated features from Pixar and Dreamworks.  While Meet the Robinsons wasn't a huge success you feel Disney starting to right the ship and the beginning of the second Disney Renaissance.  

Meet the Robinsons is about an orphan twelve year old named Lewis.  Lewis fancies himself as an inventor and has some crazy gadgets.  But, it is these gadgets that seem to keep him from getting adopted.  When he enters a science fair with a machine he thinks will show memories (he hopes to find out why his mother left him for adoption) a man in a bowler hat sabotages his machine and causes it to fail.  Luckily there is another kid (Wilbur Robinson) who wants to help him succeed.  Wilbur tells Lewis he is from the future and to prove it he takes Lewis to the future with him  There Lewis meets the rest of the quirky Robinsons.  They welcome him to their home and for the first time Lewis feels like he has a family.  When the family finds out he is from the past they tell him he can’t stay and must go back to his time.  Meanwhile the man with the bowler hat is still trying to steal Lewis’ invention so he can claim it as his own.  The bowler hat is revealed to be a sentient robot called Doris who has nefarious plans of her own.  There are a bunch of twists that follow but in the end Lewis goes back to the science fair and proves his memory scanner works and everything works out. 

 As I mentioned earlier Meet the Robinsons came during a transition period for Disney. After Jeffrey Katzenberg left to start Dreakworks in 1994 Disney Animation went through a number of leaders.  After Disney bought Pixar in 2006 John Lasseter, who was Vice President of Pixar, was named Chief Creative Office of both Disney Feature Animations and Pixar animations.  At the time he took over Meet the Robinsons was already in development.  When he screened the film for the first time he told them the villain needed to be more scary.  60% of the movie was then reworked adding Doris the hat and a dinosaur chase at the end.  

Meet the Robinsons is the second (third if you count The Wild) fully computer animated film for Disney.  While it’s definitely an improvement it still feels like early computer animated films.  By this point Pixar and Dreamworks had come a long way and making cutting edge films and the Disney team still had a lot of catching up to do. To give you an idea, the animation in this movie reminded me more of Jimmy Neutron which came out in 2001 and less like Ratatouille which came out the same year as this film.  But given the film has an overall retro look it doesn’t take too much away.  

What I really liked about the movie is the writing.  It has funny and clever dialogue that feels like early Lord and Miller style.  I even had to look up if they were involved but they weren’t.  One of my favorite lines from the film is “Knock ‘em dead...that was a figure of speech don’t kill anyone” right before Lewis turns his invention on at the science fair.  The biggest problem I had with the movie is the time travel.  Time travel is always a tricky aspect and very rarely works for me. Each time travel movie has their own time travel rules but this one just doesn’t have any.  They don’t try to explain anything and if you think too much about things it will make your head hurt.  The most egregious part in my opinion is when**SPOILER ALERT** Lewis tells Doris that he just won’t invent her in the future and that solves the problem.   As long as we are doing spoilers the reveal that Lewis is Wilbur's dad is kind of odd because Wilbur's dad is named Cornelius. While that is kind of explained it still feels dumb.

Overall: Not a super memorable movie but has some fun parts with good dialogue.  It also moves along quickly and keeps you from getting bored.  I have my issues with time travel movies and this movie doesn’t even try to explain any time travel paradoxes so best to just roll with it.  

Random Facts

The character of Lewis was voiced by both Daniel Hansen and Jordan Fry. Daniel Hansen voiced Lewis at the beginning of the film's production, and when the studio needed Lewis' lines changed, they had Jordan Fry re-dub many segments

Director Stephen Anderson wanted to direct the movie because he was also adopted and connected with the character Lewis.

Only Disney Animated film to be scored by Danny Elfman.  While I usually enjoy his scores this one wasn't very memorable.

Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: The Wild (2006)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

The Wild

In 2005 Dreamworks released the animated film Madagascar about zoo animals in New York City that escape and go to Africa. In 2006 Disneay released The Wild about zoo animals in New York City that escape and go to Africa.  This isn’t the first time Disney has released a movie that was similar to another movie.  The Pixar movie A Bug's Life was released around the same time as the Dreamworks movie Antz.  But the biggest question about this movie (and the reason it’s a Bonus Post) is “is this movie a Disney movie or not?”  When I looked up my list of Disney Studios Animated Films on Wikipedia this one wasn’t listed, and I never gave it another thought.  There are lots of movies that don’t fit the strict definition to be considered official Disney canon.  What makes The Wild a bit different is that it is considered Canon in Europe but not in the U.S. I am a bit confused why there are different lists for different places.  My initial thought was the movie was so bad and felt like such a copy of Madagascar that they erased it from canon. And if a movie is that bad I need to see it. 

Like I said, The Wild is about zoo animals that escape from a zoo in New York City.  The main animal is a lion named Samson (Keifer Sutherland) with his friends Bridget the giraffe (Janeane Garofalo), Benny the squirrel (Jim Belushi), and Nigel the koala (Eddie Izzard), and a snake named Larry (Richard Kind).  After Samson and his son Ryan have a fight Ryan falls asleep in a cargo carrier that is being shipped to Africa.  Samson and his friends set out to rescue him.  

 Trying to find information on the making of this movie and why it’s not considered canon in the U.S. has been near impossible.  Few things I do know is that it was a partnership between Disney and a Canadian company, and it is the only directorial effort by Steve “Spaz” Williams.  One review I saw mentioned that there was corporate espionage going on. While I couldn’t find anything specific he was talking about I assume it has to do with Jeffrey Katzenberg leaving Disney and going to Dreamworks.  If Katzenberg knew The Wild was in development he could have brought the same concept to Dreamworks and rushed it through development.  Anyway it feels like a move Disney doesn’t want people to know about (although it is on Disney+).

I haven’t watched Madagascar in a long time but obviously there are a lot of similarities. But that hasn’t stopped movies from being successful before. So what makes this one so different? The biggest issue for The Wild is that it’s really bad.  Not only does it feel like a rip off of Madagascar but it feels like a really bad rip off.  This would have been Disney’s second fully computer animated film (after Chicken Little) and it looks awful.  Something about the texture on the animal's fur just looks bad and I found it really distracting.  While the story in Madagascar is pretty absurd it’s at least fun.  The Wild is both absurd and tries to take itself too seriously. There is an overuse of slow pop songs (Yellow from Coldplay seems really out of place) to try to give the film more emotional impact.  And the less that is said about the weird love story between a squirrel and giraffe the better.  

The one thing that worked really well in this film was the voice acting.  Keifer Sutherland and Eddie Izzard did a great job with their characters.  Jim Belushi played the annoying squirrel perfectly as I was annoyed by him the whole way through.  I wish they had better dialogue and a better story to show off their talents. 

Overall: Usually when two movies dealing with similar storylines one gets the spotlight while the other fades in the memory.  But when it comes to The Wild it has nothing to do with comparing it to Madagascar and everything to do with how bad it is.  And I guess everyone learned a lesson.  Don’t let a guy nicknamed “Spaz” direct a movie.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Chicken Little (2005)

Disney Movie Challenge

Chicken Little (2005)

 WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

I went to go post this review and realized I had only wrote about half of it. So I quickly wrote the rest of it. So hope it makes sense.

One of the inspirations for this blog was the list that /Film released in 2019 when Disney+ went live.  On their All 58 Disney Animated Movies Ranked they listed Chicken Little as the worst Disney film.  And when something is considered the worst it only makes me want to see it more, so I have been highly anticipating watching the movie.  While not a great movie it definitely doesn’t deserve the title of worst Disney film. 

The movie takes inspiration from the “Chicken Little'' folktale.   In that story Chicken Little is hit on the head with an acorn and claims the sky is falling.  He causes mass panic before it’s revealed it was just an acorn. The movie starts with that event but then delves into a sci-fi story about aliens trying to invade Earth and only Chicken Little (Zack Braff) and his friends, Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack), Fish Out of Water, and Runt of the Litter (Steve Zahn) can stop them.   The emotional center of the story is about Chicken Little trying to prove his worth to his dad (Gary Marshall) who sees him as an embarrassment after the first sky is falling incident.  It originally was going to take place in a summer camp where Chicken Little was supposed to learn self-confidence and stop being paranoid of everything.  That film was scrapped for the story about and retooled for 2 and half years to they finally got the final story.  

Chicken Little was the first fully computer animated film released by Disney Animation. At the time the partnership deal between Disney and Pixar was coming to an end.  Chicken Little was supposed to prove that Disney could compete with PIxar in the computer animation business.  If the movie succeeded it would give Disney more negotiation power to continue the partnership.  If the movie failed then Pixar would have more leverage saying that Disney needs Pixar.  The weird thing is the movie was both a failure and a success.  While it made a lot of money it was critically panned.  So it didn’t really have an effect.  Eventually in 2006 Disney just bought PIxar and ended any competition between the two.  For a deeper dive into the making of Chicken Little check out this Collider article https://collider.com/disney-chicken-little-history-explained/ 

The premise is pretty absurd and one of the reasons why it gets a bad rap. The emotional arc with Chicken Little and his dad doesn’t really work.  It doesn’t feel like any of the emotional changes happen organically.  The whole alien invasion part has some fun parts but things just happen to them without any of their decisions really impacting the story.  The whole thing feels nonsensical.  In the end you just don’t really care.  

The biggest issue might be the film trying to incorporate pop culture references.  It not only dates the movie but feels really out of place.  Although playing the Spice Girls “Wannabe” in 2005 was probably already dated.  I did appreciate that they had a song from the band Barenaked Ladies as they are one of my favorite bands.  

Overall:

The movie is mediocre.  It has it’s fun parts but it doesn’t really hold together.  While the animation might not be great and probably felt sub-par compared to other contemporary computer animated films from Pixar and Dreamworks it’s not the worst thing I have seen.  I can see kids enjoying the silliness of it but not much in there for adults.  The emotional center of the movie should be the relationship between Chicken Little and his dad just doesn’t work.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Home on the Range (2004)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Home on the Range (2004)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

 I always hope when watching a movie that has a bad reputation it will prove it’s reputation wrong.  Unfortunately for this one it didn’t do that. Home on the Range is truly a bizarre film and not in a good way.  The production of this film is one I would love to know more about.  I really want to know who at Disney decided that what was missing in the world was a movie with Dame Judi Dench and Rosanne Barr playing cows.  And for added effect lets throw in Jennifer Tilly and Randy Quaid as a yodeling cowboy.  

The movie is about three cows Mrs. Calloway, Maggie, and Grace (Dench, Barr, and Tilly) who in an attempt to save their farm set out to capture the notorious outlaw Alameda Slim (Randy Quaid) to earn the reward.  Also trying to capture Slim is the bounty hunter Rico (Charles Dennis) and the horse Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.).  When they catch up to Slim the cows witness how he is able to steal so many cows at once.  When Slim starts to yodel he hypnotizes the cows and gets them to do anything he wants.  Both Mrs. Calloway and Maggie get hypnotized but for some unexplained reason Grace does not and she must stop her friends from being herded up. The next morning a jack rabbit tells them that Slim is in an abandoned mine and that he can lead them to it.  They follow the rabbit and have a big standoff with Slim that involves a train heist.  

One of the good things you can say about this movie is it’s short and moves pretty briskly.  Other than that there isn’t much good to say about this movie.  I can see kids maybe liking this movie because it is very silly. As an adult it just left me agaped especially the scene when we see Slim yodeling and rounding up the cattle, that is like some psychedelic fever dream.  I can’t say enough about how odd the voice casting was in this film.  Judi Dench as a cow in the Old West is just bizarre.  Why would a cow in the Old West have a British Accent?  On paper I can see how pairing Barr with Dench would really highlight how opposite the two cows are,  but in the film it just doesn’t work. Maybe it’s because I find Barr’s voice pretty annoying.  While Jennifer Tilly might also seem like strange casting it actually works.   

Overall: The film definitely deserves the reputation it has as one of the worst films in Disney Canon. Sometimes a movie is made for kids and maybe it’s too much to expect more from it.  

Random Facts:

The last traditionally animated movie until 2009’s The Princess and the Frog. The movie was such a financial disappointment that Disney decided it wasn't worth the cost to make hand drawn animated films.

Director Will Finn wouldn’t direct another animated feature till 2013 when he directed Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return which was also a huge box office flop. 

When /Film did there ranking of all 58 Disney films at the time this was 57 and this is what they had to say  "The cast is, whatever else is true, unexpected: Dame Judi Dench, Roseanne Barr, Jennifer Tilly, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Randy Quaid all play some of the main characters, making for a…uh…unique aural experience." https://www.slashfilm.com/disney-animated-movies-ranked/ 

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Disney Movie Challenge: Brother Bear (2003)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Brother Bear (2003)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021.

The years between 2003 - 2007 are the heart of the 2nd Disney Dark Ages. Most of these films are not very well known and not well regarded.  Kicking off the era is Brother Bear, a movie that seems to want to say something but just ends up being middling.  

The movie is about three Inuit brothers growing up in Alaska just after the ice age.  When the youngest brother Kenai (Joaquin Phoenix) leaves a basket of fish out it gets stolen by a bear.  Kenai goes after the bear and his brothers Sitka and Denahi follow him.  When Kenai encounters the bear he gets trapped on a mountain.  To save him, his brother Sitka causes a chunk of ice to collapse. Sitka dies in fall but the bear lives.  Kenai blames the bear and sets out to kill it.   After he kills the bear his brother's spirit comes down and changes Kenai to a bear to teach him a lesson.  After he is turned into a bear he meets up with a cub named Koda who shows him how to get to the “mountain where the lights touches the land’ so he can be turned back into a man.  At the same time his other brother Denahi vows to kill the bear since he thinks the bear killed Kenai.  On the journey Koda annoys Kenai, but eventually Kenai learns to love Koda like a brother. After they meet up with other bears at the salmon run, Kenai learns that he killed Koda’s mom and must ask forgiveness.  When Kenai finally makes it to the mountain he realizes that he must stay a bear to protect Koda.  

The idea for the film came from Michael Eisner’s desire to make a movie like The Lion King with bears.  While the film went through several changes it’s hard to see any resemblance to The Lion King. The first big difference is that Brother Bear is not a musical.  Taking inspiration from Tarzan they hired Phil Collins to write songs that played over the action.  Unlike Tarzan, Collins only sang some of the songs. Tina Turner, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and the Bulgarian Women’s Choir all had sung songs for the film.  While the songs for Tarzan were catchy the songs in Brother Bear seemed to miss the mark.  None of the songs were bad but nothing that really stood out as special.   

Two of the biggest issues that I had with the film was the mammoth scene and the ending.   At one point Kenai and Koda are trying to avoid being hunted by Denahi and decide to ride mammoths so they don’t leave tracks.  This scene comes out of nowhere. There is no set up. No explanation why the mammoths would even let bears ride them. One second Kenai says he has an idea and the next second they are on mammoths.  Just felt super bizarre.  

The biggest problem with the ending is that I never understood why Kenai would want to stay a bear. While I get that he learned to love Koda as a brother and wants to protect him, is staying a bear really the best way to do that?  Could he have stayed human and still protected Koda? The decision totally took me by surprise.  It seemed he would want to return to his human family and adopt Koda.  

The story itself feels like it wants to say something about respecting life and how sometimes you have to look at things from a different perspective.  Unfortunately the movie spends too much time being silly that when it switches to being a serious drama it doesn’t feel earned. A few scenes after they ride mammoths we find out that Kenai killed Koda’s mom who up to that point we didn’t even know was dead.   Maybe I was just oblivious to the clues and figured out the twist too late into the story but after a fun silly story the serious turn felt out of left field.  

My favorite part of the film were the two moose played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.  They pretty much are reviving their roles of the  McKenzie brothers from SCTV and Strange Brew.  Their classic banter is great and used just enough to not get old.  My favorite line at the end is when they are leaving for the last time they say “you know what this calls for? A pile of delicious barley and amber wheat on a cool bed of malted hops”.  Pretty much the closest you will get to someone saying let's have a beer in a Disney film.  

Overall: A movie with a lot of potential but doesn’t quite get there. The animation looks fine, it's not as eye-popping as Treasure Planet but still good.  The music is pretty forgettable. It’s tough to walk the line between silly comedy and serious drama and this movie tries to do both but doesn’t quite succeed.  

Random Facts

Rick Moranis and Joaquin Phoenix were in Parenthood together where Phoenix played Moranis’ nephew in that movie. 

This was the first Disney Animated film to have a post credit scene. 

The film changes aspect ratio at the 24 minute mark. It goes from 1.33:1 to 2.35:1 when Kenai is turned into a bear.  The change is supposed to symbolize Kenai’s world view getting larger.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Treasure Planet (2002)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Treasure Planet (2002)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021.   

Directors Ron Clements and John Musker have had a long career at Disney.  The first film they directed for Disney was The Great Mouse Detective. After that they pitched two films to Disney head Jeffrey Katzenberg The Little Mermaid and Treasure Planet. While both films were initially rejected, The Little Mermaid would end up being a huge success and Clements and Musker would go on to direct Aladdin and Hercules.  But they never gave up on doing Treasure Planet and when the studio wanted them to make Hercules they put in their contract a guarantee that Disney would let them make Treasure Planet.  Eventually in 2002 they got to release the film and it turned out that maybe the studio was right as it became one of Disney’s largest box office flops.  

The movie is a retelling of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic “Treasure Island” in space.  I have never read or seen any of the other versions so I don’t know what was changed.  The movie follows Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a teenager with a thirst for adventure.  He loved listening to stories as a kid about pirate adventures and one day he gets his chance to go on his own adventure when a map to treasure planet ends up in his hands.  His friend Doctor Doppler is also intrigued and hires a captain and crew.  Unbeknownst to them the crew they hired is made up of pirates who are trying to get their hands on the map also.  Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson) knows there is something not right with the crew and tells them to hide the map.  Jim is told to work in the Galley with Mr. Silver (Brian Murray).  After a rocky start they seem to form a bond and Jim begins to mature and learn.  When it’s revealed that Mr. Silver is a pirate and leads the mutiny, Jim begins to question everything Mr. Silver taught him.  After they make it to treasure planet a race breaks out who can find the treasure first. 

Treasure Planet is one of the most expensive animated films ever made.  This was because they ended up using multiple kinds of animation to make the film.  They had traditional hand drawn animation, CGI animation, and 3D animation using “Deep Canvas” created for Tarzan.  There are times when all are on screen at the same time. One of the biggest uses of CGI was Mr. Silver’s robotic arm and leg.  To see how CGI would look on top of traditional animation they did a test using Captain Hook from Peter Pan.  Here is a small clip from the tests. Watching the movie you don’t notice anything and everything looks pretty flawless.  The visuals are pretty stunning. 

It’s disappointing that the movie bombed because it’s not a bad movie.  I think it was the weird sci-fi element that didn’t click with people.  I think people found it hard to believe people would just be sailing around space in open boats with no helmets on.  But if you can get past that the story is mostly fun. The voice acting is pretty great.  I loved Emma Thompson as Captain Amelia.  The biggest issue I had was when Martin Short’s character of B.E.N. was introduced.  While I love Martin Short he was a little too much Martin Short. I found the character pretty annoying and it kind of took me out of the film.

 I also think some of the emotional arcs the characters go through just didn’t work right.  It was kind of confusing how we are supposed to feel about Mr. Silver.  We get hints early on that he is a bad guy but then he is a good guy, but then bad guy again and then good guy.  The movie never really gives a good reason why Jim would forgive him at the end.  There is also a weird love story between Captain Amelia and Dr. Doppler that just pops up out of nowhere.  I think if they had ironed out some of the characters better maybe the film would have found more of an audience.  

Overall: Not a bad movie.  The animation looked great and integrated all animation aspects pretty brilliantly.  Unfortunately the story  just didn’t resonate with an audience. Not sure if it’s just people don’t like Disney Sci-Fi (Atlantis: The Lost Empire also flopped), or just the characters weren’t interesting enough. Also a random Goo Goo Dolls song pops up and that kind of took me out of the movie also.  

Random Facts

Along with Lilo and Stitch, the first Disney Animated Films to be nominated for Best Animated Features at the Oscars, both lost to Spirited Away.  This was only the second year that category existed.  The first year no Disney Animated films were nominated (Pixar's Monsters Inc. did get a nomination the previous year but lost to Shrek.)

The movie lost over $70 million at the box office. It is one of Disney’s largest financial losses.  

Biggest discussion between my son and I.  Was Morph a good guy or a bad guy? If he was with Mr. Silver all that time he should have known Silver was planning a mutiny. I almost figured when he left with Jim that he was acting as a spy.  

Disney’s third adaption of the book Treasure Island.  The first two were the 1950 movie Treasure Island and the 1996 Muppet Treasure Island