Premise: It's Treasure Island, but in space.
(Note: A computer snaffu caused me to lose my original draft, so if I sound perturbed, that's why)
I find the early and mid-2000s era of Disney animation fascinating. Basically, the period between the Disney Renaissance and the New Disney Renaissance. Several factors came together around the same time to give Disney one massive identity crisis. It pretty much boils down to 3 factors: computers, competitors, and consistency. The Disney formula worked exceptionally well throughout the 90s. 2D animation, great music, and clever ideas led to hit after hit. By the late 90s, they were still churning out hits, but they were clearly stagnating. The movies were getting more expensive and even $100-$120 million grosses weren't quite doing it anymore. And the formula risked getting stale. I suspect it worried Disney that Fox aped their formula so well with Anastasia that for years, most people assumed it was a Disney film. So, they had to figure out how to evolve the brand. In the late 90s as well, DreamWorks Animation showed up on the scene, offering Disney their greatest animated threat since Don Bluth broke off in the early 80s. By the time DreamWorks made Shrek, Disney realized they weren't going away and threatened to out-innovate them. Speaking of innovation. Disney Animation's greatest "competitor" came from in-house* when Pixar changed the game with Toy Story. The fully CGI film became the highest grossing movie of 1995. When A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2 also outgrossed the Disney Animated features those years (by a lot), that must've created a greater identity crisis.
*Pixar was independent initially, but since Disney handled their distribution, that's close enough to "in-house" for me.
This all goes to say that in the early 2000s, Disney animation had a lot of big and sometimes costly swings. Perhaps no swing was bigger than Treasure Planet. This 2D-3D computer animated hybrid attempted to be the movie that mastered the look of early DreamWorks movies like The Prince of Egypt. Disney sank a lot of money into it and lost big. It was a bomb. Disney hadn't seen an animated film bomb this hard in years. It was the least money made by a Disney Animation Studios* film since The Rescuers Down Under (And adjusted for inflation, that might be a toss-up). Given the estimated $140 million budget, that's a disaster. Really though, it just confirmed a trend started with the likes of The Emperor's New Groove and Atlantis: The Lost Empire: a film I still confuse with Treasure Planet.
*Remember: Disney does have niche divisions for smaller movies. Most notable at the time was Disneytoon Studios, which made straight to video films that occasionally became theatrical releases. These were smaller movies than Disney Animation Studios, so I'm not counting them. No one thought of Doug's First Movie as the next big Disney release.
That's a lot of table setting to say that it's a shame Treasure Planet is so tied to its financial failure. It's a pretty enjoyable movie. It looks unique from anything else the studio has made. The nonsensical mix of space and the high seas gives this a nearly steampunk look that I'm surprised hasn't caught on more, the way that The Nightmare Before Christmas has in the nostalgia market. The voice cast is fun. I especially like David Hyde Pierce channeling Niles Crane for his role and Emma Thompson really going to town with the swashbuckling captain role. Even the villain role of John Silver feels unique among Disney Animated movies. He's the primary antagonist, yet he's fully able to take an antihero turn within the movie.
It is hard to see the world where this movie was the hit that kept the Disney Renaissance going though. It took the studio a while to figure out how to replace the majesty and levity of the musical numbers. You see, most people just equate the music to the comedy (Thanks Golden Globes) like it's a 1 for 1 trade off. Take the songs out and add more jokes to keep the film balanced. Some of the songs were funny, but what they really did was give the movies a feeling of grandeur. "A Whole New World". "Beauty and the Beast". "The Circle of Life". These are songs that elevated the emotional resonance of the movie. Treasure Planet has a lot of wonder but can't express it as succinctly. Disney eventually figured it out. Meet the Robinsons still hits hard. Wreck-It Ralph has emotional resonance. And they've been willing to dip back into the musicals on occasion. Ironically, the story in Treasure Planet reflects the search that Disney Animation was going through at the time.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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