Treasure Planet Review: Disney Marathon

Spoilers

People can put a minimum amount of effort into something and get rewarded massively for it. Just look at the Kardashians, Pokémon Sword and Shield, and most modern music. Of course, this can go the other way as well. You could spend years creating your passion project, throwing your blood, sweat, and tears into it and come out with a movie that lost millions, critics were indifferent about, and was quickly forgotten by the studio who helped you fund it. That is what happened with Treasure Planet, one of Disney’s biggest financial flops. The movie cost $140 million to make and only made back $109,578,115 so they lost money. You’ve also got to consider that a movies budget isn’t taking into account marketing costs so they lost even more than the $30 million shown here. The movie has an interesting history which I think I should briefly go over before talking about the film itself.

This movie was thought of at the same time as The Little Mermaid by Ron Clements and John Musker who pitched both ideas to Disney. They were told to make The Little Mermaid but forget about making Treasure Island in space. The two didn’t give up though, after finishing work on The Little Mermaid they asked again but were once more declined. After making Aladdin the duo asked then head of Disney Jeffrey Katzenberg who responded that he wasn’t interested. They then ran to Roy E. Disney and essentially told on Jeffrey Katzenberg for being a big bully so Roy went and put him in his place. They agreed that if they made Hercules for them, they would be allowed to make Treasure Planet. Even when they were allowed to do it the technology simply wasn’t there so they had to wait a few years to start production. Eventually they started production and created Treasure Planet. The movie came out in 2002 and underperformed in every way possible. There really isn’t any justice in this world is there? This was meant to be a story of two creatives proving their corporate overlords wrong but instead the corporate overlords were right, nobody at the time wanted Treasure Island in space. But that was a long time ago, the movie has a following now and many people will vouch for its quality so I was excited to give this one a watch.

We open to the protagonist Jim Hawkins reading a story about a pirate called Captain Flint. Well I say reading but it’s more like watching. Imagine a pop-up book but instead of paper popping up it’s a hologram. This movie features numerous original devices that really make you feel like you’re in a new world. We have these hologram books, we have solar surfers, and the flying ships as only a few examples. In this story Captain Flint hides his fortune in the legendary Treasure Planet. Jim’s mother Sarah enters the room and tells the story to him with the book.

We cut to 12 years later where Jim has gone full on emo. Jim hates his mundane life and fears that this will be his future if he doesn’t do something. He craves adventure and wants to find Treasure Planet even though everyone tells him it’s just a legend. We get a scene of him solar-surfing and it’s so cool, I want to go solar surfing. I love it how all the space transport like the solar surfer and the ships are based on the real-life concept of the solar sail. The idea is that with reflective sails you can capture light from stars and use that to travel at incredible speeds. Whilst normal sails use the wind to move whatever they’re attached to, solar sails will use light. Treasure Planet using an actual scientific idea to travel through space that also just happens to involve sails is genius. Anyway, Jim is captured by the police because he was solar-surfing in an unauthorised area. He is sent back to his mum who runs a local inn. She is deeply disappointed at what he became when his father left and discusses this with her friend Dr. Delbert Doppler.

Jim is sitting doing that Disney thing where he just looks into the sky making a wish or some shit when a ship crashes nearby which Jim quickly investigates. An alien leaves the crash site who Jim helps get back to the Inn. The alien dies after telling Jim that he needs to watch out for a cyborg and giving him a strange sphere. A bunch of pirates attack the inn but luckily Jim and co escape before they can be slaughtered by the pirates, the pirates then set the inn on fire. The trio of Jim, Sarah, and Dr. Doppler retreat to Dr. Doppler’s home where Jim realises that the sphere is a map to Treasure Planet. After getting permission from his reluctant mother Jim and Dr. Doppler decide to go on an adventure to find Treasure Planet.

The pair go to a local spaceport where they have hired a ship called the RLS Legacy and a crew. The important members are Captain Amelia, her first mate, Mr. Arrow, their cook John Silver, John Silver’s mimic like companion Morph who can turn into anything, and Scroop. I’ll talk in detail about all of those characters after the plot summary as I have a lot to say about all of them. I guess I better at least mention the rest of the crew. We have Mr. Snuff who’s just a giant slug who communicates in fart noises (I really expect more from you Disney), Onus (can’t remember anything about him), Bird Brain Mary, Longbourne (ain’t got nothing on him either chief), Mertock, Grewnge (I can’t even remember seeing this guy), Hands, Turnbuckle (I think this character list I’m reading from is making them up at this point), Fayvoon, Verne (?), Blinko (I can’t remember there being this many crew members), Aguanoggin, Torrance who is just a huge torso, and his counterpart Hedley who is just a head. I am genuinely curious; do you reckon anyone exists out there who can name all of these off by heart?

Jim is assigned to work with John Silver. As the ship flies into space we get a scene which I love, even though it is objectively trash. We get Jim staring into space in the most Disney way possible as bad CGI creatures fly beside them. It’s so cheesy but I love it. It turns out that John Silver and the majority of the crew (who it turns out work for John) are going to cause a mutiny but Jim is a bit too suspicious so John decides to work Jim so hard that he has no time to investigate. As Jim and John work together, John starts to get a soft spot for Jim. This is one of the things I love about pirate media, the moral ambiguity of almost every character. Up until the end of the movie you really don’t know what John is going to do, not because he’s a badly written character, but because he is a deep character with numerous motives that push and pull him between being a hero and a villain. John and Jim build a genuine father-son relationship with one another. John hates this, his plan was to betray this crew, probably killing everyone on it that wasn’t a part of his crew but now he accidently has started to care for someone on it, making things a lot more difficult.

Suddenly a star starts to go supernova before turning into a black hole. I love it how this is just compared to a bad storm. The movie constantly makes comparisons between sailing the ocean and sailing through space. Jim is tasked with securing everyone’s lifeline so nobody falls overboard. Scroop (one of John’s men) cuts Mr. Arrow’s lifeline causing him to fall to his death into the black hole. Once they’ve gotten back into open space Scroop says that Mr. Arrow wasn’t secured which caused him to fall, Jim of course blames himself. I like it how they don’t have the traditional “oh everyone hates him” moment here as Captain Amelia recognises that Mr. Arrow knew the risks when he went into space. We have the much more compelling conflict between John and Jim later on in the movie, we don’t need some random conflict between Amelia and Jim who haven’t even really spoken yet. John finds out what Scroop did and gets angry at him and tells him he’ll kill him if he tries anything again without his permission. John helps Jim deal with thinking he killed someone.

The next day they arrive above Treasure Planet. Jim overhears John and his crew members talking. They say that John has gotten soft so John replies that he has never cared for Jim and is only being nice to him to stop him from investigating the mutiny. They then start the mutiny where John finds Jim. The two fight in a really cool fight scene which is also pretty heart-breaking. John has a few times where he could kill Jim, he’s a much better fighter after all but he doesn’t do it as he truly does care for the kid.

Jim, Dr. Doppler, and Captain Amelia escape on an escape boat with the map to the treasure. The escape boat is shot down by John’s crew and Captain Amelia ends up getting injured in the crash landing. It turns out the map was actually Morph pretending to be the map, the real map is still on board the ship. Jim goes to try and find somewhere they can hide from the pirates but ends up finding the character that single-handedly decreases the movies quality by quite a bit, B.E.N.. B.E.N. is the worst, he is so loud, he just screams occasionally, I hate him so much. He also looks like shit. The movie is mostly hand-drawn with CGI only being used in specific cases. For example, it is often used to increase the scope of a scene which as I’ve previously mentioned is the best use for early CGI animation. It is also used in John Silvers robotic arm and looks great; the glossy look of early CGI actually works surprisingly well for a cyborg. It’s also much more fluid than the hand drawn animation so looks really cool whenever he turns his robotic hand into something else. B.E.N. is fully CGI and looks like shit, he doesn’t mesh well in the scenes so not only has he got the worst personality he also looks like shit (like me), he truly is worthless. It turns out that he was the navigator for Captain Flint but has lost his memory chip so doesn’t know where the treasure is. He lets Jim, Dr. Doppler, and Captain Amelia hide in his hideout.

The pirates walk past the hideout and B.E.N. tells them where they’re hiding, ok I did find this kind of funny, just because B.E.N. doesn’t know what’s going on so just gives away their location. Jim and John speak to each other where John tells him he didn’t mean anything he said, that they can work together to get the treasure, and that all he needs to do is give John the map. Jim refuses and John says he’ll start shooting missiles from the ship at them if they don’t surrender by the end of the night. With this information Jim knows that John doesn’t have the map either. B.E.N. tells Jim of his secret exit which the pair use to sneak onto a boat and fly up to the ship to disable the missiles and get the real map. The pair get caught by Scroop. B.E.N. messes everything up by turning the artificial-gravity off which leads to an awesome fight between Jim and Scroop. Scroop ends up flying off into space due to the lack of gravity and B.E.N. manages to turn it back on and disables the missiles. They grab the treasure map and head back.

When they return, they find that Dr. Doppler and Captain Amelia have been captured and John forces Jim to lead them to the treasure otherwise they’ll kill the pair. They lead them to the treasure and find a portal which can take you anywhere in the universe (which to be honest is a bigger treasure than the infinite riches that the actual treasure is composed of). They use this machine to teleport into the centre of the planet which contains all of the riches. They set off a trap which they don’t notice, Jim finds B.E.N.’s memory circuit and B.E.N. remembers the trap. Explosions start to go off so Jim hotwires Captain Flint’s ship so they can escape. Jim gets knocked off the ship and John is left with a choice, go for the treasure or rescue Jim, he decides to rescue Jim and they all fly out with Captain Flint’s ship to Captain Amelia’s ship to escape on. Unfortunately, they won’t be able to escape in time but Jim has a plan. He builds a solar surfer so he can fly over to the teleporter and activate it so the ship can fly through it to somewhere safer. They succeed and Jim fly’s through afterwards just in time.

Everything is back to normal and Jim notices that John is gone. He goes down to find him trying to leave on a boat to avoid getting arrested. John and Jim have a heart to heart and John offers Jim the chance to go with him, Jim declines but thanks him for the offer. John gives Jim a ton of gold so that he can rebuild the inn and Jim returns home. The inn is rebuilt, Dr. Doppler and Captain Amelia get married and Jim has joined the Royal Interstellar Academy. The end.

This movie is great. Not only does it have an amazing story with great interesting characters, but it’s a visual wonder as well. CGI looked like shit in 2002 when used badly, so they only really used it to enhance the hand drawn animation, they rarely used it to the point where it became intrusive. I guess the first flight into space scene is technically bad but I enjoyed it. The only other bad use is with B.E.N. but I’ve complained enough about him. Well ok I’ll complain about him a little more. B.E.N. actually ruins the scenes that he is a part of. Imagine watching Star Wars but occasionally someone comes up to you and just screams in your ears for five minutes. That is what B.E.N. does to this movie. What other negatives are there? I wish we went to some more planets as well; we only really visit three so it would have been nice to explore some more locations, that’s not really a flaw though just something I thought worth mentioning. I don’t like the forced romance between Captain Amelia and Dr. Doppler. Oh, and I don’t think Jim is a great protagonist throughout, I’ll discuss that in a second though. That’s about it. Let’s talk about the characters for a bit, shall we, starting with Jim.

Jim Hawkins as a main character is fine. He starts off upset at his boring life with a desire for adventure. It makes sense but it does mean we get a main character who spends a lot of the runtime sulking. Even when he gets to go on an adventure it’s only in the third act that he’s allowed to do anything adventurous which is what makes him truly happy, that and bonding with John which is also when he’s at his most interesting. Seeing him gain a proper father figure and seeing him grow throughout, that’s great stuff, honestly my favourite part of the movie is Jim and Johns relationship. So yeah, I’d say he spends about 60% of the movie being sulky and kind of boring, 20% spending time with his father figure John Silver which is great, and 20% being adventurous which is also great.

John Silver is my favourite character. He is morally ambiguous. He’s never really a good guy per se. His arc goes like this. The first thing we see him do is murder another guy and burn down Jim’s mum’s inn. He joins Captain Amelia’s ship with the intent of murdering everybody onboard who isn’t his crew and getting rich but starts to accidently bond with Jim. He then spends the entire third act as the antagonist of the movie and only saves Jim because of his personal attachment to the boy. This is what makes him so interesting, he’s bad yeah but not just some pure evil villain like most Disney villains are and therefore can bond with the protagonist and help him in the end. I spent the entire movie wondering if he’d reform by the end and yeah he doesn’t but he still ends up helping Jim which is much more interesting. It’s so much better than if he just turned on his crew and said “I don’t want to start a mutiny, let’s just all be friends, also I’m not a criminal anymore, oh and I’ve found God, amen”.

Dr. Doppler is the perfect moral man. Someone who I started off thinking would be the one to become a father figure to Jim as that is what they start to imply. But John is a much more fitting father figure to Jim than Doppler (Doppler is clearly a better person who would be a technically better father, but Jim and John would bond so much better). He’s likable though, although of course they give him a forced romantic sub-plot with Captain Amelia. Talking about Captain Amelia.

Captain Amelia is an interesting case when it comes to women in the media. You can look at her as a competent female character who is injured halfway through the movie and is looked after throughout the rest of it. That looks like a bad thing but I disagree. If she was an invincible badass, she would have fit into that stupid archetype of perfect woman who cannot be hurt by anything which is just such an overdone boring archetype. Characters who are perfect are mostly uninteresting, no matter what the gender. Captain Marvel and Superman are equally boring characters in most of their appearances. Making her vulnerable just makes her human (although she’s an alien but you know what I’m saying). Vulnerability and weaknesses make a character interesting, not someone who is unstoppable (there is of course exceptions like One Punch Man, Scarlet Witch, and Mob from Mob Phycho 100). They didn’t need some stupid love sub-plot though; it really does feel forced.

Morph is great, he’s the cute marketable character made for merchandise purposes. Almost every Disney movie has one of these, some good, some bad. Morph is good, I’d definitely buy merch of him.

Let’s quickly go through the other characters I haven’t mentioned yet. Mr. Arrow is alright, he’s Captain Amelia’s friend and basically serves to develop Captain Amelia when he dies. Scroop has got a great design and serves as the pure evil villain that Disney can’t physically not include apparently. John Silver was too nuanced quickly throw in a demon or something. Sarah Hawkins is Jim’s mum and is alright, she just wants what is the best for her son and yeah she is alright, I don’t know what else there is to say about her.

The movie was going to be the start of a franchise like the majority of Disney movies ended up becoming. A second movie was in the works for almost a year before getting cancelled due to this movie’s financial failings. A tv series was also planned but got cancelled for the same reasons. This is a huge shame although realistically the sequel and tv series would have likely been much worst than this movie. The sequel would have probably been direct to DVD with a fraction of the budget and the creators of the original would have been barely involved. There was a PC strategy game called Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon so look here’s your Treasure Planet sequel.

To be honest it might be alright, I’ve never played it but do plan on playing some of the weird Disney movie tie-in games at some point for this site so who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to experience it.

It seems like this movie was tailor made to appeal to me. I love space, I love characters that aren’t clearly good or bad, and I love father and son relationships in movies. Oh, and most importantly, I love pirates. I will defend the Pirates of the Caribbean movies even though the first one is the only actual good one, I’d say they’re all pretty fun movies though. Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag is one of my favourite games just because of the pirate theme. Of course, I’m going to love pirates, but in space. So yeah, I love this movie, it’s great. It was also the last movie that is fondly looked back on from the post-renaissance era. The next five movies are all looked down on, Brother Bear, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt. What will I think of them though? Well you’ll just have to wait and find out, see you tomorrow and thanks for reading.

8 / 10