Reaction & Review | Treasure Planet

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentleman, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2002. That movie is "Treasure Planet".

Yes, guys, I have NEVER seen this movie. In fact, I didn't even know about this movie's existence up until about a decade ago. Which would explain why I didn't get a chance to see this movie yet. It's one of the only animated films from Disney that I have any marginal interest in watching, and I'm hoping that this movie is gonna be worth that long wait.

Now, you're probably wondering why I haven't covered a from film from Disney up until this point? Well, there's a few reasons for that. First off, I HAVE technically covered a Disney film, that being "Iron Man 2", seeing as how Disney owns Marvel and all. The second reason being that I've seen just about all of the animated Disney movies from before the year 2000. So, none of them are eligible for this series. Thirdly, I'm not a huge Disney fan, as is. But I'll get more into that after I finish watching the movie.

For now, though, I'm gonna talk about what I know about this movie going in. I do know that this movie is an adaptation of the story of Treasure Island. And before I go even further, I should also mention that this is NOT the first time Disney has ever done this kind of story. You see, back in 1950, Disney made a live-action adaptation of that very same story, and the star of that movie was a young child actor by the name of Bobby Driscoll. For those of you who might be famliar with that name, he was the voice of Peter Pan from the 1953 animated film that Disney would later produce. Anyway, this movie is pretty much doing that same story again, except it's either set in space, or it takes place in the future, or maybe both. I have no idea at this point in time, but I'll find out eventually when I start up the movie.

Now, I could also go into detail about how this movie was supposedly sabatoged in theaters, because it would give Disney an excuse to drop traditional animation for CG, thus was the reason why "Treasure Planet" bombed in theaters. However, I am not gonna get into that. I really just want to see if I missed out on anything good here. I've heard people say a lot of good things about this movie, but then again, people say that a lot about Disney's animated films, so that's not saying very much for me, personally. Still though, I am curious to find out if I missed out on a classic here. And the only way I'm gonna find that out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Treasure Planet".

16 minutes later

So...the moon itself that I'm seeing here...is actually a huge city? All right, that's something I never thought I'd see involving the moon. And the CG doesn't look too bad either. At least, for the standards of 2002 it looks pretty good, anyways.

6 minutes later

You know, guys, if I ever lose one of my arms for whatever horrible reasoning, I would love to have it replaced with that mechanical arm that Silver has. It looks really fucking cool. Just thought I'd let you guys know.

13 minutes later

You know, guys, it's really cool and everything that Jim Hawkins is bonding with Silver here. But shouldn't he be still aware of what he was told earlier? You know, him being warned by that alien pirate that he should be "aware of the cyborg"? I kinda hope Jim hasn't forgotten that. Otherwise, it's gonna make him look a little bit stupid if it does turn out the way I think it's going to go.

7 minutes later

O...K. Out of all the deaths I've seen in any Disney film, I think that's the first time that I've seen someone die via getting sucked into a black hole. I will say that it certainly looked really cool. But death from a black hole was probably one of the last things I was expecting.

10 minutes later

Guys, I'm really liking how this movie is mixing it's tradtional animation with CG. It looks really good in a lot of areas. But I'll get more into that when the movie is done.

19 minutes later

I'd like to say right now, guys, that if ever given the chance, I would throw B.E.N. into a fucking incinerator and watch him burn. He has become one of the most irritating characters I've ever come across in a movie in a long time! And considering that he's voiced by Martin Short, that's not really helping things for his character in the long run.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Treasure Planet". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. So, where do I even begin here? Well, I went into this movie with some pretty high hopes of it being decent. And overall, it ended up being pretty good. I quite enjoyed this thing very much.

Now, before I get into the movie itself, I want to start with something that I hinted at earlier. I mentioned that I wasn't a huge Disney fan, and I feel like I need to address that first. You see, like a lot of people, I did grow up watching Disney movies as part of my childhood. However, I'm more akin to the animated films that came out before the 90's. I'm talking about stuff such as "101 Dalmatians", "Sleeping Beauty", "Bambi", "The Great Mouse Detective", and I would even go so far as to mention something such as "The Brave Little Toaster", even though it's technically not a part of the main animated Disney lineup. Those are a few examples of the ones that I grew up watching as a child, and I still enjoy watching them today. Now, even though I'm in the minority on this one, I'm not a huge fan of the Renaissance era. I think most of those movies have aged a bit poorly, save for "Beauty and the Beast". Almost everything else, save for "The Rescuers Down Under", is something that I can go off never watching again because I just don't have the same kind of love for those movies as most others do. And around the time during the mid-2000's, I just stopped caring about Disney all together, because they haven't put out anything that I would consider worth watching. Now while I have seen a few of their movies that came out during the 2000's, such as "Lilo and Stitch", "Brother Bear", and "The Princess and the Frog", it still wasn't enough for me to care about what they've been putting out. I was more focused on gaming at the time, and Disney was just seen as an afterthought to me.

So, you're probably wondering if this is just an unnecessary history lesson about how I lost interest in Disney? Well...not exactly. You see, my point in all this is that I wanted to let you guys know that, from this point forward, I'm not gonna be covering anymore of their animated films. And that includes anything from Pixar, because Pixar has not been relevant to me since it's inception. Part of the reason is because I know fans have very, VERY high expectations for almost anything that Disney puts out when it comes to their animated projects. And I know that if I ever ended up covering those movies for Reaction & Review, and they don't live up to the standards and expectations of how high the fans have set it up for, then those movies are, most likely, gonna end up being disappointing or just end up being complete shit. The other reason being is that, as I just stated earlier, I'm not a huge fan of Disney, and I just don't care enough about their current product. None of the movies that I've seen them put out recently are worth my attention. Now, when I say that, I am not including anything from Marvel or Star Wars, because I like to consider them as their own things. But when it comes to the original stuff that Disney has made, it's not something I care about. Now, I could also talk about how Disney, as a company, is a shell of their former selves. Such as them putting their own politics into some of their movies and TV shows, or them creating unnecessary live-action remakes to their animated films, however, I am not gonna get into all that. My point being is that I am not interested in covering any more of their animated films that they have been pumping out recently, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Now, I am still open to covering any of their live-action movies that I haven't seen yet. However, when it comes to Disney, I'm gonna be very selective with what I choose to cover from them. And unless I have a reason for changing my stance on covering any more of their animated projects, that's also not gonna change any time soon.

Now...I've gotten WAY off track here. So, let's FINALLY talk about the movie itself, shall we? Let's talk about "Treasure Planet". I'm gonna start with the writing. The writing here is really solid. It's pretty much a standard adventure film, and it works really well. Now, while I haven't read the "Treasure Island" novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, I do like how this movie is taking that story, and adapting it into a different setting. Because unlike the 1950 "Treasure Island" movie, and "Muppet Treasure Island", where those movies took place within a very fantasy island-like setting, this movie is basically setting that story into space. Whether it takes place in the future or not doesn't really matter. My point is that I'm kinda happy that Disney actually changed it up a bit by not going through the same route that the other two movies did. Because if they did put this movie though another fantasy island setting, then the movie would've been a bit bland. So, we do have that going on. And because of this change of settings, and the way that the story plays itself out, it almost kinda feels like a very different sorta movie that you wouldn't normally see from a Disney film. Part of that reason is because this is not a tradtional Disney musical. While there are a couple of songs in this movie, none of them are sung by the characters. However, I'll get more into that when I eventually cover the music. Our characters here are, for the most part, very likable. The relationship between Jim Hawkins and John Silver is really good. And you do end up caring about their friendship throughout the entire movie. I honestly thought Doppler was gonna be the most annoying character in the entire movie, but he actually ended up being rather tolerable. Captain Amelia is, basically, somewhat of a meathead captain that is always giving out orders. However, she is still rather likable as far as meathead captains are concerned. So, most of our characters are very likable.

There are a couple of negative bits I need to make mention of in terms of writing. And, mind you, both of these are mostly minor, but I'm still gonna mention them. The first bit has to do with Silver. You see, this movie does a poor job telegraphing who he is when you first meet him. Allow me to explain. During the beginning portion of the film, we see Aunt Sara's inn being raided by a bunch of pirates after Jim helps a dying pirate before escaping with some treasure. And as all this was going on, you get to see a shadow of the pirate captain in view. And then during the scene where Hawkins is on the boat with Doppler and they're first being introduced to Silver, I can tell you right from the word go that this movie wasn't even trying to be subtle with his appearance. Because earlier, the dying pirate told Hawkins to be aware of the cyborg before his death. And the moment that you see Silver, he's the only pirate aboard the vessel that HAS cyborg parts attached to him. I think that if the crew that Hawkins was a part of had more than one pirate aboard that was a cyborg, then I think it would've added kind of a mystery as to who this cyborg pirate was that Hawkins was suppose to look out for. Or if the movie hadn't shown Silver's shadow during the raid at Aunt Sara's inn, then I also think that would've made Silver's introduction all the more better. However, that is me being VERY nitpicky there. So, you can take that for what it's worth. The other bit that I had an issue with was the character of B.E.N. Now, in fairness, I do think that this was intentional. Because Ben WAS suppose to be annoying, and even Jim Hawkins knew that as well any time that he was around him. However, almost every time that he talked, I wanted to throw this robot into an incinerator because he was THAT annoying. However, the plus side to this is that B.E.N. only appears during the last third of the movie, so it's not like you have to worry about him throughout the entire movie. Because if the latter case happened, then I think he would've brought this entire movie down to a screeching halt. Thankfully, that is not the case here. But it still doesn't stop him from being irritating as shit.

So, aside from those minor points, the writing is still really good from, just about, everything else here. Mind you, this story is not going to set the world on fire, but it's still a rather good story that you can follow with almost no problems. With that said, let's get into the acting. The acting here, for the most part, is really solid. The only bit of it that I had an issue with was Martin Short as B.E.N. Almost every line that he has in this movie sounds either ridiculously hammy, or he's just shouting his lines by overacting as much as possible, just to try and sound as annoying as he can. And neither of it really works that well. Now, I'm gonna compare this with another animated movie that he had a part in, that being "The Pebble and the Penguin". Martin Short voiced the main character named Hubie in that movie. And while Hubie was kind of annoying at times, he was at least tolerable, even if he was the main character. Part of that reason was because Martin Short didn't have to overact as much as possible. Here though, in the scenes that he HAS to yell, it sounds ridiculously annoying. And it made me almost despise that character very much. Now, aside from him, as I just stated, the acting is really solid from the rest of the cast. Everybody here had enough to work with, and they all sound rather believable. So, props to most of the cast here for turning in a rather good showing, save for most of Martin Short's performance.

Now, let's move onto the animation. When it comes to the 2D animation, well...guys, this is classic Disney animation. At least, classic Disney animation from the 90's anyway. This is very much on par with what you would see from the Renaissance era. So, if you liked what you saw back then, then chances are that you're gonna love the 2D animation in this movie. It is just spectacular to watch. The art style is great, the character animations are smooth and fluid, the character designs are all unique, and the color palettes are great, too. One bit of the animation that I really liked was the attention to detail on Silver's cyborg parts. Specifically, the stuff involving the side of Silver's right eye. Even in minor scenes where Silver has screen time, the metal part of his eye is always moving. And that, to me, is a great attention to detail that most movies would probably not even go for. This movie also utilizes a lot of CG. And the CG looks great, even for the standards set for 2002. This is some great-looking CG. Anything involving the ships, B.E.N. the robot, or the flying mammals that we see during one portion of the movie. That stuff looked amazing. And the way the hand drawn characters interact with the CG elements looks great also. I said back in my review of "Mirai" that if any studio wanted to properly implement CG into their tradtionally animated films, then I would follow that movie's example. However, this movie, while it predates "Mirai" by about 16 years, was doing a really good job of it. And had this movie not bombed in theaters, then I think Disney, and any other animation company that wanted to continue doing traditional animation for their movies, should've used Treasure Planet's formula when mixing CG with 2D animation. However, that is just me, personally. Regardless, the CG, even for 2002 standards, looks really good here.

Sound-mix here is perfectly fine. The music here, both in terms of score and songs, is also perfectly fine. The score here is, honestly, nothing special. The songs here, all 2 of them, are pretty good. Like I said earlier, this movie is not a typical musical, so none of the characters are singing any songs in this movie. One song in this movie is used for a montage, while the other is used during the ending credits. And both songs are pretty good, however, they aren't anything amazing. So, it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth.

Overall, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Treasure Planet"? Absolutely. I obviously don't have to recommend this to Disney fans, because, chances are, that they've already seen this movie. Probably many times, too. I would also recommend it for children, as well. Seeing as how this is, mostly, a family film, and there is enough here to cater to both them and adults. But on the off chance that you still haven't seen this movie yet, then I would totally recommend it. Whether it's on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, or even Disney+, wherever you can find it, check it out for yourself. It really is a good movie. Now, mind you, this thing is never gonna hold a candle next to the other animated Disney movies that I grew up watching, but it is still good enough to where I'm gonna have a nice spot for it on my DVD shelf. Speaking of which, I'm kinda in the mood for another Disney film. I think I'm gonna go and watch..."101 Dalmatians". It's been about a year since I last watched it, so I'm gonna go do that next after I'm done putting this review together.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.