I think it's about time for people to start respecting this one a little bit more. A true hidden gem in plain sight.
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Treasure Planet is a 2002 animated film from the Walt Disney corporation. It is number 43 in the Disney Animated Canon. It is Disney's second adaption of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, after the 1950's version of the film. Instead of being a straightforward adaptation, Treasure Planet changed much from the original work, most notably taking a science fiction direction. It's a fusion of old and new, both in genre and in art styles. While its often known as a 2D animated film, it's actually a 2D-3D hybrid. Most of the biological characters are traditionally animated, while most of the cybernetics and manufactured objects are in CGI. (John) Silver, the cyborg is a fusion of both, and is sometimes noted as the first character in film that is both 2D and 3D animated.
The movie is, in my mind, a defining member of the "retro futurism" genre, in which a creator will look to the past and how the past envisioned the future, a mindset that helped spark the "punk" genres (cyberpunk, steampunk, biopunk, etc). The movie combined an 1800's idea of space travel - where space was an ocean of a liquid called aether with our modern understandings of black holes, cyborgs, and robotics. This unfortunately alienated many audience members, as its not the most readily accessible subgenre of sci-fi.
Treasure Planet was a box office failure, and in the modern era, that is what it's most known for, and the dominoes it set off. It has often been blamed for Disney shuttering their 2D animation department. After its financial failure, Disney finished their final two traditionally animated films - Brother Bear and Home on the Range, and have largely moved on from 2D animation, with the exceptions of Princess and the Frog and 2011's Winnie the Pooh. It's hard to blame Treasure Planet for such a colossal industry change, beyond being a final domino, but that seems to be its place in history.
But what if we were to go beyond that and ask ourselves... is Treasure Planet any good? The answer, as it turns out, is yes.
7 сен 2024
