For some reason, I love that Audrey has to kick the door open twice? she kicked so hard it fell back shut, so she has to kick it again. It's such a small insignificant detail, but for me it always made the scene feel more alive.
In a movie with real actors this would happen randomly, but the fact they purposefully animated it really makes you understand the level of detail of this film
audrey totally would kick it so hard that it closes- its very character focused like that so all those critics complianing it didnt have character fell asleep at the helm writting that false narrative. it pains me to think such idiots might have swayed someone who might have enjoyed this movie from seeing it.
I think it's because it came out at a bad time. 2001 had a lot of great movies that. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Monsters Inc and Shrek to name four. I personally loved this movie.
The relationships are one of my favourite parts of this film. Milo never once tries to stop being so intellectual, or excited about the prospect of learning more, and even though the group are initially dismissive of him and make fun of him, Milo never changes who he is. He never gives up any part of his nerdiness, and they become his friends anyway, or even better because of it! I know there are many flaws but it was so important to little nerdy me, that a person could unapologetically be a nerd, and be loved because of it!
"Why flooding the city makes the people forget their own script, even if they speak the language"? The writers were probably reading a lot about the Minoans. If they studied Atlantis, they probably studied the Minoans and their kinda but kinda not offshoot, the Mycenaeans, supposedly the inspiration for much of the Atlantis myth in their city on Thera (the island that blew up around 1100-1300 BC). The Minoans had a writing system, linear A, half inherited by the Mycenaeans, a satellite culture of their civilization. The Minoans are a mysterious culture unrelated to any other we know in terms of language and art, but they imported their culture, their ways and their script to the shores of Greece, where the Mycenaeans, ancestors of the Greeks, used the script of the Minoans and tweaked it. We can't translate Minoan, but we do know Mycenaean Greek and we can read Linear B. Here's the thing: The Greeks eventually forgot how to write. After the Bronze Age Collapse (1200 BC circa) the Mycenaean palaces burnt down and their system of government disappeared. Ancient Greece changed forever, no one knows why (whole empires crumbled at the same time; the Hittitles were defeated, Babylon collapsed and only Egypt survived, slowly sliding into a new period of division and crisis). The Greeks had lost their states, and thus they had lost their need for script. Centuries later, when the new city-states rose in Greece, they had forgotten how to read the strange symbols of the time of Odysseus, Achilles and Agamemnon, and adopted the Phoenician script to their own language, later putting the stories of the Mycenaean age in a foreign writing (the Illiad, the Odyssey, etc). The movie doesn't explain why the Atlanteans forgot about their own language, but it's very likely that the writers got this idea for their plot device from reading about Linear A and B. Sorry about the wall of text.
I know I'm one of *those* people... But AC Odyssey sort of touched upon this. As when Alexis/Kassandra run into a few peeps investigating ancient structures. They talk about how they don't understand the writings And I was like. Ah. I know why now. Yes...
The only problem with this in Atlantis is that the atlanteans like Kida were alive before the big disaster, so it's strange that she would forget it. Then again, it was 8000 years ago, so maybe after some time of not writing anything, you just forget it, kind of like how a child who lives in Spain can speak Spanish fluently, but then their family relocates to Germany, and eventually the Spanish is forgotten because it's so rarely used.
@@Niobesnuppa I was fluent in Lakota until I was required by the schools to learn English. Now. I don't know how to speak or read Lakota, just a few phrases here or there or just generally understand conversation and tbe like
@@colleennewholy9026 Very much this with me when it comes to Welsh. Until I was 10-11, I was bilingually fluent in both English and Welsh, as I lived in N. Wales where my school was Welsh-language oriented and I spoke it every school day, then flipped to English after school at home, switching between both seamlessly. But when we moved down to S. Wales, I was the only Welsh speaker in my family and my school was English speaking oriented. I rarely spoke Welsh at all with conversations etc, bar some Welsh 1st Language oriented subjects from when I was 11-16, my knowledge of my language that what was once used daily eroded away quickly. Simple words that are needed to string sentences disappear into the fog of memory and now I can't understand a good number of the bilingual signs I see and speaking it takes a lot of mental power to do. So when Kida described how their language is worn away as the years pass, I can fully understand and empathise with it. Especially as Atlantis sank beneath the waves 8000 previously and my own loss of language happened in the space of nearly two decades. I missed the film;s initial release as we did the move above, but watching it when I was 15 and my language was eroded, it really struck me hard in the soul, alongside all the great story telling and visuals (plus Wales gets the only cameo ever in a Disney film I know of with the flag in Mole's dirt as Wales was the birthplace of a lot of Geology. He still calls it England though...). //end wall of text.
As a history nerd sweets is my favorite character he's a child of a Plains Indian woman and a Buffalo Soldier . hes a doctor he's explicitly indigenous and black throughout the movie I absolutely love him oh my God
@@ianian4162 off the top of your head could you give me examples of indigenous men, especially afro-indigenous men, in film who are not just stereotypes? there are barely any
@@uh8300 I mean, how many do you need? And where are the sterotypes? Sweet is a pretty round character, and so is Audrey ( a hispanic woman). If you mean the Atlantians themselves, we have Kida and the Old King. I would have loved to see more of Atlantis, though, and one of the movie's few flaws is that it's too short.
@@ianian4162 no I mean sweet is one of the only characters I can think of with indigenous heritage who is a well written character, and yes it does matter especially in American media because there are still plenty who either see indigenous peoples as stereotypes or extinct and it matters for indigenous kids for obvious reasons. And in terms of how many I need, how about more than one?
@@uh8300 So...two? Is that it? Why? I would rather have one truly well written character (i.e., Sweet) then many cookie-cutter or boring characters. As for representation, the Atlanteans are a mix of many cultures, including Native American. Is that not validly "indigenous"? And don't forget the other minorities. Vince is Italian-American, Mole is French, and Audrey is hispanic.
Cree Summer emphatically states that Kida is her most favorite role throughout her career as a voice actress. Not only because she got to voice a Disney Princess (despite what the company tells you otherwise) but because during production the animators would often sketch her during recording, a practice common in most Disney films to better capture her performance in the character. It was something she never experienced before and would treasure always.
@@kaelang12 Unfortunately, because Atlantis wasn't considered a success at the time, Disney does not consider Kida an official Disney princess on the likes as Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, or Jasmine. Nevertheless, she was the first princess character to be coronated Queen by succession, beating Elsa by twelve years.
@@kavyasundar7240 Actually, not in the case of Esmeralda, from both a Disney and IRL Roma cultural perspective: Esmeralda is not a princess by birth in the movie, nor does she have an animal companion, nor does she marry into the royal family, at least one of which, and preferably all three, are required to be a "Disney Princess". Meanwhile, the Rom, (what most people call "Gypsies", though calling them that is like using "the N-word" with an African American person), IRL, don't have Princesses, having been a genuinely Democratic society since before that was cool, and are sick of people across Europe acting as if they do, so, on that level as well she shouldn't be a Princess. Kidagakash should totally be a Disney Princess though!
I just hope the writers, actors, artists, and every other crew member from Atlantis and Treasure Planet know how much we treasure them even if they weren't appreciated at the time.
they even made a joke about it in the movie itself when Packard was reading the itinerary over the intercom when she mentioned dinner followed by showtunes or something...
The only reason I knew about this was that Disney doesn't include Kida as a disney princess because she didn't sing. Even though she is a damn princes! And has done more to help her people than most of the other disney princess. But Mulan, who is not a princes, ended up getting disney princess status (which kind of annoys me because princesses are born into power, but Mulan had to make her own power).
@Miro Kai it’s also a shame that people are critical of her initial naivety because some of her best moments are when she criticizes her father for willfully keeping them all in a state of naivety. Her whole motivation is to break out of that bubble and assert herself as a proper leader of the people, and the lengths she goes to do that are genuinely heart wrenching and inspiring.
True, her naivety was more of an result of getting literally denied certain information about her culture and living isolated from the outside world for thousands of years, it makes sense that's she's naive. Kida views these strangers from the upper world as a chance to save her dying civilization, she's open-minded.
It's been a good long time since I've seen this movie, so I don't remember a lot of the details, but it makes a lot of sense to me that the citizens of a previously warlike empire might be specifically naive to those sorts of politics, if they were being kept in the dark about their own history. That's basically me being profoundly naive about things like systemic racism well into my twenties, because the people shaping my education and worldview specifically didn't want to talk about that stuff.
It’s one of my favorite movies ever since I was a little kid when it came out. I remember constantly watching it on VHS and being amazed by the settings, the music, and the characters. because it wasn’t as popular as other movies I get super excited when other people say they like it too
i dont care for most Dizzie stuff, but Atlantis fucking slapped. But i would def prefer it more as a TV show, with side characters and the world getting fully fleshed out :3c
KOT EBANA ROT if you want a TV show version of this movie, check out the sequel. Atlantis was supposed to follow the trend of being made into a Disney Channel show, ala Aladdin, Little Mermaid, and Lilo & Stitch, but since it flopped so hard, the three episodes they did have animated were lazily strung together into a psuedo-sequel like that weird Tarzan sequel was (before they made an official prequel for Tarzan) -- I think if I recall right, they were meant to explore other lost civilizations / legends of the world, and the three episodes were a Cthulhu Story, a Native American legend, and Norse Mythology.
What I relate to most is that she has to kick the truck door twice. When you're pisses so you slam something open/closed only to have it fly right back.
I feel almost the same way but I've always felt a romantic melancholy for strong willed good people sacrificing themselves for the greater good or for a calling that brings the next phase of a civilization's destiny. It makes my heart warm a little as well as a little painful at the same time. Like if Kida's mother's death made me sad for Kida but also proud of the true sacrifice a royal bloodline must bring to the table as the most privileged as well as the most burdened class of society.
@@bloodcottoncandy As a kid, I always got chills whenever Kida's mother stopped speaking mid-sentence and started walking away so that she could sacrifice herself in the prologue. I was raised by a single parent, so seeing Kida and her father losing her mother gave me so much respect for her character. Not to mention, it's one of my favorite prologues ever
It feel so natural to love and respect someone you never knew who could be so noble doing something that is so selfishly selfless. The pain it brought to their family is probably tremendous and could never heal but to everyone else it was a gift and a great symbolism for hope, strength and love.
This entire sequence, from Milo and frenemies descending to the cavern until Kida walks past them all now transformed I’ve nicknamed “Kida’s Ascension” and every single time it comes on I stop whatever I’m doing (I tend to craft while watching TV or Films at home) to give it my undivided attention. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, this sequence is a masterpiece of cinema and deserves my awe and respect
This movie made me want to get into linguistics when I was a child, because I was so impressed with how Milo could decipher this ancient language. Today, while not exactly doing archeology and ancient languages, I'm studying English linguistics and cultural studies.
It really is, though I only started about a month ago and there's a lot of theoretical stuff you have to remember 😅 But I already feel like I've learned a lot about how the English language works and is constructed :)
@@Trazynn honestly, as slick as Arrival was overall, I kinda feel like it ended up clinging to the Sephir-Worf stuff a little too much... like don't have to take that sort of thinking too much further to come to some pretty fucked shit... Anyway, getting back to the main thread, can someone _please_ link me some resources on Atlantean beyond the DVD bonus features and some trash link to some Hungarian shit that's _actually survived???_
Audrey was one of my favorite characters of the movie, as well. She's probably the sole reason a lot of my character art from that time had big clunky shoes with overlapping jeans and gloves with massive wrist bands. I still use very squared off folds in clothes when I doing a quick sketch.
The first time I saw the teaser trailer for this, I was 11. The very end of it had Kida as a crystal with the voiceover of her saying “All will be well, Milo Thatch”, then snapping her eyes open. I wanted to see it that fucking day.
I remember seeing that trailer when I was like 4 or 5 on some Disney vhs (can’t remember what movie) and obliviously that quick snippet was more memorable than whatever movie was actually on the tape. Hell I remember popping it in just to watch that teaser over and over for months until it actually came out. I convinced my dad to take me to see it without telling my mom cause she was super religious and from her seeing that snippet on the tape, she thought Atlantis was some evil black magic boogaloo. lol Luckly my dad was an ex sailor and history nerd so he was somewhat curious to see it just for the oceanic themes but he didn’t much care for or understand the magical/spiritual elements of the movie. Looking back now, this film was my earliest exposure to the type of spirituality I have now as an adult. Not sure if I can say that about any other Disney movie lmao
@@coltenhubbard163 That’s such a cool memory! I’m in an Atlantis group on Facebook and you’re not alone in your “spiritual awakening” being from this movie. Lots of people have said this influenced how they approach religion/spirituality, their careers, their morals. Hell, it made me want to be a linguist. The movie may not have been a critical darling, but it’s damn good.
The best part of Audrey is the second kick of the door. It really sells her emotional conflict. She really doesn't want to get out of the truck but she knows she has to. She knows she has to because if she doesn't she'll always know that blood paid for her shop. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but someone took the time to animate that door being kicked twice and I'll always appreciate it.
I was literally 2 years old when this came out and the imagery of Kida's crystal-necklace-rising-and-her-floating-upward stuck with me so strongly that I re-created it with my dolls pretty much obsessively until I was 10-ish. Anyway, it's just a gorgeous movie.
I especially loved that sub as a kid. Also now it still looks amazingly cool and one improvement I wish for is that they didn't blow it up after staying in it for like 10 minutes.
Well, it is what it is. Disney tends to be pretty bad at sequels anyway, so one bad sequel is enough for me. I am completely fine with this just being a standalone movie that I can keep introducing to people becouse they have never seen it.
@@emptilion the sequel wasn't even released properly and is one of the few that were ok. It feels cheap compared to the original like, the executives said " yeah, fine but that's 20 grand, no more " to the exited writers
One blink and you'll miss it touch that I adore from this movie is Milo's 'fight' with Rourke that is just the most anticlimactic 'holy crap this guy stands ZERO chance' beating I've ever seen put to film. Pretty much exactly what you'd expect to happen if a linguist picked a fight with a longtime mercenary.
19:14 if you pay attention to Sweet throughout the entire turncoat sequence, he's the only member of the entire crew who never picks up a weapon. Maybe it's because it's against his morals or it's because he's a doctor, but that always stuck with me as a kid. The doctor never picked up a gun.
@Miro Kai A peaceful big guy is also an archetype. With many tropes, subverting them is so simple and efficient that doing so becomes a trope in and of itself.
I also love how he mentions he's part Native, and I think that was a great thing. Cause I have a lot of black friends who become happy when they find out they have native blood. I love it.
Everyone keeps mentioning how much they want there to be a live action version of this film. But, as a die-hard fan of the original, I just wish Disney would recognize the original for how awesome it is, first. As in, GIMME MORE MERCHANDISE THAN JUST OLD MCDONALD'S TOYS, DAMMIT!!!! ...And THEN they have my permission to make a live action version.
Better yet DON'T REMAKE IT Seriously, think about it: action motivated movie (like 80% of every popular live action nowadays) with absolutely no definitive style, which, because it was not successful, Disney doesen't even care about, just to draw crowds of people who don't realise that the thing that makes the movie they love special and y'know, unique, is that it is animated, and will need to convince themselves that it was good because they have been asking for it. Yeah, that's a movie that I want.
They are remaking movies like Lion King and Aladdin that really can only ever be inferior because they were made with animation in mind. Atlantis is one of the few movies that would work just as well in life action.
Unfortunately they only do the live-action remakes of the Box Office smashes that everyone still talks about like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin etc. The ones that are considered flops or disappointments won't get touched because they're not guaranteed hits from a financial point of view.
@@BetterWithBob Honestly I would hate this Movie in a Live Action setting because the stylistic choice of this with the blend of Hand Drawn and CGI works much better than if it was all the same.
Unfortunately it seems unlikely now just based on how little we see of Kida in Disney Princess lineups(She wasnt in Wreck it Ralph 2) or the lack of merchandise you can find for Atlantis at a Disney store compared to like...Lilo & Stitch,
It would be awesome if they added it in KH4. I feel like the tone is just right, especially with Star Wars coming into that universe. Atlantis still remains an important film in my life. I also really enjoyed the relationship Kida and Milo had and the very well developed mythology of the place. The Disney Adventures issue covering the story was great. I’ve even memorized some of the Atlantean language (and I went to that special features video so many times). The score still gives me goosebumps to this day. Thank you so much for covering this movie. I’m glad there are people who still love it! (Also, glad I’m not the only one who noticed the Stargate connection ;) )
The score in this film is phenomenal and when I first saw this film I distinctly remember getting chills at that scene of Kida walking across the water and the score that went with it!
i'm 23y.o., i saw the movie for the first time when i was around 5 and i watched it countless of times (at least twice a year but sometimes even twice in the same day xD) and i still get chills listening to the music...i have just one wish for this movie and it's that all the people that worked on it and saw it flop because disney just didn't care at all, see now how much of an impact it had for thousands of kids, how the love for this movie changed every single one of us and how many die hard fans it has, just because they poured all their talent and passion into it...they may have not gotten paid enough for their hard work, but i hope for them it all was worth it
although i didn’t watch them that much, think mum conditioned me against TV!, Atlantis, it’s sequel and Hercules have always been the most memorable and enjoyable disney films from my childhood
This movie makes me all fuzzy inside, Im a mixed girl (european african) and.... Kida is exactly what I needed when I was young, she's badass and caring and she looked like me but with white hair (I love her hair) and I've always like nerdy boys ( cf : My fiance ). And now I still inspire to be as cool, badass, gorgeous and loving as Kida. It is and will always be my favorite movie.
Audrey was always my favorite character in the movie and then Kida. Helga was an interesting villain. The females in this movie just killed it overall.
Helga isn't even what I'd call a villain. The only thing she does different from the good crew members is not be persuaded from leaving with Rourke and then fight him and prevent him leaving for non-altruistic reasons. She's what could be written up as "choosing to remain the villain's accessory is their only real villainous trait".
Atlantis is a very Romantic story (in all senses) which is exceedingly rare for Disney nowadays, I find it to be a breath of fresh air. It’s just a good old Verne-esque fantasy adventure with fun characters, legitimately threatening villains, breathtaking scenery, a wholesome leading couple, and a compelling story. I can’t believe I never saw this movie as a kid, and I saw basically every Disney movie from the late 90s-early 2000s era.
Bruh, Trek be old enough to _retire,_ but between the two, guess which Okrand conlang is still easier (read: possible) to fucking learn. Link me if I'm wrong.
This almost made me cry. Hearing you explain 'emotional storytelling', isn't that just another way of explaining the ancient story type of the fairy tale? The plot elements may not all make sense logically, there may be a lot of stuff that's contrived or silly, but this isn't about that. It's about the journeys the characters go on. Some additional reasons I love the movie: - It's a very rare movie that even briefly addresses imperialism and the violence and destruction behind such seemingly innocent sciences like archaeology (Rourke's chilling quote along the lines of "If we gave back all the artifacts and stolen treasure, the museums would be empty"). While Milo's love of learning is genuinely pure, he can't escape the responsibility of the fact that other people may use his work for profit and destruction - in this case, he is the one who led Rourke to Atlantis and who located the crystal. He then has to make a choice between his science (exposing Atlantis to the world, prove he's not a nutcase to everyone who ever doubted him, go down in history as the man who discovered Atlantis) and the safety of the people who would be affected if he revealed the truth. In the end, he and the crew choose to lie and pretend the expedition was a failure rather than endanger them. That is incredibly powerful, a complex narrative, and remains relevant and under-depicted to this day. I mean, how many Disney characters are scientists, period? For the more adult/educated audience, this message is heightened even more by setting the movie at the beginning of the 20th century: much like Milo, still innocently clinging to old traditions (that are not-so-innocent), unaware of what is to come. - It's a rare movie to have a protagonist driven by a passion for science and discovery, as opposed to becoming rich, finding love, or [insert other objective here] - The crew dialogue/banter just works. Joss Whedon in his prime, I guess? Fantastic essay, by the way.
This movie was THE movie to make me realise I’m gay now. But seriously, this is such an underrated gem, and it never had singing in it, because it never needed one. This will always be in my list of favourites animated movies!
@@darcyliz9993 The only guess I have is that most people don't like history. Do you like history? Are you inclined to read and historical/period stuff?
As a black kid I loved Kida! I loved magical brown people like Storm in X-Men and while there's definitely a design problem of being scantily dressed and of a particular build, her personality of being fun loving as well as strong was really aspirational to me. I watched the dvd so MUCH growing up! Atlantis should've made so much more money!
I'm white and i don't relate to any of her phisical characteristics. I don't have brown skin or blue eyes or white hair, i'm not even skinny. But even so, as a little girl i thought Kida was SO badass and i wanted to be like her when i'd grow up.
This movie made me addicted to glow sticks as a child. Go on expeditions with friends, And diving underwater, and "exploring" cave drawings by water parks. Also writing with coded letters and walking on water. I mean, this is such a treat for the imagination.
Honestly speaking Atlantis and treasure planet are both so good and so over looked. I am so glad now I have video essays to point to how good they are.
Thank you for this. I adored this movie as a kid, even wrote my own language after being transfixed by the journal. So many flaws, but considering all that came before it, it made leaps and bounds in ways I wish were recognised today. The music alone is exceptional (aside from that credit song of course). The strong female characters still stick with me as some of the first of my childhood
That bit where the Leviathan's blast lances through the heart of the Ulysses is how I've been picturing cool sci-fi explosions for basically 20 years now.
I never had an issue with the atlanteans design at all as a person of color. They are brown skinned and colored its obvious but not all colored skinned people are the same so what's the issue with her eyes or hair? There are colored people of many looks and designs and they are all different, kinky hair or straight or small nose or big. They aren't black they are atlantean and no one knows what that looks like so someone being mad at how they are portrayed is kind of stupid imho. They could be bald for all we know cuz they saw hair as vanity or some outlandish thing like that we dont know. I dont think it needs to be stated at all cuz that couldve also been bad. There are colored people with blonde hair. They aren't black if that's what that person was getting at or trying to and they aren't even seen in real life to tie them down to what we say they should be. As a kid I thought Kidagakash was beautiful, the way she is shown and I never once was like oh she's gotta be like black or related to some form of that or this. She was kida, an atlantean. Though I get the whole sexual thing. The Kida was disposed thing shouldn't be an issue, it is foreshadowed alot that she will be chosen next. On the note of why they lost their language and ability to teach. I think that it kinda goes with how languages we know in real life due out. They are so focused after the great flood on survival and survival alone. Whatever else is left to the side. They are now confined to a small area and most of what they had is lost now and destroyed. Just like in real life most young folk aren't interested in learning the language they will rather learn to defend themselves and their home now that they are weakend. Though I do believe it was the father who really took control of that. Those who did know the language more then likely died out by then and tried passing what they could but it wasn't enough. Her father sees it as they are preserved, no one can know now what they did there if found, no one will steal their ways or power. For all we know the king probably put it into act they won't learn the language, forget their past and move on. That is until the shephard comes with his journal and studies their language and such and dissects it and learns himself. I dont mind Milo coming in and teaching what he knows cuz never did I feel he felt like it was his duty or that he got an ego from it. He knew what they lost, had a piece of their life in that journal and returned it to where it belongs and was willing to stay there to help them grow and he didnt have too.
This color and representation oversensivity is an American thing. I was lucky to watch all Disney movies dubbed in my language and no matter how hard I look I can't find any of those ''inappropriate'' details which may supposedly offend somebody. I see no Nativ Americans, Blacks or Whites, I only see characters speaking my language. Obviously, accents are lost in translation but maybe it's a good thing.
@@kacperwoch4368 hellyeah that's how I often feel when I watch movies :D I didn't know that Donkey have been spoken by a black voice actor until I heard the English version many years after I watched Shrek for the first time. I just experienced him as a character funny guy who wanted to be friends with Shrek and not a typical black dude companion side kick comedy relief character? Idk I didn't even know that this was a cliché in another country.
Totally agree with both points. I live in South America and tbh I never once was taught the importance of race as in different races, as our population is heavely mixed. When I saw Kida I thought she was beautiful and reminded me of many friends that have really really brown skin with gorgeus green eyes. The blue gave it a fantastical mysticism. The way their clothes were so revealing reminded me only of our aboriginals, but I was a child so I didn't understand sexy-time lol. The language thing and Milo coming to teach the once forgotten is also normal?? I never understood why it wouldn't make sense. Specially with such a catastrophic event that would destroy their culture to the root.
I think the whole written-language-dying-out thing doesn't make sense if you think it started dying out after Atlantis sank, cos it's highly unlikely that a language will completely die out in what effectively was one generation at most, much less if you suppose Kida's dad didn't die of old age. Yeah, thousands of years have passed but it's the people who do know about stuff who die that sort of causes the dying-out, so all the people in Kida's dad's generation must have not known the written language at all (and the people's longevity was actually stated to be caused by the crystal, o it wasn't just the royal family living hella long or anything). Given how desperate Kida seemed in being able to decipher the language - it being the only thing remaining of the great empire - it seems highly unlikely someone who could read the language would withhold the information. And for it to have gotten to the point that you couldn't even attempt to decipher it at all. And also, the whole "oh a white guy just had to be the one to save everyone", and "Kida was useless at the end because she was the love interest" sarcastic comments mainly come up because Atlantis is not a stand-alone film, in the sense that it is one of many Disney films. The issue (at least what I think) is that both of these happening in every, single, film, is simply not a good nor an accurate and fair representation of the world. But then again (though I can't say the same for a lot of the other films), I feel like in Atlantis there was rational, reasonable intent behind these two things happening. Beside which, for all the (slight) plot holes and animation errors, I still appreciate the movie, and all this can't take away from when I watched it first...
@@aster3380 Good point. I forgot Kids was present before and during the catastrophy. At least half the population should've been lived with the knowledge of the written language. Now that's a plot hole that I cannot unseen.
I met Mike at Lightbox this year. His booth was set up for Hellboy but when I told him I only wanted to talk to him about Atlantis he perked right up. He told me about how he felt like he was scamming Disney. Which I thought was an odd remark, but this video has clarified that he just wasn't aware of how much of an influence he was. Then he told me he didn't think they should have opened with the destruction scene and I told him he was wrong, which dampened the convo but not even Mike Mignola is going to sway me from that. Also yes, Hunchback is another one of my favorites for the same reasons. We gotta be best friends now.
monderigon couple of years back he attended a local con near me where he had a panel and the conversation ended up on his involvement im Atlantis. He explained that the reason why he feels like he scammed Disney is because (and I am quoting to the best of my memory) he basically spend the whole thing sitting alone in a giant office, doodling and from time to time say yes or no to the harried people running in and out of the office with stacks of paper and then at the end being handed a giant sack of money by Disney for basically doing nothing for a couple of month. It had nearly been twenty years since and he was still baffled. It’s still my favorite anecdote from a convention panel.
As soon as you put up that little slideshow of nerdy early 200s characters, I felt called out 😂 those were inevitably my favorite characters when I was watching those shows. Also I feel SO VALIDATED! Audrey going back for Milo in the third act also haunted me as a kid. Like, literally anytime I get so whipped into a moral outrage that all I can do froth at the mouth, Audrey’s “this is wrong and you know it” plays in my head on repeat. This movie meant so much to me as a kid.
I feel the same way about Treasure Planet that you do about Atlantis. I saw it in theaters, was completely enamored, and didn't realize it was badly received until YEARS later. Of course, most of the reason it flopped is that Disney barely marketed it and released it under the shadow of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. They didn't even try to make it a success.
This was my absolute favorite movie growing up--it was one of the only "big kid" movies that was at my local library, and introduced me to high-stakes adventure storytelling. It actually inspired me to be a Linguist, and I've only ever told one person that's why I picked my major.
Bruh, you know of any good Atlantean resources that have actually survived? Like all I've ever really found was a bunch of Wiki and Wikipedia pages that end up focusing more on the script, shit directing me to the DVD or an edition that's probably been out of production for Kings-know-how-fucking-long, a few SocMed groups that are probably down by now anyway, or some shit that's _supposed_ to link to a page that Okrand supposedly got set up, but ends up being little more than some random Hungarian bullshit.
As for people of color wearing less clothes, outside of Muslim cultures, *this is the truth.* WE WEAR LESS CLOTHES IN THE ISLANDS. ITS HOT. And we got larger busts (front & back) than most other races. *So it makes sense we'd get portrayed that way* compared to white women who typically wear more (European cold climates) and are typically fatter front and back. I don't see the problem with this. 😐 Besides, *the 18 yr old Hispanic* (sorry I forgot her name) in this film *is a person of color, right? She's fully covered* in the SAME film that's being criticized for not giving Kiva enough clothes!!
Not to mention atlantos exist pretty much during the early EARLY years of humanity. Like how the greeks just work decorative table cloths for clothes that wrapped around their bodies. It only makes sense for another civilization to do something similar.
To add even a bit more their clothes aren't that far away from Native American (Central, Carribean and South) just maybe a little more colorful or with more vivid colors. I got the feeling the Atlantians were designed based on Islanders POC, Indians and/or Natives Americans and I don't know why but I also got the feeling that those complaining weren't part of any of those groups. lol
Ignore it, usually it’s people wanting to get their pandering brownie points by pointing out issues that don’t exist, as if someone made them a leading authority in the matter.
Zethare Rey If you check out the documentary, the creators say that the Atlantians were a mix of every single race, and the idea was that races as we know now came from them. And no, when there is complaints of that matter it’s usually never from the people that these problems are supposed to concern.
Honestly thinking back, the most impactful scene from my child brain at the time was when the main submarine was being crushed. The scene of the sailors running for their lives to the bulkhead doors as water rapidly floods in and just seeing that girl shut the door as three poor sailors look on in horror as it shuts, knowing that they're going to die there. It really stuck with me. Seeing the immediate reality of just how much was lost, and then of course feeling further dread as each of the smaller submarines crash and explode as they try to flee. Leaving the expedition with only... two submarines? Of like ten that escaped. Sorta influenced my outlook on loss of life. Although the influence came in later years, but still, a heavy load to process as a kid.
Mulan, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, and The Black Cauldron are my top five Disney movies hands down. No particular order but all loved and are dear to me. Those films shaped me as a person and really semented the type of stories I enjoy. I remember seeing Mulan in theaters as my first movie going experience but Atlantis was the film that shook me to the core! The opening is enough to chill your bones!
I have to say my favorite thing about this movie is the music, especially IN Atlantis. The use of the gamelan really made it feel like we were in a lost empire. And the Crystal Chamber is a BOMB song.
Because kids don't really pay attention to that kind of stuff before being told about it. They notice they're different for all of two seconds before shrugging and forgetting about it. Or at least that was me as a kid.
@@cortster12 I honestly can't relate to that at all. Even I as a kid noticed they had a different skin color, wore different clothes, eat weird, exotic foods, and had a complete different life than the team from above the surface. For me, there was no way to not notice.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is still my favorite underrated Disney movie. I don't understand how more people haven't seen this movie in all honesty, whenever I try bringing up this movie with some of friends and or peers they have to Google what I'm talking about. The thing I think I love the most about this movie is the incredible flow of hand-drawn animation and CGI, as well as the style they went with to make this movie. I love Pixar and Disney and how beautiful and realistic they can make their animation, but I wish they made more stylistic movies like Atlantis because they feel/become more memorable and unique. Overall, I thought this video was amazing (Thanks RU-vid recommendations) and excuse me as I'm now going to watch Atlantis on Disney+.
Listen, I'm not gonna lie, this is my all time favorite Disney movie. It may be my favorite animated movie. And everytime the soundtrack plays in this video, my heart goes nuts, and I get this overwhelming feeling of wonder just like I had as a kid
After the submarine launch this movie was already in my top ten animated movies. After the secret swim it was number one. And then came the crystal cave scene... Yes, Atlantis is my favorite movie of all time.
Atlantis is so good. The animation, stylization and characters are so distinct and all things considered I think it will always have a place in my heart.
"When you put him next to other Disney villains, do you notice a slight difference?" Him and Frollo are just about the only villains among those without layers upon layers of queercoding? Oh is that not what you were leading to?
This was awesome. You clearly did tons of research, brought up limitations and counter-arguments to your own points, and made compelling qualitative and quantitative arguments for the positive elements of this movie. Thanks for all the work you put in, I really enjoyed it and learned a lot!
Since I was a child and first saw this film, it was and has remained my favorite Disney film, followed only by Treasure Planet and Emperor's New Groove. It's art, it's world building, it's characters and plot. They all capture some deep sense of adventure in me like none other. I'm glad it's creators took a risk and went out of their way to make something different and unconventional.
I’m so glad you talked about Audrey because... yes. This movie and I were born the same year so I’ve never lived a conscious life without it, I don’t remember the first time I saw it or anything like that, but I’ve never forgotten it and I’ve never forgotten Audrey. In a movie with a female character like Kida you’d imagine that all of Disney’s “compelling character for women juice” would have been used up already and all the other female characters would be forgettable and under-baked but Audrey is anything but. She’s always been my favorite character in these movies and always felt incredibly relatable to me. I just love her dearly and I’m glad other people do too
The weird crystal monster that Rourke turns into terrified me as a kid, but Atlantis was one of the few movies that scared me that I would still watch because of how cool I thought it was.
I’m so glad they cut out the lava whales. Holy shit. I did not need that heart attack first thing in the morning. But that’s crazy how many obstacles they had the characters going through. It would seem more like a journey movie along the lines of LotR if they had left it all in.
The animation in this movie is a triumph. I remember it from childhood, marveled at it as an adult, and still get the goosebumps while watching this video. It’s so obvious the animators loved this project; it’s in every cell.
Sometimes good movies don't do very well at the box office but I think the people behind them should be glad that they worked on it. I'm so happy that this movie exists, I think it was worth making and it's one of the reasons I became an artist.
I think the Atlanteans could speak other languages because of the French Shepherd that visited Atlantis before and wrote the Shepherd’s Journal a thousand years before Milo. Also they didn’t forget their language, just the written scripts, probably lost that side of themselves years before or maybe writing was reserved for royalty and the King was not teaching.
Those are very sensible headcanons. I think I said in the video they only forgot their written language, and I just wanted the movie to more clearly explain how that happened. The all languages thing was more of a joke because if you watch the commentary the directors do acknowledge this is basically a superpower the Atlanteans have so the writers don't have to write a whole movie in this other language.
@@Ladyknightthebrave i know i am a bit late to this, but maybe, and that is a bit farfetched, in the movie the king says the crystal is in somewhat form alive, maybe as punishment for the people it made them forget their skills to read and write? i don't know, seems stupid even to me, but this is my take why the entire civilization forgot it. but maybe it's a bit to much magic and stupid.
The whole "they speak the 'Original Tower of Babel-'Language, so they can speak all descendant languages based on what they hear" is rather silly; while it is true that languages can develop in some predictable ways, there are so many random factors that go into language change that it shouldn't be as easy as the movie makes it out to be. The "they've forgotten their writing system" is a bit more believable, if one assumes that the ancient Atlanteans were like many other ancient cultures (like the Mycenaeans of Bronze Age Greece or the Hittites of Anatolia) where literacy was the preserve of the top-percentage of the population who were scribes and officials in service to the palace. When the elites of those societies were toppled, their scripts were forgotten. The Atlanteans were quuuiiite a bit more advanced than any ancient civilization, however, so one would expect enough of them to be literate for their script to stay in use - especially if they are thousands of years old and so should have more than a sufficient number of members around who would have remembered their civilization at its prime and rebuilt it in a jiffy, unless the extreme lifespans did a number to their memories. It's not like the Atlantean script is that difficult to learn - it only has some thirty signs (almost of all which have convenient Latin alphabet-equivalents). The "shepherd's journal'-headcanon makes some good sense and works good enough to provide a more plausible explanation. Good idea! That being said, though, this is my favourite Disney movie bar none. I love the aesthetic, I enjoy the characters, and it was sad that it didn't get its own animated series.
Atlantis is the greatest, most underrated Disney movie ever. The animation, style, characters, and story were amazing. And the soundtrack...wow! I love listening to it whenever I’m in the Port Discovery area of Tokyo Disney Sea where they play it in the background once in a while. 🥰 I wish theyd make a live action version of it
the "I swim pretty girl" is absent in french, he says "I swim like a sish hum a fish, I swim like a fish" (rough translation from me) I feel like in general the french version is really REALLY GOOD
This movie is one of the pieces that made me go into animation and character design. The story was fascinatingly different, the designs were so unique and detailed in way that expressed each character, the world building is amazing, and it's so drastically feels different thatn any thing I had watched when I was little. I've made short films that use this movie as inspiration. I love this movie, thank you for talking about it
Man, I just loved how you compared this film to 2013's Pacific Rim, as they are both my own top two guilty pleasure movies! And yes, James Newton Howard's score for Atlantis is what completely sold on the movie, as I don't think I'd feel the same way about the film without it! :-D Damn excellent video essay!!!
20:59 I'm not American so I never understood the term people of color. The term is used for all non-white people which is weird because not only distances white people from the rest of the racial groups by also puts together people that have nothing in common with its other. Yes, the Atlantians are not white in the movie but they are not Black or native American or middle easterner/north African or Asian. They are of the Atlantian race because they are a fictional people group. So saying that the Atlantians should have been declared officially "people of color" for better representation is stuped because Atlandians don't exist in real life so they can be represented by this movie. Also depicting the Atlantians as white (more specifically Mediterranean white) wouldn't be weird because it is Greek/European myth. And yes similar myths about the so-called "sea people" existed in other cultures in the Mediterranean and the middle east but the Atlantian myth was specifically Greek. Edit: And the myth also says that Atlantis was an island the size of Asia minor (modern-day Turkey) off the coast of Portugal which means that if they existed they would probably look like Iberians(Spanish and Portuguese people)(Mediterranean white) sorry for my bad English
_"I'm not American"_ Well there you go. You should read the book _"How the Irish became White"_ by Noel Ignatiev to understand that it is not US minorities who made these racial distinctions or exclusions. The term "White" itself purposefully erased the various different European cultures who sure as hell weren't the same to unify the "race" against "non-Whites" to maintain rule and ensure Poor European immigrants wouldn't ally with minorities. But the more pressing issue is why is it always minorities who have to answer for this system that was thrust upon us? Hundreds of years of subjection where people were killed, brutalized and made sure to understand they weren't White but you're concerned about the word PoC being exclusionary to Whites not the other way around?...Ok maybe reexamine that reaction. As for the terms PoC and BIPOC, they exist as a show of solidarity for marginalized minority communities who tho vastly different share in being subjugated by White Supremacy and the exclusion from Whiteness by ruling European settlers who from the US to New Zealand beat the distinction of "YOU ARE NOT WHITE! YOU ARE NOT ONE OF US" into the population. In the US this is far more prominent as our society never actually dealt with the racial issues mainly because it requires those in charge to take responsibility, actually feel regret, shame and have a desire to do better which ain't happening a sit requires empathy. People won't even wear masks and our Gov't won't give us universal healthcare during a fucking pandemic, our society sucks bruh. We're still arguing if 19th century salve owning traitors should have statues honoring them and their flags on state capitol buildings. Germany went bat shit crazy twice yet figured out that maybe Nazis/Nazism shouldn't be proudly honored within decades ironically with the help of the US who at the same time still was lynching Black people. We got deep conflicting issues that are not minority created. Now PoC does not mean Europeans/"Whites" can't be allies, that we reject them nor that all have no "color" cause naturally darker skinned Europeans exist but White itself is the absence of color and was created to exclude specific groups of "darker" skinned people. It's not shocking that by doing this for so long minorities built a bridge with the excluded instead of those who benefited for this system even marginally. The US should be lucky we stopped at a word instead of a war.
I loved this movie as a kid so much!!! I know people say this a lot, but I ADORED Audrey because for the first time ever there was a girl in a movie that looked exactly like me! I probably first watched it on 2007 because movies used to take a lot of time to be available in my country (I live in Chile), but I was obsessed with her character, her skin, her hair, her lips and her attitude!! I've always loved animation, and as a kid I must've rewatched this movie more than 15 times. It's always given me Ghibli Studio vibes, and now that I've seen your video I reckon it must be because of the steampunk aesthetic, the mysterious but fascinating setting and the flying vehicles. Your video also shed light on something that annoyed me a lot as a kid and I couldn't explain why: Kia becoming that weird crystal vessel (cool concept & imagery but I missed her when she wasn't talking) and the weird naivety that the people of Atlantis had, weren't they such a great civilization? Can't say I don't love this movie regardless, but still, haha.
This movie is my favorite animated movie and one of my favorite movies of all time. The amount of nostalgia and love never diminishes, even after my hundredth time watching it. I definitely agree with the analysis of the flaws - they can be difficult to overlook in the grand scheme, but the movie does *work*, and it’s beautiful in how much detail they put into the movie and legacy and cult following it has. Definitely think it could’ve been supported with a little longer of a run time, but that’s neither here nor there. I love this movie and great video!
it was implied that it was partly this, and partly the king intentionally suppressing it so that they didn't have a repeat of the whole mess. at least, that's how I remember it.
