“Treasure Planet” Review: No Hidden Gem
Treasure Planet attempts to take off, but proves itself an adventure for the feint-of-heart.
Treasure Planet, Disney’s 2002 sci-fi epic that killed itself from scope, has always eluded me. As a full-fledged Disney child, I was fond of even the studio’s riskiest projects. Brother Bear had the same chance of occupying a living room screen as Toy Story 2 or one of their renaissance masterpieces. Hercules, The Little Mermaid, or The Great Mouse Detective that started it all; years of Disney’s invincibility were upheld by the strong, cramping hands of inspired 2D animators whose works I couldn’t help but adore. I remember being in awe at the detail on-screen, and attempting to follow in my much more artistically inclined brother as we sketched our own aliens for the Lilo and Stitch sequel we’d surely be hired to create. Or, hey, I would have even taken lead character designer, that’s how much I loved these movies. Which is what has made Treasure Planet such an interesting cultural artifact for me, as while I have fond memories dancing to the Tarzan soundtrack when I was barely old enough to stand or humming the Finding Nemo score to help me sleep, Treasure Planet is unique in my childhood as the one Disney movie I didn’t see. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one.
Treasure Planet was a medium killer. Any animated film not too far along in production was demanded to switch to 3D technology after this nuclear bomb of a box office failure raked in only enough for a nearly forty million dollar loss after its entire run. This was a time where 2D animation was reaching its extinction, simultaneously its point of mastery by expert artists and its moment of eclipse by promising new technologies. The marketing material for Treasure Island showed a confusing blend of Disney hokeyness and sci-fi grandiosity. The film couldn’t decide whether to be epic or heart warming, and in choosing both, it ultimately decided to dig its own space grave. Fans of Disney saw a pirate film too grown up for them or their kids, and edgy teens looking for sci-fi spectacle only saw a silly robot tainted by animated cheese. After finally visiting this lost treasure from my past, tragically, I don’t think I stumbled upon the hidden gem I was hoping for.
Although the strong set up would have an eager audience member thinking otherwise. The film excites and informs expertly with that classic 90s Disney storytelling efficiency. “You’ve got an hour and a half, better make it count,” says the Mouse, and it’s that limitation that forces these Renaissance era films into a predictable but undeniably effective formula. We open on a space battle that is revealed to be a fantastical cut away from a hologram projecting storybook being read by a baby Jim Hawkins. Immediately, we’re presented with a world where the open ocean are replaced by stars, wooden pistols exist alongside steampunk robots, and spaceships are literal boats in space. The ambition in scope and imagination is immediately apparent, as is our protagonist. However, while an archetypal role typically works for Disney leads, I could not help but feel particularly distanced from this predictable lead. While the world may be interesting, that’s ultimately where the film’s focus lies, and with that, an imbalance between story and spectacle that never manages to result in a wondrous adventure. Instead, I was left scoffing at the attempts at levity that would have left my chest as warm as a nova star in any other Disney project due to an over-active imagination. Rushed pacing leads to a cramped story, one without any room for what makes Disney or the film’s source material special.
Most of Treasure Planet’s issues can be derived from its tonal naivety and scope. As I said, the movie starts off strong specifically because it manages to introduce our lead while at the same time establishing core elements of the world. There’s excitement, appropriate scale, and naturally incorporated and contextualized exposition in a matter of minutes. All of this, and it is in service of informing the audience on the lead, Jim Hawkins, who we truly come to meet after a twelve year time jump. Sadly, it’s here, as early as five minutes in, where Jim already stopped feeling like a character for me and where the film’s cracks began to show.
A few lines besides “Woo-hoo” are uttered by the overly rebellious, achingly earnest Jim Hawkins. He’s the Luke Skywalker of this Star War, and outside of a pony-tail, he doesn’t have much new to offer. Over-ambitious, naive, feels like there’s “more out there” for him to discover. He’s traumatized by his father’s neglect, holds a strong insecurity that motivates his risk-taking behavior, and has a sense of duty to his mother, whose business he accidentally destroyed when bringing home a treasure map. One may be thinking that sounds like a fleshed out character, or at least one fitting enough for an archetypical adventure narrative. But in execution, much like the universe Jim inhabits, these details come off more as tacked on ideas than fully developed concepts due to the film’s pacing and scale. Ninety minutes is barely enough time to develop a fully fledged character, let alone an entire galaxy. As a result, both the world and its population feel underdeveloped due to the film’s overt preference for world building ideas over narrative depth. As much as this seems like solely a symptom of over-ambition, the film’s imagination proves to be a terminal illness when creating friction with Disney’s then strictly fairy tale tone; I wouldn’t say the classic Disney princesses are necessarily celebrated for their nuance. Meaning, Treasure Planet feels like the awkward middle ground of multiple wars: Disney’s heart vs Sci-Fi grit, complex world building vs archetypal storytelling, a dense plot and boundless ideas vs an hour and a half runtime. These were battles Treasure Planet simply couldn’t win.
The most glaring way these core conflicts manifest in the film are in the shallow characters and plot contrivances. Outside of strong character designs, I found there to be little definition to the majority of the cast. This is especially troubling for Jim, who as the archetypal adventuring protagonist, comes off as rebellious in only the most cliche, angsty-teenager way possible. The rest of the crew can hardly stand on their own, with the main “romantic relationship” being condensed to a few conversations and a quick cut to newly-borns. Treasure Planet does not have the time to develop it’s ideas, and so, the film decides to squeeze in as much as it can with its limited run. A “BBMak” needle drop is all the evidence needed for how this kitchen-sink approach results in a tonal catastrophe that proved deadly for the entirety of Western hand-drawn animation. Worse yet, this tonal clash comes at a point of emotional development that is necessary for the film’s core relationship to work, and yet, because of its pacing comes off as more trite than satisfying. If all of this wasn’t already an indication of the film’s desperation to move the plot along, there is the character of B.E.N., an abandoned robot whose job is to serve as comic relief and a motivation for conflict. But with such little depth, and being introduced so late into the film, B.E.N. becomes the sole instigator of essentially the second half’s conflicts from sheer stupidity alone. The amount of times characters are thrown into perilous situations or the plot is shot forward because B.E.N. accidentally caused it to happen becomes worn out before one even has enough time to realize how aggravating the “helpful” robot’s voice is.
And now, with what was once a question mark of my childhood labeled and preserved in its glass case next to all the other Disney classics in my mind museum, I can confidently say that while being representative of Disney’s ambition, Treasure Planet is simultaneously symbolic of the conflict animation still finds itself at the center of today. Like many new emerging technologies, animation as a medium was not defined for the populous. One didn’t know what to “think” of an animated film, so when Western audiences’ first exposure to the medium was Snow White instead of Akira, animation instantly became anti-adult. With recent efforts working against this notion, Treasure Planet remains a warning sign for every ill-defined animated film in development, as well as a beacon of hope. Unable to decide between whimsy or grit and twenty years in the making by some of the industries brightest and most innovative minds, Treasure Planet deserves to be remembered as an imaginative artistic triumph as much as it is a financial disaster.