treasure planet is old enough to drink
You know what would’ve made way more sense than a retrospective on a 21-year-old movie? A retrospective on a 20-year-old movie! You know what that would’ve necessitated? Me having a blog last year! Oh well!
So. I love Treasure Planet! I love it so much that I gave it third place in my Disney animated canon ranking, and I stand by that. But I didn’t elaborate at the time, because it’s difficult to explain concisely, and quite honestly, it’s kind of a hard sell.
It’s not actually that good. People will tell you it’s good — they’ll look you dead in the eye and say it’s Beauty and the Beast-caliber, and it’s not. Like, it’s very dear to me, but it’s not. It’s not bad — it didn’t deserve to lose $31 million at the box office — but if I were doing an objective Disney ranking that I wanted people to take seriously, it would maybe crack the Top 40. Not by any fault of its own, just because it has some incredibly tough competition.
Since the film came out in November 2002, it could now, if it were a person, legally purchase alcohol in the United States. And so, in the form of an essay, I would like to raise a toast to my good friend Treasure Planet. Please join me.
PART ONE: TREASURE ISLAND
Treasure Planet is an adaptation of the 1883 Robert Louis Stevenson pirate novel Treasure Island. I haven’t read it since I was in middle school, but I’ll do my best.
An English boy named Jim Hawkins is given a map to the infamous pirate Captain Flint’s secret treasure trove by a former member of Flint’s crew, Billy Bones, when an ill Bones comes to stay at the Hawkins family’s inn. Bones also tells Jim to beware of a pirate with a wooden leg. Another pirate shows up and gives Bones the black spot, prompting his death. After Bones dies, Jim and his parents’ friends, Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney, hire a ship, a captain, and a crew to sail to the titular island and retrieve the treasure therein. Unfortunately, the crew is full of pirates, led by Flint’s old quartermaster, Long John Silver — the guy Bones warned Jim about — and they mutiny once the ship reaches the island. Jim, who has kind of befriended Silver, hears about the mutiny before it happens while hiding in a barrel of apples in the galley, and is able to warn the captain, the doctor, and the squire. Once on the island, Jim and co. ally themselves with another former Flint associate, Ben Gunn, who has been marooned for years. After a period of violence, the parties agree to a ceasefire. The pirates win custody of the treasure map, but Gunn, it turns out, already found and claimed the treasure years ago. He’s willing to share it with Jim and co. if they take him with them when they leave the island. They set sail with Silver as prisoner, and the rest of the pirates suffer Gunn’s former fate. At the first port, Silver escapes with a bag of treasure, and presumably uses it to establish a fast food chain. Jim imparts what he’s learned from all this, which is that he fucking hates pirates.
PART TWO: A BRIEF SUMMARY OF TREASURE PLANET
WHAT THEY CHANGED FROM TREASURE ISLAND
It’s in space. The island is a planet. Duh.
Space is full of breathable air, and you’re just going to have to accept that.
Jim Hawkins has gone from a generic child to a generic, angst-ridden teenager. Voiced by 10 Things I Hate About You-era Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Jim’s hobby is flying around on this thing he built called a solar surfer, which is basically a rocket-powered surfboard with a sail.
Jim and his parents are the only humans around; all other characters are aliens.
Jim’s mother is voiced by Laurie Metcalfe, who I believe has played more Disney moms than any other person in history. Jim’s dad, rather than dying early on in the story, left the family prior to the film’s events. This is the primary source of Jim’s woe.
Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey have been merged into one character: an anthropomorphic dog guy named Dr. Doppler, voiced by (my birthday twin) David Hyde Pierce, of Niles Crane fame.
Similarly, the captain (a man in the book) is now an anthropomorphic cat lady named Captain Amelia, voiced by Emma Thompson. She and Doppler have a romance even though they are both clearly gay.
Long John Silver (Brian Murray, not to be confused with Brian Doyle-Murray from SNL) is referred to only as Silver, and he’s a cyborg.
Silver’s parrot is a shapeshifting pink blob called Morph (Dane A. Davis).
Ben Gunn is a robot named B.E.N. (Bio-Electronic Navigator). Martin Short voices him, and I usually like Martin Short, but… eegh…
THE PLOT
Jim’s mom reads him a bedtime story about how Captain Flint did piracy and then stashed all his treasure on some remote planet in an undisclosed location. Twelve years later, Jim is plagued by great emotional turmoil due to his father leaving. His only outlet is solar surfing in restricted areas, which gets him arrested. His mom is like, “Oh my god, can you please not? I am trying to keep an inn here.” Dr. Doppler is his mom’s only friend.
Right after the literal robocops drop Jim off, Billy Bones crash lands outside the inn, gives Jim the map, (which is now a sphere that projects a holographic map when opened) and immediately dies. A bunch of pirates, including Silver, show up and burn down the inn. Jim, his mom, and Doppler escape with the map. Jim figures out how to open the map, and he and Doppler are like, “Oh hell fuck yeah,” and start planning an expedition. Jim’s mom is skeptical, but he’s like, “No, I’m gonna do a good job and bring you back a bunch of treasure to rebuild the inn.”
Doppler hires a ship, which is called the RLS Legacy, in honor of Stevenson. Captain Amelia makes Jim Silver’s apprentice, and Jim recognizes Silver as that asshole who burned his house down, and Silver recognizes Jim as that guy whose house he burned down, but they keep their respective intel to themselves. For now.
Jim pisses off Scroop, (Michael Wincott from Nope) a spider-scorpion alien, and Scroop tries to kill him, but Silver intervenes. Silver drags Scroop and the other crew members below deck and is like, “Are you fucking kidding me, how are we supposed to pull off the mutiny if you keep acting all obviously evil like this?” Then Silver goes back up to talk to Jim, who reveals that his dad left. They have a friendship montage, cementing Silver’s newfound, accidental role as Jim’s surrogate dad. Uh-oh.
There’s this impossible action sequence where the ship gets caught in a black hole, and instead of getting spaghettified, they escape. Such is the folly of Treasure Planet. If you’re like, “This movie is a permanent resident of my brain’s penthouse suite. I get straight-up antsy if I go more than a year without watching it,” and try to show it to a loved one, you are going to have to watch them watch a ship escape a black fucking hole, and then pause the movie right before a pivotal scene to do damage control.
The pivotal scene in question: Captain Amelia tells Jim to secure everyone’s lifelines, which are just ropes tied to the mast, but Snoop cuts First Officer Mr. Arrow’s (Roscoe Lee Browne) with his scorpion claw, and makes it look like Jim’s fault. Jim is all “Untitled” by Simple Plan about it until Silver gives him a pep talk about how much potential he has. And then Jim goes to bed, and Silver’s like, “Gooooddammit fuck shit, I did not mean to care about him.”
The next morning we get the apple barrel scene, except instead of apples it’s this purple space fruit called purps. I love purps; they are my single favorite aspect of Treasure Planet’s worldbuilding. Other than the flying space whales. They’re just purple, and they’re called purps. Doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. Anyway, so the pirates are like, “Can we please do the mutiny now?” and Silver’s like, “NO,” and Scroop’s like, “Lol you care about Jim, I heard your speech,” and Silver’s like, “I was obviously lying, you piece of shit.” Jim overhears all this and is pretty bummed out by it — much more so than his book counterpart — and when he tries to go warn Doppler and the captain, Silver confronts him. Jim stabs Silver in the cyborg leg (just move past it) right before the ship reaches the planet. Following a chase, Jim, Doppler, and the captain escape with the map in a longboat, crash landing on the planet, which injures the captain.
But wait! It wasn’t the map Jim grabbed, it was Morph the shapeshifting blob disguised as the map! Ain’t that just the way? So Jim is already annoyed, and then B.E.N. the robot shows up to annoy him further, but B.E.N. lets the gang hide out in his bachelor pad to avoid the pirates, so that’s kind of him.
Jim and Silver try to negotiate for the “map”, and get nowhere because they’re both still mad at each other. Jim, B.E.N., and Morph sneak back to the ship to get the real map, defeating Scroop in the process, but then return to find that Silver and co. have taken Doppler and the captain hostage. Jim is the only one who can activate the map, so he forces Silver to bring them along to find the treasure.
The map leads them to a cliff’s edge. Jim plugs it into the ground, which opens a portal that can take them anywhere in the galaxy. Including the center of the planet, where the treasure is stashed.
Silver accidentally triggers the planet’s self-destruct mechanism, and the all the other pirates either die or escape, only to be apprehended by Doppler and the captain, who have escaped capture and fired up the ship. A small explosion within the planet almost causes Jim to fall to his death, but Silver grabs him, letting go of his pile of treasure in the process.
Jim and Silver flee to the ship. The thrusters aren’t functioning at full capacity, so they’re not going to be able to fly away before the whole planet explodes. Imagine surviving a black hole only to be taken out by a regular explosion. Anyway, Jim builds a makeshift solar surfer out of some random shit and uses it to fly back to the portal and open the door to the spaceport from which they launched. The captain is so impressed that she offers to write him a letter of recommendation to military school.
Silver is below deck stealing a longboat to escape before he can face prosecution, but Jim catches him. Silver invites him along, but Jim, inspired by Silver’s earlier pep talk, decides to strike out on his own. And go to military school, ew. But the goodbye scene is so moving that I never get mad about it until later. Silver gives Jim custody of Morph, and a small amount of treasure he managed to save, so that his mom can rebuild the inn. She does, and throws a party to celebrate the grand reopening, one timeskip later. Jim, who has graduated from military school, shows up with a police escort (gross). B.E.N. is working at the new inn as a cook, and Doppler and the captain have kids now. During the party, Jim happens to glance out the window and catch Silver’s face in the clouds, like Mufasa. The end.
PART THREE: THE ODDS
Treasure Planet’s history is so rife with conflict and opposition that it’s kind of a miracle the film exists at all.
THE SKEPTICISM
I’m sure you’ve all heard this story from Lindsay Ellis’s Hercules video essay, (and if not, you should) but directors John Musker and Ron Clements pitched Treasure Planet in the 1980s following their success with The Great Mouse Detective, and Disney was like, “Absolutely goddamn not.” Then Musker and Clements had even greater success with The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, and Disney was like, “Fine, you can make your fucking space pirate movie after you finish Hercules,” and then Hercules didn’t do that well, but Disney still greenlit Treasure Planet as promised. And despite Treasure Planet’s failure, Musker and Clements went on to direct critical and box office successes The Princess and the Frog and Moana before Musker’s 2018 retirement.
THE PROXY WAR WITH TITAN A.E.
If you don’t know veteran animator Don Bluth by name, you definitely know some of his movies: The Land Before Time, An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and Anastasia, just to name a few. Bluth got his start at Disney, working on Robin Hood, The Rescuers, and The Fox and the Hound before resigning over creative differences to found his own production company, Don Bluth Entertainment. Bluth’s films were smash successes in the 1980s, a decade that Disney Animation spent floundering until Musker and Clements turned things around with The Great Mouse Detective, so I don’t think it should come as a huge shock that Disney kind of hated Bluth.
The ’90s brought change — Disney and its animated musicals were thriving; Bluth released a series of critical and box office failures and was eventually forced to copy the Disney princess musical format in an attempt to recover financially.
20th Century Fox, which produced Anastasia, was so impressed by the film’s success that they immediately pawned a dead-end live action sci-fi script off on Bluth, figuring that he could revive it by animating the movie, despite his lack of experience in the genre. That script was called Titan A.E., and it was an original story about a depressed, angry teenage human boy with a dead father who bonds with and is subsequently betrayed by a surrogate father figure while on a quest in space to establish a new Earth, because the previous Earth was destroyed, and humans are a diaspora, and the rest of the universe is populated by aliens.
So while Bluth is trying to finagle this story into something he can a) understand, b) animate, Musker and Clements finally have the go-ahead from Disney to start work on Treasure Planet: a movie about a depressed, angry teenage human boy with an absent father who bonds with and is subsequently betrayed by a surrogate father figure while on a quest in space to find a planet of treasure to ease his mother’s financial woes, and humans are ostensibly a diaspora, and the rest of the universe is populated by aliens.
And the similarities don’t even end there — both movies merged hand-drawn and computer animation, both movies featured post-grunge songs with angsty lyrics at key points in the story, and both movies performed so poorly at the box office that they killed the studio departments responsible.
I like Titan A.E., for the record. Not as much as I like Treasure Planet, which I also just think is the stronger movie, but Titan A.E.’s all right. Joss Whedon co-wrote it, for better or worse. I recommend doing a double feature and seeing whether you come away with “I’m Still Here” or “It’s My Turn to Fly” stuck in your head.
THE COMPETITION
There’s a conspiracy theory that Disney sabotaged Treasure Planet as an excuse to shut down their 2D animation department, and the most damning evidence of this is that the film was released in November 2002, just after Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and just before The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. And yeah, I don’t not believe it! My parents rarely took me to movies, but of this selection, I can tell you without a doubt which one would’ve interested them the least. And so…
THE BOX OFFICE
Treasure Planet grossed $109 million against a $140 million budget. Whoops. (In today’s money, that’s $187 million against a $240 million budget.)
THE CRITICAL RESPONSE
Treasure Planet has an incredibly prestigious Rotten Tomatoes score of 69%. NICE. And you know what? I don’t even disagree. If I could quash my embarrassing unconditional love for this movie and grade it objectively, I would legitimately say 69/100 is the numerical score it deserves.
The audience score, meanwhile, is 72%. That’s fair. Generous even. If I had the capacity to tamp down my unwavering adoration of the film, I might perhaps agree with that assessment.
But I don’t. I’m sorry, I don’t. Given the choice between Treasure Planet and my dignity, it’s gonna be Treasure Planet every time. If I were in the core of a self-destructing celestial body, and I couldn’t escape with both my credibility as a wannabe film critic and my tireless affection for a box office failure intact, I’d be like, “OH, BLAST ME FOR A FOOL,” and delete this blog.
PART FOUR: WHY IT’S GOOD
I have been trying to elucidate this for years. I sit myself down in the conference room of my mind palace and go, “So Treasure Planet, huh?” like a disappointed CEO, and then I burst into tears like, “I’M SORRY, I JUST LIKE IT, OKAY?” and the disappointed CEO version of me is like, “Oh, you still don’t have taste, do you?” and then gives me one more chance to come to my senses or I’m fired. And then I never get fired, because this wasn’t a very apt metaphor.
I mean, you’ve seen it. Or at least, now you’ve read my bad, oversimplified summary. Remember, I (subjectively) ranked this thing ahead of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. There’s no possible justification for that. They made Martin Short annoying. They escape a black hole.
And yet…
THE ANIMATION
The look of Treasure Planet was inspired by the Brandywine tradition of illustration, and adheres to what Ron Clements dubbed the “70/30 rule”, i.e. 70% eighteenth century aesthetics, and 30% sci-fi. During the production of Tarzan, Disney animators invented this technique called Deep Canvas that allowed them to “paint” CGI environments, and it was used extensively to give Treasure Planet a storybook feel. With the exception of Silver’s robotic arm, eye, and leg, the characters were done with 2D animation. Everything else was 3D. They mesh so well that you won’t notice it in most scenes, unless you’re paying attention, or you’ve seen it as many times as I have.
Veteran animator Glen Keane supervised the non-cyborg half of Silver, and he did a great job as always, but I think the true star here is John Ripa, the supervising animator for Jim. The character is experiencing at least three conflicting emotions at any given time, and Ripa and co. conveyed this incredibly well.
(And I learned all of this from the DVD audio commentary with the directors, producers, and supervising animators years ago because I’m REALLY COOL.)
THE SCORE
James Newton Howard is one of my favorite film composers, and Treasure Planet has my favorite score he’s ever done. And that’s it. Here you go.
“I’M STILL HERE”
Disney spent basically the entire 1990s doing musicals, to gradually diminishing returns.By the end of the decade, viewers and filmmakers alike were kind of developing musical fatigue, and the movies they’d released had declined in quality from “almost flawless” to merely “pretty good” ever since the tragic death of the guy who revolutionized the concept of animated musicals and contributed heavily to their success. 1999’s Tarzan departed from the formula by having Phil Collins write and perform thematically appropriate, non-diegetic (i.e. the characters can’t hear them) songs during key scenes. The movie was successful, but people are still divided over whether these montages are better than a straightforward, diegetic musical theater soundtrack would’ve been. No matter, Disney now knew that their movies would still be well-received if they weren’t musicals, and so the unofficial production slogan for 2001’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire was “less songs, more explosions.”
Aaaaaaand Atlantis was almost as much of a flop as Treasure Planet would be!
But animated movies take years to produce, and Disney had just learned the hard way via The Emperor’s New Groove that adding or removing musical numbers from a film was a massive, costly headache. And so Treasure Planet continued on in production with its sole, Tarzan-style montage song: “I’m Still Here” by John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls.
“I’m Still Here” pops up unexpectedly around the halfway point of the film as a streamlined depiction of Jim and Silver’s developing friendship, which is contrasted with flashbacks of Jim’s dad leaving. “Strangers Like Me” from Tarzan is its obvious predecessor, but the tone is platonic and bittersweet, rather than romantic and optimistic. I also think “I’m Still Here” is a way better song, not to blaspheme. And a grungy, A MAJOR YEARNING sea shanty (it’s in 6/8, it counts!) fits the style of a sci-fi pirate movie far better than a Phil Collins pop song was ever going to fit a nineteenth-century jungle movie.
It’s not the strongest scene in the film, (that honor belongs to Silver’s post-supernova pep talk) and I think that’s a testament to how good Treasure Planet is. Which, again, is not Lion King levels of good, but still worthy of critical re-evaluation. “I’m Still Here” is when it goes from okay to great. It’s when John Ripa’s work on Jim’s expressions really shines. It’s when the filmmakers stop throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying to incorporate as many genres as possible to appeal to as many demographics as possible, and just let the film be. And it’s when the emotional core of the story begins to really take shape, and make you go, Ohh, THAT’S what they’re doing. Speaking of which.
THE ONE CHANGE I THINK IS GENUINELY BRILLIANT
At the beginning of the novel Treasure Island, Jim Hawkins’s father dies. It is not an explicit source of angst for him, but you can clearly read its impact into his bond with Long John Silver. If you want to. Treasure Island is first and foremost an adventure story about how badass pirates are, and that’s all it needed to be. Stevenson himself described it as “quite silly and horrid fun.” It was incredibly influential on the genre — naval historian David Cordingly attributed several pirate clichés that we now take for granted to the novel, such as X-marked treasure maps and parrots.
But Treasure Island was so influential because it was so popular, and therefore had already been adapted for the screen countless times before Musker and Clements were even born. Disney themselves had taken a stab (ha) at it — their first fully live action film was a 1950 adaptation starring the kid who voiced Peter Pan. (They also produced Muppet Treasure Island — the silliest, most horridly fun, objectively best version — a mere six years prior to Treasure Planet.) There can only be so many straightforward Treasure Island movies before they all start bleeding together, so if you want Treasure Island (Ron and John’s Version) to stand out, you need a gimmick. Like Muppets. Or whatever was going on in Black Sails.
The space setting is obviously Treasure Planet’s gimmick, but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it a successful one. They certainly tried. The worldbuilding is decent, (purps!) the animation techniques impressive, the eighteenth century and futuristic elements balanced. But the film just strikes me as self-conscious in its execution of this gimmick. Maybe that’s because the production history was so tumultuous, and Disney clearly had no faith in it. Or because it was tweaked to death to compete with Titan A.E. instead of standing on its own merits. Or 30% sci-fi just wasn’t enough sci-fi. Whatever the reason, the criticisms of Treasure Planet with which I most often find myself agreeing are the ones that bemoan its failure to live up to the potential of the premise, to justify its own existence. You cannot coast on the quality of the source material and the updated setting. You still have to tell a good story.
So here’s what I have identified as the secret sauce of Treasure Planet. The one update to the story of Treasure Island that I think not only makes Treasure Planet succeed, but would’ve even marginally improved the perfect source material.
At the beginning of Treasure Island, Jim Hawkins’s father dies. At some point before the events of Treasure Planet, Jim Hawkins’s father abandons his wife and son with no reason given. This takes way more of a toll on the Treasure Planet version of Jim. And understandably so — death is random and impersonal; parental abandonment is intentional and sends a clear message: I do not care enough about you to stay.
Book Jim maintains a healthy amount of skepticism throughout his camaraderie with Long John Silver. He has the warning about a pirate with a wooden leg, sure, but there are plenty of those. Aren’t there? Silver does eventually win him over, but because Jim has no history of paternal abandonment, the betrayal just pisses him off.
Treasure Planet Jim… tries. He literally watched Silver burn down his house/source of income; he has every reason not to trust him. And given how traumatized Jim is from his father leaving, he has no inclination to bond with anyone even vaguely paternal.
But of course he does, because trauma is cyclical, and recovery isn’t linear, and Silver is chill as hell.
So you’re watching them bicker and act suspicious of each other, and you’re like, Are they subverting Treasure Island by giving Jim the upper hand here? He’s clearly never going to fall for Silver’s charade. Then Jim discloses his tragic backstory to Silver, and you’re like, Oh no. Then “I’m Still Here” happens, and you’re like, OH NO. And then the post-supernova pep talk happens, and even Silver is like, “OH NO.” Cue the apple purp barrel.
Another criticism I’ve seen is that the movie takes a dive in quality once the gang actually arrives at Treasure Planet, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but I can excuse the relative suckage because it mirrors our protagonist’s mental state. The movie puts Treasure Island on the back burner, cuts quite a few battle scenes, and pivots to what is essentially Jim Hawkins and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The strongest moment is when he and Silver try to bargain for the “map”, because their dynamic is the strongest component of the film in general. This is not a very long scene, though; we’re mostly subjected to B.E.N. the Martin Short robot doing bits like a loud proto-Olaf, and on first watch, you become very nervous that they’re just going to finish out the story as it appears in the novel, but worse.
But then! To up the stakes, the planet is rigged to self-destruct should anyone reach its core where the treasure is hidden. Jim and Silver are independently trying to grab as much gold as possible, when an explosion nearly sends Jim off an overhang to his death. As everything falls apart around them, Silver realizes that in order to escape with his riches, he’ll have to leave Jim to die. Or, in order to reach Jim, he’ll have to let go of the treasure for which he’s spent his entire life searching.
And like, it’s a Disney movie. You can guess what he chooses. Doesn’t make it any less awesome, though.
They reboard the Legacy, which is too damaged to fly out of explosion range. Silver convinces everyone to let Jim use his Chekhov’s solar surfer to go open the portal back to the spaceport from which they departed, and they barely make it. Everyone is happy and triumphant and getting letters of recommendation to military school… except one.
Jim finds Silver below deck, about to take off without even saying goodbye. Which I can understand, but still. Kinda rude. Silver invites Jim to join him, but Jim’s like, “No, I’m gonna go to military school.” (I’m sorry I keep harping on it, but this is my least favorite thing about the movie. Like, they can part bittersweetly on fond terms for another reason, surely.) So they hug goodbye, and Silver lets Jim keep Morph and a small pocketful of treasure he managed to save, and he sails off, and the score was clearly inspired by “My Heart Will Go On”, which is kind of weird, but it works, goddammit. You’re crying by this point. They put TREASURE ISLAND in SPACE, and I’ve seen it a bad number of times, and it can still BRING ME TO TEARS. All because of one minor alteration to the protagonist’s backstory. And that is the quiet, unassuming genius of Treasure Planet. I can take or leave the space setting; the impact of Jim’s living, absent father on Jim’s bond with Silver is the brilliantly heartbreaking/warming update the story actually needed. And it’s just such a damn shame that naysayers can’t look past their distaste for the sci-fi dressing and see it. But I can, and to that I say, bravo, Musker and Clements. No other version of Treasure Island has even come close to making me cry.
Jim goes home, reunites with his mom, and cuts his hair. For military school. They use the treasure to rebuild the inn. The grand reopening party is attended by every non-pirate character in the movie. That’s all well and good, if cloying, until the camera slowly pushes in on Jim, and the spirited dance music gives way to some distinctly 2000s acoustic guitar. Something unseen compels Jim to look out the window, where he sees a cloud formation that kind of looks like Silver’s face. That distinctly 2000s acoustic guitar song is “Always Know Where You Are”, the other song John Rzeznik wrote for the film. Like “I’m Still Here”, it’s written from Jim’s perspective, except now Jim is happy and reflecting on how his friendship with Silver has affected him. It’s cheesy and anachronistic and you could mistake it for Christian rock with disturbing ease, but it’s perfect for the moment, and for the following credits.
If you do not vibe with the movie as I do, it is the maddening soundtrack to your perplexity. If you do vibe, it is almost unbearably heartwarming. You’re like, “Oh my god, I get it, I get it, I get it!” You’re like, “Jesus Christ, Treasure Planet, you crazy son of a bitch. Congratulations on the successful completion of your emotional throughline. Please go gently into the good night.”
And finally…
DISNEY HATES IT
This is the greatest badge of quality I know. The most prestigious honor. If I ever compromise my values and let this studio finance my passion project, I hope they fucking hate it.
Okay, obviously it’s crucial that a lot of people do not hate Treasure Planet. Disney and viewers alike hated 2000’s Dinosaur, and that’s why it has no cult following. No one is passionately stanning it, unless you count me occasionally listening to the score (which was also provided by James Newton Howard). Disney the evil multimedia conglomerate hates their own space Treasure Island movie, and weird nerds like me love it, and isn’t that beautiful? It’s like the film itself is Jim, and Disney is its deadbeat dad, and I’m Silver, and I’m trying to maintain my façade as a distinguished connoisseur of cinema, but I simply can’t not hype Treasure Planet like it’s the son I never had.
CONCLUSION
I rewatched the movie for this endeavor, of course, and I realized that it actually makes me feel kind of miserable. But the palatable sort of misery that you seek out when the weather is getting darker and colder. People say Treasure Planet would’ve been a bigger hit if it’d come out in the summertime, when there was less competition at the box office, but it is decidedly not a summer blockbuster. The color palette is full of reds and browns and blacks. The ship is full of sad, angry characters. The guy from the Goo Goo Dolls is there. The best thing about this adaptation of a classic novel is how it diverges from the source material. It’s a world-weary film whose mood rarely brightens beyond “bittersweet”, and that’s uncharted territory for Disney. I cannot recommend it to fans of Treasure Island (or more importantly, Muppet Treasure Island) without a million caveats.
But please watch this movie. Even if you’ve seen it. Even if you’ve seen it multiple times. If you did not stream Treasure Planet the second you got home from Thanksgiving, like I did, then I order you to watch it. Right now. Go go go go go. And if you don’t have Disney+, you can watch it in true pirate fashion! Who said that?