Treasure Planet Disney Read-Along

Why would they take a time honored literary classic and make it into a hokey sci-fi cartoon? Why? Because that's what Disney does. Disney has done some splendid work on classic tales in the past but on this one, they bombed.

It's just downright awful. There's no soul to this story...

Move along, there's nothing to see here.


A novel idea   March 15, 2005
Darren Harrison (Washington D.C.)
10 out of 14 found this review helpful

It must have seemed like a good idea on paper. Take a much loved childrens classic like "Treasure Island" and update it with a good splash of "Star Wars." Get the same guys that produced previous hits like "Aladdin" and "The Little Mermaid" and surely the result will be a winner.
Well, not entirely.
I went into the latest Walt Disney animated movie "Treasure Planet" really wanting to love it. I grew up just an hour away from Edinburgh and many times passed the island in the center of that city which, the tourist brochures tell us, served as an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island".
The mesh of classic literature and science fiction does occasionally create a magical moment when you are left saying to yourself "wow, now that was cool," but during too many instances in that movie theater I found myself wondering what I should pick up for dinner or, more telling, what this movie could have been, should have been.
It's novel to have the space ships in this production based on the design of the galleons that cruised the seas during Stevenson's time, complete with sails to capture the suns energy rather than the wind. It was interesting to see the character of Long John Silver turned into a cyborg with a shape shifter on his shoulder instead of a parrot.
The rogues galley of aliens and a robot that owes more than a casual nod to C-3PO also add color to this production, but it really is a mixed bag.
The story is so well known that it seems almost unnecessary to produce here. Young, adventurous and impetuous Jim Hawkins dreams of escaping the dreary life he leads and sailing the open sea, errr, I mean space. Then one night he rescues a dying traveler who has on his person a treasure map. Following his dreams he embarks on an adventure across the universe in search of untold wealth.
This movie may be fun for the kids - which I guess was the target audience for this production, but adults would be better served throwing the newly remastered DVD of "Bambi" into the DVD player.


My Favorite Disney Movie   March 22, 2006
P. Franck
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

*** Spoiler Warning - this review might reveal surprises in the movie ***

First off for a frame of reference, I'm a 30-year old male and a sucker for Disney movies in general.

When this movie came and went to the theatres in a flash, I heard so much bad about it, how it was the worst Disney movie ever, that I actually didn't go see it in the theatre. I regret that now. First time I actually saw this movie was on a 14-hour flight from Los Angeles to London, and I fell heads over heels in love with it!

I adored the original Novel "Treasure Island", and I believe that Treasure Planet lives up to it. The central theme of Treasure Planet, in my mind, is the boy, Jim, who grows up with only a vague recollection of his father who in the movie appears like a shadow in Jim's faded childhood memories.

I think this particular "flashback" scene was very powerful, it featured the absolutely brilliant "I'm still here" track by Johnny Rzesnik, and led the viewer to fully understand Jim's childhood, and to share his teenage frustration and delinquency that stems from his father abandoning the young Jim and his mother. Possibly, I might a bit biased in this respect, since I can strongly identify with this situation as my own father was "married to the sea" when I grew up, and i can admit that i blubbered like a baby during the flashback sequence.

This is right in line with the core message of the film. A young, reckless and frustrated boy who is taken under the wing of the Old Salt, who becomes his new father figure. He learns how to take orders, work hard, grow, face adversity, and eventually become a man by making tough choices. An excellent message in this day and age, if you ask me.

I also loved the theme the producers chose. A type of anachronistic retro-futuristic design, where we in the future still use old, creaking, wooden, pirate ships, but with ultra futuristic systems. The movie also suspends the viewer from reality in many flavorful ways - for instance when the spaceship travels through the universe, it encounters a pod of whales. Or how Jim takes a dhingy "comet surfing".

I think this film provides excellent entertainment, suspense and has a great message for kids. But as an adult, I think I also got a kick out of this GREAT and CLEARLY UNDERRATED Disney flick.

SEE IT!


A beautiful failure from Disney: dull and poorly-conceived   February 2, 2004
Ryan Harvey (Los Angeles, CA USA)
9 out of 21 found this review helpful

Within the first few minutes of this science-fiction adaptation of Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND, you'll be amazed with the vibrant blend of hand-animation and CGI movement.

Within the next few minutes, you'll be bored with the flat charactetizations, forced unfunny humor, and lazy by-the-numbers transcription of the novel's plot into a poorly thought-out science-fiction universe.

This is Disney at its most superficial and cold. Science-fiction fans will be frustrated with the shallow and dismissive explanations for the background (why, given all this technology, do people wield swords and use ropes to tie themselves to decks -- and what are they breathing, anyway?), most adults will tire of the bland dramatics, and only the youngest kids will stay awake for most of it. Martin Short's malfunctioning robot must be one of the least funny of Dinsey's comic-relief characters. Rent LILO & STITCH instead if you have kids (or just rent it again). If you want more intelligent adult science-fiction animation, check out the similarly titled but completely different FANTASTIC PLANET. The little seen TITAN A.E. also explores the space opera animation setting in a much more satisfactory way. Even DreamWorks SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS is more enjoyable.


The movie Titan A. E. wanted to be...   November 30, 2002
Joanne M. Brown (Quarryville, PA)
8 out of 14 found this review helpful

The moment I saw the preview for this at the June release of Lilo and Stitch I was completely smitten. I finally read Treasure Island over this summer, and found out how much I had missed before I became a teen! This was a faithful (if somewhat unorthodox) adaptation of the classic by Robert Louis Stevenson. Fans of the Final Fantasy game series (forget the movie; THAT should be thrown off the face of the earth) will like the "flying ships" and Jim Hawkins, the main character, who is vaguely reminiscent of Squall from Final Fantasy 8. The animation is spectacular, and Long John Silver's Swiss Army Knife cyborg "appendages" are pretty neat. The music is perfect: James Newton Howard, as usual, does a wonderful job with his adventure themes that remind us of the early 90's movie Shipwrecked and such high seas adventure. Johnny Rzeznik, of the Goo Goo Dolls, wrote two songs for the movie; "I'm Still Here" and "Always Know Where You Are" (the latter performed by BBMak). They give a feeling of the teen in Hawkins and accentuate Howard's score perfectly. For the parents out there looking for some moral redemptive factor in this movie: Treasure Planet brings out the pain of having a broken family, and viewers will be touched by the bond that forms between Hawkins and Silver. Some of the aliens are a little bit scary, and there's a few explosions, etc., but it's generally a kid-safe film. Overall, this movie was a classic adventure movie, perfect for young and old alike, and one that I will watch more than a few times. Way to go Disney!