Warning! Don’t read this if you haven’t seen Treasure Planet from Walt Cyborg Disney Pictures, but plan to do so. You’ve been warned.
If you liked Titan A.E., I think you will like Treasure Planet. There’s a time and a place for mindless animated films. It may not be a lot of time and it may not be a large place, but it’s there.
Treasure Planet is ostensibly based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, but there are more than a few passing similarities to Titan A. E. Let’s see:
- Boy is bitter about his father leaving him, but still misses him
- Boy is a rebel stuck in a crap job, but can surf radically through space on a single person vessel with a generic rock soundtrack blasting in the background
- Boy comes into or is in possession of secret, 3D light-projected map and is the only one who can operate the map
- Boy travels on spaceship staffed by mutineers/traitors who need to use the boy’s map to find the treasure
- Boy is betrayed by large, older guy who he thought was his friend
- The large, older guy later turns soft, and saves boy’s life
- I could go on and on and on
One of the biggest missing elements is boy meets girl. The only hooking up is done by the cool cat chick captain and the older goofy dog professor.
B.E.N. reminded me of the donkey from Shrek. Goofy sidekick. Begs desperately to hang with the protagonist. Voice by former SNL star. Causes a lot of trouble, but also saves some bacon. Okay, not enough connections to sue over.