*** Official "TREASURE PLANET" Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[ThomasC]

Well, it could have a completely different life on video, so who knows...

 

[Edwin-S]

They should have gone all out and done it properly. You can even see in the commercials the juvenille humor and sidekicks
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Would you mind expanding on your comment about them "doing it properly"? 140 million spent and they didn't go all out? Exactly, what did you want them to do? Most reviews indicate that they stuck pretty close to the book on this one, regardless of the "futuristic" updating. Do you figure it needed to be "violenced" up or something? I wouldn't mind reading how you would have made this movie.

As for the sidekicks, I won't disagree with you, but Disney made a film where there were no sidekicks and it still suffered at the box office. Overall, though, I bet that "bomb" made back its money and more.

 

[Brian Lawrence]

Maybe it had poor advertising, because in the ads I saw the film looked like a real stinker.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

As for the sidekicks, I won't disagree with you, but Disney made a film where there were no sidekicks and it still suffered at the box office.

I agree. This is about as close a comprise as we'll ever get from one extreme to the other.

~Edwin

 

[Matthew_Millheiser]

I don't know about "kick ass" -- Treasure Island wasn't exactly a kick ass-style book -- but Disney's Treasure Planet was an enjoyable if ultimately forgettable little adventure. Kudos to them for straying away from the standard formula (although to be honest, the usual Disney "formula" has not been in effect since Mulan, maybe Tarzan.)
I wouldn't call it blasphemy vis-a-vis Stevenson's tale, but one wonders why bother updating a pirate tale to a sci-fi setting? Why not make the ultimate animated pirate flick?
What? Pirates don't sell? Oh... can't wait for that Pirates of the Caribbean movie! What, with rapping Country Bears last spring, this is a no-lose situation! Unless you're a Disney stockholder... then it's a swift kick to the scrotilia...
Anyway, Treasure Planet ain't bad, certainly worthwhile as a matinee with the kids, but it's a far cry from bonfiade Disney classics. Hell, it's a far cry from Atlantis, which got a major bum rap IMHO.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I think Disney's problem is that people only want what they're used to from them (little sidekicks, love stories, musical numbers, and some sort of magical influence, among other things) and Disney doesn't do enough to try to get away from that stigma. If they made an animated action movie with blood and a mature storyline, people would think they're insane, but it would be the first truly non-formulaic Disney film. Even Lilo & Stitch had some of the classic formula elements.

They either should stop making animated children's films (there's already way too many classics to list from memory, so why attempt to add more? It's doing what was already done, only not doing it now as good as it was done before) or they need to REALLY break away from that old image in some way.

 

[Neil Joseph]

This is a bit of a shame. I have not seen TP yet but my kids want to see it. It looks like the target audience probably is the same as Titan AE's market (pre-teens and young teens). Someone did not do their research.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

From USA Today:

Disney finds no golden 'Treasure'
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

Thanksgiving is typically Disney's time to shine. Over the past decade, the studio has had the top moneymaking holiday weekend film six times, with hits such as Toy Story, A Bug's Life and The Santa Clause.

Until now. With a surprisingly weak performance from its much-anticipated animated feature Treasure Planet, Disney did not have one of the top two films over the Thanksgiving weekend for only the second time since 1992.

And at a cost of $140 million, Planet could be the biggest financial failure ever by Disney's famed animation studio, at a time when the company could use good news. (Disney also owns third-place network ABC.)

Even though audiences enjoyed the film, giving it an A-, according to movie pollsters CinemaScore.com Planet was No. 4 at the box office, leaving Disney executives struggling for an explanation.

"You look at the grades audiences gave the movie, and you can see they really liked it," says Chuck Viane, Disney's head of distribution. "Then you look at the box office numbers and think, 'What happened?' You just can't be happy with fourth place."

A futuristic retelling of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, Planet grossed $12 million over the weekend, according to tracking firm Nielsen EDI. That's less than half of what some analysts had predicted and less than Disney's other holiday fare, The Santa Clause 2, did in its fifth weekend. Clause2 took in $12.13 million, good for third place.

Planet took in only $2.2 million on Thanksgiving Day, less than a third of what Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Die Another Day did.

Planet likely is the last animated film to cost so much. Since 1999, when Tarzan ran up production costs of $175 million, Disney has cut hundreds of jobs from its feature-animation staff and forced pay cuts for the remaining workers.

This year's Lilo & Stitch, which went into production after Planet, cost $80 million, has grossed $145 million domestically and could double that in video revenue.

Current animation head Thomas Schumacher, who led the cost-cutting, is renegotiating his contract but is expected to give up the role in favor of his other job, overseeing Disney's Broadway division.

Executives are still hoping word of mouth does for Planet what its advertising campaign could not.

But analysts say the film was a tough sell. "Science fiction and animation rarely work together," says analyst Brandon Gray, founder of boxofficemojo.com. "Look at Titan A.E. and Final Fantasy."

Dan Marks, an analyst with EDI, says, "There simply is not a lot of room left when you're going against a Bond or a Potter. You usually need a brand name to crack the top of the list."

Publicly, Disney officials say they aren't worried about their status as cartoon kings. The studio's next animated films are The Jungle Book II, out Feb. 14, and Piglet's Big Movie, out April 11.

And they say they haven't given up on Planet.

"Look at The Ring," Viane says of the DreamWorks film that opened to mediocre reviews but has since taken in $119.8 million. "People kept that movie going because they liked it and talked about it. We're hoping we see the same thing happen."

~Edwin

 

[Neil Joseph]

Boy, I take my statement back. This is not so much a lack of research as it is a lack of marketing of the film. Perhaps it will do better than this during the nexst and upcoming weeks?

 

[Edwin-S]

I agree. This is about as close a comprise as we'll ever get from one extreme to the other.
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Exactly. Disney is caught in a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. God knows, I'm not a Disney Corp. booster.I find a lot of Disney business practices odious but apparently, in a lot of peoples eyes, they can do no right merely because they are DISNEY.

Disney makes an animated movie without singing, dancing animals and get slammed by the mainstream audience because they have moved away from the "family friendly" formula that Disney is equated with. In a double whammy, Disney gets slammed by a lot of movie fans because all of sudden they are just 'ripping off everybody else'.

An example is that nonsense about them ripping off a two year old film. First all which film is it...TITAN AE? If it is TITAN AE, then why is TREASURE PLANET a rip off? Is it because it involves a quest for a lost object? Quests have been a part of literature for hundreds of years. Are all the authors that have written a variation on a theme of the Iliad suddenly ripping it off? Apparently when it comes to Disney, yes.

Disney moves back to the tried and true and then the cry from movie fans is "Disney's animated films are formulaic trash, when are they going to do something to push the envelope?" Those boys over at the "Mouse House" sweatshop just cannot win. Guess they might as well just throw in the towel.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Oh, and stop blaspheming classic stories while you're at it.

There you go with that word "blaspheming" again.

 

[John Geelan]

I saw Treasure Planet with the kids last week and they loved it.
It's not a bad movie, it's great for the kids, the story is fine and the special effects are very good espec. when they get to the Planet.

Harry Potter must be siphoning off most of the kid market.

Treasure Planet is not a Teen movie but is good for the age 6-12 crowd.

Shame it didn't do better.
It will look and sound fine on dvd.

 

[Edwin-S]

There is something I would like to find out. When I was watching the film, everything seemed dingy. Whites were dull and the backgrounds in darker scenes had almost no detail. I was sure that the light was turned down on the projector, so I complained about it twice. The attendant told me that the manager had checked the projector and that it was okay. He then told me that was the way the film looked. So tell me. Was the film really dark and dingy?Personally, I think these guys were cheaping out and turning down the light output.

 

[JohnS]

I think the two problems were poor marketing, especially the trailers.
I thought the trailers were crap.

and putting the movie upagainst big name movies.

Personally, I liked Treasure Planet.
I thought it was a fun movie.

 

[steve jaros]

The movie has earned $20 million in ten+ days of release, and against relatively weak family competition. It isn't earning any more on a daily basis than Santa Clause 2 - a not very good film that is already well past 100 mil.

This is Disney's biggest flop of the modern era (i.e., post little mermaid).

Heads will roll over this disaster...

 

[Jan Strnad]

I had high hopes for Treasure Planet, for selfish reasons: If it did well, I stood a good chance of getting to write an episode or two of the TV series. Now it looks as if the TV show won't happen, due to Treasure Planet's poor box office performance. (I was writing an Atlantis episode when that movie opened to disappointing results and the series was cancelled in mid-production.)
My wife and I screened Treasure Planet at the Disney Studios, and they plied us with food, wine and beer beforehand, the projection was perfect, the seats comfy...and I have to admit some disappointment. My wife loved the anachronistic imagery, and I thought it was absolutely spectacular visually, but it still came across as kind of lackluster and dramatically flat.
People are always looking for the "secret" that determines whether a film takes off or not, and they come up with drivel like:

"Science fiction and animation rarely work together," says analyst Brandon Gray, founder of boxofficemojo.com. "Look at Titan A.E. and Final Fantasy."

..comfortably ignoring the success of the anime movies with s-f themes, not to mention Disney's own Lilo and Stitch.
Lilo and Stitch was funny and touching and imaginative and marvelously well-written. Treasure Planet, except for the stunning visuals, was just kind of "there." Stitch was funny throughout his film because the humor was character driven (as was his pathos), but there was no character driven humor in Treasure Planet. The "Fartian" alien, for instance, (I don't remember his real species name) was funny...once. After that, we were squarely into Dumb and Dumber territory.
I also wonder about all of the amazing visuals and if they didn't actually work against the film. When everything is fantastic, is anything fantastic? Maybe less would have been more with Treasure Planet.
This is all IMHO, of course.
I still think it could have been a great series, if we could have followed John Silver and left Jim Hawkins behind.
Jan

 

[Edwin-S]

It isn't earning any more on a daily basis than Santa Clause 2 - a not very good film that is already well past 100 mil.

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I guess this proves that people prefer to spend their money on garbage. They like to make sure that the studios will deliver more of the same. Look at the sequels for Austin Powers to see proof of the theory.

You are right, heads probably will roll. Unfortunately, most of the heads will be workers who have no direct input into what films are produced. Thanks to the mainstream audience's affinity for trash, the Disney animation unit is going to be decimated. The animation unit is going to be reduced to producing nothing but low quality movies with the number 2 behind them. It has already started and is just going to get worse.

 

[Edwin-S]

I also wonder about all of the amazing visuals and if they didn't actually work against the film. When everything is fantastic, is anything fantastic?
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It wasn't a weakness for me. Since everything was fantastic I found I could suspend my disbelief much easier. Everything in the movie was consistent within in the framework. Seeing a fantastical sailing vessel being ejected out of a black hole on an explosive wave was digestible because the whole concept was over the top. If they had tried to make something like that more "real" the result would have been thoughts like "yeah, right as if that would happen!"

"Die Another Day" is a perfect example where the internal consistency is abandoned in favor of something so fantastic it leaves a person thinking, "what the hell!?" The satellite attack is a good example. Apparently, the U.S military only had one A-SAT missile in their entire arsenal. The satellite weapon could carve off a chunk of glacial ice shelf in the blink of an eye, but ten minutes later couldn't melt a puny ice hotel in milliseconds. I don't expect Bond films to be scientifically accurate but they don't have to be so stupid that it draws a person out of the movie.

Regardless of any weakness in TREASURE PLANET's character development, at least I wasn't sitting there thinking, "whatta load of garbage", every ten minutes. The Bond flick was another story.

Regarding Jim Hawkins being a cipher. I have felt that the Jim Hawkins character was always a cipher. I always get the feeling that Treasure Island was more about Long John Silver than it was about Hawkins.

There is one thing I have to ask. Was Treasure Planet's darker scenes detailess? Sometimes I was having trouble making out character details, such as expressions.

 

[Matthew_Austin]

It looks like Disney has another Black Hole on their hands with this one. TP's gross dropped over 50% this weekend compared to last. I think it'll probably gross about 30 million in the states. I guess Sci Fi and Disney don't mix.

 

[Edwin-S]

I guess Sci Fi and Disney don't mix.
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It worked for them in "LILO and STITCH", "THAT DARN CAT", and several others.