Treasure Planet
Treasure Planet is a 2002 American animated science fiction adventure film directed by John Musker and Ron Clements and written by Musker, Clements and Rob Edwards. Produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, it is a science fiction adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island and the third Disney adaptation of the novel, following Treasure Island and Muppet Treasure Island. In the film's setting, spaceships are powered by solar sails and resemble the 18th-century sailing vessels of the original Treasure Island.
The film features the voices of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brian Murray, David Hyde Pierce, Martin Short, Roscoe Lee Browne, Emma Thompson, Michael Wincott, Laurie Metcalf, and Patrick McGoohan in his final role. The musical score was composed by James Newton Howard, with songs written and performed by John Rzeznik.
Clements and Musker pitched the concept for the film during production of The Little Mermaid. Development began after they finished their work on Hercules. It employs a novel technique of hand-drawn 2D traditional animation set atop 3D computer animation. With a budget of $140 million, it is the most expensive traditionally animated film to date.
Treasure Planet premiered in Paris on November 6, 2002, and was released in the United States on November 27 by Walt Disney Pictures. It was the first film to be released simultaneously in regular and IMAX theaters. The film was a box-office failure, earning $109 million worldwide against a budget of $140 million. It received generally positive reviews from critics and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards. The film has since gained a cult following.
Plot
On the planet of Montressor, Jim Hawkins runs an inn along with his mother, Sarah. One day, Billy Bones crashes his spaceship near the inn and gives Jim a sphere, warning him to "beware the cyborg". A group of pirates attack and destroy the inn, while Jim flees with Sarah and their friend, Dr. Delbert Doppler. At Doppler's house, the three discover that the sphere contains a holographic star map leading to the location of the fabled Treasure Planet, where the space pirate Captain Flint hid his treasure years ago.To help Jim search for the treasure, Doppler commissions the ship RLS Legacy, commanded by feline Captain Amelia and stone-skinned first mate Mr. Arrow. The ship's motley crew seem to be heavily influenced by cook John Silver, whom Jim suspects is the cyborg Bones warned him about. Under the supervision of Silver and his shape-shifting pet Morph, Jim works in the ship's galley, and he and Silver form a tenuous father-son relationship. When the ship encounters a supernova devolving into a black hole, Jim secures the crew's lifelines. A ruthless arachnid crew member named Scroop secretly cuts Arrow's lifeline, sending him into the black hole. As the Legacy escapes the shockwaves, Scroop blames an improperly secured lifeline for Arrow's death. Silver, realizing the truth, comforts Jim.
After reaching Treasure Planet, Jim discovers that the crew are pirates led by Silver, and a mutiny erupts. As Doppler, Amelia, and Morph flee in a lifeboat, Jim retrieves the map. Silver, who cannot bring himself to shoot Jim, allows him to escape with the others. Another pirate shoots down the lifeboat, injuring Amelia.
Jim discovers that the "map" is Morph in disguise, with the real map still on the ship. The four meet B.E.N., a navigational robot who once belonged to Flint and is now missing his primary memory circuit. Jim, Morph, and B.E.N. secretly return to the Legacy and retrieve the map. Scroop fights them, but B.E.N. inadvertently disables the artificial gravity, allowing Jim to kick Scroop overboard into deep space.
Jim's group, upon returning to camp, finds the pirates holding Amelia and Doppler hostage. Silver forces Jim to use the map, which directs them to the huge portal that Flint used to conduct his raids. Its holographic controls allow it to open to any location in the known universe. Realizing that Treasure Planet is actually a giant piece of machinery with the treasure sealed inside its core, Jim directs the portal to open to the planet's treasure room. As the pirates enter and begin collecting the loot, Jim finds the skeleton of Flint, holding B.E.N.'s missing circuit in its hand. After Jim re-installs the circuit, B.E.N. remembers that Flint rigged the planet to self-destruct if anyone entered the treasure chamber. As the planet begins collapsing, Silver attempts to escape with a boatload of treasure, but abandons it to save Jim. The survivors board the Legacy, which becomes damaged and unable to go fast enough to escape the planet's impending destruction. Jim rigs a makeshift sailboard and rides ahead, setting the portal to Montressor Spaceport, and Doppler steers the Legacy through the portal to safety.
Jim finds Silver below decks and allows him to escape. As a farewell gift, Silver gives Jim and Morph a handful of treasure he had salvaged from Flint's hoard. Back on Montressor, Jim uses the treasure to help Sarah rebuild their inn, with B.E.N. becoming a waiter. Doppler and Amelia marry and start a family, and Jim, having matured under Silver's mentorship, accepts Amelia's offer to become a cadet at the Interstellar Academy.
Voice cast
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jim Hawkins, an adolescent adventurer.
- Brian Murray as John Silver, a cyborg bear-like alien who leads the mutiny on the RLS Legacy.
- David Hyde Pierce as Dr. Delbert Doppler, a canine astronomer. He is a combination of Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney from Treasure Island.
- Emma Thompson as Captain Amelia, the feline captain of the RLS Legacy. She is an analog to Captain Alexander Smollett in Treasure Island.
- Martin Short as Bio-Electronic Navigator, an alien robot who has lost his memory and was abandoned on Treasure Planet by Captain Flint. His name is a reference to Treasure Islands Ben Gunn, on whom he is based.
- Roscoe Lee Browne as Mr. Arrow, Captain Amelia's first mate.
- Laurie Metcalf as Sarah Hawkins, Jim Hawkins' mother who runs the Benbow Inn.
- Dane Davis as Morph, a small pink alien who can morph into any form. He is comparable to the pet parrot owned by Silver in the original Treasure Island.
- Michael Wincott as Scroop, a vicious spider-like crewman on the RLS Legacy. He is a rough analog to Israel Hands in Treasure Island.
- Patrick McGoohan as Billy Bones, a sailor who owned the map to Treasure Planet.
Production
Development
Treasure Planet took roughly four and a half years to create, but the concept was originally pitched by Ron Clements in 1985 at the "Gong Show" meeting wherein he and John Musker also pitched The Little Mermaid. The pitch was rejected by Michael Eisner, who knew Paramount Pictures was developing a Star Trek sequel with a Treasure Island angle. The idea was pitched again in 1989 following the release of The Little Mermaid, but the studio still expressed a lack of interest. Following the release of Aladdin, the idea was pitched for a third time, but Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was the chief of Walt Disney Studios at the time, "just wasn't interested" in the idea. During this time Katzenberg wanted the duo to work on A Princess of Mars which the company was attempting to adapt. Angered at the rejection, Clements and Musker approached Feature Animation chairman Roy E. Disney who backed the filmmakers and made his wishes known to Eisner, who in turn agreed that the studio should produce the movie. In 1995, their contract was re-negotiated to allow them to commence development on Treasure Planet when Hercules reached completion.Since Musker and Clements wanted to be able to move "the camera around a lot like Steven Spielberg or James Cameron," the delay in production was beneficial since "the technology had time to develop in terms of really moving the camera." Principal animation for the film began in 2000 with roughly 350 crew members working on it. In 2002, Roy Conli estimated that there were around 1,027 crew members listed in the screen credits with "about four hundred artists and computer artists, about a hundred and fifty musicians and another two hundred technologists". According to Conli, Clements wanted to create a space world that was "warm and had more life to it than you would normally think of in a science fiction film", as opposed to the "stainless steel, blue, smoke coming from the bowels of heavily pipe laden" treatment of science fiction. In order to make the film "fun" by creating more exciting action sequences and because they believed that having the characters wear space suits and helmets "would take all the romance out of it", the crew created the concept of the "Etherium", an "outer space filled with atmosphere" and the characters wear 18th-century clothing much like in the original Treasure Island.
Several changes were made late in the production to the film. The prologue of the film originally featured an adult Jim Hawkins narrating the story of Captain Flint in first person, but the crew considered it too "dark" and felt that it lacked character involvement, so it was changed and instead narrated by Tony Jay. The crew also intended for the film to include a sequence showing Jim working on his solar surfer and interacting with an alien child, which was intended to show Jim's more sensitive side and as homage to The Catcher in the Rye. Because of the intention to begin the film with a scene of Jim solar surfing, the sequence had to be cut.