UNDERRATED MOVIE: Treasure Planet
UNDERRATED MOVIE:
Treasure Planet
Treasure Planet is simply the best blending of 2D and 3D animation that will probably ever be done given the way that big-budget 2D animation is going. (It’s going away unfortunately.)
Treasure Planet is a great movie that was marred and ruined in such a way as to lead to its financial failure. There were two main problems with the movie despite its drop-dead gorgeous visuals.
The first and probably most damaging problem was the way it was marketed. It had a concept which sounded really stupid to anyone I talked to about it. They took Treasure Planet and made it sci-fi. This is actually a really good idea but it just sounds stupid. Something that just sounds stupid won’t likely sell unless it lands in that magical level of stupidity where it comes back around to do a full-circle.
The other problem was a character named B.E.N. Oh god, did B.E.N. suck. B.E.N. was a completely 3D character rendered in such a way as to look 2D. This worked well, but the problem was not visual. I just wanted to mention that about the movie. B.E.N. was the most annoying character ever conceived. EVER. There was never a character more annoying than B.E.N. Every one I saw the movie with wanted him to just get killed off.
Fortunately, he’s only around for about 15 minutes towards the end, and no matter how annoying he was, he wasn’t a movie-wrecker. If he was a more major character, then there would be problems.
The film was a really unfortunate financial flop for Disney and that was a real shame. The movie didn’t deserve it. Treasure Island had a great plot which transferred excellently into the new environment. The characterization was well-done mostly and it was all pretty great.
I wish I’d seen it sooner. I know I didn’t contribute to it financially. I didn’t see it until I had a chance to watch it for free years after it came out. Ah well.
May 20th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
its a bad movie