Friday, April 19, 2013

Treasure Planet



Why I Saw This Movie
          When this movie first came out 10 years ago, I thought it looked pretty stupid and didn’t give it much of a second thought.  (I was in the Japanese countryside back then, so I largely missed the publicity campaign that came with the movie’s release.  But to the extent I was aware of this movie, I thought it looked pretty stupid.) 
            For one thing, this movie was during a phase when the animation department at Disney had been churning out a lot of sub-par movies.  (In my childhood, I had been a Disney addict and followed all their animated releases religiously, good or bad.  But as an adult, one no longer feels obligated to keep up with this stuff, and I had missed many of the Disney animated features that preceded this one.)  Plus it had gotten really bad reviews.  Plus it just looked really gimmicky and stupid.
           
            But after avoiding this movie for 10 years, the other night, I was in the DVD store, and I saw this movie, and I just thought, “Hmmm, why not?”
            It was one of those evenings when my brain was completely fried from a full day of work, and I just wanted to relax with a light escapist movie.  And suddenly, the idea of Treasure Island in outer space sounded like it might fit the bill perfectly.

            Plus, I have a large nostalgia for Treasure Island
            As a young boy, starting from the age of about 6 or 7, I had been absolutely obsessed with the Treasure Island story.  True, at the age of 6, I was more influenced by the fisher price delux comic and tape version [LINK] than Robert Louis Stevenson’s original text, but over my boyhood I followed this story through several different books and multiple film adaptations.  (See here (W), here (W) and here (W).)
            And as I contemplated how much Treasure Island had meant in my childhood, I found myself wondering why exactly I hadn’t checked out this movie before. Wasn’t I the least bit curious to see how they adopted Treasure Island for outer space?  Didn’t I want to see which parts of the original story they kept, and which parts they changed?

            Besides, I thought, it’s a Disney animated film.  Sure, it might be a little bit cheesy or childish, but at least it won’t be absolutely terrible.  The animated theatrical releases are the flagship of the Disney Company, so they have to have some quality control on these things to protect their brand.  Unlike other studios, they would never churn out a blatantly terrible animated movie that only existed just to make a quick buck.
            And so I went ahead and bought the DVD.  And had my illusions about Disney’s quality control completely shattered.

The Review
          I’ll start with the basics.
           
            I was a little worried this movie would completely disregard the book, but they made an effort to be faithful to the original story.  Long John Silver is still the incredibly complex character he was in the original novel.  Jim Hawkins still has the love hate-relationship with him.  Squire Trelawney and Doctor Livesey are amalgamated into a single character, but the general idea is still there, and the Captain of the ship is changed into a female cat, but shares many of the characteristics of the original Captain Smollet, including Smollet's initial hatred of the mission .  The first mate Mr. Arrow is changed from a drunken disaster into a more heroic character, but the movie still incorporates his early death.  And Ben Gunn is annoying in this adaptation, but at least present.
            Of course because of time limitations, much of the novel’s plot (and many of the battles with the pirates) are cut out, but at the very least it’s clear an effort was made to adopt the spirit of the novel. 

            As for the Outer Space setting:
            There are a couple scenes near the beginning which are slightly reminiscent of the beginning of another film: Star Wars.  A young boy is bored with his provincial life and fixated on a lost father. Suddenly danger intrudes and completely destroys his home. Then with an older mentor figure, he decides sets out an adventure.
            In particular, the scene at the space port (where they run into all sorts of exotic aliens as they charter a ship) reminded me of Star Wars
            I’m guessing this wasn’t an accident.  I think the filmmakers were deliberately trying to duplicate the George Lucas magic.
            According to popular wisdom, Star Wars was hugely popular because George Lucas simply took old mythological motifs and put them into space.  (This may not be true—[see this article here] --but at the very least that’s the popular perception of the Star Wars movies.) So, why not take classic Victorian Era boys adventure novels and put them in space, and just hope that somehow that Star Wars magic will strike again?

            I’m fairly sure that was the reasoning behind this movie, and I can understand why it must have seemed like a really cool idea on paper.

            In execution though it falls flat on any number of levels for reasons big and small. 
            The biggest reason is that it is just really, really poorly written.
            I mean the dialogue in this movie is just awful.  Really awful.  Like the screenwriters should give back their money to the studio and apologize for wasting everyone’s time.
            There’s a lot of attempts at humor in this movie, and they just fall spectacularly flat.  And, partly because this is a kid’s movie, the jokes aren’t subtle either, so they can’t really be ignored—a character will crack some sort of funny line, and then mug for a reaction to draw attention to the bad joke.  And then you, the audience, are left to think: What?  Is that the best joke they could come up with for that?  I actually feel embarrassed for the writers right now as I’m watching this!

            And then at times it seemed like they didn’t even care.  Like after one of the space pirates blew up an incoming meteor, he exclaims: “Ha ha! Whew, Baby, yeah!”
            Was that really the best line anyone could up with for that moment?  Why even have a moment of him celebrating his shot if that’s the line he’s going to say? 

            I know this is a children’s movie, and that the target audience is probably a lot easier to impress than I am.  And probably this movie does play a lot better with kids.  But that’s not much of an excuse.  Children will watch just about anything you put in front of them, so you can have stupid jokes, and they will love it, and you can have clever jokes, and they will love it.  I think it’s just laziness on the part of the writers to cater towards the stupid jokes.

            If the dialogue in this movie had been better, and the jokes a little cleverer, all the other sins could probably have been forgiven.  But as is, it just exasperates all the other problems in this movie.

            The other big problem is the setting.
            There are advantages and disadvantages to moving the story out into space.  One advantage, if it’s done right, is that you get a new sense of adventure, exploring unknown and unimagined regions of the galaxy, and running into all sorts of fascinating creatures and space phenomena.  As with all fantasy, if you do it right you can create a world that is more exciting and more complex and more imaginative than the real world, and the audience will want to get absorbed in this new world.

            But something is also lost as well.  The original novel Treasure Island was arguably already a fantasy story.  It created this whole pirate mythology— old unsettled rivalries from the days of Captain Flint, pirate codes and the black spot, pirate songs, treasure maps and exotic tropical islands.  Very little of this actually existed in real history, but in the pages of those old 19th century romantic adventure novels, this whole world comes alive.  And because it seems quasi-historical, you half believe that it might actually have been something like this in the seafaring days of yore, and your imagination just takes off and goes with the whole concept.

            All of this is lost when you move the story into outer space, and, unless you are a competent enough writer to replace it with something better, than what is lost is more than what is gained.  And that’s what happens here.  Ripped from its original setting, the ability to immerse yourself in the old pirate lore is just lost, and what they offer in its place just doesn’t measure up.

            Somebody at Disney must have understood all this, and in order to try and preserve some of the original flavor of the novel, according to Wikipedia (W) they came up with the 70-30 rule.  70% of the setting and background would be traditional 18th century, and only 30% would be futuristic space stuff.  In theory that way you could keep your old pirate lore and your new outer space setting at the same time.

            Again, it sounds okay on paper, but it just doesn’t work in execution.  You have these old looking pirate ships, and sailors trimming the mast just like they did in the old days, but what’s the point?  You’ve lost any connection to the original historical feel of the book.  And now you have these ridiculous images of these 18th century sailing ships floating through outer space.

            Okay, you tell yourself, it’s a children’s movie, it’s not supposed to be real sciencey.  This isn’t really outer space, this is a child’s fantasy version of what outer space is like.  As in any fantasy film, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required of you the viewer, right?
            But surely suspension of disbelief is a cooperative effort between you and the filmmaker.  You, the viewer, agree to suspend your disbelief about one or two things for the purposes of entering the world the filmmaker has created, and then everything else in that world should work according to its own internal logic.
            They can’t expect you to just suspend your disbelief about everything, can they? 

            I tried hard with this film.  I really tried to suspend my disbelief, but never did a film make me work harder at it, and I spent so much mental energy continually trying to suspend my disbelief that I never got into the movie.

            Okay, so for some reason sailing around the galaxy in 18th century nautical ships is the most efficient way for future people to travel in space.  And the movie did go through the trouble of explaining that there was artificial gravity that kept people from floating into space.  The movie never explained how the atmosphere on the ship was breathable, but okay, I’ll go along with it.  And I’m not sure why you can throw garbage over the side of the ship in outer space, but I didn’t ask questions. And there’s some sort of solar winds in outer space that can be caught on old style sails. Fine.
            But here’s where I draw the line: How can there be daytime and nighttime in outer space?  And why is the sky blue in the daytime, when they’re in the middle of outer space? You have blackness and stars in outer space, you don’t have blue skies.  And what is the point of having Treasure Island in outer space, if they are going to be on an 18th century sailing ship with blue skies in the background?  Really, what are we gaining here?  What are they doing in outer space that they couldn’t have done back in the original setting of the novel?  If they’re going to keep the ships the same, and the skies blue, at this point it might just as well be back in the oceans in the 18th century.

            And in exchange for putting up with all this silliness, what is the trade off?  What wonderful imaginative fantastical aliens do the Disney animators dream up?

            Well, mostly they’re just anthropomorphic animal-like aliens.  The captain is some sort of anthropomorphic Cat, Dr. Doppler is some sort of dog.  There’s a number of insect like or lizard like aliens wandering around, but really, if this was what Disney wanted to do, they may as well have just done Treasure Island in its original setting and just done it with anthropomorphic animals—like they did with Robin Hood in 1973.
            Other than that, the best alien they could come up with is one with orifices all over its body that speaks in flatulence.  And it’s just as stupid onscreen as it sounds in print.

Other Notes:
Complaints about the Plot/ Target Audience
          For the most part, I don’t begrudge the changes to the original story that the movie made.  But here’s something really obvious that they should have kept the same: the audience shouldn’t know that Long John Silver and the pirates are planning a mutiny before Jim does.  Up until the moment when Jim overhears them plotting in the barrel, the audience should only be given hints. 
            For reasons I don’t understand, the screenwriters break away from Jim’s narrative point of view to have a completely pointless scene with Long John Silver and the mutineers, giving away their plans and completely spoiling the suspense that was in the original novel. Why do this?

            Also, for a movie based on a pirate story, there’s very little confrontation with the actual pirates.  In the book there were a couple of big battles (like around the stockade), but here there’s really nothing.  There’s a small scene of them escaping from the pirates when they flee the ship, but there’s no big climatic fight against the pirates.  Which is what everyone is hoping for when they go into this movie, right?

            I wonder if brand protection played a part in this.  Disney didn’t want to lose its child friendly brand by having too many violent scenes.  So instead you have a pirate movie in which very little confrontation with the pirates actually takes place.
            But who exactly is the target audience for this film?  This was one of Disney’s attempts to break into the boy market with action/ adventure oriented animated films, but are they aiming for 5 year old boys, or 10 year old boys?

            I don’t have kids, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but as I said before the humor and dialogue seem to be aiming quite low.  I can quite easily imagine a 5 year old enjoying this film, but a 10-12 year old is going to start feeling it’s childish. 
            With such a narrow target audience, it’s probably no wonder this film bombed at the box office.  (According to wikipedia, it cost $140 million to make and only earned $38 million).  The smarter way to do it would have probably been to target 10-12 year old boys, and then the 5 year olds would want to see that movie also.  Plus, with the epic ambitions of this film (Star Wars meets Treasure Island) you would expect slightly more mature storytelling.

            Exactly who the filmmakers were targeting with this movie is a little unclear, and I suspect they themselves didn’t even know.  The animation quality is actually pretty good, but the movie is very poorly written, and there are just all sorts of signs that halfway through production everyone just stopped caring, and was simply relying on the gimmick of Treasure Island in space to lure in the viewers.

Signs That Everyone Stopped Caring
*        This is a little thing, but it’s telling that nobody cared enough to fix this:
            In the beginning of the movie, Billy Bones’ spaceship clearly crashes right next to the inn.  You can see it crash next to the inn, and you can see Jim Hawkins leaping right off the inn roof to assist.
            Then, when Jim Hawkins is bringing Billy Bones into the inn, the next shot shows that they are all the way down the road and have to walk up the road to the inn.

*          Presumably there are lots of guests staying at this inn, right?  (We saw them all during the dinner time.)  When the pirates ransack the inn and burn it down, what happened to all the guests?

*          So Captain Flint went through all this trouble to design an intricate treasure map to lead other people to his treasure, but then he booby trapped his treasure room because he didn’t want anyone stealing his treasure?  What kind of sense does that make?

*          So, the Captain gets some sort of injury during the escape.  But, in lazy writing that is all too typical of this movie, nothing is ever explained.  It’s never shown how she is injured.  The movie never shows nor explains what her injury is.  She just has some sort of mysterious injury that prevents her from standing up or walking.  Until all of a sudden when she doesn’t have the injury anymore and all of a sudden she’s fine again.  (I know this is a kid’s movie but, this is just really, really, really lazy writing.)
            Plus it’s just a waste of her character. 
            The original Treasure Island story was all male dominated, but the movie changed the Captain’s character to female, and established her in the beginning of the film as a sort of swashbuckling female.  (The introductory shot of her shows her jumping nimbly around the sails.)  It seems like a good move towards gender-balance by bringing a really strong female into the story.
            But then all that is wasted by having her get injured and sit the rest of the film out as a helpless female who must be tended to by Dr. Doppler.

            Which brings me to my final subject: characterization.

Characterization
          Long John Silver needs to be portrayed with enough charisma so that it’s understandable why Jim Hawkins is drawn to him, and why Jim Hawkins feels his betrayal so strongly later in the movie.
            The initial scenes of Long John Silver as a fat laughing slob in the kitchen turned me off, but I have to admit he grew on me as the film went on.  I’m not sure it was quite necessarily to portray him with all those rolls of fat dropping off his face, but all in all I grudgingly have to admit that the film did a decent job on him.

            Ben Gunn (or B.E.N. as he is portrayed in the movie) is just as disaster though.  I agree with the AVclub’s review of this film [LINK HERE], which called B.E.N. the Jar Jar Binks of this movie—he’s not funny, and he dominates every scene he’s in.  From the moment he first comes on screen, all you want him to do is shut-up, and all he continues to do is yell stuff.
            B.E.N. is voiced by Martin Short who is an actor I find funny under different circumstances with better writers.  But here the writers clearly didn’t know what to do with him, so he was apparently just hired for his ability to yell.  Someone thought it would be funny if he just yelled all his lines, and that is what passes for jokes.

**********

            There are one or two other things I want to complain about in this movie, but I’m over 3,000 words now, which is probably much more time and effort than this movie deserves, so I’ll just end this review now or I’ll be writing here forever.

            …on the plus side, this movie did cause me to go around to a few bookstores and scrounge up a copy of Treasure Island to read again.  I might post a few thoughts on the original novel later.

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky - Rightward Shift of US Politics


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