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