"On the clearest of nights, when the winds of the Etherium were calm and peaceful, the great merchant ships, with their cargos of Arcturian solar crystals, felt safe and secure. Little did they suspect that they were pursued by… pirates. And the most feared of all these pirates was the notorious Captain Nathaniel Flint." -Narrator, Treasure Planet
Treasure, to me, is finding a movie which is good, but I haven’t seen. Treasure Planet is just such a movie. Rented with low expectations, this movie turned out be far more interesting and engaging than I imagined.
Treasure Planet is a compelling hybrid. The wildly creative aspects of Japanese Aime are blunted somewhat by the Americanizing influence of the Walt Disney sensibility. It is more The Fifth Element than Firefly, but there are certainly ideas borrowed from each.
The story is very loosely based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. I have not read the book, but if is one of you favorites, I suspect this will not be your movie. At best, the original Treasure Island provides a rough shell which is customized with tuner parts, straight out of Tokyo.
Animation is one of the few entertainment mediums whose value is based on creative merit rather than star-power and the Hollywood spin machine. Stories have to be strong and the characters interesting. Otherwise, you are just watching a bunch of pixels.