Shiver Me Space Timbers!

I recently heard a podcast about Treasure Planet (2002). It was the Blank Check podcast, with guest and super-TP-fan Emily Stefanski. I had vaguely heard of this movie - Disney animated Treasure Island in space. Even though it checks so many of my boxes, I had figured it wasn't for me. Emily convinced me I was wrong.

It starts with our young Jim Hawkins, voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, living with his mom on a backwater planet, where they are running the Ben Bow Inn. They serve a clientele of many races, including David Hyde Pierce as a dog man scholar. JGL is a sort of bad boy, always getting in trouble for riding his solar surfer where he shouldn't be. One day, a turtle like alien (Patrick McGoohan! in his last role) shows up, hands over a golden orb-shaped space map and dies. It is the map to the famed Treasure Planet! Then pirates show up and destroy the inn.

But Dr. Dogman wants to form an expedition to the Treasure Planet, and so JGL leaves his mother to ship out on the RLS (get it?) Legacy, captained by cat woman Emma Thompson, first mate, Roscoe Lee Browne. The crew is a scurvy lot, although the ship's cook, Long John Silver, seems friendly. He's voiced by Brian Murray, very much doing Wallace Beery.

The movie follows the general rough outline of the book, including JGL in a barrel overhearing the mutineers, the siege of the fort/planet, the return to the ship in the launch, etc. All throughout, Long John is both menacing and a mentor to young Jim. There's a pretty high body count, but it's mostly aliens, so no big deal, I guess. 

I found that I liked the look of the animation. The backgrounds were mostly computer generated, but the characters were hand-drawn - in fact, the Blank Check guys suspect that this movie's weak box office killed American hand-drawn animation for good. Maybe the character design was too classic Disney - I sometime felt I was looking at a "How to Draw Disney Characters" book. But you've got to love wooden spaceships with solar sails cruising around the galaxy. 

The discovery of the treasure at the end got a little frantic, with one or two extra twists jammed in. I've skipped Old B.E.N., the castaway robot gone coo-coo, but he's voiced by Martin Short. In the end, the goofy dogman and the yar catwoman get married and have a litter of puppies and kittens. I would probably have watched the sequel, if it had been made.

Should I watch Atlantis: The Lost Empire next?