An alien leaves the crash site who Jim helps get back to the Inn. Jim is sitting doing that Disney thing where he just looks into the sky making a wish or some shit when a ship crashes nearby which Jim quickly investigates. She is deeply disappointed at what he became when his father left and discusses this with her friend Dr. He is sent back to his mum who runs a local inn. Anyway, Jim is captured by the police because he was solar-surfing in an unauthorised area. Treasure Planet using an actual scientific idea to travel through space that also just happens to involve sails is genius. Whilst normal sails use the wind to move whatever they’re attached to, solar sails will use light. The idea is that with reflective sails you can capture light from stars and use that to travel at incredible speeds. I love it how all the space transport like the solar surfer and the ships are based on the real-life concept of the solar sail. We get a scene of him solar-surfing and it’s so cool, I want to go solar surfing. He craves adventure and wants to find Treasure Planet even though everyone tells him it’s just a legend. Jim hates his mundane life and fears that this will be his future if he doesn’t do something.
#TREASURE PLANET BATTLE AT PROCYON 1920 FULL#
We cut to 12 years later where Jim has gone full on emo. Jim’s mother Sarah enters the room and tells the story to him with the book. In this story Captain Flint hides his fortune in the legendary Treasure Planet. We have these hologram books, we have solar surfers, and the flying ships as only a few examples.
#TREASURE PLANET BATTLE AT PROCYON 1920 MOVIE#
This movie features numerous original devices that really make you feel like you’re in a new world. Imagine a pop-up book but instead of paper popping up it’s a hologram. Well I say reading but it’s more like watching. We open to the protagonist Jim Hawkins reading a story about a pirate called Captain Flint. But that was a long time ago, the movie has a following now and many people will vouch for its quality so I was excited to give this one a watch. There really isn’t any justice in this world is there? This was meant to be a story of two creatives proving their corporate overlords wrong but instead the corporate overlords were right, nobody at the time wanted Treasure Island in space. The movie came out in 2002 and underperformed in every way possible. Eventually they started production and created Treasure Planet. Even when they were allowed to do it the technology simply wasn’t there so they had to wait a few years to start production.
They agreed that if they made Hercules for them, they would be allowed to make Treasure Planet. Disney and essentially told on Jeffrey Katzenberg for being a big bully so Roy went and put him in his place.
After making Aladdin the duo asked then head of Disney Jeffrey Katzenberg who responded that he wasn’t interested. The two didn’t give up though, after finishing work on The Little Mermaid they asked again but were once more declined. They were told to make The Little Mermaid but forget about making Treasure Island in space. This movie was thought of at the same time as The Little Mermaid by Ron Clements and John Musker who pitched both ideas to Disney. The movie has an interesting history which I think I should briefly go over before talking about the film itself. You’ve also got to consider that a movies budget isn’t taking into account marketing costs so they lost even more than the $30 million shown here. The movie cost $140 million to make and only made back $109,578,115 so they lost money. That is what happened with Treasure Planet, one of Disney’s biggest financial flops. You could spend years creating your passion project, throwing your blood, sweat, and tears into it and come out with a movie that lost millions, critics were indifferent about, and was quickly forgotten by the studio who helped you fund it. Of course, this can go the other way as well. Just look at the Kardashians, Pokémon Sword and Shield, and most modern music. People can put a minimum amount of effort into something and get rewarded massively for it.