Treasure Planet (2002)

The notion of transplanting Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island into space sounds reckless just to hear. After all, it floats the familiar elements of sailing ships, pirates, and treasure maps into the middle of a galaxy where stars and nebulae drift by. Yet Ron Clements and John Musker, the makers of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, take that recklessness as the film’s very starting point. Treasure Planet is a work that shows what new emotion can bloom when a familiar story is set upon an unfamiliar stage.

What it’s about — Jim and Silver’s bond over treasure-hunting

The protagonist Jim Hawkins is a rebellious boy who cannot find a place to anchor his heart anywhere. While causing trouble with solar surfing, he happens to obtain from a dying space pirate a map leading to the legendary Treasure Planet. Jim leaves his mother’s inn and boards the spaceship RLS Legacy, where he meets the cook John Silver. Silver is a cyborg pirate with one arm and one leg made of machine, who shows Jim a fatherly tenderness while hiding his ambition for the treasure. The film’s real weight rests not on the treasure hunt but on the bond between these two.

Direction — A warm texture, laying 2D characters over a 3D cosmos

The first thing to catch the eye is the imagery. Clements and Musker chose to lay hand-drawn 2D characters naturally over spaceships and backgrounds built in 3D. It was a fairly demanding technique for the time, but thanks to it the cosmos of Treasure Planet became not a cold, mechanical sci-fi but an adventure space of warm texture. The sight of a sailing ship with wooden decks and sails voyaging among starlight holds a singular charm even when seen again today.

The direction follows Jim’s gaze tenaciously. It depicts, without hurry, the process by which the boy’s heart, closed off since his father left, slowly opens through Silver. Even as it races toward the destination of Treasure Planet, the moments the camera lingers on longest are the quiet scenes of Jim and Silver talking while swabbing the deck. The sense of balance that carries the scale of adventure and the character’s inner life together is fine.

Performance — Silver’s voice, where tenderness and threat coexist

At the center of the voice acting stands Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He expresses Jim’s cynical attitude and the wounds hidden within it without exaggeration, creating plausibility each time the boy opens his heart. Brian Murray as Silver is utterly impressive. He brings to life a complex figure wavering between sincere affection for Jim and the desire to seize the treasure, in a voice where warmth and threat coexist. Thanks to the rapport the two actors create, the moment of the final choice lands with weight. The comic vitality of the robot B.E.N. and the firm charisma of Captain Amelia add fitting rhythm to the story.

What the film says — An absent father and a boy who grows a little

Treasure Planet looks like a story about hunting treasure, but it is really the story of a boy who grew up carrying his father’s absence, meeting an adult who believes in him and growing. The ending, that the real treasure is not gold, may be a somewhat familiar lesson. But the film does not preach that lesson; it conveys it naturally through what Jim and Silver came to be for each other. The heart of an adult who lets go when it is time to let go, and the figure of a child who receives that heart and grows a little, linger quietly.

Ratings & reception

Its IMDb rating is 7.2 out of 10, placing it in the upper-middle tier among Disney animations. Its Rotten Tomatoes freshness is 68 percent, and its Metacritic score is 60 out of 100, a critical response mixing favor with regret. The box office was poor relative to its enormous budget, and as a result it became, for a long while, a forgotten work on Disney’s list of signature titles. But as time passes, voices reappraising its ambitious visuals and earnest coming-of-age story have steadily continued.

Verdict

Treasure Planet is not a perfect film. Its later developments are somewhat rushed, and some supporting characters are not fully used. Even so, the visual ambition this work displayed and the warm emotion between its characters hold clear value. Considering the challenge of retelling a familiar classic on a new stage, and the sincerity contained within it, it lacks nothing in earning the affection of four stars.

Recommended for

• Viewers who want to meet a classic adventure again on a fresh sci-fi stage
• Those who value the emotional change between characters over flashy action
• Anyone who wants to see for themselves a forgotten Disney gem