Atlantis: The Lost Empire

In the 21st century, when Japanese culture and technology has penetrated the Western world so thoroughly that Pokemon and PlayStation have become household terms, it’s not surprising Disney thinks it’s time for its new era of animated films.

Amid the increasing popularity of these Japanese products in the States, 20th Century Fox has released an action sci-fi animation pic called Titan A.E. (which is obviously influenced by PlayStation games), while Columbia Pictures have Final Fantasy, whose protagonist goes by the (Japanese sounding) name Aki Ross. Even Warner Bros. released Iron Giant to have its share in the animation craze, which has long been Disney’s unrivalled market. How, then, can an animation giant like Disney stay put? The studio moved quickly to develop the Atlantis project, expecting to reclaim its post as the number one animation business. But this time, this film, a quest for the lost ancient city, is packed with action scenes in Japanese comic fashion. Atlantis hardly has anything in common with Disney’s typical style, which usually contains beautiful musical animation – and there’s no easy listening theme songs nor any joker character to win laughs from the children. This is a big mistake.

An animated adventure film, Atlantis tells the story about a quest for the legendary empire of Atlantis – which has been flooded by sea waves and has been lying under the ocean ever since – to seek for new energy sources. The idea stemmed from the belief that the Atlantis people are much more civilized than those in the present world, even though it disappeared more than 12,000 years ago. Amid the ongoing debates as to where Atlantis might be located, linguist Milo Thatch (voice of Michael J. Fox) made his appearance to point out mistakes in earlier interpretations of ancient scripts related to the topic.

Making new suggestions, Milo is now set to take off on a mission to locate the lost land so speedily that junior viewers probably won’t be able to follow. The dialogue is also full of technical terms and spoken in such serious manners it’s as if Disney’s long-standing target group is being left out.

The team meets up with Aryans, and Milo is the only person who could communicate with them. He doesn’t know he is being used by the group so that they could have enough information to find something else. The story progresses with many twists and turns — mostly related to the crookedness of Commander Rourke, the leader in this exploration. He forces Milo to make Princess Kida to tell them the secrets of Atlantis’ power resources. The complicated storyline is likely not going to be enjoyable to a young audience.

Even for teenagers, Disney’s new target group, the battle scenes come late in the story (when Milo leads the citizens of Atlantis in combat against Commander Rourke) and will probably not generate much excitement. If Disney thinks these scenes would impress PlayStation lovers, Disney is wrong. The games are much more exciting.

There’s one interesting observation about Disney’s animation films (released in theaters). With only one notable exception (Tarzan), all of Disney’s animated films that featured male protagonists – in Hercules and The Hunchback of Notredame, for example – have not been successful. Atlantis producer Don Hahn and director Kirk Wise might never have realized this, although their experience with Hunchback should have been a good lesson.

Despite earlier claims that the animation team of Atlantis is among the largest teams in the world of animation, the characters turned out so stiff that it’s hard to believe this is a Disney picture. Background details, too, cannot be compared with earlier Disney works, even though the use of Cinemascope (widescreen projection) has been employed to show the scenes in wide format.

With regards to the voices of the characters, Atlantis didn’t make any ripples here either, compared to Robin William in Aladdin and Eddie Murphy in Mulan. Not to say that Michael J. Fox, James Garner and Leonard Nimoy did a bad job, but rather that the screenplay was simply too flat and didn’t give the actors much of a chance to exhibit their talents.

Disney’s attempt to reach new target groups, by developing a new style, is admirable and comprehensible – the studio is losing its share in the market it used to control. Moreover, internal conflicts caused key executive Jeffrey Katzenberg to say goodbye to Disney (he moved on to co-found Steven Spielberg’s production company, Dreamworks). Disney’s attempt to produce and distribute a new style of animation, however, did not prove to be successful. Whatever project Disney begins to develop, its rivals seem to match and beat them. So, as it turns out, Disney is losing its identity – with regards to both developing plots and in producing animation. Take the example of recently released The Emperor’s New Groove, which is very similar to Dreamworks’ The Road to El Dorado in many aspects. You’d find it difficult to point out an obvious distinction in the drawing works from in Atlantis from those of Fox’s Titan A.E.. You can also see how heavily Japanese comics have influenced Atlantis’s storyline, overall pictures, drawings and other details. These could make hardcore Disney fans worry about the unique charms that are disappearing from Disney’s animation.