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Description
Well bet you weren't expecting THIS for the first movie we'd be talking about on Animation Unknown and not--say--that fish movie Bobsheaux reviewed or maybe some weird underground foreign thing I stumbled across online. Before you go down in the comments and start with "C'mon, how is THIS unknown?! It's a mainstream Disney movie, made within the last decade or so, and it's in the Disney Animated Canon list. That's not obscure!" Okay, first off, HOME ON THE RANGE is on that list, so is Dinosaur, and I don't think there's any animated movie made by Disney NOT on that list, even the really obscure not-really-movies like Fun and Fancy Free and Make my Music. Second, this movie might not be obscure, true, but Animation Unknown is also about stuff that's often overlooked or underrated, and I feel this is pretty overlooked. So, why not showcase it?

Plot: Leave it to Disney to rework a story and REALLY make it their own: Frozen was originally The Snow Queen, The Lion King is basically Hamlet with talking animals, and the Great Mouse Detective (which I could also consider pretty overlooked) is basically 'What if Sherlock Holmes and Wattson were mice?' Here, if the title wasn't obvious enough, it's Treasure Island IN SPACE!!! The story is that Jim Hawkins is given a map to the mythological Treasure Planet, the location of where the space pirate Nataniel Flint stashed away his entire stolen fortune, the bounty of a thousand worlds (kinda like the One Piece, but in space). Joined by a friend of his mother, Dr. Douppler, he travels with the crew of Captain Amelia's ship. The story here should feel pretty familiar for the most part if you've read the book, and while the world does feel a bit disjointed and sometimes silly like everyone dressing in period costumes, the spaceships looking like actual galleons with solar panel sails, it still looks really cool.
Characters: THIS is where the movie really shines; not just the characters either, but the designs. So many of these designs feel so creative and unique. Jim Hawkins is a fantastic lead character and feels very natural and realistic (and has that bitchin' Solar Surfer that almsot every kid who saw this movie wanted), John Silver's awesome cyborg arm, hydrolic leg, and cyborg eye, and the relationship between the characters all feel really strong though the thing that practically carries the movie is Jim seeing Silver as the father figure he never had, considering his father actually left. That's probably the only time I can think of when Disney has had a parent actually just leave and the scene is really heart-breaking to watch. Towards the third act, we do get a REALLY ANNOYING robot voiced by Martin Short doing a bad Robin Williams impression but he thankfully doesn't get much screentime. This part is starting to run kinda long so I'll just say the characters are fantastic, their interactions are great, love the designs, and we'll move on from here.
Enjoyment: I don't even think I need to go on with this one but I'll just be brief here. This movie didn't really do all that well at the box office and, even now, its gotten a pretty lukewarm to mixed reaction from both Disney fans, audiences, and critics alike but does that mean it's a bad movie? I don't think so. I've seen quite a few reviews and nobody's ever said it was flat-out horrible, but I feel like they might've been expecting more than they got. That still doesn't mean what's there isn't great, but I want to stress this now: I feel this is a great movie, and I would strongly encourage you to check it out (maybe track it down again if you have, see what you think of it now) and see what YOU think of it.
Creativity: As I said before, if Disney has anything going for them, it's their imagination and creativity--unless we're talking about Disney Channel, not counting all the quality stuff that was exiled to Disney XD, but I digress. Just the idea of taking Treasure Island and putting in space is cool. They have all this awesome futuristic tech: space galleons, the map, holographic storybooks, all kinds of cool stuff. One of the major villains Scroop is some awesome unidentifiable crab/spider monster and he just looks awesome! Instead of a parrot, John Silver has this shapeshifting like blob of floating jelly named Morph. Captain Amelia is this sexy, tough, intelligent alien cat lady. There's jsut tons of cool ideas like that, though the universe, like I said, doesn't seem very realistic the director stated that this world really wasn't designed with realism or livability in mind and that's fair enough. Since I've already kinda given all my thoughts on this, I'll skip Execution and just jump right to the final score.

Final Score: Plot (6), Characters (8), Enjoyment (9), Creativity (10), Execution (10)= 43 + Extra Credit (1 Star each for Creativity and Execution, and 1/2 Star for Involvement with Disney--probably should be 3/4 Star but I don't score like that)= 55- Silver Rank

(I kinda decided anything that gets higher than 40 is Bronze Rank, 50 is Silver, 60 is Gold, and higher than 70--which I don't think is possible--is Diamond Rank)

Description
Well bet you weren't expecting THIS for the first movie we'd be talking about on Animation Unknown and not--say--that fish movie Bobsheaux reviewed or maybe some weird underground foreign thing I stumbled across online. Before you go down in the comments and start with "C'mon, how is THIS unknown?! It's a mainstream Disney movie, made within the last decade or so, and it's in the Disney Animated Canon list. That's not obscure!" Okay, first off, HOME ON THE RANGE is on that list, so is Dinosaur, and I don't think there's any animated movie made by Disney NOT on that list, even the really obscure not-really-movies like Fun and Fancy Free and Make my Music. Second, this movie might not be obscure, true, but Animation Unknown is also about stuff that's often overlooked or underrated, and I feel this is pretty overlooked. So, why not showcase it?

Plot: Leave it to Disney to rework a story and REALLY make it their own: Frozen was originally The Snow Queen, The Lion King is basically Hamlet with talking animals, and the Great Mouse Detective (which I could also consider pretty overlooked) is basically 'What if Sherlock Holmes and Wattson were mice?' Here, if the title wasn't obvious enough, it's Treasure Island IN SPACE!!! The story is that Jim Hawkins is given a map to the mythological Treasure Planet, the location of where the space pirate Nataniel Flint stashed away his entire stolen fortune, the bounty of a thousand worlds (kinda like the One Piece, but in space). Joined by a friend of his mother, Dr. Douppler, he travels with the crew of Captain Amelia's ship. The story here should feel pretty familiar for the most part if you've read the book, and while the world does feel a bit disjointed and sometimes silly like everyone dressing in period costumes, the spaceships looking like actual galleons with solar panel sails, it still looks really cool.
Characters: THIS is where the movie really shines; not just the characters either, but the designs. So many of these designs feel so creative and unique. Jim Hawkins is a fantastic lead character and feels very natural and realistic (and has that bitchin' Solar Surfer that almsot every kid who saw this movie wanted), John Silver's awesome cyborg arm, hydrolic leg, and cyborg eye, and the relationship between the characters all feel really strong though the thing that practically carries the movie is Jim seeing Silver as the father figure he never had, considering his father actually left. That's probably the only time I can think of when Disney has had a parent actually just leave and the scene is really heart-breaking to watch. Towards the third act, we do get a REALLY ANNOYING robot voiced by Martin Short doing a bad Robin Williams impression but he thankfully doesn't get much screentime. This part is starting to run kinda long so I'll just say the characters are fantastic, their interactions are great, love the designs, and we'll move on from here.
Enjoyment: I don't even think I need to go on with this one but I'll just be brief here. This movie didn't really do all that well at the box office and, even now, its gotten a pretty lukewarm to mixed reaction from both Disney fans, audiences, and critics alike but does that mean it's a bad movie? I don't think so. I've seen quite a few reviews and nobody's ever said it was flat-out horrible, but I feel like they might've been expecting more than they got. That still doesn't mean what's there isn't great, but I want to stress this now: I feel this is a great movie, and I would strongly encourage you to check it out (maybe track it down again if you have, see what you think of it now) and see what YOU think of it.
Creativity: As I said before, if Disney has anything going for them, it's their imagination and creativity--unless we're talking about Disney Channel, not counting all the quality stuff that was exiled to Disney XD, but I digress. Just the idea of taking Treasure Island and putting in space is cool. They have all this awesome futuristic tech: space galleons, the map, holographic storybooks, all kinds of cool stuff. One of the major villains Scroop is some awesome unidentifiable crab/spider monster and he just looks awesome! Instead of a parrot, John Silver has this shapeshifting like blob of floating jelly named Morph. Captain Amelia is this sexy, tough, intelligent alien cat lady. There's jsut tons of cool ideas like that, though the universe, like I said, doesn't seem very realistic the director stated that this world really wasn't designed with realism or livability in mind and that's fair enough. Since I've already kinda given all my thoughts on this, I'll skip Execution and just jump right to the final score.

Final Score: Plot (6), Characters (8), Enjoyment (9), Creativity (10), Execution (10)= 43 + Extra Credit (1 Star each for Creativity and Execution, and 1/2 Star for Involvement with Disney--probably should be 3/4 Star but I don't score like that)= 55- Silver Rank

(I kinda decided anything that gets higher than 40 is Bronze Rank, 50 is Silver, 60 is Gold, and higher than 70--which I don't think is possible--is Diamond Rank)