The Ultimate DVD Geek: Giant

An apocryphal moment occurred when I started up the Disney DVD release, Treasure Planet (28152, $30). I was watching the previews at the DVD’s opening because they include the first trailer I’ve seen for Disney’s forthcoming November theatrical cartoon, the traditionally animated Brother Bear. A young friend, who is in the film marketer’s dream target group, male and thirteen, caught one glimpse of the Brother Bear trailer and immediately turned up his nose at what admittedly appears to be a children’s oriented feature with talking animals cavorting in the forest. This same friend, however, having watched the computer-animated Ice Age and Monsters, Inc. innumerable times, couldn’t wait to see Disney’s computer animated summer blockbuster, Finding Nemo, even though it, too, is about talking animals. “I gotta see the turtles.” There’s a point to all of this. Treasure Planet, though utilizing computer effects for backgrounds and other details, is a traditionally animated feature and it flopped at the boxoffice last November, having its dignity rescued only by a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Animated Film after its run had ended. My friend ended up sitting and watching the film with me, and enjoying it, but he and his ilk had no desire to seek it out in theaters, for even though it has a futuristic setting, its artistry is strictly Old World.

A smoothly realized adaptation of Treasure Island, the film’s greatest accomplishment is its realization of the moral complexity in the (Long) John Silver character. Introduced and drawn like a totally evil villain, he is nevertheless sympathetic, and while younger children will be confused by this at first, they will grow as they apprehend the character’s own emotional metamorphosis, a shift cleverly anticipated, incidentally, by a shape-changing pet that flits about him for comic relief. Imagining space ships in the shape of old sailing vessels—a concept that has been a staple of Japanese animation for quite some time—the story can breezily invent exotic settings and humorous alien characters with a confidence that its primary narrative can support whatever inventive pleasures the creators could unfurl.

Although the narrative comes together efficiently, the artwork is somewhat more awkwardly compiled. Disney is trying to have it both ways, merging traditional and computer animation to the point where Silver’s robotic arm and leg are drawn by the computer, while his human half is not. It’s a cluttered style that is also attempting, though not always succeeding, to evoke the illustrations of Andrew Wyeth and others from old books of adventure. These concepts work well enough on one level, telling the story and stimulating the viewer’s imagination, but on a deeper level they don’t gel—the textures rendered by the one method and the textures rendered by the other are too inconsistent to belong in the same universe—and so there is an emotional distancing that can prevent viewers from getting truly lost in film’s fantasy.

The picture is presented in letterboxed format only, slightly windowboxed with an aspect ratio of about 1.66:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The image transfer is immaculate. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound has many pleasing separation and rear channel effects, and a strong dimensionality. The 95-minute program has alternate French and Spanish tracks in standard stereo, and optional English subtitles.

There are redundancies in the DVD’s supplementary materials, but the offerings nevertheless provide a rewarding exploration of how the film was created. The best segment is probably the still frame collection of original conceptual artwork. One wishes it could be in a picture book. There is a commentary track by the film’s producers and directors, and as it plays, the film automatically digresses to brief featurettes at appropriate moments, sharing a couple deleted scenes and segments on the film’s conceptual look (‘70% old fashioned, 30% sci-fi’ was their guideline), the merging of the two animation processes, and other matters. These little segments, however, are also presented separately in the special features menu and some, like the 6 minutes of deleted scenes, can be accessed by two separate menu selections. The supplement also includes decent collections of other developmental artwork and character drawings, as well as a couple trailers, a really good music video with John Rzeznik, and a nice ‘virtual’ tour of the primary sailing ship, presented both with narration and as a game. There is also a 15-minute production documentary that does a fairly good job going over the film’s background, again using clips from the other, shorter pieces, as well as supplying new material. A pretty good 12-minute kids’ documentary about pirates is included, as well.

The digressions on the commentary playback, which include the music video, a trailer for Disney’s 1950 Treasure Island and a few other odds and ends along with specific looks at how different animation processes (such as ‘lighting’) were achieved, run about 20 to 30 minutes altogether. The commentary itself is okay. They talk about generating the story and the changes they made to improve it as they ran into problem areas. They talk a lot about merging the two forms of animation and how various effects were achieved, and they talk a little bit about the voice talent, the characters and their reasoning behind various choices. There are a few places where another level of detail would have been satisfying (How did they determine the different amounts of billowing for the sails?), but on the whole it is an informative talk that gives you a clear idea of how the film came into being. They conclude with an enthusiastic admonition that you should read the original Robert Louis Stevenson book, which is where they got their inspiration to create the film in the first place.

Giant
Windtalkers
Die Another Day
War & Peace
Eraserhead
Hearts & Minds

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