Do us a favor and go back to the ocean floor.
While the early to mid-2000s is commonly considered a low point
in Disney history (and not without good reason), it wasn’t without a few cases
of diamonds in the rough.
Even though generations of children, animation fans, film
enthusiasts, and middle American families will preach the gospel of the Golden
Age and Renaissance eras, I personally identify as having a greater fondness
for the more experimental ages of the Disney Animated Cannon.
The movies may
have provided some of the harshest critical and commercial misses for the
studio but the ambition put into a production aiming to feel as intentionally
different from their legacy’s claims to fame as possible at the very least
results in a crop of movies that were bold enough to swing for the fences and
fail big and memorably even if the world wasn’t quite ready to give them their due.
Case in point, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire”
Released in the summer of 2001, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire”
was met by a lukewarm critical and box office reception.
Linguist and Cartographer Milo Thatch and his journey to prove
his lifelong belief in the existence of the mythical lost city of Atlantis was
a high adventure fantasy blockbuster that just so happened to be an animated
feature, something that distinguished itself substantially from the fairy
tale/folk tale approach of simplistic plots more often than not providing applicable
parables to reality in storytelling that Disney had built their empire on.
A lot of its problems are emblematic of a rather tumultuous
development process, including multiple script revisions applied to reinterpret
and streamline a product whose initial cut stretched into a nearly 3 hour
runtime.
That effort to strip down to prevent overstuffing is at the
heart of the film’s many flaws. It’s characters are well depicted and hint at a
rich history but are ultimately thin where their roles in the actual story come
into play. The tragedy and mythos of Atlantis implies a long reaching arc of
cultural hubris feeding into more extensive action and mystery but ultimately
boils down to stopping soldiers of fortune playing with larger than life powers
that addresses little of the actual themes of their downfall. Kida is one of
the more unique concepts of a Disney Princess that comes into play way too late
into the second act to leave enough impression on the story itself as a
character.
While the list goes on, the movie has gone on to gather a
bit of a cult following in recent years and much of that is derived from a
sincere response to the film’s reception based on reacting to that the film
wasn’t more than what it actually was.
The premise of the movie would have felt more at home with
mainstream audiences were it produced in live action despite ironically proving
itself to be a far better fit in the medium that it was produced in.
“Atlantis’” art direction, inspired by the art style of
graphic novel artist Mike Mignola of “Hellboy” fame, creates a stylized world
that stood visually apart from animated competition of the time that was
simultaneously perfectly suited to a more adult style of storytelling filled
with tension, atmosphere, and subtlety while still suitable for an audience of
children viewers.
Its financial failure was unfortunate but resurgence in popularity
amongst millennials is perhaps a key factor in Disney Animation’s resurgence in
creativity in the last couple of years and by its wrap, is chock full of sequel
and franchise potential.
How was it followed up?
Not so well.
Following the similar tragedies of “Cinderella II” and “Belle’s
Magical World,” “Atlantis II: Milo’s Return” is the cobbled together scraps of
an aborted cartoon spinoff of the film that would have taken it properly to
franchise status.
Showrun by Greg Weisman of “Gargoyles” and “The Spectacular
Spider-Man” fame, the series, titled “Team Atlantis,” would have featured protagonists
Milo and Kida being called back to the surface world by their friends to
investigate various occurrences of supernatural happenings that may involve
lost Atlantean technology, teaching them just how wide spread the impact of
Atlantis and their culture had reached before sinking to the ocean below.
With the box office returns prematurely killing of any
grander franchise plans for “The Lost Empire,” the series was scrapped and what
production was done, salvaged into a direct to video movie following through on
the premise with a firmer ending to the narrative despite having an almost
nonexistent plot composed of 3 entirely disconnected episode plots involving
the legend of the Kraken appearing in a European town, a Native American Spirit
walker protecting the lost ruins of his people and an insane business man using
Atlantean technology to instigate Ragnarok, the Norse end of days.
The clash of unrelated plot threads mixed with a pitiful television
animation production budget results in a feature that is about as underwhelming
as it sounds.
It was just about the only way things really could have
ended given the abandonment suffered by the original film but the most tragic
thing about “Milo’s Return” is that it dredges up all of the possibilities of
what could have been and how great this franchise could be as a franchise.
How many world mythologies were tied directly to Atlantis’s
advanced culture? How many were real and operated independently of it, providing
potential for crossover in a more contemporary setting (or as contemporary as
the 1910s can get). Greg Weisman is on record stating he developed details of
the show with his own continuity for “Gargoyles” in mind so how could that
crossover have played out?
The end of the movie returns Atlantis to the surface world.
Xenophobia against a lost advanced race toxically uniting people together or
the foundation laying of Utopia in which everyone has the tools to satisfy
themselves and can thus afford to help others?
The possibilities are endless and the thought that this
franchise could be left in the dust of history can be too painful to think
about.
I honestly don't know which is worse? imagining what could have been here, or knowing my final visit to The Pride Lands may be more of a let down.
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