Movies - Treasure Planet

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	Movies - Treasure Planet

Treasure Planet is the 42nd animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and released on November 27, 2002 by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. The film is a science-fiction retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure novel Treasure Island
. It was produced and directed by Ron Clements and John Musker from a screenplay by Musker, Clements, and Rob Edwards. The film features music by James Newton Howard, and two songs by Johnny Rzeznik of Goo Goo Dolls.

The film employs a novel technique of hand-drawn 2D traditional animation set atop 3D computer animation. This effect is occasionally used in video games (Xenogears used 2D sprites on top of 3D backgrounds), but is quite rare in film. A similar dichotomy was used for the character of the cyborg John Silver: his natural body is hand-animated, but his mechanical arm and eye are computer animated. It is the first film ever to be released simultaneously in regular and IMAX theaters.

Voice Cast

Joseph Gordon-Levitt
- Jim Hawkins
Brian Murray - John Silver
Emma Thompson
- Captain Amelia
David Hyde-Pierce - Dr. Doppler
Michael Wincott
- Scroop
Laurie Metcalf
- Sarah Hawkins
Martin Short
- B.E.N
Roscoe Lee Browne
- Mr. Arrow
Patrick McGoohan
- Billy Bones
Dane A. Davis - Morph
Phil Proctor - Meltdown

Plot synopsis

As a boy, Jim Hawkins was enchanted by stories of the legendary pirate Captain Flint and his ability to appear from nowhere, raid passing ships, and disappear, hiding the loot on a "treasure planet". As a young man, abandoned by his father, Jim has become alienated, begrudgingly helping his mother run an inn, then getting his only thrills from "solar surfing", a variant of windsurfing atop a rocket and a pastime that frequently gets him arrested.

One day, a ship crashes near the inn. The dying pilot gives Jim a sphere and tells him to "beware the cyborg". The sphere turns out to be a projector, showing a map that Jim realizes leads to Treasure Planet (the film's equivalent of Flint's Fist). Shortly thereafter, a gang of pirates raids and torches the inn, with Jim, his mother, and their friend Dr. Doppler barely escaping.

Doppler commissions a ship on a secret mission to find Treasure Planet. The crew is a motley bunch, led by cook John Silver, who Jim suspects is the cyborg he was warned about. Jim is sent down to work in the galley and despite his mistrust of Silver, they bond, forming a tenuous sort of father-son relationship. Later though, Jim comes to realize the crew are pirates and Silver their captain, and that they plan a mutiny.

As the ship reaches Treasure Planet, the mutiny begins. Jim, Doppler, and Captain Amelia escape to the surface, but what Jim thought was the map is actually Silver's shape-shifting pet, Morph. They meet an abandoned robot, B.E.N., who invites them to his house to care for the wounded Amelia. The pirates corner the group here, but using a back-door, Jim and B.E.N. return to the ship and recover the real map. Upon their return, they and the map are captured by Silver, who has already captured Doppler and Amelia.

With Jim forced to use the map, the group finds their way to a portal that leads anywhere in the universe, thus explaining how Flint could conduct his raids. The treasure is at the center of the planet, accessible only via the portal. In the stash of treasure, Jim finds a missing part of B.E.N's brain, which causes him to remember that the stash is booby-trapped and the planet is set to self-destruct. In the ensuing catastrophe, Silver finds himself torn between holding onto a literal boat-load of gold and saving Jim, who hangs from a precipice after a fall. Silver saves Jim, and the group escapes to the ship. It cannot clear the planet in time, so Jim fashions a surfer out of sheet metal and a broken rocket, flies down and operates the portal so that he and the ship can fly through the portal to safety halfway across the galaxy.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Treasure Planet ]

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