Spider-Man (1967-1970)

If Frank Zappa had decided to get into Saturday morning cartoons instead of music I imagine it might look something like what Ralph Bakshi did when he took over Spider-Man in the late 1960s. Personally, it was one of the cartoons that I watched and loved as a child in the early 1980s. I collected comic books and was a tremendous fan of Spider-Man. Those that fondly remember this animated series will no doubt recall the trippy visuals and the insanely catchy theme song that started and ended every show. The show first aired on ABC in September 1967 and those early episodes really managed to capture the essence of the comic book.

Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko for Marvel Comics during the ‘60s. It featured mild-mannered Peter Parker (Paul Soles) who, after being bitten by a radioactive spider while attending a radiology experiment, acquires the ability to climb walls, leap and have enhanced endurance and strength while also possessing a “spider-sense” that allows him to anticipate immediate danger. He begins using his powers for personal gain and his selfish behavior contributes to his beloved Uncle Ben’s death at the hands of a burglar. Wracked with guilt, Peter vows to fight crime as the costumed webslinger Spider-Man.

In the cartoon, Peter is an anguished young man torn between his duty as Spider-Man and trying to maintain a normal life. His wisecracking webslinger persona is also successfully transferred over from the comic book as he gleefully messes with villains before defeating them. The crankiness of Daily Bugle newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson (Paul Kligman) is beautifully realized as he makes it his life’s work to expose Spider-Man as a menace and torment those around him with his arrogant demands.

The authenticity of the first season is due in large part to the influence of Stan Lee and John Romita, who made sure many of the stories from those early comic books were translated directly to the show. Spider-Man saves New York City from many of the source material’s most memorable villains: the Lizard, Electro, Mysterio, the Green Goblin, and Doctor Octopus. The show also featured some truly odd original bad guys as well: the Fifth Avenue Phantom, whose sidekick was a woman with shrinking ray vision, and the Sinister Prime Minister, who was armed with a walking stick filled with sleeping gas and shot deadly darts.

In the second season, Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat) came aboard as director, executive producer and story supervisor. Along with Gray Morrow, the show’s art director, they created an even more ‘60s influenced psychedelic look, with science fiction/fantasy-influenced stories (as opposed to ones based on the comic book) and groovy instrumental music by Ray Ellis that ranged from ‘60s dance music to eerie, atmospheric instrumentals that really helped establish an ominous mood when appropriate.

And yet, one of the strongest episodes of this season was the first one, “The Origin of Spider-Man,” which followed the comic book quite faithfully as Bakshi takes us back to where it all began as we see how Peter became Spider-Man. This included Peter discovering that he could crawl up walls and the creation of his web-shooters (two things that the feature film changed). At times, it feels as though Steve Ditko’s artwork has leapt from the pages and come to life. Bakshi also manages to insert some hilariously great period slang early on as we see Peter and his classmates on campus. It is also a fascinating snapshot of the ‘60s with an impressionistic take on New York City and trippy, abstract skies of all colors (at one point, a combo of yellow, green and black). This episode is a funky fusion of fidelity to the source material and Bakshi exerting his influence with a cool, jazzy soundtrack and a psychedelic ‘60s look, which is readily apparent in scenes like the one where Peter is bitten by a radioactive spider. The sequence is awash in trippy colors and odd sound effects.

Season 3 got even weirder as Bakshi was forced to cut costs even more by not only recycling animation from previous episodes, but also cannibalizing stuff from another cartoon, Rocket Robin Hood. This reached an apex with the episode “Revolt in the Fifth Dimension,” which was so out there that the network refused to air it! Early on, Spidey gazes into the trippy night sky full of washed out abstract watercolor paintings. Meanwhile, an alien race resides in Dimentia Five, a world that looks like it let Picasso loose to design its buildings. One of its inhabitants downloads their entire culture and takes off before their world is inexplicably destroyed.

In another, equally bizarre world, two insect-looking aliens pursue the one from Dimentia Five with their Psycho Army, causing the escaping craft to head for Earth where it crosses paths with Spidey. This episode features one amazingly surreal visual after another so that after a few minutes it feels like you’ve taken a hit of acid. At one point, Spidey avoids the fallen craft in a sequence saturated in red that anticipates Dario Argento’s stylish Giallo horror films by a few years. This episode is about as far as you can get from the Marvel Universe while still having one of its characters in it. More than any other episode, this one is a fantastic, subversive snapshot of the late ‘60s psychedelic era in all of its freaky glory and looking back at it now it wouldn’t look out of place if you dropped it in the middle of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998).

The Spider-Man comic book became very popular with children and teenagers who identified with Peter Parker and soon Marvel struck a deal for the superhero to get his own T.V. show. Krantz Films and Marvel contracted Grantray-Lawrence Animation, a cartoon studio out of California, to produce 52, half-hour episodes for the ABC network. However, the company went bankrupt so Krantz Films brought in Ralph Bakshi to executive produce the rest of the episodes in New York City. The voice cast was members of a voice artist company led by Bernard Cowan out of Toronto. This was done to avoid the residuals demanded by the Screen Actors’ Guild in the United States. The famous opening and closing theme song was performed by a vocal group while Paul Francis Webster wrote the lyrics and Bob Harris provided the music.

To cut costs and to meet the network’s deadlines, Bakshi saved time and money by reusing certain sequences over again and often resorted to having Spidey swing around the city to pad out episodes. He also utilized techniques like superimposing lip movement over static characters. Cost-cutting got so severe that Season 3 heavily reused animation and storylines from the first two seasons with animation also taken from Rocket Robin Hood, which only added to the surreal vibe. One has to remember that he was working on a shoestring budget, with a very small crew and under a strict deadline.

Spider-Man first aired on Saturday mornings starting on September 9, 1967 with the second season starting on August 30, 1969 and finally the last season on March 22, 1970 on Sunday mornings. How much you will like this incarnation Spider-Man really depends on the nostalgia value it holds for you. The animation is dated, in a wonderfully kitschy way. Sure, it is pretty crude by today’s standards — simple renderings with little background detail and lots of repetition (in some episodes it seemed like Spidey spent half the time swinging through the city) — but that is part of its charm. What it lacks in slick technique it more than makes up for in content and sheer gonzo logic (or lack thereof). In terms of style, Bakshi pushed the envelope more than any other superhero cartoon before or after, for that matter. I loved the cartoon when I was a kid and even more so now that I appreciate what Bakshi was doing.

SOURCES

McCorry, Kevin. Spiderman. http://kevinmccorrytv.webs.com/spidey.htm

Further reading: an excellent look at the music for the show.

Blu-Ray Review of the Week: Frankenweenie

Since the 2000s, Tim Burton has played it relatively safe, often falling back on his name as a familiar (and marketable) brand that mainstream audiences know and recognize. With the horrible misfire that was the Planet of the Apes (2001) remake, he directed a series of impersonal studio blockbusters that included the likes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Alice in Wonderland (2010). Sure, there was the occasional, more personal effort, like Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), but Burton only seemed to turn off the autopilot on animated projects like Corpse Bride (2005).

It seems like Burton uses his clout from big budget box office successes to make more personal projects. Case in point: Frankenweenie (2012), a black and white stop-motion animated film that expands the live-action short he made early on in his career into feature-length. Unfortunately, this quirky, deeply personal film was released around the same time as several other similarly themed animated films and only had a modest performance at the box office. It’s too bad really, as it is Burton’s best film in ages.

Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) is a bit of a loner – a child who spends most of his free-time making crude, animated movies rather than making friends with kids his own age. He doesn’t need friends so long as he has man’s best, his dog Sparky. However, tragedy strikes one day when Sparky is accidentally killed. Understandably distraught, Victor is inspired by his science teacher (who looks suspiciously a lot like Vincent Price) and his love of horror films to resurrect his beloved pet a la Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. Complications arise when his creation escapes the confine of his house and escapes out into the world.

Frankenweenie is Burton’s most personal and engaging film in years as it harkens back to his early work. Victor crosses the boundaries of life and death, which echoes the Maitlands in Beetlejuice (1988). Victor and his family live in the same kind of homogenous suburbia as Ed and his adoptive parents in Edward Scissorhands (1990). Victor makes the same kind of rudimentary yet goofily heartfelt monster movies as Ed Wood does in Ed Wood (1994). It’s no coincidence that these aforementioned films are also among Burton’s very best.

Frankenweenie also sees Burton reunited with past collaborators like Catherine O’Hara (Beetlejuice), Martin Short (Mars Attacks!), Martin Landau (Ed Wood), and Winona Ryder (Edward Scissorhands) providing the voices for several characters in the film. Behind the scenes, frequent collaborator Danny Elfman returns to provide an evocative score that pays tribute to the Universal horror films of the 1930s.

As the title suggests, Frankenweenie is basically Frankenstein (1931) for children but with plenty of sly references for his older fans (at one point, Victor’s parents are watching Christopher Lee as Dracula in a Hammer horror movie). Victor fits in quite nicely with Burton’s roster of cinematic outsiders marginalized by the ignorant masses that misunderstand them. The atmospheric black and white stop-motion animation has a texture to it that almost feels tangible unlike most of the CG animated films being made today. Sadly, this throwback to an older style of animation, coupled with it being in black and white, probably did not help it commercially but I think Frankenweenie will be rediscovered on home video where its audience will grow and its legacy will endure. Hopefully, its modest commercial returns will not scare Burton off from making more personal films like this one.

Special Features:

“Original Short: Captain Sparky vs The Flying Saucers” is the clever movie within a movie that Victor creates (with Sparky’s help) and is included in its entirety. It is a loving homage to alien invasion films from the 1950s.

“Miniatures in Motion: Bringing Frankenweenie to Life” takes a look at the stop-motion animation process for this film. We see how the animators brought Burton’s original drawings to life. It is wonderful to see all these people crafting a film with their hands instead of relying predominantly on CGI.

“Frankenweenie Touring Exhibit” is a brief featurette about a traveling exhibit of props and production sketches from the film displayed for people from all over the world to see.

“Original Live-Action Frankenweenie Short” was made in 1984 and was shot in gorgeous black and white. It’s about a young boy named Vincent (Barret Oliver) who decides to resurrect his dead dog Sparky a la Dr. Frankenstein. Shelley Duvall and Daniel Stern play his very Leave It To Beaver-esque parents. Also featured is the late-great Paul Bartel as Vincent’s science teacher.

Finally, there is a music video for “Pet Sematary” by the Plain White T’s. It is your standard tie-in video with the band playing over footage from the film.

The Iron Giant

“So we have to deal with our technological sophistication versus our spiritual sophistication — and technology always seems to be ahead of where we are spiritually. The machine in the movie ends up representing our own inventive side of ourselves and begs the question: Is it a good thing or is it a dangerous thing?” – Brad Bird

When The Iron Giant was released in 1999, it flew in the face of the current trend popularized by Disney animated musicals. Based on the 1968 children’s book, The Giant: A Story in Five Nights, by late British poet, Ted Hughes, The Iron Giant refuses to rely on musical numbers and simplify its message to appeal to kids. It is one of those rare animated films that both adults and kids can appreciate. It is also a nostalgic ode to the 1950s that is thought-provoking and entertaining.

Set in the small town of Rockwell, Maine in 1957, a nine-year old boy named Hogarth (the voice of Eli Marienthal) befriends a mysterious 50-foot robot (the voice of Vin Diesel) that has crash-landed near the town from outer space. Raised on steady diet of alien invasion B-movies, Hogarth tries his best to hide the presence of his large, metallic friend from his mother (voiced by Jennifer Aniston). He also keeps his new friend a secret from a snooping government agent (voiced by Christopher McDonald), but ends up sharing his secret with Dean, a jazz-loving beatnik sculptor (the voice of Harry Connick, Jr.), who runs the local scrapyard.

The film originated with Pete Townshend (guitarist for the legendary rock band, The Who) who had produced a musical version of Hughes’ book in 1993, called The Iron Man. He brought the project to Warner Brothers with Des McAnuff, director of Tommy (1975), with the idea of transforming it into an animated musical. Animator Brad Bird heard of the project and met with Townsend and the film’s screenwriter, Tim McCanlies. Bird remembers, “I read the book and I liked the book, but I had a whole lot of ideas of my own about what this film could be about. Once it sort of went that direction, I didn’t envision it as a musical.” Bird pitched his take on the material to the studio as follows: “What if a gun had a soul?” Warner Brothers liked the idea and gave the project the go-ahead.

Bird drew his inspirations for the look and feel of the film from two unlikely sources. He was inspired by the cliched and dated educational films depicted in the documentary, The Atomic Café (1982) about the Cold War and the threat of nuclear war in the ‘50s. He also liked the radio broadcast about Sputnik that opens Robert Redford’s film, Quiz Show (1994). Bird said in an interview that “the bomb had changed our perspective and the future was no longer this perfect thing. Every upside had a dark underbelly.”

In many respects, The Iron Giant has a lot in common with another excellent film that came out around the same time, October Sky (1999). Both films are set in the same year (1957) with the beginnings of the space race and the dawn of the atomic age as their respective backdrops to the main action. The young protagonists of each film are dreamers and outsiders of their societies and present refreshingly peaceful resolutions to their respective conflicts.

To further reinforce the ‘50s vibe, Bird shot the film in Cinemascope, a widescreen form of cinema that was created to compete with the rising popularity of television. Bird said in an interview that, “There’s something immersive about the experience. Also, a lot of movies in the late ‘50s were shot in ‘Scope, so I thought it was appropriate for a movie set in 1957.”

The Iron Giant has a wonderfully nostalgic, small-town atmosphere that is brought to life by stunning animation that is on par with anything that Disney has produced in recent years. The attention to period detail, from the cheesy educational videos that Hogarth's class is forced to watch, to the way the townspeople talk, is faithfully recreated and goes a long way to drawing the viewer into this engaging world.

The animation style of this film recalls the early, groundbreaking Fleischer brothers” Superman cartoons of the 1940s with its depth of field, but without the German Expressionist influence. Bird and his team mixed computer animation (the robot) with traditional hand-drawn animation (the rest of the characters) in an exaggerated, cartoonish fashion that went against the current trend of realistically rendered characters (see Pixar). For Bird, “the reason to do animation is caricature. It’s the same reason that photography didn’t render portraiture obsolete. It’s because you can draw things in a way that is not trying to reproduce reality, but more the essence of reality.”

The real strength of The Iron Giant is the relationships between the characters — something that is often overlooked in animated films in favor of flashy visuals and epic musical numbers. This film has the feel of a very intimate, character-driven story with the relationship between Hogarth and his robot friend as the emotional center but with several other relationships (like the ones between Hogarth and his mother and between him and Dean) featured prominently as well. This is no simple Saturday morning cartoon but a strong feature film that actually has something to say.

The Iron Giant enjoyed positive reviews from most critics. Roger Ebert gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars and felt that it wasn’t merely “a cute romp but an involving story that has something to say.” In his review for The New York Times, Lawrence van Gelder wrote, “Many adults, including parents eager to have their children absorb lessons about the perils of guns and the merits of peace and tolerance, will doubtless approve of the film's messages while they ponder how the passing years have smoothed the jagged edges of history.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A-“ rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “At times, The Iron Giant is more serene than it needs to be, but it's a lovely and touching daydream.” The Village Voice’s J. Hoberman wrote, “The music doesn't flood the script with sentiment or canned nostalgia, and the movie is even restrained in its toilet jokes. Remarkably unassuming, genuinely playful, and superbly executed, The Iron Giant towers over the cartoon landscape.” In his review for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum praised the film’s “flavorsome period ambience and its lively and satiric characters.”

The Iron Giant did not do as well at the box office as Bird had hoped. Traditionally, animated films set promotional deals a year in advance so that the appropriate amount of hype and advanced word can be created. Warner Brothers delayed giving the film a release date and so every time Bird courted a potential sponsor, they would lose interest because no concrete date was set. Very few advanced posters and trailers were created and this hurt the film when it was finally released. It only grossed $23 million but has since found a new life on video and DVD.

The Iron Giant is one of those rare animated films that not only appeals to both children and adults; it does not contain one annoying musical number. It is also refuses to serve as one long, obvious advertisement for a toy. In fact, this film is an entertaining, even touching story about tolerance and compassion. It deals with real issues like death and bigotry — pretty heavy topics for a children's animated film — in an honest and heartfelt way. From all indications, The Iron Giant was clearly a labor of love for those involved and this translates into an enjoyable film for everyone to enjoy.

The Transformers: The Movie

Before Michael Bay decided to piss all over our nostalgic memories of The Transformers cartoon with his live-action monstrosities, there was a feature-length animated film that for all of its clunky animation and cheesy, dated soundtrack is better than the entirety of Bay’s trilogy. For those of us who grew up watching The Transformers cartoon every day after school in the early 1980s, the movie came as quite a shock. Most of us, at that early, impressionable age, were unprepared for the much darker tone and the increased level of violence, including some of the show’s most popular and beloved characters getting quickly killed off in the first few opening scenes. The Transformers: The Movie (1986) was a commercial and critical failure but went on to develop a strong cult following among fans.


It is 20 years into the future (making it, at the time, 2005!) and the war between the Autobots (a race of good transformable robots) and the Decepticons (their evil counterparts) continues to rage. The Decepticons have taken control of the transformers’ home world of Cybertron. The Autobots are planning to retake the planet but need to get more energy from Earth in order to do so. Unfortunately, the Decepticons learn of these plans and their leader Megatron (voiced by Frank Welker) intercepts the ship headed for Earth with the intention of launching a sneak attack on the Autobot’s base. Unbeknownst to the Autobots and the Decepticons, a planet-sized transformer named Unicron (Orson Welles) is devouring entire planets to feed its insatiable desire for energy. Only the Matrix of Leadership, housed in Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), leader of the Autobots, can stop him.

The dark tone of the movie is set right from the prologue, which features Unicron mercilessly destroying an entire planet of transformers. No one is spared. We even see one escape pod almost make it before getting sucked into Unicron’s massive, gaping maw. For kids used to the relatively tame television series this sequence came as quite a surprise. This was nothing compared to what came next as soon afterwards the Decepticons ambush a ship carrying several Autobots that are quickly and casually killed off! It was one thing to see anonymous characters with nothing invested in them be destroyed but it was something else entirely to see characters we had grown to like on the series dispatched so suddenly and coldly. These deaths do raise the stakes considerably as if the filmmakers were making a statement that all bets are off with this film – any character, no matter how beloved, is fair game.

Clearly the powers that be (i.e. the toy company) meant to clear the decks for a new generation a.k.a. a new line of toys for kids to buy but I think they underestimated just how profound an effect all these deaths would have on their audience. This culminated with the death of Optimus Prime – the most popular transformer. Not since Darth Vader cut down Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977) had the death of a heroic character been so traumatic for its fanbase. At least Prime got to go out in style with an epic one-on-one slugfest with his nemesis Megatron. For kids at the time, it was an emotional moment because we cared about Prime. His death scene, in particular, had gravitas and meant something to the fans of the show. This is something that the Bay movies never were able to replicate with their multi-million dollar budgets.

Another memorable aspect of the movie is the scope and scale. Where the T.V. show’s action was largely confined to Earth, the movie opens things up by introducing other worlds and races (even if they are all transformers). And so we are presented with the Planet of Junk, one of the more fascinating additions to The Transformers universe. It is inhabited by the Junkions and their leader Wreck-Gar who speaks in T.V. clichés mainly derived from advertisements. In an inspired bit of casting, he is voiced by Monty Python alumni Eric Idle. Their world is a metallic compost heap masquerading as a planet and rather fittingly their theme song is performed by none other than Weird Al Yankovic. This race of robots provides a much-needed moment of levity in what up to that point had been a very dark film.

The battles are also bigger and more intense as Unicron transforms into an enormous robot that attacks Cybertron but this almost pales in comparison to the intensity of the epic battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron that left many fans shocked by its outcome. No one was prepared for what went down and the film never quite recovers from this moment. Speaking of gravitas, who better to play a transformer the size of a planet than Orson Welles, the brilliant filmmaker who made Citizen Kane (1941)? His digitally augmented voice has the dramatic weight befitting the scale and power of Unicron. The filmmakers needed a formidable actor to play a formidable character and they found their ideal candidate in Welles. This gig would be his last and he died five days after completing his work from a heart attack.

One of the things that dates The Transformers film the most is its soundtrack of awesomely bad generic 1980s hair metal, complete with the show’s cool theme song redone by Lion. Most memorably is Stan Bush’s “The Touch,” which went on to be hilariously immortalized in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997). The one song that acts as a crazy counterpoint to this bloated arena rock is Weird Al Yankovic’s theme for the Junkions, “Dare to Be Stupid.” His goofy, non-sensical lyrics (anticipating Beck by a few years and actually goofing on Devo) are perfect for this absurdist, almost Dada-esque race of transformers.

After the first two seasons of the television show, toy company Hasbro wanted to eliminate many of the characters and introduce a new line. Season three would feature several new characters and the feature film would make that transition. Toy lines are discontinued for new ones and so the dilemma facing the screenwriters of the movie was how to make this transition seamlessly. According to story consultant Flint Dille, “So, we had this one scene where the Autobots basically had to run through a gauntlet of Decepticons. Which basically wiped out the entire ’84 product line in one massive charge of the light brigade. So whoever wasn’t discontinued, stumbled to the end.” The scene didn’t quite play out that way but over the first third of the film, several of seasons one and two characters were killed off. Not surprisingly, it was Hasbro that dictated the story of the film, “using characters that could best be merchandised for the movie. Only with that consideration could I have the freedom to change the storyline,” said director Nelson Shin in an interview.

Not surprisingly, The Transformers: The Movie was savaged by critics at the time. In her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, “Unlike most movie stars, though, the Transformers have offscreen lives and personalities that their fans will carry with them to the theater. Children have an advantage here, for they can project their playtime scenarios on the old friends and heroes in action on the screen, while parents may just wonder what the fuss is about.” The Globe and Mail’s Salem Alaton wrote, “There is so much action in the animated feature, The Transformers: The Movie, that you can't wait to get back into one of those Chrysler products whose vocabulary is limited to ‘A door is ajar,’ and ‘Thank you.’” The Los Angeles Times’ Charles Solomon wrote, “Not even the best actor can create a character out of nothing. Not one of the robots has a reason for doing what he does. The Transformers are good because they're good, and the Decepticons are bad because they're bad.”

The Transformers: The Movie’s pacing is fast and furious with never a dull moment – perfect for kids with short attention spans and actually works in its favor as any narrative fat is trimmed, packing a lot of action into its running time (again something the live-action films failed to realize with their bloated lengths). While I don’t know if the movie exactly lives up to its poster’s tag line, “Beyond good. Beyond evil. Beyond your wildest imagination.” It was a pretty mind-blowing experience for this impressionable youth back in the day. So, I come at this movie now with nostalgic baggage in tow, unable to really look at it objectively. I can only imagine what kids of today think of it now. Sadly, they probably don’t even know/care of its existence having been bombarded by the Michael Bay movies, which is too bad because they lack the imagination, the ambition (which are largely earthbound while the animated film takes place mostly in outer space) and the substance that makes The Transformers: The Movie by far superior. Plus, I’d take the likes of Stan Bush and Lion over the bland nu metal stylings of Linkin Park any day.


Also check out Roderick Heath's wonderful take over at his This Island Rod blog.

Titan A.E.

Anticipation was high for Titan A.E. on the eve of its release in June 2000. Scripted by Ben Edlund, Joss Whedon (the creative braintrust that would go on to make the Firefly television show) and John August, and directed by maverick former Disney animator Don Bluth (The Secret of NIMH) and Gary Goldman (An American Tail), it was a space opera in the tradition of the Star Wars films. Titan A.E. ambitiously combined hand-drawn animation with computer-generated imagery and was touted as the first major motion picture to be projected digitally. Unfortunately, the film was badly marketed with the general public unsure if it was intended for children or for an older science fiction audience. It didn’t help that at the time Bluth stated in an HBO First Look special that his film wasn’t a cutesy kiddie musical but rather a non-stop action film. Titan A.E. received mixed critical reviews and flopped badly at the box office, resulting in the closing Fox Animation Studios. It was also the last feature film Bluth and Goldman would helm. It’s a shame really, as the film features gorgeously rendered animation, engaging characters and an engrossing story.


It is 3028 and humanity is working on the Titan project, a groundbreaking experiment that promises to unlock our full potential. However, an energy-based alien race known as the Drej feel threatened by this project and proceed to destroy Earth in order to stop it. Professor Sam Tucker (Ron Perlman) is an important scientist with the project and as the aliens attack, he puts his five-year-old son Cale on a spacecraft that barely manages to escape. Unfortunately, Sam isn’t so lucky. It’s a pretty ballsy move to begin the film with the destruction of the Earth and the death of the protagonist’s father. It sends a strong message that this isn’t going to be some wishy-washy children’s animated film. It’s a spectacular sequence that basically says all bets are off in this film. Titan A.E. flashes forward 15 years later and Cale (Matt Damon) has grown up and is working as a mechanic on a salvage station in outer space. He’s bit of a reckless screw-up lacking direction in his life.

During one of his lunch breaks, Cale is saved from being beaten up by two aliens by a fellow human named Korso (Bill Pullman), who offers him a chance to join a very dangerous mission. Korso worked with Cale’s father on the Titan project and wants to find the spacecraft in order to unlock its secrets. The Drej arrive and Cale and Korso narrowly escape in an exciting action sequence that ends with them being shot into outer space. Cale joins Korso and his crew – his pilot Akima (Drew Barrymore), the alien first mate Preed (Nathan Lane), the gruff weapons expert Stith (Janeane Garofalo), and Gune (John Leguizamo), the ship’s eccentric scientist. There are brief lulls between exciting action sequences as the Drej relentlessly pursue our heroes.

The first Star Wars film is an obvious influence on Titan A.E. with Cale as the young, brash Luke Skywalker-esque pilot, Korso as the sarcastic Han Solo-type rogue, and Akima, a tough, Princess Leia-esque heroine with Stith as the Chewbacca surrogate. In some respects, Titan A.E. also feels like a warm-up for Firefly as writers Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund were beginning to work out the archetypes of the crew of the Serenity with the motley crew in this film. Korso anticipates Jayne, Akima contains elements of Kaylee, and Cale exhibits a few characteristics of Malcolm Reynolds. Not to mention, the enigmatic and ruthless Drej predict the equally mysterious and vicious Reavers in Firefly.

The voice casting is excellent with Matt Damon’s youthful sounding voice perfect for the energetic Cale, Bill Pullman’s weathered voice is ideally suited for the grizzled, veteran warrior Korso, and Drew Barrymore’s expressive voice helps bring the feisty Akima to life. The mix of hand-drawn animation and CGI is impressively rendered as they combine to create some eye-popping visuals, helping realize the film’s epic scope. It is fluid and rich in detail – there is so much to look at in each and every frame. Titan A.E. features a galaxy populated with exotic planets, like Sesharrim with its brown hydrogen trees and red sky where our heroes encounter a bat-like race known as Gaoul. This is contrasted with the cool, metallic blue of the Drej homeworld that resembles a funky hybrid of the computer world from Tron (1982) and the Borg mothership from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Producer David Kirschner first brought what would become known as Titan A.E. to 20th Century Fox as a live-action film, “a sort of Treasure Island in outer space.” It was in development for more than five years and originally known as Planet Ice. It was initially conceived as a live-action feature but Fox decided it would be more interesting and less expensive to produce as an animated film. Known for creating successful animated films like An American Tail (1986), The Land Before Time (1988), and Anastasia (1997), Don Bluth and Gary Goldman saw this project as quite a departure in terms of look, subject matter and target audience. Once they came on board in 1998, it was re-titled Titan A.E.

At the time, Fox was determined to compete with Disney in the feature animation field by spending millions of dollars on groundbreaking CGI technology and told Bluth and Goldman to make a film that featured innovative visuals and effects. The first thing the two men did was redesign the entire film. According to Goldman, the film was originally going to be 40% CG but ended up closer to 90%. He wanted to get a 3-D look while still maintaining a cartoon feel. He and Bluth were aware that their target audience – adolescent boys – were generally not into animated films and decided to adopt a darker, moodier color palette.

In another effort to appeal to teenage boys, the studio enlisted Grammy award winning producer/songwriter Glen Ballard who populated the soundtrack with contemporary bands like Lit, Jamiroquai and Luscious Jackson to complement composer Graeme Revell’s electronic music score. The $55 million film was a risky venture for the animation department of Fox whose fate rested on its success or failure. However, a year before the film was finished, Fox laid off 300 out of 380 of its animation staff members leaving very few people to make the film. An early test screening in Orange County went well with several teenagers comparing Titan A.E. favorably with Star Wars. However, Bill Mechanic, head of Fox, left the studio and Fox Feature Animation was shut down. Bluth and Goldman left and Titan A.E. died a quick death at the box office.

Titan A.E. was the first Hollywood film to be digitally transmitted across the United States over the Internet and then digitally projected into cinemas. The film was pummeled by critics that, with a few exceptions, slammed it as being a Star Wars rip-off. The New York Times’ Stephen Holden wrote, “Titan A.E. tries to pack so much into 90 minutes that the characters don't have enough screen time to engage our emotions. Cale and Akima in particular have all the depth of television spinoffs of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. This is not to say that Titan A.E. isn't entertaining in its breezy, mild-mannered way, only that its mythology and characters barely resonate.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote, “Think of it as Noah's Ark, with a few plot changes inspired by the Space Invaders video game.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “The traditional cartoon elements of Titan A.E., both the story and visuals, are unutterably bland. Cale has been conceived as the sort of blond Matt Damon action figure you'd expect to get with a Happy Meal.” In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, “This story's relatively lofty ideas about saving the human race, and its endless twists and turns, are going to soar over the heads of many young audiences—and probably bore them, too. The scenario and special effects are too lackluster for slightly older, sensation-hungry kids, presumably the target audience. And the humor is far too lame for the parents in the audience. Which makes Titan a must-see for . . . almost no one.” USA Today gave the film two and a half out of four stars and Mike Clark called it, “visually impressive but woefully dumbed-down.”

However, Roger Ebert gave the film three and half out of four stars and wrote, “One test for any movie is when you forget it's a movie and simply surf along on the narrative. That can happen as easily with animation as live action, and it happens here. The movie works as adventure, as the Star Wars pictures do.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Titan A.E.'s rudimentary narration does work up a certain amount of propulsion. But it's not the story that's the story here, it's the film's bravura visual look.”

Titan A.E. is about the survival of the human race and what it means to be human with Cale learning to appreciate his heritage. Along the way he grows and falls in love. The film is also a rousing action/adventure tale with a vivid color scheme, larger than life characters that must face a seemingly undefeatable foe. Admittedly, Titan A.E. isn’t reinventing the wheel in terms of originality but it also isn’t trying to, instead delivering an entertaining ride on that level it certainly succeeds.

SOURCES

Dawson, Angela. “Fox Hoping for Titanic Results from Titan A.E.” BPI Entertainment News Wire. June 7, 2000.

Lauria, Larry. “A Chat with Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.” Animation World Magazine. June 2000.

Lauria, Larry. “A Conversation with the New Don Bluth.” Animation World Magazine. September 2000.

Lyman, Rick. “Beaming Soon to a Theater Near You.” Toronto Star. June 6, 2000.

Portman, Jamie. “The Star Wars of Animation.” Ottawa Citizen. June 9, 2000.

Sheehan, Henry. “Titan Creators Seek New Frontiers.” Orange County Register. June 18, 2000.

Stack, Peter. “Sci-Fi Adventure Titan A.E. Breaks New Ground.” San Francisco Chronicle. June 4, 2000.