by Matt McCafferty, Contributor

They just don’t make them like they used to. An idiom that often annoys me when I hear it. Nostalgia sometimes gets in the way of people’s ability to find and appreciate newer movies and art. However, I couldn’t help myself from thinking that cliché little one-liner after my latest rewatch of the often-underrated 2001 Disney box office flop, Treasure Planet. Grand in scale and vision, it delivers the kind of sci-fi adventure movie we don’t get very often anymore from animated films. 

It’s fairly easy to recognize mainstream animation films based on the studio that made them. Whether it’s Pixar, DreamWorks, Studio Ghibli or Cartoon Saloon, you can usually tell based on animation style, music, tone and a handful of other elements. In the case of Treasure Planet, if it came out today, I don’t think you could pin it to any studio if you had to guess. It certainly doesn’t look like anything Disney puts out today. Oddly enough, Treasure Planet’s lack of box office success might have a lot to do with why we primarily see 3D animated movies today.

At $140 million, it is the most expensive traditionally animated film to date. To make matters worse, it came in fourth place on its opening weekend, bringing in just $12 million. The three movies ahead of it in order were Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Die Another Day and The Santa Clause 2 (also a Disney film). It’s easy to look back and blame Pottermania for the flop. However, I don’t think that was the case. Again, it came in fourth place! I just don’t think it was a movie designed for mainstream success. It's missing a lot of key ingredients that bring families to the theaters in droves. Bright colors, catchy songs, funny sidekick characters, etc. You get some of the sidekick comedy from B.E.N., but not much. Even still, what we do get is a movie that has slowly gained steam with audiences as one of the more overlooked and underrated Disney films to ever be released. A final product that is so much more than many of the cash grab sequels we get today. 

A science fiction take on the classic Treasure Island novel, the story follows Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a rebellious teen who comes across a map to the greatest pirate trove in the universe. In search of the legendary Treasure Planet, he joins the ship RLS Legacy, led by Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson). On the ship, Jim befriends a cyborg cook named John Silver (Brian Murray). Their relationship forms the heart of the story. A father-son like connection that provides an unexpected emotional weight to what we think is mostly just a fun, treasuring-hunting adventure on the surface. 

As for the visuals, the animation really is fantastic. The animators brilliantly mix traditional 2D animation and CG to create a futuristic world that includes people, aliens and all kinds of other creatures.This ambitious CG integration is what made this movie so expensive. At the same time, it doesn't forget to include elements of what you would imagine from Treasure Island. Big pirate ships (that can fly of course) and old-fashioned clothing and accessories. If you want to consider this the death of Disney's 2D efforts (other than The Princess and the Frog and 2011’s Winnie the Pooh), at least it went out with a bang. 

My watch for this write-up was only the second time I had seen this. The first time I saw it was a couple years back when I was watching a bunch of Disney movies with my kids on our lead-up to a visit to Disney World. Both times now have found me in awe over the spectacle of what takes place on screen. A look and feel to it that reminds me of Star Wars at times. Jim Hawkins himself has some Luke Skywalker qualities to him. Taking note of these kinds of comparisons made this go-around even more fun. I wouldn’t say the plot is necessarily all that complex, but it does move fairly quickly. Maybe one that loses the kids here and there along the way. It’s also a unique world that takes some getting used to. However, once you settle in on a rewatch, it’s easy enough to enjoy. 

I spent a fair amount of time covering the background of this movie on this write-up. How expensive it was and how little success it achieved. It’s hard not to go into those sorts of things when you talk about this movie. On the other hand, none of that really matters anymore. It’s not like Disney wasn’t able to survive a box office failure. Regardless, I’m glad this movie was made. No matter how it came to be, I can’t imagine I’m the only one that’s coming around to it all these years later.