Titan A.E. (2000) contextualised

Titan A.E. is an animated film directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman and was released to the US domestic box office on June 16, 2000, by Twentieth Century Fox. It has a cast of well-known Hollywood actors, such as, Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting, Van Sant, 1997; The Martian, Scott, 2015) and Drew Barrymore (E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Spielberg, 1982; Charlie’s Angels, McG, 2000), as well as seasoned voice actors, such as, Jim Cummings (Aladdin, Clements & Musker, 1992; Christopher Robin, Forster, 2018) and Roger Jackson (The Powerpuff Girls, McCracken, Capizzi & Hillenburg, 1998-2004; Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Hudson & Walters, 2021). It had a budget of approximately $75,000,000 and grossed $36,754,634 worldwide (Box Office Mojo, 2022) and reportedly alltogether lost Twentieth Century Fox a hundred million dollars (Palmeri, 2013).

The film received a mixed reception with an audience score of 60% and critic consensus of “Great visuals, but the story feels like a cut-and-paste job of other sci-fi movies” (Rotten Tomatoes, 2022). Roger Ebert said the film “uses the freedom of animation to visualize the strangeness of the universe in ways live action cannot duplicate” (2000). The sequence chosen for analysis in this essay was met with praise, being described as “breathtaking” and “it never would have looked as good in live action” (Radulovic, 2020). However, other opinions differed, with Film.com saying at the time of release it was “One of those children’s movies that is made for especially dim or easily fooled children” due to how the film had the feel of an adult animation masked as a children’s film. (Film.com, 2000, as cited in Aguilar, 2021).

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman had previously worked together on other animated films, such as, All Dogs Go to Heaven (Bluth, Goldman & Kuenster, 1989) and Anastasia (Bluth & Goldman, 1997), which was nominated for two Academy Awards (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 1998) and proved that “Bluth still had the capability to produce lavish animated features provided you gave him the budget to get the job done” (Lowe, 2020).

Titan A.E. uses a combination of cel animation and computer animation but was originally planned to be a live action project (Thomas, 2000). It has been rumoured that a live-action remake is in development by Disney and will supposedly pay homage to the 2000’s animation style in some form or another (McKay, 2021; Paltridge, 2021).

Fox Animation produced just three films: Anastasia, Bartok the Magnificent (Bluth & Goldman, 1999) and Titan A.E, though it also provided services to the production of Adventures from the Book of Virtues (Johnson, 1996-2009) and The Prince of Egypt (Chapman, Hickner & Wells, 1998). The financial failure of Titan A.E led to Fox Chairman Bill Mechanic losing his job (Eller & Bates, 2000) and it would be the last film Fox Animation would produce before buying Blue Sky Studios, which produced the highly successful Ice Age (Wedge & Saldanha, 2002). In fact, Fox Animation was shut down before Titan A.E’s release, with Blue Sky Studios taking over remaining work (Radulovic, 2020). It would also be Don Bluth’s last feature length film, though he and Gary Goldman are Directing an upcoming animation Dragon’s Lair: The Movie (n.d.), starring Ryan Reynolds and based on the 1983 video game Dragon’s Lair created by Rick Dyer and Don Bluth.

(P@S@f, 2012)

At the SuperComm 2000 convention, just a few weeks before the theatrical release of Titan A.E., Cisco transmitted simultaneously via Virtual Private Network to two different locations a complete viewing of the film, which was a world first. (Rose & Carpenter, 2000). Whilst it could be viewed as a mere publicity stunt, this technology would pave the way for how film and TV would be consumed years later and acted as publicity for the release of Titan A.E.