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If the mean idiosyncratic was asked to sanction immoderate of Disney’s astir influential animated classics, you’d astir apt perceive names similar Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, oregon The Lion King. Far little apt would beryllium Atlantis: The Lost Empire, which was released 25 years agone this period connected June 15, 2001. Coming disconnected what is wide considered 1 of the studio’s strongest eras with the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s, Atlantis was an effort by the squad down The Hunchback of Notre Dame — directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, shaper Don Hahn, and screenwriter Tab Murphy — to illustration a caller people for Disney theatrical animation, 1 styled aft Adventureland astatine Disney’s taxable parks.
Sadly, that effort didn’t fare truthful well. Atlantis flopped astatine the container office, and was met with mixed to antagonistic reviews. You mightiness deliberation that would beryllium the extremity of the story, but sometimes, movies person longer support lives than their archetypal reception would suggest. Atlantis developed a beardown cult pursuing aft making its mode to location video, and has been acold amended received present than it was connected its archetypal release. But much than that, the movie has arguably helped signifier the full absorption of North American theatrical animation by fundamentally being the roadworthy not taken for animated features. How did this happen? Let’s instrumentality a look...
Atlantis Is Waiting
When it comes to the eras of Disney animation history, the play aft the much-lauded Disney Renaissance — mostly considered to person ended with Tarzan successful 1999 — has seldom been placed successful the aforesaid conversation. Yes, determination were immoderate not-great movies released during that period, but Atlantis has ever gotten the abbreviated extremity of the instrumentality fixed the pedigree of endowment involved. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise directed Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 2 of the astir artistically resonant animated movies of the 1990s, and Tab Murphy had penned the screenplays for some Hunchback and Tarzan. The movie has a beardown cast, sharply directed enactment sequences, a beauteous philharmonic people by James Newton Howard, and a gorgeous creation benignant based connected the enactment of famed Hellboy comic creator Mike Mignola. This was not immoderate low-rent accumulation lacking successful large talent, and the spot of those artists and their imaginativeness is wherefore the movie maintains a fanbase to this day.
I spoke to Trousdale and Murphy astir the film, and asked them what they deliberation has kept Atlantis live successful the fashionable imagination.
“I similar to deliberation that it's a decent film,” said Trousdale. “That it's entertaining and fun, and the characters are fun. I mean, we benignant of patterned it aft the live-action Disney films from the precocious '50s and aboriginal '60s, the Jules Verne 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, that benignant of enactment escapade film… it didn't bash arsenic good with the adults who were expecting talking lions and singing mice and each that. And determination was gunfire and determination were nary songs. We recovered retired that the kids truly enjoyed it, but they didn't truly person a voice."
Murphy agreed, saying that “a batch of kids watched it connected location video and wore retired VHS tapes. So determination was this increasing fanbase [that] I deliberation myself and a batch of the filmmakers were unaware of, due to the fact that there's nary mode to way location video, however the fanbase grows retired of sharing a VHS oregon yet the DVD and each that stuff.”
The consciousness of escapade and exploration with a vivid radical of characters that the movie manages to convey successful a choky 90-minute runtime is 1 of its champion aspects. Trousdale elaborated connected however the originative squad convinced the workplace to determination distant from the Broadway musicals that had defined the past decennary of Disney films.
“I deliberation it might've been Kirk oregon possibly it was Don that came up with the conception that erstwhile you spell to Disneyland and you're headed consecutive for Cinderella's Castle, you spell done it and you're successful Fantasyland. And that's the movies that we're doing for the past 70 years. But if you bent a left, you're successful Adventureland. It's inactive a Disney land. And that's what got the executives to go, ‘Oh yeah, you're right.’”
Atlantis was not immoderate low-rent accumulation lacking successful large talent, and the spot of those artists and their imaginativeness is wherefore the movie maintains a fanbase to this day.“
Add successful evocative location, vehicle, and carnal plan — the Leviathan is inactive 1 of the champion monsters to ever look successful a Disney movie — and you person a movie that has continued to charm some older audiences revisiting it and newcomers who observe it. But the timing of its merchandise caused a batch of problems; Atlantis was a 2D animated escapade astatine a clip erstwhile 3D animated comedies were becoming the caller exemplary for theatrical animation... and that’s wherever everything started to autumn apart.
Nothing Personal
Atlantis is simply a flashpoint successful movie past due to the fact that it sits close connected the dividing enactment betwixt 20th period and 21st period theatrical animation. It’s a 2D animated escapade movie with immoderate 3D elements — a blend of 2 styles that would mostly go segregated successful the years to follow. It’s not rather akin to the films of the Disney Renaissance, yet it’s besides not rather what diagnostic animation would go aft the crook of the millennium with the emergence of Pixar and Dreamworks’ 3D movies that would alteration the manufacture forever. Atlantis is fascinating due to the fact that it was portion of a tiny question of 2D/3D hybrid escapade features — Atlantis successful 2001, Treasure Planet successful 2002, and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas successful 2003. These movies, each of which bombed astatine the container office, ran successful parallel to the mode of storytelling popularized by the likes of Toy Story and Shrek.
When asked astir the interaction of 3D movies connected Atlantis, Trousdale said “I benignant of pin it connected the archetypal Shrek for putting the nail successful the coffin of 2D animation. And there's inactive a large appetite for it, but not arsenic overmuch successful this state arsenic accidental Japan oregon Italy. It's astir similar a boutique benignant of mean present to spot 2D animation due to the fact that 3D animation has taken over.”
Murphy echoed the sentiment, saying “there was a caller kid connected the block, a caller artifact glistening successful the movie theaters, and that was CGI, that was Shrek. And truthful Atlantis got released astatine a clip erstwhile each eyes were benignant of moving disconnected of Disney a spot onto DreamWorks.”
Not lone was Shrek a monolithic occurrence that spawned a long-running franchise, it opened the doorway for Dreamworks Animation to go a large subordinate successful the theatrical abstraction with projects similar Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon. While Disney struggled until astir 2010 to find a caller absorption for its main animated division, Pixar was successful its aureate property successful the aboriginal 2000s with movies similar Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles.
Atlantis is simply a flashpoint successful movie past due to the fact that it sits close connected the enactment betwixt 20th period and 21st period theatrical animation.“
That Atlantis stood successful specified opposition to emerging manufacture trends — that it was staunchly not portion of the "new way" of doing things — is some what has made it truthful chiseled successful retrospect and truthful retired of measurement with what audiences were coming to crave successful 2001. Atlantis was simultaneously down the curve and ahead of its time, featuring old-fashioned pulp serial sensibility successful a marketplace that longed for the novelty of afloat computer-generated features and an easygoing comedic flavor. Yet those aforesaid originative instincts that condemned Atlantis’ theatrical prospects are precisely what has kept it live arsenic a taste artifact a 4th period later. In the aforesaid mode that Event Horizon doomed abstraction fearfulness movies for the foreseeable aboriginal lone to go a touchstone for the format due to the fact that determination were truthful fewer different examples, Atlantis is 1 of the lone entries successful a subgenre that ne'er truly was: the blockbuster animated enactment adventure.
Atlantis’s fiscal failure, alongside its siblings Treasure Planet and Sinbad, didn't conscionable origin Disney to wantonness the Adventureland experiment, but besides heralded the astir implicit disappearance of 2D animation from the theatrical abstraction by the 2010s.
Our Way of Life is Preserved
The velocity astatine which 2D animation fell retired of favour successful North America post-Atlantis is startling erstwhile you really look astatine the timeline. Even with Pixar’s merchandise docket being astir annual, Disney’s main theatrical part started making the modulation to 3D successful earnest arsenic aboriginal arsenic 2005, putting retired Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt successful speedy succession (they’d done a one-off 3D experimentation successful 2000 with Dinosaur). Disney’s past 2D animated movie was 2011's Winnie the Pooh, with each azygous theatrical movie since past being 3D. That’s not to accidental that Atlantis was the only crushed for the industry's reinvention, but the movie not doing good theatrically did effect successful a monolithic displacement successful Disney’s operational strategy since the movie was being groomed to beryllium the adjacent large franchise successful the studio’s catalogue.
Atlantis’ originative squad did person a conception for a theatrical sequel which was abstracted from the direct-to-video sequel that was really produced. Trousdale confirmed that Helga Sinclair would person returned arsenic the villain.
"There were possibly a mates outline pages written. I don't deliberation determination was ever a script, but yeah, it was an thought that Milo and Kida are exploring the different cavern networks and seeing who other is down there. And they tally into Helga and she's a video crippled brag now. She's a steampunk cyborg who's crystal powered and she has this set of pirates and rogues.” Trousdale besides discussed Disney’s plans for Atlantis taxable parkland attractions, saying that “they were going to physique an Atlantis thrust successful Florida. They were going to retrofit the submarine thrust successful Anaheim, California… they were going to enactment the Leviathan down determination and alteration the architecture. But yeah, each that fell through.”
Murphy had his ain thought for a imaginable follow-up to Atlantis — a prequel.
"My penchant would've been to really archer the communicative of Princess Kida from princess to warrior, and the movie would extremity erstwhile Milo and the squad arrived… I thought determination would beryllium a large communicative successful there, her story.”
Instead, nary of these things — including the planned Team Atlantis tv bid — would travel to pass. Atlantis has since mostly been ignored by Disney, to overmuch vexation from those who emotion the film.
“One of my existent gripes," said Trousdale, "is that Disney has benignant of elevated each the Disney princesses to this caller level, and there's each the princess girls, and Kida isn't 1 of them. They don't number her. It's like, ‘come connected guys, she's virtually a princess. She's a queen for Christ's sake.’"
Murphy besides spoke astir the interaction Princess Kida had connected his interactions with fans: “I can't archer you however galore women and however galore Black women person travel up to maine and said, ‘That movie made specified an content connected me, for that quality alone, due to the fact that it was the archetypal clip I sat successful a theatre and I looked up arsenic a small miss and I saw idiosyncratic that looked similar maine arsenic a quality successful a Disney movie.’”
Disney doesn’t admit Kida arsenic an authoritative Disney Princess contempt the information that she was a Black princess who preceded Tiana from The Princess and the Frog by astir a decade, but arsenic Trousdale said: “We didn’t marque capable money. That was the bottommost line.”
Regarding the ramifications of Disney yet moving distant from 2D, Trousdale said that “we've mislaid a batch of the expertise, a batch of the crews, the radical that did the animation, the existent animators, the cleanup artists, the cel painters. Well, they didn't overgarment cels anymore. It was connected a integer screen… astir of those radical person retired oregon died disconnected oregon conscionable moved connected to different things. And each truthful often you'll perceive of a workplace oregon you'll perceive of Disney going, ‘We're going to bring backmost 2D animation.’ And my absorption is usually like, ‘Well, bully luck. You got to find the radical to bash it now. You had the radical and you fto them each spell and they're gone now.’” As for however Disney arsenic a institution would beryllium antithetic if Atlantis was successful, Trousdale said “they mightiness inactive person a 2D part due to the fact that it had been theoretically proven that the 2D was inactive viable and was inactive marketable, truthful they astir apt wouldn't person ditched each of the 2D. That genre of picture, the enactment adventure, the non-musical, mightiness person a small spot bigger abstraction successful the building.”
Atlantis: The Lost Empire was a important junction for Disney. It represented a infinitesimal successful clip wherever the institution was unfastened to moving successful a caller originative absorption aft years of success. That absorption was chopped abbreviated by Atlantis failing astatine the container office, and the consequences — not conscionable for Disney, but the full animated movie manufacture — are inactive being felt to this day. But portion Atlantis whitethorn not person recovered its assemblage connected release, it has successful the years that followed. It whitethorn not beryllium the occurrence it needed, but it has astatine slightest received the emotion it deserves.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles, and Mass Effect essays. You tin travel his fixations connected Twitter.
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