Poll of the Day > It takes over 40 minutes for them to reach Atlantis in Disney's Atlantis

(+) Yeah! (+)

Talk about a slow start. I forgot how long the first act was.
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Well I mean a lot of the movie is about the adventure and introducing the rather large cast of characters. They needed to sell Atlantis as a place that couldn't be easily found and I felt they did a wonderful job of that.
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So what you are saying is the point where it stopped being a great movie and became only an okay movie is about 45 minutes in?
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I'm amazed that there are more than two people on this board who've actually seen that movie.


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You are?

It's a Disney movie. Most people have at least heard of it
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PK_Spam posted...

You are?

It's a Disney movie. Most people have at least heard of it

Yeah, but "heard of it" and "seen it" are two different things.

But it wasn't all that popular at the time (Disney considered it a failure), people rarely ever bring it up or talk about it, and it came out years ago. It also doesn't really fit into the mold of what people expect out of a Disney movie, so I feel like even people who saw it were kind of disappointed with it, and thus sort of forgot about it (meaning it doesn't benefit from the childhood nostalgia bump everything else from the late 90s/early 2000s gets from most people on the Internet).

Personally, I loved it (saw it in the theater, bought the DVD, played around with the interactive game on the website), but I also acknowledge I'm generally atypical as fuck, and I had a preexisting interest in Atlantis to help boost my interest in it).


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Honestly Atlantis has a bit of a cult following for disney. I remember a rate the animated disney movies topic where it actually placed fairly high.
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Atlantis was a big reason I stopped going to pretty much every animated movie in theaters, which I had been doing for the better part of a decade.
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Treasure Planet was better.

I liked it.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'm amazed that there are more than two people on this board who've actually seen that movie.

I almost saw it once!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But it wasn't all that popular at the time (Disney considered it a failure), people rarely ever bring it up or talk about it, and it came out years ago. It also doesn't really fit into the mold of what people expect out of a Disney movie, so I feel like even people who saw it were kind of disappointed with it, and thus sort of forgot about it (meaning it doesn't benefit from the childhood nostalgia bump everything else from the late 90s/early 2000s gets from most people on the Internet).

If it was a failure, why'd it get a sequel? >_> M. Night Shymalan's The Last Airbender never got a sequel.
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I've never seen it and love Disney. I only know of the film because some folk mention it over on the Kingdom Hearts boards.
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Zeus posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'm amazed that there are more than two people on this board who've actually seen that movie.

I almost saw it once!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But it wasn't all that popular at the time (Disney considered it a failure), people rarely ever bring it up or talk about it, and it came out years ago. It also doesn't really fit into the mold of what people expect out of a Disney movie, so I feel like even people who saw it were kind of disappointed with it, and thus sort of forgot about it (meaning it doesn't benefit from the childhood nostalgia bump everything else from the late 90s/early 2000s gets from most people on the Internet).

If it was a failure, why'd it get a sequel? >_> M. Night Shymalan's The Last Airbender never got a sequel.

It didn't get a sequel really much like Cinderella 2 the Atlantis 2 movie was actually a handful of pilot episodes for an animated series that didn't get the green light. So they slapped them together as one movie and tried to still get some profit. To its credit Atlantis 2 was vastly better than Cinderella 2.
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Wait, so they were going to create a tv show for a movie that was considered a failure then? Or was the show in development before the movie hit theaters?
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Zeus posted...

Wait, so they were going to create a tv show for a movie that was considered a failure then? Or was the show in development before the movie hit theaters?

iirc it was supposed to be stargate for kids.
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Zeus posted...

Wait, so they were going to create a tv show for a movie that was considered a failure then? Or was the show in development before the movie hit theaters?

Disney was trying to make an animated series for nearly all its movies.

Aladdin and Hercules got the go ahead
Alice, Atlantis, and Cinderella did not.
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Hirokey123 posted...

Alice, Atlantis, and Cinderella did not.

Whaaaaaat? They were going to do a tv show for Alice in Wonderland. That's crazy. And I'm not sure how they'd get enough content for Cinderella.
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Zeus posted...

Hirokey123 posted...

Alice, Atlantis, and Cinderella did not.

Whaaaaaat? They were going to do a tv show for Alice in Wonderland. That's crazy. And I'm not sure how they'd get enough content for Cinderella.

The premise for Cinderella was that Cinderella gets bored of palace life and...meh watch Cinderella 2 that gives you a picture for how the series would of been.

On a side note also watch Cinderella 3 that is an actually fantastic movie. Really does a good job showing the characters as actual people as opposed to thin cliches. It is really interesting to see what Cinderella can do when not only lacking magic but having to face off against basically a wicked fairy stepmother.
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I've seen it, and I'm awesome
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I barely remember it. I know I saw it in theaters though.
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Zeus posted...

If it was a failure, why'd it get a sequel?

Because Disney went through a phase where they basically made as many sequels to as many different properties as they could in the desperate hope that something would stick and they could make more money off it. It sort of went hand in hand with the period where they were flailing like hell, because they'd apparently forgotten how to make animation that anyone actually cared about (which really only ended around the time they bought Pixar - and which was part of the reason WHY they bought Pixar in the first place). Realistically, that desperation is also the only reason a movie like the Atlantis could get made in the first place.

Arguably it's the same reason Fantasia got a sequel in spite of it being seen as a phenomenal failure when it was released (though that one's a bit more muddled because it got re-released multiple times and sort of became a cult favorite mostly because Walt Disney himself loved it so much).


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Because Disney went through a phase where they basically made as many sequels to as many different properties as they could in the desperate hope that something would stick and they could make more money off it.

Then why didn't we see a sequel to Song of the South? >_>

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Arguably it's the same reason Fantasia got a sequel in spite of it being seen as a phenomenal failure when it was released (though that one's a bit more muddled because it got re-released multiple times and sort of became a cult favorite mostly because Walt Disney himself loved it so much).

I enjoyed both Fantasias, but I understand why they would underperform. Plus it always did seem more like a pet project.
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Honestly, i liked both Atlantis and treasure planet.

Zeus posted...

I enjoyed both Fantasias

To loosely quote someone, I can't remember who, from back when it was released: Fantasia 2000 was a great film... until Steve Martin showed up.
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Zeus posted...

Wait, so they were going to create a tv show for a movie that was considered a failure then?

Keep in mind, it was low budget crap. Much less risk.
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slacker03150 posted...

So what you are saying is the point where it stopped being a great movie and became only an okay movie is about 45 minutes in?

This. It really falls apart once they get to Atlantis in my opinion.
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I remember enjoying Atlantis but I haven't seen it since it came out.

I also remember having this point and click adventure game based on it for pc
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Arguably it's the same reason Fantasia got a sequel in spite of it being seen as a phenomenal failure when it was released (though that one's a bit more muddled because it got re-released multiple times and sort of became a cult favorite mostly because Walt Disney himself loved it so much).

Fantasia's initial release was a flop, but subsequent releases fared much better because there wasn't a planet-consuming war raging at the time. Adjusted for inflation, it's the 22nd-highest grossing movie of all time, so it's hardly been a failure in the long run. I actually attribute The Nutcracker's popularity to it, since that only really took off a couple years after the first rerelease (it's even said in the movie that nobody really performs it).

Fantasia 2000 was also one of the first IMAX films, and it makes sense that Disney would go with a movie that's basically musical eye candy as their first foray into the world of fancy-looking movie presentations.
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I was gonna go see it, but I couldn't find it. Every time I tried I just got lost.
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Atlantis?
Is that a sequel to The Little Mermaid?
Quote from a friend when we talked about Disney movies last year.
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What about Titan A.E. or Treasure Planet?
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Arguably it's the same reason Fantasia got a sequel in spite of it being seen as a phenomenal failure when it was released (though that one's a bit more muddled because it got re-released multiple times and sort of became a cult favorite mostly because Walt Disney himself loved it so much).

Walt had wanted to do a new Fantasia movie every few years, but the financial failure of the first one at the time kept that from happening. Disney finally got around to trying again in the 90s. They were even going to release another one in 2006, but that fell through as well.

As for Atlantis, yes a series was planned while the movie was in development because they thought it would be a hit.
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Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...

What about Titan A.E. or Treasure Planet?

Titan was overrated. Treasure Planet was underrated.
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adjl posted...

Fantasia 2000 was also one of the first IMAX films, and it makes sense that Disney would go with a movie that's basically musical eye candy as their first foray into the world of fancy-looking movie presentations.

Come to think of it, I did see it in IMAX. I must have seen other things in IMAX before it, though, since the Norwalk Aquarium has had IMAX for... well, as long as I can remember.
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Zeus posted...

adjl posted...

Fantasia 2000 was also one of the first IMAX films, and it makes sense that Disney would go with a movie that's basically musical eye candy as their first foray into the world of fancy-looking movie presentations.

Come to think of it, I did see it in IMAX. I must have seen other things in IMAX before it, though, since the Norwalk Aquarium has had IMAX for... well, as long as I can remember.

IMAX has been around since the 70s but was only found at museums and science centers. It wasn't until the 90s specifically the late 90s did it start to become mainstream for films.
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Atlantis girl was hot as fuck
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Currant_Kaiser posted...

Treasure Planet was better.

was amazing
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deoxxys posted...

Currant_Kaiser posted...

Treasure Planet was better.

was amazing

I also almost watched that once.
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deoxxys posted...

Currant_Kaiser posted...

Treasure Planet was better.

was amazing

one of my favorite Disney movies tbh.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

people rarely ever bring it up or talk about it, and it came out years ago.

It's mentioned pretty much any time someone brings up underrated or unappreciated animated movies.
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Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...

IMAX has been around since the 70s but was only found at museums and science centers.

Cedar Point, which is neither a museum nor science center, used to have an IMAX theater. They eventually converted it to do a Peanuts on Ice show, before tearing it down to make room for Valravn (last year's new coaster).

Zeus posted...

Then why didn't we see a sequel to Song of the South? >_>

You know why.

To be fair, though, I don't think it's as racist as everyone acts like it is anyway - if you view it in the context of the times the stories were being told (as in, the original stories, not necessarily when the movie itself was being made).

Then again, ALSO to be fair, I think I saw it precisely once as a kid, before all of the hoo-haw made it utterly untouchable, so it's entirely possible that it's racist as fuck on every level and I just don't remember/missed it as a kid. Of course, the fact that people go out of their way to try and "unperson" the movie (as well as most of the folklore/stories it's retelling) out of a massive sense of collective guilt means that most people will never get the chance to judge for themselves because they're never going to have the opportunity to watch it anyway.

But the desire to retroactively apply modern morality to pretty much everything that has ever existed is ethnocentric as fuck, and always sort of annoys me a bit. Especially when it misses the original intent of a work by a mile (ie, like when people who were hugely socially progressive in their own time get labeled as racists or backwards for not living up to standards that wouldn't exist for hundreds of years), or when you essentially lose the opportunity to learn from the past by blatantly erasing every uncomfortable or unpleasant thing about it.

That's when you wind up with things like schools banning Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of ****** Jim's name, and pretty much forfeit our right to have opinions about anything, because we've clearly demonstrated we're not actually responsible enough to have that much power.



Zeus posted...

I enjoyed both Fantasias, but I understand why they would underperform. Plus it always did seem more like a pet project.

I enjoyed one of them.

Realistically, there's a distinct chance that Fantasia combined with Looney Tunes to help spur my future adult interest in classical music and (mostly Germanic) opera.

Even as a kid in elementary school, stuff like Sorcerer's Apprentice and Night on Bald Mountain resonated with me. Mix that in with What's Opera, Doc? (which is basically a love letter to Wagner) and Rabbit of Seville, along with the fact that we used to listen to Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre as a song around Halloween time, and it wore some deep grooves into my psyche (so much so that, when I bought my first CD player, one of the first three CDs I bought for it was "Opera Without Words" - the other two CDs being Seal and Alice in Chains, because it was the 90s).


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adjl posted...

Fantasia's initial release was a flop, but subsequent releases fared much better because there wasn't a planet-consuming war raging at the time.

Which I did mention in my post. But in spite of that, it was still seen as a relatively risky sort of film to release, and there's a distinct possibility that it only got the sequel when it did due to the fact that Disney was sort of floundering in that window of time between the release of The Lion King and when they eventually bought Pixar (and arguably, Disney itself outside of Pixar didn't really have a resurgence until the release of Tangled, which then paved the way for Frozen).

That's not really a new thing for Disney, though. They've had those off-periods before (they were arguably in one before the release of The Little Mermaid - ie, most of the 70s and 80s), and, depending on your perspective, those down periods tend to be the times when they're also the most creative as a company (because they're constantly experimenting and trying to figure out what "The Next Big Thing" is going to be. And if they start to worry too much about their bottom line, they can always go back to the well (see also live-action remakes of their older movies, rereleases, direct-to-DVD sequels, etc).



Metalsonic66 posted...

It's mentioned pretty much any time someone brings up underrated or unappreciated animated movies.

I almost never hear anyone bring it up, ever. Hence my surprise at this topic.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

But the desire to retroactively apply modern morality to pretty much everything that has ever existed is ethnocentric as fuck, and always sort of annoys me a bit. Especially when it misses the original intent of a work by a mile (ie, like when people who were hugely socially progressive in their own time get labeled as racists or backwards for not living up to standards that wouldn't exist for hundreds of years), or when you essentially lose the opportunity to learn from the past by blatantly erasing every uncomfortable or unpleasant thing about it.

Pretty much how I've always felt.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I enjoyed one of them.

Oh, you!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Even as a kid in elementary school, stuff like Sorcerer's Apprentice and Night on Bald Mountain resonated with me.

Was never a big fan of Sorcerer's Apprentice but it works tremendously well as a full narrative without the use of words. I always preferred Night on Bald Mountain and loved Chernabog's design

.
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Zeus posted...

I always preferred Night on Bald Mountain and loved Chernabog's design

Hell yes
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Currant_Kaiser posted...

Treasure Planet was better.

Dunno why but Atlantis and Treasure Planet have been two of my favorite Disney animated films thus far. I think it is the sense of adventure and how exotic the world(s) feels.
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InfestedAdam posted...

Currant_Kaiser posted...

Treasure Planet was better.

Dunno why but Atlantis and Treasure Planet have been two of my favorite Disney animated films thus far. I think it is the sense of adventure and how exotic the world(s) feels.

I'd say I don't play favorites with Disney films, but Nightmare Before Christmas stands above the rest.
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Phantom_Nook posted...

Walt had wanted to do a new Fantasia movie every few years,

I seem to recall hearing/reading that he wanted it to pretty much stay in theaters, swapping out individual segments as new segments were made.
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Zeus posted...

I'd say I don't play favorites with Disney films, but Nightmare Before Christmas stands above the rest.

I dunno if that one should count. Disney didn't even want to put their name on it until way later.
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Blaqthourne posted...

Phantom_Nook posted...

Walt had wanted to do a new Fantasia movie every few years,

I seem to recall hearing/reading that he wanted it to pretty much stay in theaters, swapping out individual segments as new segments were made.

Jesus. That would be expensive.
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