I’ll throw my vote into bad timing over it being in general a bad movie. Most of the reviews I’ve seen have been reasonably positive, but this holiday season is so saturated with “big” movies it didn’t really stand a chance. I personally believe they should have waited until January.
GIGObuster
No argument here regarding the ideas. I tend towards (hoping at least) the good thought. Sprited Away did very well for a film in limited release - more than doubling the total for Mononoke.
I would second also the thought that the timing of the release did not help at all. Unless you have a franchise with a pre-built base, fighting Potter & Tolkein is just not a good idea for now.
I think it was mostly the marketing department that dropped the ball on this one. The trailers on this movie truly sucked balls. I mean, look at amarinth’s reaction to the Lion King trailer. Even the two crappiest movies, Pocahontas and Hunchback had good trailers (featuring girl on the cliff and big pretty cathedral, respectively). The trailers on this one, we saw the cool moon planet. Okay, psyched. We see the guy doing the little surfboard thing. Okay, still psyched. Then, we cut to shipboard and see sidekicks. That’s about where they lost me. And that stupid voiceover on the first trailers: “This is Treasure Planet”. Aargh. It was so cheesy and made the movie seem so dumb. My brother, who collects old and stupid Disney cartoons, didn’t want to see this movie. Regardless of it’s actual merits, the trailers didn’t endear it to anyone.
I’ll buy HP as a factor but Disney themselves made SC2. So they’ve got no one to blame but themselves.
Chris W
I too think it was mismarketed. I was reluctant to see it, but a friend really wanted to see it (and I made her go see The Gift instead of Chocolat so it’s only fair) so I went. It was a lot better than the reviews I read lead me to believe it would be. It was older than I was expecting as well, and I heard a few parents having to explain certain pieces of the dialogue to their little ones who had no idea what was being said. Instead of very young children their target audience should have been 11ish up, much like Titian AE or many anime films.
Well, I too, feel I must chime in with a modest word of support for Treasure Planet. As if I matter. 
I would have stayed a little closer to the original story, myself, but that’s just me. And I must applaud Martin Short for managing to voice a “comic relief” character that I didn’t wish would meet a gruesome death. No small feat.
Besides, Captain Amelia was cool. Not to mention hot-er, I mean, um, a symbol of progressive attitudes towards character development. Yeah, that works. 
Ranchoth
Meow. I’ll second that emotion.
[sigh] Me too.
But still, with all this anime talk going on … does nobody know Spelljammer? I though someone might agree with me … sheesh.
I was trying to forget it actually. D&D, in space, with Giant Space Hamsters. What were they thinking?
And the Miniature Giant Space Hamsters, which are the same size as ordinary hamsters.
Damn those tinker gnomes…
Treasure Planet was great, I thought, but I think as a film its flaw was that it had some insanely good talent working on it, mixed in with some almost-there talent.
Although I love the story of Treasure Island, the reason I saw this movie the first night it was out was for Glen Keane, supervising animator for Silver. The last thing you’ve seen him do was Tarzan, easily my favorite Disney movie and one of their most popular.
I honestly really liked the movie. It’s not my favorite Disney, but it’s up there (then again my favorite muppet movie is still Muppet Treasure Island…).
As for where the money went, look at the credits for Silver, who of course has a lot of time on screen. He has Keane and a CGI animator, probably for that arm of his in its more complex moments. Disney has a habit of actually inventing new technology for their movies (most notably, Deep Canvas for Tarzan); while that probably didn’t happen here, they ceartainly invested a lot into making Silver an impressive on-screen presence.
and btw, The Black Cauldron was great. Also The Santa Clause 2 was excellent and well deserving of its success.
Wanted to throw in my support of Treasure Planet. I would say it wasn’t for the younger child as well. Too much depth I think. I was pretty surprised when I saw it, seems childrens movies has deeper themes than adult movies. I told my friend that drug me to see it this, and all he said was; “well, it is made after a 200 year old novel”.
Personally I will buy the DVD when it comes out, I liked it that much.
We enjoyed it. Myself, hubby, son who is 4 and daughter who is 3.
It did have “Atlantis” written all over it. But it was better done.
My husband says its the shortest pitch in history “Treasure Island — in Space!”
The real problem is that Disney went outside its formula. Instead of a missing mother, they had a missing father. Don’t screw with formula
Bah, Spelljammer was a rip off of Space 1889, which Treasure Planet clearly is ripping off.
I like animation but generally don’t care for Disney works, but when I saw the Treasure Planet trailer and commercials I was more than just turned off (as I typically am by Disney films) I was repelled.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, in the 60’s DC had a scifi strip with the same premise (space galleons) and that predates the RPG’s by a long shot and even Space Battleship Yamamoto by a few years. And even when that story was published I don’t think the idea was new.
You all mock the Giant Space Hampsters, but just imagine what their power would do for the Boards!!!
Not to mention their appetite.
I’ll chime in as another who was pleasantly surprised. My 5-year-old really wanted to see it, so off we trekked, me dreading it. I’d have to say it was one of the better Disney novel adaptations, especially considering the creative license they took with Hunchback. It wasn’t as good as Lilo & Stitch, but few movies are.
I wonder if maybe MouseCorp overreached themselves in 2002, trying to have TWO “big” mass-market animated features the same year (Lilo & Stitch, Treasure Planet). TP does look beautifully made with a high degree of technical achievement, and storywise you get a great headstart by basing yourself on Stevenson… But it came up against Harry Potter, and let’s be honest, that target audience will say “Robert Louis WHO?” My suspicion as to the timing is that they had pumped so much technical virtuosity into this that they so badly wanted it to be eligible for the very next Academy Awards.
Maybe the mass-market audience last spring/summer were more eager to see the more retro look of L&S and found more fun in its pop-culture referents – the Elvisiana, the MIB social worker, “humans are a food source for the endangered mosquito”, etc., than that of this fall was for a young man’s adventure… Hold it, I just thought: when was the last time that a primarily Action/Adventure (not primarily Action-Comedy, different creatures) animation was hugely succesful on US theatrical?
Even when such productions as Monsters, Inc., Shrek, and evensome of the Disney Animated Musicals have content that cuts across age groups, you could still sell it as “hey, this is funny and silly”. I know that the promos for L&S – with the various Elvis references, the “bluuuue punchbuggy”, the regurgitated cake – were saying to me: “hey, come see something funny!”.
OTOH, the promos for Treasure Planet left me… cool. Nothing in them told me, or my nephews, why should they want to see this movie; or how they would get a sense of wonder, adventure, discovery. Just that it’d look real good. Well, note to the studios: by now we EXPECT you to do wonders with CG, OK? Unfair to the crew, but the audience is quick to spoil. Plus the promos highlighted one element that ticked me off bigtime and which probably was not unique to me: the &^%$#@ flying sailboards. That just screamed “Bo-o-o-o-oGUS” because it so transparently meant someone just pulled out of their you-know-where an answer to: “What do kids think is cool? Let’s shoehorn a scene of that into the movie.”
On the far other hand, or rather prehensile tail, Diz wisely gave Mononoke Hime and Spirited Away “Art Film”-type distribution, and the angle here was more of a “you, who are obviously a sophisticated connoisseur, will appreciate this”. This of course keeps them from a relative flop had they tried to foist these onto the mass market. If only they had not sunk so much cash into Treasure Planet, maybe they could have opened it on limited screens, in an “Artsy animation” release, and then seen if it gathered word-of-mouth momentum. Alas,when you spend 140 Mega$ on a cartoon, you can’t do that.
Heh
Miniature Giant Space Hamsters
“Go for the eyes Boo, go for the eyes”