Titan A.E.


Dir: Don Bluth and Gary Goldman
Voice: Matt Damon, Bill Pullman, Drew Barrymore

Why is it so hard to get computer animation and traditional cel animation to mix? These days, films like Gladiator show that you can seamlessly meld CGI and live-action, yet Titan A.E. looks like two different movies spliced together at the hip by a blind editor. It's a nice thought to have Earth destroyed inside five minutes, and you could make challenging SF about the impact this would have on the survivors and their culture. That'd fit a desire to produce animation for a more mature audience, but this tossed salad of Star Wars, Independence Day and various Star Trek movies (most blatantly Wrath of Khan) would be more at home on Saturday morning kids' TV, which is also Disney-wannabe Don Bluth's natural home. As eye-candy, there are some stunning sequences, most notably around an ice-ring system, yet as soon as plot elements arrive, it falls apart. Example: the main enemy and destroyers of Earth, the Drej, are "pure energy" - so why do their spaceships have seats and manual controls? So our hero is able to steal one, that's why. Audiences stayed away in droves, for good reason, and Fox Animation folded. The next sound you will hear is a mouse sniggering in the distance.

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