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MarzGurl Loves Don Bluth: Titan A.E.
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Release Date
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December 22, 2011
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Running Time
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18:46
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Previous Review
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MarzGurl Revaluates Titan A.E. and More
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Link
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MarzGurl: Hello, everyone and welcome to this, our final episode of our retrospective on Don Bluth's previous works.
(Clips from Titan A.E. are shown)
MarzGurl (vo): While Bluth had worked on some other projects outside the country and within music videos and such, his last major project was Titan A.E., released in the year 2000; and just like Anastasia, Bluth was working with Fox Animation Studios. What kills me, however is that this movie flopped so hard that it killed Fox Animation Studios.
MarzGurl: So what exactly caused this?
(We cut to That Sci-Fi Guy)
That Sci-Fi Guy: That's something I think I can help you figure out.
MarzGurl: Hey, it's That Sci-Fi Guy. Wait a minute, this has been my series, what are you doing here?
SFG: Look, Titan A.E. is plainly a science fiction movie, so I'm pretty sure I belong here.
MarzGurl: Well, alright, but...okay, before we begin, what's your general opinion on this movie?
SFG: Not good.
MarzGurl: (scoffs) C'mon, it's not that bad.
SFG: Are you kidding me? It was a major flop and it destroyed an animation studio! I don't care how big of a Don Bluth fan you are, if you're about to go through the movie, you'll see for yourself just how bad it is.
MarzGurl: Okay, fine, let's do this.
(More clips are shown)
MarzGurl (vo): Before I start, though, I want to bring up the fact that this movie is called Titan A.E., but nowhere in the movie even once did they say what the A.E. stands for.
SFG: Oh, that's because they expected you to read the promotional poster.
MarzGurl: What?
(The poster for the movie is shown, zooming in on the URL for the movie, AfterEarth.com)
MarzGurl (vo): Ooooh, After Earth? Is that what it stands for?
MarzGurl: Well, would it have killed them to have said it like once or twice?
(Back to the movie clips)
SFG (vo): We open with an image of space and some very important narration.
Narrator: Once in a great while, mankind unlocks a secret so profound that our future is altered forever...
(During this, MarzGurl and Sci-Fi Guy are both shown falling asleep; Sci-Fi Guy then abruptly wakes up)
Narrator: Fire, electricity, splitting the atom...
SFG: Ahh, I'm awake, I'm awake!
MarzGurl (vo): Welcome to Earth in 3028 A.E. We're introduced to a kid named Cale; his father (Sam Tucker) appears to be somebody pretty important. He puts his kid on another ship while he takes off and pilots some other big bulbous craft.
SFG: Wow, the CG integration in this is almost as awkward as it is in Blue Submarine No. 6.
SFG (vo): You've got this smooth-looking traditional animation, but with this clunky CG, it's like they're interacting with a completely different movie.
MarzGurl: Yeah, I gotta admit, I'm quite a bit disappointed.
MarzGurl (vo): I actually think that the 2D human animations in both Anastasia and Titan A.E. are gorgeous, but it means nothing to me when they're clashing with their CG sets.
SFG: And it's not like it can't be done well. The Animatrix used cell shading, and it turned out much better.
SFG (vo): Over the course of the movie, the human race is under attack by the Drej, an alien race made of pure energy, and for some barely unexplained reason, they find the Earth important enough to blow up.
MarzGurl: See, this I don't get, the Drej are never very well explained.
MarzGurl (vo): Their design is pretty cool, but their hatred of the human race falls flat. There's only one real explanation for why the Drej do what they do.
Cale (Matt Damon): So what did the human race ever do to the Drej?
Akima (Drew Barrymore): It's not what we did, they're afraid of what we might become.
MarzGurl (vo): And in personal opinion, that explanation isn't enough; they just sort of come off as the same kind of bad guy that the shark in Jaws is, just some creature that mindlessly destroys. Jump fifteen years later and Cale, voiced and drawn to look exactly like Matt Damon, is some kind of vain construction worker in a universe full of other species.
MarzGurl: (smiles and waves) Hello, universal racism.
SFG (vo): He ends up floating off course in an attempt to take a shortcut, running into the windshield of a docking ship with a beautiful purple-haired girl on deck.
(Cale flies into the windshield and Akima looks on in confusion)
Cale: Hi.
(He whistles as he takes a rag out of nowhere and pretends he's wiping up the ship)
SFG: Um, why does he have a rag?
MarzGurl: Where did it come from?
SFG: Does he have a bag of holding?
MarzGurl: Is there, like, a pocket dimension inside his jacket?
SFG: Is he a Time Lord?
MarzGurl (vo): Well, Cale eventually makes it onto a ship to sit down and have lunch with that weird and foolish baggage alien (Tek) who helped carry him off Earth fifteen years ago. The restaurant doesn't exactly have all the comforts of home.
Cale: Do you have ketchup?
Alien chef: Ketchup? Ketchup?! You need ketchup? Please, next. Go on! Disgraceful that those dirty humans need ketchup! Some nerve.
SFG: Oh God, I hope that annoying bug isn't gonna be part of the main cast.
MarzGurl: Nope, he dies.
SFG: Sweet!
MarzGurl (vo): We're reintroduced to Korso, voiced by Bill Pullman, a man we saw earlier for a total of about five seconds helping Cale's dad get the Titan ship off Earth. He gives Cale a ring genetically encoded to his dad, and by that same token, to him; the ring displays a map in the palm of his hand, indicating the location of where the Titan is hidden. I actually find this to be a pretty cool idea.
MarzGurl: Every so often, the movie drops in some cool little idea and I would love for them to expand upon it, but it's, like, they never actually give us the time.
SFG (vo): This is when the Drej pop in looking for camp.
SFG: Looks like we have to make a daring escape.
Cale: Ugh, not a lot of time!
(Their ship's windshield begins to shatter)
Karso: Exhale.
Cale: You gotta be kidding me!
Karso: Exhale!
(Karso uses an extinguisher to blast Cale and himself to a larger ship)
SFG: And they both died! Was this movie supposed to be this short?
MarzGurl: No, see, they make it to the other ship just in time.
SFG: I feel a human body exposed to the vacuum of space like that would experience explosive decompression! They would literally be ripped apart.
MarzGurl: Well, if you want to get all (finger quoting) technobabbly about it...
SFG: (irritated) Moving on.
MarzGurl (vo): Turns out Korso is the captain of the Good Ship... something. Man, I wish we knew the name of the ship. Anyway, that hot girl from before is there named Akima, and unfortunately voiced by Drew Barrymore.
Cale: I'm still naked here.
Akima: I hadn't noticed. Now hold still or you'll lose something really important.
MarzGurl: This just continues to solidify the idea in my head that stage and film actors do not double as voice actors.
SFG: Okay, if we're gonna see his ass, does that mean we get to see hers, too? I want some equal opportunity exposure here.
MarzGurl: Sorry, man, you'll have to just put up with seeing her in a towel instead later.
SFG: Lame!
SFG (vo): So let's begrudgingly meet the crew; there's Preed, voiced by Nathan Lane.
Cale: I happen to be humanity's last great hope.
Preed: I weep for the species.
SFG (vo): Stiff, a four-kneed kangaroo...thing voiced by Janeane Garofalo...
Preed: You remember Cale?
Stiff: No no no no no no no no, cannot talk, we lost targeting in one of our half gun turrets again!
SFG (vo): And Gune, a chatty scientist, voiced by John Leguizamo.
Gune: (mumbling quietly)...multiplied by the coefficient of the friction force.
SFG (vo): The crew is mostly useless and not expanded upon, but at least Gune manages to tell us that we need to get to the planetarium.
SFG: Now MarzGurl, I know you do a different kind of show than I do, but those hydrogen trees very closely resemble a certain part of the male anatomy.
SFG (vo): And that aside, is that hydrogen in those thin membranes?
SFG: You know, the element that caused this?
(News footage from the infamous Hindenberg disaster is shown)
SFG: They would have blown up as soon as a stiff wind blew by.
MarzGurl: (moans sadly) I actually thought the concept was cool for a while there.
MarzGurl (vo): You know, it bugs me that we get to this planet where the characters apparently know about the race that lives there known as the Gaoul. They also know that nobody knows what they look like because they like to hide away so much. So what's their reaction when they see a hoard of some race they've never seen before?
Korso: Open fire in five, we'll clear a path through the slab.
MarzGurl: That's right, a thousand years into the future and the human race still isn't any smarter.
SFG (vo): The Gaoul have Cale hold up his hand to the sky to adjust the map in his hand; this whole time, Preed and Gune are supposed to be watching for the Drej.
SFG: Yeah, that doesn't happen. The Drej inevitably show up and ruin the party.
MarzGurl (vo): This is another example where I wish the movie had given time to elaborate. Cale's father had to have made friends with the Gaoul to allow him to stand in that one specific spot to get answers to the location of the Titan on the map. Obviously, the Gaoul find it important enough to keep Cale and the other members of the crew safe, even to the point of getting themselves killed either by being shot by the Drej or flying into their own hydrogen trees. I can't imagine why human lives would be that terribly important to the Gaoul, but there must be some sort of reason, right?
MarzGurl: Well, not like we'll ever learn about it.
SFG (vo): In the end, both Cale and Akima are captured by the Drej. Eventually, Akima is disposed of while they hold on to Cale so they can have the mechanism.
SFG: At least they put her in a pod, I mean, that was unnecessarily kind of them. I would have just jettisoned her into space.
MarzGurl: Thankfully, the Drej are crazy easy to escape from.
(Cale pushes through the electrical barrier with ease)
SFG: Worst. jail cell. ever. That's not how electricity works, I mean, I don't even know what to say to that! Did they just not anticipate meeting non energy-based life-forms?
MarzGurl: Yeah, it's like the Drej have never actually taken prisoners before!
MarzGurl (vo): And frankly, this is the one moment where I don't know what the producers of the movie were thinking when they designed this escape; this makes the least sense of anything I've seen thus far. So Cale, being the master of stealth that he is, manages to steal a Drej ship and fly back to meet his crew, the same crew who also happened to find Akima really, really fast after being launched in a pod out into space, and never mind the fact that the Drej have the map. The crew plans on getting to the Titan first.
Preed: Distal pharyngeal meridian.
MarzGurl: Wait, it's where?
Preed: Distal pharyngeal meridian.
MarzGurl: The middle finger?!
SFG: That actually sounds strangely appropriate.
Gune: Yes...Alpha quadrant... this is the ice rings of Ti gran.
SFG: When I think ice, I immediately think shades of reddish orange. Although, I guess that does fit if this is the ice rings of Trigun.
MarzGurl: Ti gran.
SFG: Whatever.
MarzGurl: Enough of that, let's show off our pretty graphics!
(We see the slip flying through the planet with some incredibly lame CG animation while It's My Turn to Fly by The Urge plays)
SFG: It's My Turn to Fly? Seriously? What is with these generic 90s rock montages? It's like they tried to squeeze in so many of these songs that they forgot to leave room for a cohesive plot.
MarzGurl: And that's another big problem I have, it's not like they didn't have plot.
MarzGurl (vo): You know, before we saw that planet with the Gaoul, there was this scene with Cale and Korso; a ton of it is cut from the official movie, but there's a nice explanation of who Cale's father was and why the Titan was so important. This is extremely important for us to have because otherwise, the audience won't know why we're supposed to care about finding the Titan. As it is, the explanation is too vague; on top of that...
(Concept art for the movie is shown)
MarzGurl (vo):...there are other interesting scenes that have been cut, and if you'd only seen just how much extra stuff they created and worked on that didn't make it into the movie, you'd see that there'd be this whole universe of stuff that the audience had the potential to fall in love with.
MarzGurl: That's why it kills me that instead of all that, they give us this!
(More footage from before is shown)
SFG: Oh, so they literally jammed in one too many 90s rock anthems. What, was the RIAA co-producing?
MarzGurl (vo): Before we can get to the Titan, we have to make a thrilling stop at New Bangkok.
SFG (vo): You know, because old Bangkok was so great.
MarzGurl: But suddenly, a shocking turn of events!
Drej: (subtitled) We will do as we please to ensure the Titan's Destruction.
Karso: Yeah? Do as you please, 'cause guess what? You can do nothing! You don't got the map, the kid's got it, and I've got the kid!
(During this, Cale and Akima sneak in and eavesdrop on his plan)
SFG: (as Karso) I'm just yelling about my secret plan with the door open! Of course, no one will hear me!
MarzGurl: I must say, I really liked some of the fight choreography, though.
MarzGurl (vo): It's like I've been saying all this time, Don Bluth's human animations are gorgeous, even when it comes down to throwing punches; and this stare off after Akima gets shot through the shoulder? Heh, priceless.
Woman: She'll be fine, she just needs some rest, don't worry.
SFG: Oh, yes, rest. All bullet wounds can be cured by...rest.
MarzGurl: Yep...and apparently, not that much rest, either, because she's up and ready to go and start working on ships in just a few hours.
SFG (vo): So yeah, Cale decides that it's still possible to get to the Titan before either Korso or the Drej. But in order to do that, they need to fix up a busted old ship.
(We see Cale and Akima fixing the ship; during this, Like Lovers (Holding On) by Texas is playing)
SFG: As we've learned by now, there's nothing a 90s rock montage can't solve.
MarzGurl (vo): And so after that musical interlude, our heroes are off to the ice rings of Ti gran, but once they get there, there is a problem.
Akima: (off screen) The reflections are throwing our readings off.
MarzGurl: Wait, wait, wait, is that seriously the problem? Your instruments are thrown off by reflections? Okay, now let's just pretend that that was seriously like a thing, can that really not be something that's, like, overcome by the year 3043?
SFG (vo): After a cheeky game of cat and mouse, Cale and Akima are surprisingly the first to arrive at the Titan.
Akima: Have you ever seen anything like it?
SFG: Yes, I've watched Star Wars.
SFG (vo): They've never seen anything like it, but clearly, that's the dock, and of course, there's breathable air in there.
MarzGurl (vo): So this is the Titan; it basically appears to be the holding place for the DNA structures of every living creature on Earth. Cale very quickly manages to figure out that he's supposed to take his ring off and put it on this thing to activate the Titan. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen and he's instead greeted by a message from his dead father.
Sam Tucker: After that, the procedure...
(The transmission is interrupted by Korso blasting at it)
Korso: He always did talk too much.
MarzGurl: (facepalms) Oh, great, Korso, thanks.
SFG (vo): Now a couple of minutes ago, Korso and Preed left Gune and Stiff on the ship with a bomb to keep them out of their way, but now...
Akima: You okay?
Cale: Yeah.
(Stiff is shown to be with them for no reason)
SFG: Big legs is with them now? What, did we miss a scene? Was there a mistake or...I guess this is another one of those deleted scenes you were talking about.
MarzGurl: (scoffs) Don't look at me, I don't know where this one came from.
MarzGurl (vo): Anyway, the Drej are quickly approaching and with a ton of unforeseen backstabbing and one admittedly awesome snap of a neck, our heroes have to figure out how to activate the Titan, not have it blow up, and avoid dying.
MarzGurl: And just when you think all hope is lost...
Gune: I have reached my map!
(Gune pilots their ship and destroys the Drej ship)
SFG: Huh, didn't expect to see the nerd being the Han Solo character.
MarzGurl (vo): Korso ends up redeeming himself and sacrificing his life to initiate the startup process of the Titan and our heroes make a grand escape as the enemy is used as fuel to create an entire planet.
MarzGurl: I'm assuming that those huge blocks of ice are there to generate the planet's water?
SFG: That's actually kind of clever using the ice to make water.
(Dr. Wiki suddenly appears)
Dr. Wiki: Not limited solely to water, ice can be composed of many different elements.
SFG: Dr. Wiki? What, do you just follow me everywhere?
MarzGurl: I gotta say, though, I'm not a fan of this planet creation process.
MarzGurl (vo): No matter how you look at it, it would take too much time and pressure to create a whole new star, and there's certainly no way the ship was outrunning what appeared to be a massive gravitational pull; and how long did it take to make that planet? Like, a few days? I'm sorry, I don't care if we are a thousand years into the future, there's just no way I'm going to believe that. And so, here's our main characters standing on a cliff and...oh, that zoom out is awful! I realized this was released almost twelve years ago, but that zoom out and switch from 2D to 3D was just unacceptable, I mean, it was bad!
Akima: What are you going to call it?
Cale: I think I'll call it Bob.
Akima: Bob?
Cale: You don't like Bob?
Akima: You can't call a planet Bob.
SFG: Really? You go out on Planet Bob? Who the hell is Bob?
SFG (vo): That was a terrible joke! You can't do a callback to that!
SFG: So MarzGurl, good job, you've successfully looked at Titan A.E. Is your opinion now any different than it was before?
MarzGurl: Well, only a little. I mean, I admit that the movie is severely flawed in many, many areas.
MarzGurl (vo): After all, I suppose there is indeed a reason why Fox Animation Studios died after its release. I just get so sad because I see a movie with such potential and a world of possibility from my favorite animator who admittedly did a fantastic job when it came to the job of animating in 2D. But the end result just feels like they had so much to work with, that they had to rush the way they told their story, and it all just fell apart.
MarzGurl: Maybe it would have done better if it were a couple of movies strung together or a short TV series or something like that. What about you, Sci-Fi Guy?
SFG: Well, I have to agree, I think a TV series would have been a better vessel for this. The lack of blending on the CG already made it look like it was made for TV, and they could have kept one musical sequence per episode and maybe still fit in some plot.
MarzGurl: Well, it's been a lot of fun. Again, I'm MarzGurl...
SFG: And I'm That Sci-Fi Guy...
MarzGurl: And I just can't thank you guys enough for sticking with me through this whole journey throughout Don Bluth's previous releases. Maybe we can go on another similar journey sometime soon, but until then, thank you so much for sticking with me and take care, you guys.
(Credits are shown)