Review: 'Titan A.E.'

(Warning: some of the plot line, such as it is, is given away here, but not the ending). The animated sci-fi flic "Titan A.E." is dumb and muddled, despite some entertaining moments and neat special effects. This genre -- at least the Hollywood part -- is becoming dangerously unimaginative and predictable. Almost anyone reading could lay out the plot line without seeing a single scene. Shaft, which clobbered "Titan" at the box office this weekend, is more fun.

Titan A.E. is a good-hearted disappointment.

One of the striking things about Close Encounters Of The Third Kind was that it had the daring idea to present alien life as decidedly non-hostile, the aliens as curious about us as we are about them. Because extraterrestrial life is a blank, writers run amok imagining what life out there might be like. From Orson Welles to L. Ron Hubbard to Ben Edlund, John August and Joss Whedon (Titan's writers), they hardly ever come up with anything pretty.

Most recent sci-fi films, animated or otherwise, including the Mother Movie (Star Wars) construct their films around the premise that in the future there is a technologically advanced, demonic alien culture out there which has ravaged our planet; loathes humanity and is determined to wipe us out for murky reasons in the most vicious possible way at all costs. They always have great, if unreliable technology and weapons that fire light in pulsating bursts or laser beams. This has been the story of this summer's most spectacular catastrophe, Battlefield Earth, and also of this week's animated intergalactic adventure Titan A.E., directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.

Some of the animation is very good, and if you're into it, worth the trek. But the plot is becoming numbingly familiar, the genre dangerously predictable: brash and irreverant (and handsome) young space orphan (Cale, voiced by Matt Damon) seething with father-son issues and soon to square off against the relentless and very blue Drej (like Border Collies, they are pure energy), which had suddenly blown up the earth 15 years ago to stave off the completion of the Titan Project, humanity's last and only hope. Yes, you probably have figured out by now that the headstrong Cale is the last hope for the future of the species.

Why wipe out an entire planet? It isn't because of anything humans have done, but because of what we clever rascals might do in the future, explains one character, especially if people regain control of the supership Titan, hidden away somewhere deep in the galaxy by Cale's dad. For some reason, just leaving primitive humans alone is never an option for the Drej. The Titan (A.E. stands for "After Earth) has the power -- precisely how is never explained -- to give humanity its own planet back, and Cale has to get to the ship before the Drej do, confronted along the way by innumerable laser blasts, betrayals, and rapid maturation experiences. Helping him along is the now standard sci-fi feminist tough-girl pilot Akima (Drew Barrymore) who flies and talks suspiciously like Han Solo when she and Cale aren't a-flutter over one another.

The well-equipped Drej are advanced enough to wipe out the earth in seconds and to capture Cale, but they haven't quite figured out how to build a cell that can hold him for 30 seconds. Although the future of humans is on the line, Cale never loses site of the real drama in the movie -- coming to terms with seething resentment at his Dad.

This movie, while entertaining and warm-hearted, isn't funny or scary enough. The special effects/animation bar is being raised all the time, and those in Titan, A.E. aren't spectacular. The studio expected male teenagers to flock to this movie, but according to the weekend grosses, they didn't. Neither did anybody else. Perhaps they sensed that the mythology is lame. That the writers stuck unaccountably close to the Star Wars story lines. That there are too many characters moving too quickly in too many different settings for us to know or care about any of them. And the plot....well, it's past time for some new clicks in the earth-ravaged-by-technology-humans-pursued by no-dimensional aliens sci-fi flick plot line. Almost anybody reading this could recite the plot line by heart without seeing a single scene. If you're into animation or special affects, go see it. Otherwise, Shaft is a better choice.

Comments

Something you have to learn about Hollywood...

[torpor]

... is that it is generally taking into account the fact that each year, a *new generation* of movie goers is buying tickets, whereas most movie reviewers who complain of the same old plots aren't really considering this.

There are kids today who view Star Wars as a dusty old flick with cheesy hairdo's, a 'standard story line', and stupid looking special effects.

Face it, you're getting older. You might not like the same old bad-alien plots, but new moviegoers (new kids) who haven't quite gotten to that part about life yet, *are* buying tickets to see this story, in whatever form, manifest. And Hollywood knows this quite well.

So, start looking at different sources of entertainment. Hollywood is only ever going to try and do what's best for its bank accounts, and if that means more bad-alien movies, then that's what it's going to do... complaining about it belies your own misunderstanding of market regeneration, a Hollywood term.

Re:Neuromancer

[Masem]

Rumor has it that Gibson was involved though not as strongly as with N with "Johnny Mnemonic". Makes you wonder how that could have been bastardized that badly.

On another note, Douglas Adams is also keeping a very tight rein on the production of Hitchhiker's Guide , so that's another positive note to look foward too.

Re:Ummm.... What?

[Masem]

"The Secret of NIMH".

Ok, so there are cute furry creatures in it. But it is Sci-Fi. The animation, for it's time, was well done, and there's real character development. Yes, the movie has it's flaws (too much of the Dom Deluis character), but it's very strong by itself. (And this was also a Bluth production).

Also, you can try "Balto", while not sci-fi, the story and characters are rather deep, and only suffers from improperly placed comic relief. But there *are* moments in that film that are quite moving emotionally.

NIMH stands for...

[Robin Hood]

National Institute of Mental Health.

I find it slightly worrying that I read the book about ten years ago, but I can still remember what NIMH stands for. But I continually forget things like appointments, meeting times... Isn't selective memory wonderful?
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:

Re:Ummm.... What?

[Erskin]

Katz was too hard on this film, and I'm grateful to you for pointing out its finer qualities since I certainly wouldn't have sounded as elegant as you did.

That being said, I do have three points to make.

• Star Wars did not have an unknown alien race who wanted to/did blow up Earth. Bad Katz. No Cookie.
• The writing and dialogue in this film was excellent. With all the things too see and hear, it says a lot that the writing stood out so much that I noticed.
• This is an American film. It was not made in Japan. As such, it is a landmark. Could you imagine seeing an American made film like this 10 years ago? 5 years? 1 year?

Go watch it. It's a little short, but fun. (And it's set a new standard for integrating CGI with traditional animation...)

--

Titan AE changes drastically halfway through

[Brian Kendig]

I've seen 'Titan AE' twice -- once on opening night, again on Sunday. The first time through I complained about some of the plot holes, but I went back to enjoy it as pure eye candy, and it works really well as that.

But it struck me that the movie's plot isn't all bad; it just suddenly and markedly gets dumbed down at one specific point.

For about an hour, the movie's going along great, covering some interesting issues: Cale's way of dealing with abandonment, humanity's demotion to third-rate species in the universe, Akima's zeal to collect those last few trinkets by which to remember Earth's lost culture... it puts our heroes into fascinating new environments, and it shows that aliens (specifically, the bats) can be shown as humanoid and wise without having to make them speak.

Then, suddenly comes the betrayal scene (which itself is handled very clumsily), and everything from there on out becomes standard formula. Pretty, but uninspired. All of the subplots which had been developed up to that point are suddenly dropped.

Throw away the rest of the film at that point, rewrite the ending to keep the evil aliens mysterious and impersonal, bring about the climax by having Cale abandon the commander then later come around after having dealt with his own personal demons, and you'd have a much deeper, more solid movie, I think.

All things considered, I really liked the character of Stith, the bowlegged kangaroo/griffin creature. She was a female sidekick but she wasn't portrayed as weak or stupid, she had a temper but she was an effective warrior -- come to think of it, she was probably this movie's Chewbacca. A lot of people have complained about her crazy leg design, but I enjoyed it as another example of Don Bluth coming up with unconventional characters.

Correction

[MouseR]

Most recent sci-fi films, animated or otherwise, including the Mother Movie (Star Wars) construct their films around the premise that in the future there is a technologically advanced, demonic alien culture out there which has ravaged our planet;

We haven't seen the same Star Wars, I think.

Star Wars is set in the past. In some other galaxy. Doesn't involve our planet, and the bad ass evil dude is a humanoid, not a nasty green-eyed bug alien. (Compare Aliens, Starship Troopers etc).

Re:Try Princess Mononoke

[cpt kangarooski]

Well Mononoke is a Miyazaki movie, and does actually bear quite a bit of resemblance to one of his earlier (famous) movies, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. (never ever look for the dub)

But they aren't as similar as a lot of American cartoons tend to be. More or less all of Miyazaki's movies are good. I suggest looking for Castle of Cagliostro, Porco Rosso, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro. There are a lot of other films he's done as well, and they're worth checking out.

Oh, there's been worse.

[cpt kangarooski]

Who's seen "Starchaser: The Legend of Orin"?

Now, *THERE'S* a Star Wars clone. One thing I'm looking for myself though is a 70's-80's sf cartoon movie that ran on Nickelodeon in the mid-80's, and was probably European. I remember that some of the people lived in Casseopiea (the constellation stupid, not the PDA) but that's about it.

Re:Scientifically inaccurate, but still entertaini

[Genom]

[Obscure sci-fi RPG reference: see 'Glitter Boy', RIFTS RPG, Palladium]

Unrelated to the above reference (which is the first time I've seen a cause for an appropriate RIFTS reference on /.) - I think that the main reason we don't see mirror-defenses much is that most sci-fi flicks interchange lasers with particle beams, which don't reflect, and don't require they be held on a target for any outstanding period of time. (pulse rather than beam, etc...)

Still fun to watch though.

Re:Evangelion is above it all

[Genom]

Give Eva time. It doesn't start getting REALLY good/deep until at least halfway through - and remember - when you reach tape 13, restart at the beginning, and watch the entire thing through again before you watch the last tape. You WILL miss things that are important - and the ending WILL confuse the $#!^ out of you the first time you watch it.

Review: Jon Katz's "Review: 'Titan A.E.'"

[Palin Majere]

(Warning: Some of Jon Katz's comments may make little or no sense. Spoiler material contained within)

"This movie, while entertaining and warm-hearted, isn't funny or scary enough."

Ah, yes Jon. Exactly what were you expecting it be with a _PG_ rating? I was personally amazed at some of the content the ratings board let slip into the PG market. Gratuitous animated gore usually doesn't survive the 'dumbing down' to PG-level. Neither do butt-shots of the lead character. Had this been a PG-13 movie, and designed to be scary, we could've expected a lot more. They could have easily made the Drej absolute nightmares, but they didn't, because this is not a "scary" movie.

(WARNING: Spoilers below this point)

"The Titan (A.E. stands for "After Earth) has the power -- precisely how is never explained -- to give humanity its own planet back,"

It's not explained because most of the target audience (male teenagers, according to Katz) doesn't have enough of a grasp of physics. Hey Jon, do you know how Star Trek's Warp Drive works? How about their shields? What about the Death Star's energy cannons? No? Does it matter? Does it take away from the movie at all?

"The well-equipped Drej are advanced enough to wipe out the earth in seconds and to capture Cale, but they haven't quite figured out how to build a cell that can hold him for 30 seconds."

Sigh. And he misses a plot point entirely. Jon, did it ever occur to you that the Drej let him escape? Ever wonder why the Drej didn't wonder where their rogue fighter ran off to? Did Corseau's betrayal give you any clue? Sheez.

"For some reason, just leaving primitive humans alone is never an option for the Drej."

Gyah. Someone needs to explain the concept of a "plot" to Jon. Could the Drej be harassing humans because they're _gasp_ looking for Cale so they can make sure the Titan, a ship capable of destroying them utterly, is destroyed forever?

"Although the future of humans is on the line, Cale never loses site of the real drama in the movie -- coming to terms with seething resentment at his Dad."

Again, Jon misses another not-so-subtle plot point. Remember Cale's big speech at the start of the movie? About how he doesn't care about the human race as a hole, because it's already doomed? For a large portion of the movie, Cale is just in it for himself. As it progresses, he slowly grows into the role Corseau presented to him at the beginning, the "Saviour of Mankind". Meanwhile, Corseau slowly sheds his shiny exteriour to reveal the bitterness lurking underneath. It's wonderful to see plot depth like this in a _PG_ movie.

Overall, I found Titan AE to be exactly what I expected it to be: A "Transformers, the Movie" for the 21st century. Beautiful special effects, using a blending of CGI, hand-drawn animation, and painted art (which according to Katz is uninspiring and yet is supposed to appeal to the special-effects crowd?), a wonderful plot, and (for once) a non-orchestral soundtrack that not only fits well into the movie, but does wonders to set the mood. This is definately a movie to go see if you enjoy animation/cartoons at all, and while not quite as much 'fun' as Shaft, the fact that _it actually has a plot_ makes it far more enjoyable as whole (I saw Shaft prior to seeing Titan. It's a blast, but consists solely of Samuel L. Jackson being a badass).

Yet another gratuitous comment...

[alumshubby]

John K., I respectfully suggest that when reviewing the movie, you may have neglected to consider its true audience. It's really at a level that will appeal most to the 10-to-14 set than the later teens or grown-up /. crowd. If you can see it through younger eyes, it's actually a pretty entertaining little flick.

I'll grant you it's not Bertolucci, Kurosawa or Bergman, but what the hey, it's summer entertainment. I hope you'll think about that, wait a couple weeks, and go see it again.

Disclaimer: I don't work for the studio, the distributor, a theater chain, or anywhere in the infotainment industry...I'm just a poor old broken-down technical writer. But I DID see the movie yesterday.

Copied from abroad, again.

[Pig Hogger]

...
especially if people regain control of the supership Titan, hidden away somewhere deep in the galaxy by Cale's dad.

Gosh, lord, here is the plot of the french comic series " Le vagabond des limbes ", by Godard & Ribera. (Book cover shots here). In it, a renegade flees from authority in an invincible ship designed by his father. Interestingly, though, there is another duplicate of the ship in the hands of the authorities, but since both ships are invincible, none can dent the other.

Can't american scriptwriters invent something really original???

--
Here's my mirror

Re:HERE HERE! Not an Intellectual Movie! Still FUN

[Robotech_Master]

Not all Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations are intellectual.

The 10th Kingdom, for example.

Too bad it won't play properly on DVD-ROM drives...
--

whatever -- [REPLY WHORING!]

[mcc]

Blah. American animated movies funded by large companies.. useless. Who cares. Well, at least it wasn't a musical.

I suggest we use this thread to suggest to people some _real_, _creative_, maybe even *gasp* _deep_, *cough cough* ANIME *cough* animation they could be seeing if they want some kind of vaguely scifi-ish "edgy" thing.

There is, of course, the obvious [Ghost in the Shell, Nuku Nuku, Evangelon].. and i hear Lain is pretty good but i haven't gotten around to seeing it yet.. anyone want to suggest for me any really freaky/obscure anime i've never heard of?

Is there actually _any_ american animation of this type that doesn't suck? Lets see, there's Daria and South Park, but they're really something else.. i guess there's always Aeon Flux/Power Puff Girls/Space ghost or whatever.. i'm sure there's something good i'm missing.. is there? There was an ad i saw for something on the scifi channel that looked kind of nifty, any idea what that might have been? Is there any american animation that is truly and completely tripped out, not just "edgy" ..?

Re:whatever -- [REPLY WHORING!]

[Cheerio Boy]

I personally like Dirty Pair.

My first contact with DP was at a SCI-FI convention where they showed tapes "re-dubbed" by a company called Pinesalad Productions.
Imagine MST3K'ing Dirty Pair with American sex jokes, and whatnot and you'll get the idea. It wasn't anywhere near accurate but it was hilarious!

Those where what started me really on Anime. Sure they were horrible but I think it's way too high an expectation of most anime to be intelligent. Look at Aika (Aieka?) Naked Mission - it wasn't serious anime, not with a panty shot every 30 - 45 seconds (yes we timed it), but it was great fun to sit back with popcorn and watch!


The Tick - "Spoon!"

HERE HERE! Not an Intellectual Movie! Still FUN!

[BRock97]

Is this day and age of the thought provoking, Hall Mark Hall of Fame Edition movie, this was a refreshing breeze of mindless fun. I can concur the storyline was not well developed, but served its purpose none the less. These types of movies are meant to be enjoyed on the 'gee whize' effect with the story serving to get us there, and no more. The first Star Wars, the second best in the trilogy, following Empire and beating the crap out of RotJ, wasn't perfect literature, but it got the viewer where we wanted to go.

I am surprised that Katz put this much thought into a movie that was clearly meant to be appreciated for the action and glitz. I would almost feel sorry for Mr. Katz as it appears he has lost a bit of his inner child for the chance to rip a movie apart on its writing. What a shame.

As a whole, I greatly recommend this movie. Sit back, open your eyes, and be wowed. I sure was.

Bryan R.

Re:Ummm.... What?

[Biff Cool]

if you're looking for some sort of substance to your movies, you aren't going to find it in an animated movie....
But somehow Jon Katz thinks it will be in Shaft?

Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

Review of "Katz" (-1, true)

[angelo]

The animated Slashdot writer "Jon Katz" is dumb and muddled, despite some entertaining moments and liberal use of the word "geek". This class of writer -- at least the Wired/Salon kind-- is becoming dangerously unimaginative and predictable. They rant on and on, and hold their opinion as truth and law. Almost anyone reading could figure out what these authors have to say by their trite little titles. CmdrTaco, who clobbered "Katz" in postings last week, is more informative.

"Jon Katz" is a addle-pated disappointment.

One of the striking things about Slashdot is that it holds the daring notion to present completely vapid content as news for nerds, which is curious to us as it is usually so 5 minutes ago. Because content here is a blank, posters run amok imagining pouring hot grits down Natalie Portmann's pants.

Most recent writers, animated or dead, including the Mother-of-All-Poseurs (Jon Katz) construct their articles around the premise of absolutely nothing, presented with great volume and fervor. They always have grandiose, if unreliable prose and puns that delight us in all too inconsistent bursts or analogies that fall flat.

Some of the writing is good, and if you're into it, worth the read. But the style is becoming numbingly familiar, the genre dangerously predictable: brash and irreverant writers seething with Natalie/grits issues and soon to square off against the relentless and very smart trolls (like Border Collies, they are naked and petrified), which had gone bezerk 1 year ago when Katz went to a place called the "hellmouth", which threatens the trolls with abuse of geekdom. Yes, you probably have figured out by now that the headstrong Katz is the least hope for the future of Slashdot.

Why demogoge Klebold and Harris? It isn't because of anything they did when they were alive, but because of one word: Geek. For some reason, leaving the topic of Columbine alone is not something that Katz likes to do. Helping him along is the stigma of the game "DOOM" and the revelation (made by Katz) that they were geeks, damnit! This leads to the sticky wicket of millions of hits to slashdot, and the purchase of the site by Andover.net.

The well-equipped Slashdot is advanced enough to create a popular community, but they haven't quite figured out how to fill the site with anything to keep down the unedited, flambait content. Although the future of Slashdot is on the line, Katz never loses site of his real goal in life -- coming to terms with being called a poseur by Slashdotters.

This writer, while entertaining and warm-hearted, isn't funny or clever enough. The special absent content/useless opinion bar is being raised all the time, and Katz's articles aren't any different. Andover expected male teenagers to adore this author, but according to the amount of trolls, they don't. Neither did anybody else. Perhaps they sensed that the subjects were lame. That the writer strayed from the hot grits that make Slashdot so great. That there are too many turns of phrase and abused cliche references too many different places for us to understand or care about any of them. And the point....well, it's past time for some new ideas in the geek-trolled-by-smarter-humans-than-him armed with natalie portman hot-grits troll-guns. Almost anybody reading this could recite the theme by heart without reading past the first paragraph. If you're into dull content and the word geek, read JonKatz. Otherwise, Stuff hot grits down your petrified shorts. It's more entertaining.

As promised, I've given up on Karma. have a nice day.

Re:Review of "Katz" (-1, true)

[laborit]

The first mention of the word "geek" on this page is in "geeks in space," featuring the highly rated CmdrTaco. The second is yours. In the past, Katz's overextension of the disaffected-geek paradigm has earned my reproof, but I saw none of it here.

Your comments were entirely unrelated to the event that supposedly prompted them. Ironically, you're guilty of the very sin of which you accuse Katz.

- Michael Cohn

Actually, her name should have been...

[dmorin]

If the copilot had been named Akamai, then she could make the ship go really, really fast, and she'd personally be worth alot of money.

:)

WTF? Try to make a little sense.

[TheDullBlade]

Most recent sci-fi films, animated or otherwise, including the Mother Movie (Star Wars) construct their films around the premise that in the future there is a technologically advanced, demonic alien culture out there which has ravaged our planet; loathes humanity and is determined to wipe us out for murky reasons in the most vicious possible way at all costs.

Geez, if you want to make sweeping (and basically wrong) generalizations, try not to use an example that doesn't fit the pattern.

-Star Wars isn't set in the future, it's set in the distant past
-the bad guys in Star Wars are human
-they have a very clear motive of maintaining their galactic empire
-the humans are more of a threat to the aliens than vice versa
-"we" don't have a single home planet in Star Wars
-the humans have the best technology we see

I think part of why Star Wars is so popular is that humans are portrayed as the real ass-kickers of the galaxy, instead of the more common self-deprecating "Oh, the aliens are so superior, we're so useless, we need other aliens to help us or we'll all die. But at least we're the Good Guys, because we haven't invaded any planets (yet)." Star Trek has a bit of the same feel, though it has a much less realistic view of human morality.

Personally, I think recent science fiction films have had a wide variety of different situations, and BEMs were more common back in the early days. Destruction/conquering of Earth is not really a common theme.

frikkin' hilarious, yet deep, anime

[TheDullBlade]

Gunbuster: Teenage girls doing calesthenics in giant mecha to save humanity! There's a moral twist that makes it worthwhile on other levels.

I also like Gall Force for two distinguishing characteristics:
-BFGs on a whole other scale
-it brings to mind a quote from DS9's Garrack "the repetitive epic is the very pinnacle of Cardassian literature" (watch it all, and you'll understand; I hope this series gets continued forever)
Besides, when you're done watching the real series, you get to see "Ten Little Gallforce" and laugh until you lose control of your sphincters.

Vision of Escaflowne (Tenkuu no Escaflowne/Escaflowne of the High Sky) is only semi-sci-fi; it's a retro-tech fantasy where people have sword fights in mecha.

Burn Up W is pretty funny, too. Not only has "body armor never looked this good", but it's the only anime I've ever seen where somebody questions the wisdom of building a giant battle robot; it's just kind of accepted in other anime.

The old Robotech stuff is worth watching, if you haven't seen it. It's funnier than people give it credit for. "Alright, let's fly the alien spaceship." "Whoops, we just accidentally folded space and took a city with us, out to around Pluto" "Just fold space right back where we came from." "Actually, the fold engines didn't come along for the ride." "Okay, just use the anti-gravity drives" "We didn't install them very well, they ripped right out" "Did you f***ers do anything right!" "Umm, I think we've still got some rockets..."

Re:Religious Overplanning

[phee]

I can't believe this stupid thing. I actually moderated this article up ("insighful") but The Mighty Slashcode interpreted the "insightful" as "redundant" and moderated it down instead.

All right for using beta code in a production server... perhaps someone should look into this? Maybe?

"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness."

Ebert liked Princess Mononoke...

[GoNINzo]

I don't know where you got the idea that '...always gave really good action, comedy and animated films bad ratings...' but you have to remember a critic's job.

He goes to enjoy the movie. If he enjoys it, great. if he doesn't, fine. But it's based on his feelings.

Because of that, he might not enjoy Pokemon because he is not a kid (or just enjoy saying 'Pikapika!') Or he might not enjoy the comedic stylings of Jackie Chan. But when an animated film comes along that he enjoys because he can relate to it, he gives it a good recommendation. For instance, he gave Stuart Little a bad review, and when razzed about it, pointed out that he doesn't have kids, but if he was going to recommend something for kids, he'd recommend Princess Mononoke or Titan A.E. as better substitutes.

Realize that there have been massive films that the critics have just panned that have still done well. And there have been films that have been raved about and you most likely have not seen Run Lola Run or High Fidelity. Just because a reviewer doesn't like the movie doesn't like a movie doesn't mean he was paid off... Besides, it's much more likely that a reivewer would be paid off to give a good review.

It's just much better to find a reviewer that you agree with 80% of the time, and rely on his view. Myself, I'll stick for waiting it to hit the dish and watch it there if I wonder if it's any good. Then again, I think Manos: Hands of Fate is funny.

--
Gonzo Granzeau

No one paid attention to it?

[GoNINzo]

I've not seen one person mention any of the numerable popular culture references in this film! There must have been like 6 Tron references in it, including the death scene of the MCP and the holding cells. Yes, there were a lot parts that seemed ripped right out of 'Star Wars', such as the scene where they are using the Titan's Quad Laser cannons, but they got stuff from a lot of movies, it's not just a Star Wars rehash.

I personally really enjoyed the movie, and yes, it might have been predicitable and some of it was definately 'yeah right..' but there were some very enjoyable parts to it. I'm one who's akin to spotting the source of inspiration in movies (What, you think the ideas in the Matrix were unique?) and I think this one has several movies written all over it, and I think Star Wars was pretty low on the list, with Tron and Babylon 5 being very high on the list.

I'd also like to point out that this is the Americanized versions of Japanese animation (anime) that some of us enjoy, and with this bad showing, movies similar to Princess Mononoke and Ghost in the Shell will be much slower in coming to US theatres, which is bad news for anime fans in the US.

--
Gonzo Granzeau

Incompetent alien invaders??

[Russ Nelson]

Anybody remember the short story about alien invaders who were basically stupid? They intended to take over Earth, but earthmen found them gullible and easy to manipulate. Read it in a collection of short stories 25 years ago.
-russ

Re: Akira

[Raetsel]

I don't think the plot was bad, it just wasn't that deep. There were LOTS of references to other movies there, and catching most of them was one of those "Hey, wait... cool!" kind of feelings. It helps a PG movie appeal to a younger set, and still entertain the parents that take them.

Now, about Akira. I know I'm not the only one thinking Akima/Akira... they're only off by one letter! I own Akira. Just watched it again a couple weeks ago. Then again, even it's not the best example of anime. (Oh, well. It's still very cool -- any kid that can stop a tank shell in it's tracks... well, DAMN.) Yes, I know it's 15 years old. I think Titan's animation was much better in technical terms. We (mainstream corporate America) haven't really considered animation as mature entertainment until just recently -- Japan has a HUGE lead on us, and lots of practice.

About the Drej & their sense of direction... We know genetic steganography exists. For Pete's sake, a high school student did it! (And got a nice award from Intel in the process.) The movie reminded me of when I used to shine my dad's Mag-Lite through my hand as a kid. Not too much of a stretch to use several keys to secure the REAL map (genetic and then location based -- makes for one heck of a road trip!)

Now, if you want to get into anime...

• Patlabor -- Fun with harmonic resonance
• 
  BubbleGum Crisis / Crash -- A jet turbine car with a military AI... that makes you go INSANE... wheee!splat.
  Guyver -- Avoid the live action one. Mark Hamill was desperate. Regeneration from a single cell is cool.
  Ghost in the Shell -- It's all fun until the big guy runs out of ammo.
  Dominion Tank Police -- Just plain silly.
  Battle Angel -- Three words: Rocket propelled sledgehammer.
  Ninja Scroll -- Blood, martial arts, and more blood.
  

I'm having too much fun here... time to go. You mentioned Krispy Kreme donuts (mmmmm.... donuts.) By any chance are you in/near South Carolina? (Just curious -- it's where I am at the moment.)


__________________________________________________ _____________
Ever notice that MCSEs advertise the fact, but Sun & Novell certified people don't?

Re:Scientifically inaccurate, but still entertaini

[Adam Knapp]

You know one of the things i just don't get about sci-fi and lasers is that noone ever thinks to wear a shiny suit or carry a big mirror. You would think that someone would have thought of that at some point.

Ridiculous Review/Hopeless Comparison with Shaft

[werdna]

The proposition is this: Titan is poor because it is derivative and predictable in that it is a science fiction movie with a young protagonist hero, unlike Shaft which does not.

In fact, every genre film can be criticized in that regard, whoring old scenes a faire (without which the film would be criticized for being off-genre, by the way). Criticizing a genre film for being what it is is to condemn all such films, including the corpus of Westerns, Star Wars, Disney Films, Star Trek and the like.

For my own part, I thought Titan was a cheeseburger, albeit a tasty one. The animation was pretty, and it was fun. My 9-year old son loved it, and my daughter, though not captivated, enjoyed the film. I would see it again, if Wiliam wanted, but probably wouldn't go again on my own behalf. Agreed that it hits all fours on the traditional post-apocalyptic save the word cliches. I would happily rent it again -- it hit the cliches nicely, and it was pretty to watch.

Shaft, on the other hand, is an attempt to transplant a twenty year old cliche into modern times -- the very ultimate in derivative movie-making. I am not down on Shaft -- it is fine on its own merits. However, it suffers from the same flaws Mr. Katz finds here.

The proposition that an individual can describe the film scene-by-scene based upon the description is ludicrous. Sure, we know the broad strokes -- that's why we watch the genre film, not for the overall story (which everyone knows), but for the details.

Indeed, consider whether or not Jon Katz' review wasn't itself a derivative and wooden remake of all negative reviews of genre films. Haven't we seen all of these criticisms before, written in almost the same old way? I far preferred Canby's review of Titanic.

Try Princess Mononoke

[First Person]

I think it's probably the best animated movie I've seen since Mulan.

If you're looking for other diversions, try 'Princess Mononoke' (originally Mononoke Hime) released in 1999. Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame contributed heavily to the translation of the screenplay. Perhaps since I'm not a Anime aficionado, the movie struck me as very original.

Ummm.... What?

[Kintanon]

Well, isn't this surprising. I greatly enjoyed Titan A.E.. I think it's probably the best animated movie I've seen since Mulan. The character development was a bit loose, and the movie could have benefitted from being about 45 minutes longer with that time spent developing the characters a bit more. I think this would do very well as a series on Cartoon Networks afternoon Anime section. I liked the way the story moved, it wasn't anything revolutionary or earth shattering, but it was fun. Lots of things exploded, the melding of the traditional animation and the CGI stuff was excellent. The movie was VERY pretty, and well, it had my favorite character in any animated movie ever, That little turtle guy.
I cracked up at almost everything he said, and I loved it when he yelled 'Who's your daddy?!' while blowing up dredge ships. Very fun.
I thought the movie was pretty damn good personally.

Kintanon

Re:Ummm.... What?

[kiatoa]

For a family friendly flick I thought Titan AE was great. Not too scary or gory to take the 7 year old and exciting enough that I didn't find myself getting bored. The art work and animation was excellent and I liked how the hero wasn't so numb that he was able to clue in reasonably quickly to the fact that his dad had cared about him and that the folks holding on to the hope for a future for humankind were right to do so. Like the Desiderata poem says: Dispite its sham, drudgery and trickery it is still a beautiful world.

Take some time, smell the roses, appreciate the work these guys did to produce an hour and a half mildly thought provoking, fun, and exciting movie. There are so many "nega-holics" over-analyzing, criticising and berating the works of others with out balance and perspective that I'm to the point where I don't trust reviews to help me decide what to see.

I'm curious, what movies, apropriate for general viewing, meet your stringent requirements?

Sorry for ranting.

Re:Ummm.... What?

[Chairboy]

> I think it's probably the best animated movie I've seen since Mulan

You're not exactly aiming at the stars here with that comparison.

I think that Titan A.E's baddest flaw was that it wasn't exciting. Everything that happened was predictable, and I mean everything. It was like watching a clip-show of all the other movies in this genre I've ever seen.

Worst of all, the movie didn't take any chances. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really good either.

The best thing that can be said for it is that it's better than 'All Dogs Go to Heaven', but only because there's more death. Sure, I liked it when Charlie Barkin bought a couple keys of Heroin to sell to the Itchy and the rest of the stray dogs, but it too wasn't that exciting, just like Titan AE.

The damning thing about Titan AE is that it's forgettable.

Re:Ummm.... What?

[Rakarra]

I liked the way the story moved, it wasn't anything revolutionary or earth shattering, but it was fun.

They blew up the damned earth! How much more earth-shattering can you get? :) (Not to mention the moon.. that was a nice touch).

Re:Ummm.... What?

[roman_mir]

If anyone of you guys have ever played "Descend FreeSpace" or "FreeSpace II" and loved it, you would defenetely love the movie. Actually there are great similarities between the game and this movie. There is danger to Earth and you are fighting with some pure energy alians and you capture their space craft and you are supposed to destroy their MotherShip in order to save your own planet etc. I thought it was a great movie.

Re:Ummm.... What?

[-ParadoX-]

I too must add my two bits in defense of this flick. Aside from the beautiful graphics, the movie was fun to watch. Granted some parts were predictable, but that's not the point. The point is this is a major box office animation made by someone other than Disney (thank God) which isn't geared at 10 and under kids. The dialogue was witty and though the characters were, as stated above, a little underdeveloped, Titan was a step in the right direction, and entertaining in and of itself not just because of special effects, which so many other movie makers fail to see nowdays.

-ParadoX-
Quisquis amat valeat, Pereat qui nescit amare.
Bis tanto pereat, quisquis amare vetat.

Re:Ummm.... What?

[tringstad]

This is an American film. It was not made in Japan. As such, it is a landmark. Could you imagine seeing an American made film like this 10 years ago? 5 years? 1 year?

Let's go for 15.

Starchaser: Legend of Orin

This movie kicked ass, and I remember going to see it in the theatre with my best friend when I was but 11 years old. What's more, it was in 3D. There is one scene in particular where a slave-driver cracks a whip right at the audience, and I remember it as being one of the coolest things I had ever seen.

Been looking for the 3D version on Video ever since. Anyone got a clue?

-Tommy

Re:Awsome Movie! (SPOILERS)

[Abigail]

Realism. It was refreshing to see a Sci-Fi that didn't glaze over things like breathing in space, and acceleration (well, mostly)

Hahahahaha. It was a universe where sound waves were transmitted through space (the captain went to "silent mode"; colliding ice crystals made sound), where stopping your engines would make you move at the same speed as objects in your environment (whatever it is that transmitted sound also provided friction I guess), where there is a lot of ambient light all around (how else do you have all the reflections in the ice field?), and where gravity is universal (except when not having gravity is needed for a particular scene), providing a distinct "down".

but AE had pure energy life forms

Ah, something that Star Trek has every other week. Not really original anymore. (And why on earth does pure energy take the form of humanoids and needs separate space ships (and how can pure energy ships be blown up?))

I'm willing to accept alternative universes, with different laws of nature - just don't sell it as "realism".

-- Abigail

Excellent film, very poor review.

[jajuka]

Clearly the plot, while perhaps not a literary masterpiece, was too much for Katz. I found the main characters very likeable, and the story was fun. While the Drej effects stood out at times, for the most part the effects sequences blended
very well with the hand-drawn animation. The chase scene through the hydrogen forest of Sessharim was just one of many enjoyable examples, as well as being one of many action sequences in the film. Moreover I was very pleased by the fact that the movie was not "kiddified", one character's neck is broken in full view of the audience, and more than a few others are violently killed. (In addition to those who die when the planet's blown up :).

The design of the film was very interesting on a non-cgi level also. Alien designs were by Wayne Barlowe, who most scifi buffs should be aware of, and the lifestyle and living conditions portrayed are of the grity run-down-future variety.

While I'm not usually a fan of american feature length animation, I think anyone who enjoys animation and/or science fiction at all should see this film and get an idea of what american animation can be.

It doesn't have to...

[Cheerio Boy]

I only really saw a couple of problems with the animation in this movie:

1)Blending and realism of CGI in the end planet scene - not to mention the scale problem of the Titan behind the two main characters at the end. (It was _far_ too small in size.) The blending was fine most of the time until the end of the movie.

2) I say _most_ of the time because the film had the same problem that most American(TM) animated films have when trying to portray actual human movement. Anime has human movement downpat most of the time but can't seem to get an "american" face drawn right for some reason. Whereas American animation always seems to have body motion problems with their characters. Add this problem to the "clean" lines of a CGI world and you get the idea - the movements aren't "in tune" with the CGI environment and in _most_ cases aren't even all that human.

Until these factors get better, especially the second one, American animation is pretty much going to lag in favor of Japanese Anime - no matter how half-dollar-sized the eyes are or red-gaping-hole-without-teeth mouthed the anime characters are.


The Tick - "Spoon!"

Sounds Familiar

[lalas]

Almost anyone reading could lay out the plot line without seeing a single scene.

Hmmm... sounds an awful lot like a certain feature writer here at /.

I kept thinking of the Uplift books...

[Denor]

Was it just me, or was there just a bit of homage to David Brin's 'Uplift' trilogy in this movie? Both seemed to me to be "shameless space opera" (Brin describing his work) but in a fun and enjoyable way. And both had the earthlings as the down-but-not-out race that still has a bunch of things the stodgy old Galactics haven't thought of yet.
I swear, I was continually waiting for the Drej to start yelling about "damned wolfling tricks"

(warning: little bit of a spoiler here-in)

[Savage Henry Matisse]

The writing and dialogue in this film was excellent. With all the things too see and hear, it says a lot that the writing stood out so much that I noticed.

I'll have to disagree with you on that. I'd say that the dialogue was, at best, very uneven. That little turtle mofo had great lines and was very well done, and the female protagonist (voice of Drew Barrymore) was also handled well, both by the writers and voice-actress. But the Weapons Specialist Kangaroo-Dog (Geanine Grafalo [sp?]) had almost no interesting dialogue-- all of her lines could have been replaced with grunts w/o detriment to the plot or chracter devel. For that matter, the protagonist (voice of Matt Damon) was handled in a pretty heavy-handed manner-- first he doesn't give a rat's-ass for earth, then he's suddenly gung-ho (this sealed by meeting Pellea's grandkids, or somesuch thing.) And poor Bill Pullman (did the voice of the turncoat human captain) was just about crushed by the weight of his awful dialogue-- it sounded like they'd cast those grim, manly utterances from cement.

Apart form strict dialogue concerns, the writing in general seemed to suffer from too-many-cooks syndrome: the scene with the ancient bat-people race was excellent, both in its early creepiness/buyability and its late wicked-awesome chace seen. But the reversal (really, double reversal) of Captain Benedict Arnold was ham-handed, at best, as was the conclusion.

But, yeah, whatever. Please flame me across hell's-half-acre and mod me down now.

original != good

[Savage Henry Matisse]

I wholeheartedly agree that Princess M was very original (some REALLY cool monsters in the begging, and a lof of super characterization.) Unfortunately, (and maybe this is just 'cause I'm not an anime-afficianado) but I found this film to have, like, 5 pounds of plot in a ten pound bag. I actually dozed off several times during the last quarter of the film (and that's a really bad sign-- I don't think I've ever dozed off during a film before.)

Very nice review! Must argue one point though ...

[P_Simm]

*SPOILERS*

I didn't see anything slow about Corseau's transformation into the bitter traitor. That was the one character of the movie which I was disappointed with actually. He's HeroMan through and through, no cracks in his behavior, then suddenly he's caught talking to the leader of the Dredge? Okay, plot twist is good, but then he snaps in the most exaggerated way possible, leave them behind ... and then turns back into Mr Nice Guy all of a sudden when Cale saves him? At that point I didn't see a character left in Corseau, just a device used to throw in a plot twist and bring it predictably back around in the end.

Fun movie, for sure. But saying that this movie had good characterization just goes to show what state Hollywood is in these days. This was pretty corny stuff most of the time.

Oh, and the Dredge were the most visually cool enemies I've ever seen in a cartoon for a long time. Very creative animation style used on them, gave them a very out-of-reality impression.

You know what to do with the HELLO.

American Anime

[Life Blood]

Is anyone surprised at Shaft clobbering Titan AE? Shaft is a mainstream action romp with a big name lead actor and director. Titan is an animated action movie, its not disney and its not especially targetted at the usual childrens audience. Which do you expect to do better at the box office?

I was actually surprised when I first saw the previews for this movie at the begining of the year. An american studio trying to do somewhat adult animation, its a big change from status quo and is mostly likely due to the recent anime influx into america. I am going to go watch this movie if for no other reason than to support the concept of adult animation in America. The real problem this movie faces is that it marketed itself to teens, most of whom are too busy trying to be adults to go to a "kids" movie.

As for some of the other comments. Watch Star Wars again, its predictable and stupid in many parts. If it weren't a pop culture event it would have never done as well as it did. For instance, why can a common droid easily hack a super space stations computers? How can a crop dusting farm boy become an ace fighter pilot with no training? Where are the escape pods on the millenium falcon? Etc, etc, etc. Oh and as for the music in Titan not being a John Williams score like SW, I guess that means they're trying to be original. What a horrible thing.

BTW, three things date movies most - music, hair, and costuming. Watch an Buck Rogers episode and laugh at the early eighties costuming. Transformers: The Movie has eighties rock. Doctor Zhivago has 60s hair. Of course effects date a movie too, but there's not as much you can do about that, other than plan your effects sequences well. Again look at the Death Stars targeting sequence at the end of Star Wars for dated special effects. What was the refresh rate on those rebel monitors anyway? :)

Re:American Anime

[Golias]

For instance, why can a common droid easily hack a super space stations computers?

Because the "common droid" was used on counterintelligence missions on board the first ship we see in the movie. He was surely programmed for that kind of stuff by the same people who died stealing the Death Star plans.

How can a crop dusting farm boy become an ace fighter pilot with no training?

1) The force. 2) He was described himself as "not such a bad pilot" in the Cantina scene, so he must have flown something at one time or another. 3) He was not an "ace" pilot... he was not even the leader of the "Red" team, which was not the lead team. He only got a shot at the Death Star when just about everybody else who tried was killed.

Where are the escape pods on the millenium falcon?

Dude, the ship was huge. Take your pick of locations.

Etc, etc, etc.

The biggest problem in Star Wars, by far, is that Light Speed is a big deal that only a few ships can muster, but people zing from star to star in a matter of days, hours or minutes.

I can explain this, and the presence of "noise in space" in one shot:

The "galaxy far, far away" is a much smaller galaxy than ours. The stars are very close together, and have some gas between them. There, done.

(If only Star Wars was a Marvel comic; Stan Lee would surely owe me a "no-prize" for that.)

:)

Spoilers. Of course, Bluth did that already.

[mcsnee]

I think this proves once and for all that a bunch of /.ers will post anything, as long as it includes a "screw you" to Jon Katz.

This was, to put it bluntly, a terrible movie. The animation was OK--nothing to write home about. The plot was awful. The characters (except for the turtle guy, who was funny but seemed to have a completely different personality every time he appeared on screen) were lame, flat, and poorly voiced. The writing ranged from forgettable to laughable (see the Drej "speeches" for examples of the latter). The music was disposable pap.

A couple of the more obvious problems:

The Drej supposedly destroyed the Earth because the Humans built the Titan... a ship capable of creating a new planet for the Human species since their old one was destroyed by the Drej. Cause and effect, anyone?

Cale's dad, apparently an otherwise smart guy, made the activation of the Titan contingent upon Cale surviving the escape from Earth, being found by one of his buddies, not losing the ring (would YOU give a small, easily-losable device that was humanity's last, best hope to a 4-year-old?) and then finding the Titan.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but it seemed to me that to enjoy this movie, you'd have to not only shut off your brain, but remove it physically from your head and leave it at home.

Scientifically inaccurate, but still entertaining!

[lconover]

Each to their own, I guess, but I found Titan AE to be heartily enjoyable Saturday-night-at-the-movies fluff. It had all the usual suspects : laser blasters, spaceships, people mysteriously surviving being ejected into cold harsh space, aliens with eyes on stalks.

Yet, I couldn't help enjoying myself more than a little. There were some great tributes in it to the original Heavy Metal movie, especially in some of the flight scenes.

The fact of the matter is that a Don Bluth film is more like cotton candy than a chocolate bar. Sweet and interesting, but in the end, very little actual substance.

Animation-wise, there were some places where I was not entirely impressed with the blending of the 2D and 3D styles. The backgrounds were entirely rendered in fairly decent 3D. However, occasionally there was some minor awkwardness between the interactions between the 2D characters and their 3D environs. Don Bluth's team could have more closely examined how the team at The Iron Giant tackled that problem for a better overall 'look' for the film.

Fans of Japanese animation or the Heavy Metal movie will have a ball with this film, but serious film buffs should definitely look elsewhere.

Re:A better movie

[Grahf666]

Get Akira and see what they were doing 15 years ago and see how we have come only so little forward in animation. You are comparing American animation to Japanese animation, which are two totally different things. American amination houses are just now reaching somewhere near the level of animation quality that anime has been at for years (I'm talking about 2d, not 3d, btw). Go see Princess Mononoke and see how far animation has come since Akira.

Used plot parts, available cheap!

[Animats]

He's right, the plot is really lame. The movie was put together out of left-over plot components from other SF movies. Badly. There's one original scene in the whole movie, the encounter with the guard, and the end of that was botched.

The "2D character on 3D CG background" thing, first done in the Media Lab's Grinning Evil Death, has been done better before. The "zooming through the asteroid belt" thing has been overdone, from Star Wars to Star Crash. The "spacecraft that maneuver like low-speed biplanes" thing is an old George Lucas gimmick, but in Titan, they use rockets yet don't move in the right direction. The "repairing the junk spacecraft" thing - sigh. And, of course, the "big planet transformer just waiting for activation" thing came from Total Recall, where it didn't make much sense either.

John Katz is a Potz

[roman_mir]

Today in the morning I have submitted a review story about Titan A.E. and have being rejected. I suppose my review was a good one, and since Jon Katz thinks that the move was bad he'd better give it his own review. Anyway, what I said in MY review was that the movie ROCKED!
It was Beautifully made, increadible computer graphics, amazing animations, a VERY GOOD story line, INCREDIBLE SOUND TRACKS, Stupendous characters, and only A FEW cheesy moments (I expected much more cheeziness from an animation.)

THANK YOU JON KATZ, firstly you are an idea plagiator, and secondly you are a dumb-ass critic.

The Biblical notion of Noah was cheesy and reconstruction of the planet in what? 7 days? CHEESY. Everything else was better than OK.

AMAZING Ice scene in the space (the space crafts moving around in huge icebergs.

Even my GF liked the movie so it must be good!

Re:Titan is Space Opera at its finest

[ruin]

Add Pitch Black to the list, and we're definitely over three. Ok, so it's just a combination of old sci-fi ideas, (Asimov's Nightfall combined with Aliens) but it's wonderfully done and fun to watch. I'd recommend it to any fan of science fiction who needs a quick fix.

--

what I'd really like to know...

[Spiff28]

So... what I want to know is... did this movie help you all get laid as well as Battlefield Earth did? ;)

Now I see.

[theAmazingTom]

>Jon Katz
>Uggg

2 paragraphs into this review I scrolled back up thinking to myself, "This is why people complain about...It Is JonKatz." Now I understand. Ideas I disagree with written with the -v (verbose) flag turned on.

The very first preview for Titan AE was fabulous. Then I remember later previews looking worse. I think the first time they were aiming for an older group then someone turned it down. I will agree that it could have been a better movie if they had aimed at an older audience.

BUT: The in outer-space physics was the best that I've seen from Hollywould in a Very long time. The humans (for those who haven't seen it) had guns which produced nearly too much kick and when a gravity generator gives out, they have a wonderful retreat mechanism: fire like mad and don't hold on to anything. I Loved It.

The space ships fired thrusters to maneuver. It was entralling to watch a ship behave like a point mass and to scoot around according to the forces acting on it. I didn't think anyone in Hollywould had ever taken a physics class.

I Am getting tired of the myth of the 'female warrior', yes it Is possible, no it almost never actually happens. I was impressed that the characters changed over time and showed depth (the captain was friend and enemy to the boy). I enjoyed the new interactions, "A smart guard, didn't see that coming."

The music just plain rocked. They did all new songs which actually fit the story not just the mood. In a pretty playing-with-the-dolphins scene they play "It's My Turn to Fly" and young Cal seems to change through this one scene. It's the first time someone he didn't know well did something really nice to him like flying an expensive starship through a firestorm.

The ancient, wise and reclusive race

The flying through the ice belt

The flight from earth

The repairing the ship scene

It was really good.

And lastly, if you watch the end, you can figure out that a gravity well in a huge ice/asteriod field could collect enough mass for a planet. Granted that they don't explain the mechanism (no living human knows it.) it does fit into the science fiction possibility category.

Watch it AND think about it.

Apples and Oranges

[SquadBoy]

Ok so Jon does not like the SF mythos what the hell does this have to do with Shaft. They are two different genres nothing in common at all. Having said that Titan A. E. while not the best thing out there is very good. OK the Drej are powerfull but not perfect yep would have made a really good movie if there had been now way for Cale to escape as it was he took advantage of a hole that the Derj had not thought of. In some ways this movie made me think of the Uplift books by David Brin. Humans weak but with alot of guts hunted by far more powerfull aliens but they win (or halfway win) through luck and taking advanatge of the aliens blindspots. All in all a very cool mythos life sucks and the universe hates you but hard work luck and doing the right thing wins in the end. Did this movie have cliches? Yup. Do they ruin it? Nope. Also the anti-tech angle Jon is going for is not there. It is not tech that wipes out the world. It is a big ass weapon. In the end tech saves the race. A classic? No Very fun? Yup.

Re:So close... and yet so far.

[Golias]

Actually, the producers of AE already expressed their intention to pull a "Lucas" and periodically update the soundtrack on any future releases.

Personally, I think that is a mistake. Yea, the music to the Transformers movie sucked, but the music sucked when it was brand new. When you watch old sci fi, the dated music is often part of the movie's charm. Could you imagine if they took the Queen music out of Flash Gordon? Or the Wendy Carlos synth-crap out of Tron?

That aside, the music to AE was almost as bad as the endless drone of radio rejects that populated most of Heavy Metal. Almost, but not quite... It was good enough that I was able to ignore it.

Re:Awsome Movie! (SPOILERS)

[Golias]

Craig, I pretty much agree with every single point you make, and have a few of my own to add to it. It was a fun movie, although not without a few flaws.

***SPOILER ALERT*** (I don't want to be like the dweeb that ruined Fight Club for me... don't read on if you have not seen the movie yet.) This film must be seen in a theater with a good sound system. The audio team did a fantastic job. For example, when the ice was cracking, it sounded exactly like the cracking of a large frozen lake or colliding icebergs. Very cool.

The scene with Cale in the scrapyard working with his cutting torch (and leaving it adrift in space during his lunchbreak) was very cool and imaginative, much more so that the scene required.

The scene when the ship's cockpit glass was cracking was so good, I didn't even mind when they used a fire extinguisher to propel themselves to safety a few seconds later.

Drew Barrimore exceeded my expectations, and the fact that Garafolo was so "out of character" from her usual smart-alecky roles just proves that she is an actress and not a one-trick-pony.

Now for the weaknesses:

The pace of the movie did not feel right. I've never been a Bluth fan, because he often seems to dwell on moments that are not very interesting, while speeding through stuff that should probably be given more time. For example, during the scene when Cale was talking about how much he missed his father, I got bored and started noticing how well the steps of the flight deck were rendered... not the detail a good director wants the audience looking at during a first viewing.

Did the Drej remind anybody else of the Protoss from Spacecraft?

Other than the humans and the Drej, all aliens looked a little like some kind of animal or another (mostly lizards), were played for laughs, and their origins were never explained. They were all just geniric Disney-ish creatures that reminded me a little too much of the coke-snorting aliens from Heavy Metal.

The combination of free hand drawnings with advanced CGI took me out of the movie a little too often. If they had digitally rendered the characters, or had used traditional animation throughout, it probably would have been a slightly more emersive experience.

In the end, it was an hour and a half of purdy pictures, and the plot holes were no worse than those in The Matrix, which everybody seems to think is the coolest movie ever for some reason.

Re:Titan is Space Opera at its finest

[Golias]

In fact, I challenge you to name 3 recently released SciFi flicks that are better.

1. Pi

2. Dark City

3. The Matrix

Okay, maybe that's only two and a half, because The Matrix was a re-tread of the story in Dark City, but all three of these were at least slightly better than Titan AE, each in its own way.

Now if you had said 3 recent animated films that were better, you would have won the argument. Toy Story 2 is the only one I can name off the top of my head. (Mononoke was not recent, it was a new dub of an old movie. The Iron Giant was not very good.)

Re:Uninspired on several points (some spoilers)

[Golias]

The hero and misc humans successfully rebuild a spaceship and get it flying before either of the bad guys get to the Titan, even though the Drej have this "amazing technology" and even though the other bad guys have this head start and just as accurate a map.

I think they established that the map used waypoints and got more acurate as you got closer, so while the bad guys had an idea of where to start looking, Cale had a pointer that took them strait to the Titan.

They never explain why Titan is such a threat

Never specifically explained, but not hard to imagine.

they never explain why they couldn't use Titan when the Earth was attacked but could now.

They sure didn't. By the end of the first reel, anybody watching this should be able to realize that the alien threat is not a very logical one, and enjoy the chase scenes for what they are.

As for Cale seeming a little too smart, I got the impression that he was not "just" a laborer, but was a pretty good mechanic (which in the future date would include knowledge of propulsion systems). They show him working on a robotic gizmo as a child, and hot-rodding an old rocket midway through the movie, so by the time he fires up the Titan, we are meant to understand that he has a knack for this kind of stuff.

The thing that puzzled me is: if you have the tech to build something like the Titan, and know that some aliens are not crazy about the idea and might come to wipe out humanity to stop you, why build only one? Wouldn't it make sense to invest in a fleet of them?

Re:Titan A.E. in a nutshell

[Golias]

Somebody should mod you way up.

The one point I disagree on is Barrymore. When I went in, I had forgotten that she was doing the lead voice, and didn't actually recognize her until late in the movie. She did a great job... the only thing that "didn't match" was the fact that her real life image is so different from the Akima character that you gotta get past your knowledge of who is behind the curtain. Ditto for Garafalo, who played a roll which she could never pull off in live action, but if you let yourself forget who is squealing with delight while shooting enemy ships, it is actually a pretty good job.

Re:Titan AE -- failed satire?

[Golias]

Actually, a lot of the pop references probably came from that other note-worthy writer on the project, Joss Whedon (creater and writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, both on film and on TV).

The good news on the Ben Edlund front is that the guy that played "Puddy" on Seinfeld is going to be starring in an Edlund-scripted, live-action, prime-time, "The Tick" on Fox! A clip from the pilot is floating around the web, if you are interested.

Re:My views...

[Golias]

(sigh)

If your lungs are full in the vacuum of space, the capilaries will burst shortly. Exhale and you buy a little time. It is extremely cold, but not enough to kill you instantly. The few seconds they were exposed would not have been lethal.

Other than the fact that a fire extinguisher would not propel them very fast (sit on a well-oiled office chair and fire one off... didn't get you very far, did it?), it was a fairly well-played scene, and one of the stronger moments in the movie.

Re:Uninspired on several points (some spoilers)

[Golias]

Another thing about the movie was that it seemed pretty pessimistic about our future. 1000+ years to get there? Bah.

Common sci fi shorthand. Time and setting is often a quick indicator of the type of story you are in for.

Space opera is usually in the distant future or a remote location. It makes the suspension of disbelief easier. Star Wars and Flash Gordon take place in locations we will never visit, and Star Trek happens in a time we will not live to see.

Cyberpunk is typically done on Earth, tomorrow morning (or shortly thereafter). We are supposed to accept that we are on the very edge of this stuff happening. In that regard, it follows the trend of "dire warning" novels like Brave New World, 1984, and F-451, all of which were set within a generation or two of the time they were written.

Re:Live action "Tick" a disaster waiting to happen

[Golias]

Ben Edlund is talented, but I doubt even he could save this horrible idea.

1. Given that it was his "horrible idea", I think he will do his best with it.

2. The cast they chose is fantastic.

There is no Chairface in the series so far, nor talking buildings, but there is a Red Scare and a lot of other villians that they could not have gotten away with in an animated series, since the cartoon was aimed mainly at children. (The fact that it was good enough for teens and adults to enjoy was bonus, as far as they were concerned.)

As for live-action Dilbert... what difference would it make? The animated version sucks! Dilbert was clearly never meant to be anything more than a three-pannel comic strip.

When will the graphics-and-CG thing finally die?

[Whackamole]

I get to watch a lot of Titan AE ads... for whatever reason, local stations just ate them up and spit them out now two or three at a time.

At first: Ooh. Nice CG. Nice animation.
After Some (Commercial A.S.): There's something wrong here. I don't like the trailer at all!
Now: Oh yeah - everyone and their sister has tried CG+art, and it has ALWAYS BLOWN!

Yes, since the Battletech cartoon, I've rabidly hated idiotic notions that you can do CG for a bunch of things in a cartoon, and just freehand the rest... no matter how beautiful the elements are, I've yet to see some crack at this where there isn't a jarring difference in the move from graphics to paint and back. Stylistically, nothing good from one media translates into the other - paint has really expressive qualities to it that vanish in the hands of most of these CG hacks, while the CG stuff uses every sort of lighting model and scaling and effect to turn heads... "ooh! CG!". Instead of any attempt to nicely mesh with the painted animation, the CG tries to distinguish itself as much as possible, and as a result you get all these changes of context where your attention loses scope and has to be re-initialized. The people doing this film need to use better defines and globals instead of passing static scoping in the paint and computer animation modules of the project.

Now, Jurassic Park - that was a winner. The CG integration was great, because they _had_ to make it look real, or else they would have lost millions of bucks. The dinosaurs had the most distinctly non-CG (rotate, translate, repeat) motion, and weren't firing off patently CG effects every time they showed up on screen. They used CG to make them look more (not less) real! Hopefully it will happen again, maybe even to support a cartoon, instead of wrestling with it for the spotlight.

Good review, poor film

[Jon Erikson]

LOL! A good, if sarcastic, review of a movie which deserved it. I'm getting sick of the standard Hollywood line of "science fiction" movies which are becoming more and more stomach churning with every release.

Independence Day was alright, if only for some of the special effects, but it wasn't ever meant to be a "serious" film. Unfortunately later writers and directors have seemed to fall into the trap of believing their own hype - that they are writing a serious film when all they're really writing is more Hollywood pap.

Science fiction so rarely makes it to the cinema from books, and invariably fails when it does, far more so than any other genre of film. This is a real shame, since there are so many decent books out there for the taking. OTOH, I'd rather not have one of my favourite books turned into a Hollywood "blockbuster" thank you very much :)

---
Jon E. Erikson

Shaft's Whitewash

[David Wong]

Does anybody else think that Shaft got the "white treatment" in the new film? I said that in my own review a while ago, which was immediately dismissed by the public as being more of my unintelligible psychotic ramblings. But sure enough, a week later I saw at least two "real" reviewers agreed with me, including TNT's Roughcut. Did any of you get that same vibe?

To me it's more proof that Hollywood has a real problem with color (as if that idea still needed to be proven).

On Titan A.E., does anybody else agree that it would have worked better as an all-CGI movie? The movie failed on its opening weekend because teenagers though it was a kiddie movie. They're less likely to think that about a CGI feature (I know I didn't feel silly going to see Toy Story 2, but I'll wait to rent Titan cause, well, its a cartoon).