Treasure Planet (2002) (with Ron Clements and John Musker)

The 2002 Disney science-fiction epic Treasure Planet (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2002) is the focus of Episode 78 of the podcast, which looks at the melding together of the Disney formula with space fantasy in this swashbuckling adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 adventure novel Treasure Island. Joining Chris and Alex for this bumper episode are two very special guests: Ron Clements and John Musker, who aside from writing and directorial duties on Treasure Planet are known as a filmmaking duo absolutely central to the renaissance of Disney animation in the 1980s and 1990s. They are the writers and directors of a number of Disney feature films, including The Great Mouse Detective (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1992), Hercules (1997), The Princess and the Frog (2009) and Moana (2016), as well as Treasure Planet, the Mouse House’s 43rd animated feature film and one of the studio’s rare turns to the codes and conventions of science-fiction storytelling. Listen as they trace the industrial origins of Treasure Planet and the film’s initial pitching' to Disney chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy E. Disney and Thomas Schumacher; the evolution of the story from Ron and John’s early treatment to the first draft of the script; the nature of adaptation and the creative affordances of an animated re-telling; the ‘cyborgian’ identity of Treasure Planet in its combination of traditional technique and digital processing (including its use of the digital painting tool Deep Canvas), and where the film’s ethos of ’something old, something new’ sits in relation to the landscape of Hollywood animation of the 1990s; the creative contributions of animator Glen Keane to the development of John Silver; and remembering the ‘tough period’ for Disney Feature Animation that surrounded Treasure Planet’s 2002 release and subsequent lukewarm critical reception.