Titan A.E. (2000)

I've been wanting to see Don Bluth's Titan A.E. since its release over fifteen years ago, but somehow, I never got around to it. Life kept on getting in the way, and then eventually cartoons became less of a lifestyle and more of an occasional indulgence. I'd turn the TV on during holiday periods every now and again, though, and find I'd just missed it, and the frustration was hard to shake.

At the time, it seemed pretty revolutionary, mixing state-of-the-art computer animation with traditional hand-drawn characters, in a story which owed more to Star Wars than the western tradition of female-oriented full-length animated features. I wasn't quite so knowledgeable then as I am now, though, so while Don Bluth's name meant something to me I didn't really notice Matt Damon voicing Cale, the lead, or (more interestingly) Joss Whedon's screenplay credit.

Y'know when I said the story owed a lot to Star Wars? Yeah, fifteen years on I'd say that's probably all you need to know, plotwise. There's a sassy blond orphan who holds the key to humanity's survival; he has an older mentor and a beautiful love interest (both human) plus a supporting cast of wacky alien sidekicks, and they're fighting an implacable and largely faceless interplanetary menace. These last are the Drej, shimmery blue things that look a little like the more predatory of the bugs from Starship Troopers, although they're more into shooting than recreational disembowelment. It's a simple enough tale and it isn't badly told - Whedon hasn't quite hit his stride yet, but the dialogue does occasionally fizz and crackle like it does in his better work.

So, why was I so disappointed?

I'd love to say it was because Akima, the love interest, was drawn Asian but voiced by Drew Barrymore. Certainly, that did set my teeth on edge.

Truth is, though? Titan A.E. is just flat-out ugly. Ugly can be good sometimes - it worked a treat for Super, for instance - but if I'm watching an animated fantasy I want it to look amazing. Look, these things are aimed at kids (or in this case, worse, teenage boys); if there's a good script it's a bonus but I'd be an idiot if I wanted the writing to be the main attraction.

I've seen the traditional/CGI combination work nicely in the past - I loved Brad Bird's The Iron Giant even if I'm in no hurry to return to it - but then, that film used the neat trick of drawing on top of the CGI to keep things looking relatively harmonious. In any given frame of Titan A.E, the various elements look to have been taken from completely different movies, creating a cognitive dissonance that was drastic enough to make me feel physically queasy. Again, in a different movie, this might have worked, but I can't help thinking I'd have found this one a much easier watch if they'd just decided on one style and kept to it. Certain scenes are impressive - I loved the cat-and-mouse chase through the ice crystals surrounding a ringed planet - but the minute the characters appear on screen it all starts looking like something from the late 70s again. I've never much liked the way Bluth and his team draw faces, and his alien designs aren't so much grotesque as painfully biologically implausible.

Bluntly put, the ugliness was a distraction that took me away from what was probably a fairly reasonable little space opera. Unlikely, I know, but here's hoping that at some point somebody tries for a live-action re-make, preferably with Whedon scripting again.