February 24, 2025 • 53 mins
This week, we are comparing Treasure Planet (2002) and Muppet Treasure Island (1996), two unusual adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novel.
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The Movies:
Directed by Ron Clements & John Musker
Written by Ron Clements, John Musker & Rob Edwards
Based on ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
iMDb Rating: 7.2
Directed by Brian Henson
Written by Jerry Juhl, Kirk R. Thatcher & James V. Hart
Based on ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
iMDB Rating: 6.9
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Content Warning:
Mentions of death, piracy, family abandonment
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music
(00:18):
Hi everyone, I'm Lisa. And I'm Nick. And you're listening to It Takes Two, the podcast where two
people take two movies with the same plot or premise and watch and discuss them.
Arr ye land lubbers! Batten down the hatches. It's two adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's
1883's Treasure Island, where you're covering off Muppet Treasure Planet from 1996 and Treasure
(00:47):
Planet from 2002. Yep. So two adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's novels. Oh my god.
I separate his names. I said Robert Louis Steven Novelson, where there are very few humans.
Very few of them, both of these. Have you read it? I have not read it. Have you read any
(01:14):
Robert Louis Stevenson novels? I don't think I have. We'll see the other one, the famous.
Connect is the one that I read. Oh, there was another one that he was famous for. I think
Treasure Island is, we are 100%. I'm going to cut it off right now and say we are definitely going
to mix up the words Treasure Island and Treasure Planet multiple times. Strange case of Dr. Jekyll
(01:35):
and Mr. Pied. Yes, that's what he's written. I don't know if I've read that. I'm more likely
to have read that than Treasure Island, I think. Though I feel like we had both books in the house
when I was a kid, so I could have read them. But I feel like, no, I don't think I did read Treasure
Island. We did have it, but I don't think I ever read it. I kind of mostly just watched a lot of
(01:59):
Muppet Treasure Island and also the page master goes into it. And I had PC game versions of both
of those movies as well. So that was my Treasure Island knowledge. The Treasure Island knowledge
was the Muppet movie and the Muppet based game. A Muppet based game and also a page master game.
(02:19):
Fair. It's interesting because you're right about the fact there's very limited human characters.
Obviously the same character archetypes are in both. They just play slightly different things.
Yeah, it's very interesting to compare characters, I think. I don't know where you...
(02:42):
I feel like that's probably what the book of this might be, but there's also obviously
changes in story that are made. A, because one is Muppets, and B, because the other is Set in Space.
Though can I just say I love the aesthetic. I know it doesn't make a lot of practical
sense, but I love the aesthetic of just pirate ships sailing through space.
(03:05):
Yeah, so the concept of solar sails, the only bit that asks me about Treasure Planet is the fact
that they can breathe in space. If you had a sail ship that was enclosed in some sort of
like boom or double. Yeah, I assume we're supposed to assume because they've got artificial gravity
(03:27):
on the ship. I assume that they're supposed to be like a kind of an atmosphere around the ship,
but then it doesn't make sense how at one point Jim is off kind of...
First of all, the lifeboats don't make a lot of sense, but then also there's a bit where Jim has
made a makeshift hoverboard and he just like... and it makes sense on a planet, but then he sails off
into space and it's like what distance does he need to be from that ship before he suffocates?
(03:51):
Yeah, so it's a weird concept because you could argue that maybe some of the aliens
can you know don't need atmosphere or air or something, but he's clearly a human.
I don't know how much you know about aliens, but nothing can survive.
I know, yeah, I know what I'm saying. You could say like there's you know,
(04:14):
it's sci-fi, they're taking liberties and they've created an alien species who can do this, you know,
but when your main character is a human, you're sending off into space with no atmosphere.
So there is bacteria apparently growing on the outside of the International Space Station.
That's really cool and scary.
Tardigrades, aka water bears who also survived being exposed to a vacuum of space,
(04:39):
they're like insane, they're like one of my favorite small things, all the small things.
Yeah, that's the only bit that really kind of annoys me. I love the aesthetic, I love the fact
that they replaced him having a peg leg with being a cyborg. The problem is is Tim Curry.
(05:00):
The problem is Tim Curry.
His performance is fantastic and makes the rest of the movie look kind of like bad in comparison.
Oh, the Muppet Treasure Island. It's great. I have seen someone say and I think it is so true
and I think about it quite regularly that the Muppet Christmas Carol works because Michael Cain
(05:23):
treats the other Muppets as real actors. And the Muppet Treasure Island works because Tim
Curry treats himself as a Muppet. And I think that's what's happening is that he is like,
they're all up, it's cool. I'm one too. So he treats them as his equal but he's on a different
(05:43):
playing field to Michael Cain in Muppet Christmas Carol. I think he's fantastic. But I think the
kid is actually really good as well. The kid playing Jim Hawkins. Kevin Bishop was the actor.
Kevin Bishop, I think he's like because he was a no one. That's his first film.
I think he continued to be a no one unfortunately.
(06:04):
Oh, well they auditioned apparently they auditioned hundreds of actors for it but he had been the
first one to audition. So can you imagine you auditioned like hundreds of actors for role
and then you're like actually that first kid was really good. But the Muppets are great.
The Muppets are always great. Yes. You know, it was Sam the Eagles first big role in a Muppet
(06:28):
movie. He was a fantastic Mr. Arrow. Interestingly, I think from what I've read in the book, Mr. Arrow
is like a drunkard and he's not really as honorable as he is. In both of these adaptations,
he's like super honorable, strict with rules and things. He's keeping everybody in line.
(06:54):
Yeah. Yeah, it's um the main plot is identical. Jim gets the map. He gets together with the crew.
He's stationed with Long John Silver. They get along. They have fun together. They bond.
(07:16):
Then a mutiny happens. Then they all end up on Treasure Island slash Planet.
And it's the bond between Jim and Long John Silver that ends up making them go on a separate
ways. It's sort of like I'll see you around kind of material rather than like next time I'll see
you or kill you. And then no one gets the treasure. It's pretty much the whole thing.
(07:42):
Yeah, that's the whole thing. Nobody ever gets the treasure. The treasure was the friendship
they forged along the way. There's some interesting parallels in these in things where they were they
diverted from the book. For example, they both have a like a love story between the captain
(08:04):
and the character, which I don't believe. I don't think Captain Smaller gets a love story in the
original book. Certainly not with Ben Gone. The Struggice Road. It was an interesting way to
introduce Miss Piggy. It's the character of like the Queen of the like primitive pigs on the Treasure
(08:28):
Island. We've seen quite a few adaptations of this throughout the years under different things.
We I would say recently completed Black Sails. Yeah, relatively. Within the last five years.
Yeah, which was sort of a prequely series with all the same characters.
(08:51):
And you see the characters develop along the way Billy Bones, Captain Flint and also Long John Silver.
Yeah. It's a very well rounded story that can go from Muppets to sci-fi animation because it is
animated. I really there's nothing really that stands out either movie, which was worse than the
(09:19):
other other than the little nitpicky pieces we've gone over of, you know, how the hell do people
breathe in space and space whales and what we didn't mention the space whales with the space whales.
The space whales. Yeah. I genuinely love both these movies. This is by the way,
this is coming out on my birthday this episode. This is my birthday present to myself is that we
got to watch Treasure Planet and Muppet Treasure Island. I legitimately really love both of these
(09:45):
movies. I mean, I'm always a Muppet fan. I know Treasure Planet is the better rated film.
It also was the bigger flop. Yeah. Which I think I think I do think that Treasure Planet is one
of the most underrated Disney movies. Brother Bear is another one that I really love that and and
(10:10):
Basil Great Mass Detective, which was by the same duo who made Treasure Planet.
And so they did Basil, then they did Little Mermaid Aladdin Hercules, Treasure Planet,
and then Princess and the Frog. So they yeah, I fantastic duo, Ron Clemens and John Lusker.
(10:38):
And I yeah, I do. I don't know. I will always have a softball from of it. I think Muppet Treasure
Island will be will be higher for me and in these two in terms of how much I love it.
What Treasure Planet is probably a better film. But only slightly, I'd say they're pretty on par
with each other. It's been very heavily adapted. Yeah, of course it has. So there was oh my god.
(11:07):
I mean, I've also seen another animated Treasure Planet, but I don't know if anyone wants us to
compare that to anything or if people even know it exists. The 86, 7 one. Is that what it was?
Is that as a major Bulgaria? So this is a cold treasure planet and it's Bulgarian.
No, so there's another one. Yeah, so I think it was at the 60s. The Bulgarian Treasure Planet.
(11:33):
So 1982, a Bulgarian animated science fiction adaptation.
Absolutely bizarre. What a weird movie. What an incredibly weird movie. Maybe someday we'll do
that Treasure Planet and this Treasure Planet because it's literally insane. I'm showing you
(11:53):
a clip of it, right? I think so. I can share I can share the clip of it in our social media.
Because I mean, like it gives you good indication of how bad shit insane it is.
I've just remembered that this is supposed to be a child friendly episode and I hope that that wasn't
straying outside of child friendly. Anyway, these movies are both great. Do we want to talk? So
(12:17):
is there much in the story you want to talk about or do you want to just talk characters and how
the characters have been reinvented for these movies? Because obviously there's a big liberties
taken. So in the story, I feel like there's a little bit more world building in Treasure Planet
than there is in Muppet Treasure Island. Muppet Treasure Island starts off Jim's hanging out with
(12:40):
Gonzo and Rizzo. They're orphans. They're in the case of in the care of a tavern owner who's
extremely, well, I don't even know the word, she can hear when her name is taken in vain.
Billy Bones is a drunk and they end up getting the map and then he basically just runs off,
(13:07):
you know, it's his call to adventure. With Jim in Treasure Planet, he's from a loving home where
his father left and didn't come back. So he's definitely searching for that father figure,
which shows when he's why he gets so attached to Long John Silver so quickly. I don't even think
(13:28):
there's his name in the Treasure Planet. I think they definitely call him Mr. Silver. I think
they just call him John Silver. I don't know. I think they might ditch the long part of it.
And but he's like, he very much reminds me of something I made you watch recently,
(13:49):
which is the Kelvin timeline of Star Trek, which is when James T. Kirk's dad is killed.
Right. He becomes a rebellious teenager and it's very much the same with Jim in the beginning of
the movie. When Hinman and his mother are happy, so clearly within this concept, his father's still
in the picture. He's obsessed with the story of Captain Flint, watching like a really cool holographic
(14:15):
book of his adventures and the fact that he just like disappeared. And you know, there's a secret
that he was like hiding all his treasure from a thousand worlds on this one planet that no one
could find. And that sort of change is very cool because obviously within the difference between
say the golden age of piracy and the Caribbean, where a lot of liberties have been taken with
(14:43):
the way that people have written stories about piracy, where they were not hoarding it and
burying it on islands and making treasure maps and telling the diggers they were spending it and
like trying to build their own empire. And, you know, people don't know a lot about piracy outside
of Disney basically. Disney and adaptations. But there's also been, I mean this is coming from my
(15:09):
knowledge of national treasure. Hang on, let me get my national treasure in the jail. There have been
so many rumors and stories over the years of treasures, big hordes of treasures that have
gone missing. And so there's always going to be this idea of like, oh what if it's here, what if
(15:30):
it's there? You know, there's people going searching caves in Arizona because they think that there
might be treasure hidden in there. I think there's an entire, and I say documentary with air quotes
here because it's not really a documentary. Like one of those reality TV shows where there's like
treasure hunters. Yeah, absolutely. There's more than one, I think. Yeah, but they're more along the
(15:52):
lines of like trying to find shipwrecks that had, you know, like, oh, we're down here and we're
waiting the logs. And that's the beginning of national treasure is that they're searching
and arctic, no, they're searching the arctic, I'm trying to think of which one, searching the arctic
for a ship that would have been where it disappeared. They've realized that it's Charlotte,
(16:14):
yeah, Charlotte, the ship. They realize that like, you know, with ice caps freezing and melting and
freezing, it's actually way inland. And it's this concept of there are these stories that have been
told about, you know, this person had all this treasure and then they died, where did it go?
(16:34):
And that's how you end up with stories like Treasure Island where you're like, you know,
well, there was this famous pirate captain and, you know,
you know, he killed everyone. There's a line in parts of Caribbean kind of
referencing these stories where, you know, they're saying, oh, you know, and so the stories say that
(16:55):
he had killed everyone who knew about it and it's like, well, then who's telling the stories?
And that's very much how it goes in Muppet Treasure Island, because the opening, I mean,
the opening is so cool. And it's like, it's an underrated song for a Muppet movie,
which ends with the line, shiver my timber, shiver my sails, dead man, tell no tales. And then it
(17:17):
shows Captain Flint shooting the crew. Yeah. You know, and the idea is that he killed everyone
who knew about where the treasure was. And then it's like, it put Long John Silver and Billy
Bones and Blind Pew were all on his ship with him. And they clearly know about it. And Billy Bones
has the treasure map, you know, and it's like, okay, all these people, and you know, Ben Gone is
(17:41):
stranded on the island and then Muppet version, he's, you know, it's Miss Piggy. And she's Ben
Jemina Gone. And then she's got her previous love interest is Captain Smaller, but she also was,
you know, had a had a relationship with Captain Flint and it's implied that she had a relationship
with Long John Silver. And then in Treasure Planet, Ben is a robot who had his memory pulled out
(18:07):
because he because Flint didn't want him to tell anyone about that he booby trapped the treasure
because in that version, Flint is so bent on keeping the treasure even after he dies that he
literally is essentially buried himself in the treasure and set up traps so that no one else
(18:28):
can take it. And it's, you know, it's like, what's the point of the treasure? If you're not using it
to spend on things, and you don't want someone else to have it after you die.
That's a message for all the billionaires in the world. Yeah, yeah, spend your treasure to help
people. And genuinely, I mean, that's why Captain Flint is certainly in the Treasure Planet version.
(18:49):
And he's like a billionaire who's hoarding the wealth and then doing nothing with it.
Yeah. The Goonies. Goonies, yeah. Goonies also has the whole Berry Treasure under the island thing.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a very common trope. I mean, I do think obviously Robert Louis Stevenson
is a big part of any future ones. Like about, you know, it's like how Bram Stoker's Dracula
(19:12):
has influenced every other vampire story since it was written, you know,
you could think they were always very much the same until I guess it would have been
Anne Rice's novels that really changed vampires with a pop culture. Because before they were always
very like foreign counts coming to England to prey on, you know, women and be all spooky and
(19:40):
stuff with their like, you know, telepathy and, you know, with them, Renfield was Bram Stoker's
Dracula, not Serato. And it wasn't until like obviously later on, but then in saying that Blade,
Blade the original comics was a little bit obviously is very different from what we saw on screen.
(20:02):
But it's also like, you know, how Tolkien influenced the fantasy genre. Yeah. Yeah.
That how many fantasy novels written since since the Lord of the Rings have been influenced by
the Lord of the Rings, you know, it's actually fascinating because he his novel changed the
(20:23):
entire it's everything. Everything. Like you go back and you boil it all down at his Tolkien's work.
Yeah. You know, if you picture an elf in your head,
like an elf soldier, they're always using bows, you know, they're always like in the woods and
then dwarves are always like using hammers and axes that are underground and they're big and heavy.
(20:45):
And they're big like bears and the women of bears. It's very. Orcs are always like, you know,
in the darkness and you know, scraggly looking hodgepodge armor that's not mass produced. It's
and that goes into dragons, dragons, like elder scrolls, elder scrolls less with the orcs, but
(21:10):
is very much very like. Yeah, I think elder scrolls tend to go into Norse mythology a little bit as
well. Definitely. But so did Tolkien. Tolkien dipped into Norse mythology. Anyway, we're getting way
off track here, but it but the point still stands that like a lot of pirate related things,
(21:30):
you know, from the 1880s onwards were very much inspired by Treasure Island because it was kind
of the core, you know, well known pirate book. And obviously the story is still, you know, well
2014 was when Black Sails came out and it was the last sort of like major. People are still interested
(21:52):
in it. You know, but the Pirates of Caribbean series definitely touch on stuff from from.
Yeah, definitely within the same sort of it's not it's not.
Though there are very similarities between the Black Pearl and Treasure Islands. They are
very similar secrets separate sorry. We're just the way but then again, we don't know
(22:18):
the motivations of the writer who wrote the original ride because they were like, oh,
you know, can I copy your homework? Yeah, but change it a little bit kind of, you know, well,
the kind of the ride is just you go through a town that's where it's all the pirates are spending
their money. So it is more like, you know, what you're saying about the golden era of Piracy.
(22:43):
Yeah, but it isn't but there is also then the imagery that we see in Treasure Planet,
where you get to a point where it's the skeleton in a he's, you know, he's hoarded all this gold
and then he's just he's scout needs to die but he's pouring the the wine into him which they
use that imagery obviously in the Piracy Caribbean movie Barbosa does a drinks wine and it goes through
(23:08):
and but yeah, but there is so there is to some extent, even in the Pirates of Caribbean ride,
they're referencing like, you know, oh, and here's the greedy pirate captain who kept all his
treasure and, you know, and ended up dying with it, which is very much the kind of Captain Flint
idea. Yeah. Anyway, character wise, I think what you were saying earlier about
(23:37):
how much we see of Jim Hawkins, you know, family life in Treasure Planet is interesting because
it's they don't show it until he's getting to know John Silver. Yeah. So there's a lovely montage
with a song that is that appears in my Spotify top 100 every year, I think, where John Silver and
(24:04):
is John Silver is showing is like putting Jim to work but at the same time he's getting he's
feeling proud of him. Yeah. And Jim, you know, is doing this kind of half bonding half rebellion,
half work or you know, whatever that's one and a half. Anyway, with with John, but at the same
(24:25):
time it's it's put alongside clips from his past where it's him waiting on his dad to come back and
then, you know, trying to get his dad his attention when his dad does come through, but he kind of
just like pass on the head and walks by. And then, you know, it culminates with, you know, Jim letting
down the lifeboat for John Silver to to go off and when he disappears out of frame, you see his
(24:48):
face change and then it shows you him waking up and hearing, you know, because he heard there's no
sound, there's no doubt it sounded but you could assume it's because he heard the door slam. And
he looks at the windows, he's his dad heading towards a boat and he runs down as mom was crying
downstairs, then he runs out and he gets to the pier right as the boat has taken away and it's the
(25:09):
last, you know, presumably the last time he saw his dad. And then John Silver comes back for him
and gets takes away with him on the boat and it's the, you know, he has made the link in his own
mind. Oh, this is, you know, he's he's started to trust this guy and see him as a father figure
and then he's like, oh, he's gonna leave me too. And then he goes, oh, he won't. You know, and whereas
(25:32):
in Muppet Treasure Island, what they have is a conversation where it shows you not so much that
Jim sees John Silver as a potential father figure, but that John Silver sees himself in Jim, which is
when Jim, you know, when he goes to long done silver goes to dangle the compass over the edge of the
(25:53):
water because he's trying to teach him to navigate by the stars and said, and Jim gets upset and he
says, that's my, you know, that's my father's the only thing I have of him. So John asked him
when his father died, he said he was seven and then long done to I was eight and my father died.
And my father was a first mate or was that right? First mate, I think. And then Jim's like, so was
(26:15):
mine. And they realized that like, to some extent, they are each other. And I think in both movies,
they kind of do show you that long done Silver sees enough of himself in Jim that he knows that Jim
could turn out to be like him, and that he doesn't necessarily want Jim to turn out to be like him.
And in both, but in both he does at some point, try to convince him to like, oh, you know, you can
(26:38):
come to his pirate life with me. Once Jim knows that he's a pirate, but ultimately, I think he's
happier that Jim doesn't choose that life. Because he knows that that's, you know, the life that he
chosen for himself, he's put himself on the run constantly. And, you know, and he would rather Jim
(26:58):
get to have a life that he didn't get to have. Yeah. It's very interesting because like, you can't
really obviously want science fiction. But like, even with that and that, there's sort of like, no
time placement of it. Because like, the, I think the last age of piracy, well, especially in the
(27:19):
Caribbean, there was like, Blackbeard's era. So it would teach. Right. It's, it's, and that is around
when Treasure Island's supposed to be set. Right? Yeah. Because Flint was supposed to be a contemporary
of teach. Yeah. Treasure Island's supposed to be set slightly after. Yeah. So it's 1715 to 1726.
(27:45):
Right. There was a golden age of piracy. So that was when it was like uncontrolled. Yeah. So
1650 to 1730. So it was actually a decent time. Yeah. But there was, you know, there was,
rather, there was in the Americas anyway, which is why, because then in Treasure,
(28:07):
Muppet Treasure Island, and obviously Treasure Island, the book, they're setting sail from Bristol
in the UK, but they're heading towards the Caribbean. Yeah. So it is kind of the same thing.
Or like the same area. Apparently, in the book, Billy Bones mentions 1745 and his log dates on the
(28:34):
Treasure Maps. So the movies or the book is supposed to take place between around 1757 to 1762.
So it is a little while after the golden age of piracy, which makes sense because, you know,
they're not expecting everyone to be pirates and they're going to dig up treasure that was left
by pirates. Do you know how long it would teach, aka Black Beach? So you know the character, right?
(28:59):
Yep. Do you know how long he was a pirate for? Like five years, I think. From 1716 to 1718.
Two years. Yeah. And then if our flag means status to believed,
he then was just in a relationship with another form of pirate. Yeah. Benjamin Hornigold was
(29:24):
another pirate who took, who's pretty famous. Yeah, he's in Black Sails as well. Yeah. So
Hornigold, Charles Vane, Black Bart, Calico Jack, Henry Morgan's, well famous for other reasons.
But they're, you know, these were all real people. Yeah. And Bonnie, another famous pirate, very,
(29:51):
very few famous female pirates, unfortunately. Mary Reed, obviously the other one. It's a very
interesting genre because it is sort of this weird love affair of a time that had long passed,
even when, you know, the book was written. Yeah, yeah. The book, it's set about 100 and something
(30:13):
years before the book was written. And you sort of have to wonder what, like, things are going to
come out from our culture about times in the past. And you see it a lot with science fiction in the
very least, maybe not so much with contemporary stuff, but you do feel like even, even even Star Trek
(30:38):
has a very sort of like, because they are starships. So they're very much like a naval sort of thing.
And you could say that like in early Star Trek, you have the captain of the ship and his first
mate, and then they're going off on these adventures. And then, you know, Klingons,
you could came as pirates because they're very much about honor with themselves and their warriors.
(30:59):
And, you know, and it's, I think even, even though, you know, it's over 300 years ago,
the legacy of these people, the legacy of this era is really carried forward in pop culture.
And the way we tell stories and the type of stories we tell, they're still very relevant.
(31:26):
And, you know, it's such a such an interesting thing to be so like, you know, do you have adaptations
of these that carry so much weight, even though, you know, you can change the story by having
characters being muppets or having them as, you know, cyborgs in the future.
(31:49):
And I think, I mean, I think the relationship between Jim and Long Dawn Silver is part of that.
Yeah, I think that, well, obviously, you know, the, the concept of piracy and or an adventure,
you know, this like young kid going off on this huge adventure to see the world and think that
that is, you know, something that's always going to resonate with people. But I think the reason
(32:10):
why this particular story is so adaptable and you can change it into, you know, whatever setting you
want to, and it still works is because it's very much about that central relationship between this
kid who doesn't have a dad and this guy who sees potential, but also he sees the potential for
(32:31):
God and the potential for battle, the kid. And I know in, you know, Muppet Treasure Island,
we don't necessarily get as much of the potential for bad because he is kind of, you know, almost
like a goody-to-toosie little kid. And he's a bit younger and a bit more naive. Whereas in
Treasure Planet, he's already being arrested, you know, he's already kind of a little bit of a
(32:56):
delinquent. You know, he's already kind of going down the wrong path. And you do, you know that he
doesn't want to be because he has that moment where he's like, I'm gonna, you know, finally I have
something that's going to help me change how people see me, you know, and make people look at me and
realize that, you know, I'm not all these bad things. And in both, you know, especially Muppet
(33:21):
or especially Treasure Planet, he's definitely got like a lot of potential. He's an intelligent kid.
You know, he's, he's, he actually gets on well with people when he tries. I mean, I know in,
I know in, you know, more in Muppet Treasure Island, he's easily getting along with everyone
whereas in Treasure Planet, he's, you know, there's an edge to him. But when he actually
(33:46):
lets his walls down, he gets on with people really well. And he's like, in that one, he's very
technically minded. And he's very good at, you know, robotics and shipbuilding and, you know,
all sorts of kind of things. And a very quick learner. I think he's a quick learner in both.
And, you know, and there is so much potential for him to go and put good into the world and,
(34:11):
you know, do something worthwhile with his life. But there's also potential
for him to end up exactly like Long John Silver. And I think that, that just like core
central story could be put into any setting. It doesn't even necessarily need to be pirate related,
(34:32):
but the pirates are fun. Treasure Island. Yeah. It's just some kind of, you know,
adventure where he gets to grow into himself and discover what his own potential is.
I think a lot of people will see themselves in that.
(34:53):
Yeah, I agree with you. Do you want to cover off some tidbits, little bits of fun face?
Yeah. Is there anything else you want to talk about?
Not particularly, but maybe something will pop up while you're talking.
Muppet Treasure Island. So I just took note of who wrote the songs because I love the songs in
(35:14):
this movie. So they're written by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, who also worked together on
an American Tale, which also has good songs. Apparently after shooting wrapped, they gifted
the studio gifted Tim Curry with a Muppet version of himself as Long John Silver,
(35:34):
which is very cute. This I thought was very funny. So you know, when there's a kind of native pigs on
the island, and the first one we meet his name is Spa Am. Hormul Foods corporations, the makers of
Spam sued the production company for having a warthog named Spa Am. And they lost their lawsuit,
(36:00):
but the judge made a note in the deliberation. What he said was one might think Hormul would
welcome the association with a genuine source of pork. Kevin Bishop, who plays Jim Hawkins,
went through puberty and his voice broke during filming. So a lot of his singing is overdubbed
(36:23):
with like older recordings they had of him practicing the songs. So just just while they
had the older versions of it, I mentioned that he was the first person to audition. And they did
hundreds of actors and he ended up getting the role. This was made apparently after the success
of Muppet Chris's Carole, the Jim Henson productions decided that they wanted to cast Kermit and his
(36:48):
friends in another period piece. And apparently the screenwriter said it had been a toss up between
an adaptation of Treasure Island or a take on King Arthur. So we almost ended up with a Muppet's
Camelot movie instead. That's interesting. Yeah. Also originally, Jim Hawkins wasn't going to be a
(37:08):
human in it. They were going to split the role like they did with Marley in Muppet Chris's Carole.
They were going to split the role in two and have Gonzo and Rizzo play characters named Jim and
Hawkins as two separate characters. But then they realized that like I was just saying,
the story is very important. The core of the story is very much about this young boy's experiences.
(37:31):
And they were like, no, we need to keep the boy in it. And they just put Gonzo and Rizzo kind of
as themselves. Tim Curry modeled his accent and his voice on his own grandfather who was a sailor.
Just to say a pirate. Yeah, maybe. It's a seafaring. Yeah. So he just basically did an impression
(37:53):
of his own grandfather for the movie. And Sir Billy Connolly takes great pride in being the
first person to die on screen in a Muppet movie as Billy Bones. For Treasure Planet, it seems like
it was in production hell for a very long time. So it said on it that the movie took 10 years to
(38:14):
make, which is the longest production cycle of any movie in Disney's experimental era, which is that
you know, era after their kind of Disney Renaissance. But I think it was longer than that
really, because apparently they were it was pitched to to the makers before they did or
(38:35):
while they were working on Basil the Great Moust Detective, which came out in 86. That's a long
time. Yeah. So and then they were but then they kept being given other movies to do. And eventually
when they were told that they were going to work on Hercules, they were like, we're only going to
do Hercules if we can finally do this Treasure Planet movie afterwards. Because that's that old
(38:57):
tale about people who were failing at their jobs on Prince of Egypt. They got shrieked. They got
shrieked. They got put on track. They had to go work on track. No, I mean, these guys made like the duo made fantastic movies. You know, I think every one of the movies they've made has been really good. But they
yeah, they eventually were like, listen, we're only going to do Hercules if you let us finally do this movie afterwards. So the production mainly started
(39:22):
after the release of Hercules. The look of the movie was based on 19th century oil paintings, which is
it? Yeah, it was the first feature film to release simultaneously in regular theaters and IMAX theaters,
which is interesting. The human characters ended are hand drawn. John Silver's Cyborg Leg,
(39:49):
Arm and I are and Ben are all flat rendered CGI. And then they used a process called deep canvas to
create the ship. So in some scenes, all three types of animations appear simultaneously, which is really
interesting. They've got like just multiple different kinds of animation. It is the most expensive,
traditionally animated film ever made. It cost $140 million to make it. And then they had another 40
(40:15):
million for advertising, but had a total worldwide gross of $101 million. So it lost about $80 million.
So it is, I think, well, this was up until this was written in 2011. It was Disney's biggest financial loss. I feel like
they probably haven't had a bigger one since. But also, it's hard to tell in the era of streaming services,
(40:37):
you know, how much money certain films have made, especially ones that were, you know, during the COVID
pandemic that were released straight to streaming services. So it might not be the biggest loss
anymore, but it certainly would still be up there. Because they had a plain sequel for Trisha Plano.
Yeah. So when they, I can't remember who it was, when they brought in someone as head of the studios.
(41:05):
What, Bob Weigar? I don't know. Anyway, at some point they brought in someone as head of the studios
and the first job he was given was to axe any sequels in production or planning,
which is why it never got a sequel. And the other bit of trivia that I took down,
which I thought was interesting, is that at the end of the movie, so Dr. Doppler and Captain Amelia
(41:29):
have got children at the end of the movie, apparently they had to cut some lines from the movie
that had revealed that it was Dr. Doppler who gave birth to the children. Because Disney,
Disney themselves ordered that they cut it because they thought that having a male give birth,
(41:50):
even an alien, was too risque for a children's movie. So they didn't want, I mean, male seahorses
give birth. I don't think it's that weird. I mean, I watched this as a kid and I wouldn't have been
weirded out. I would have been like, oh, he gave, he had the babies. But Disney were like, no,
you cannot, you cannot include these lines that say that a man gave birth to these children.
(42:15):
But they didn't put any line to say otherwise. So I think canonically, canonically, Dr. Doppler
is the one who gave birth to those babies at the end, which is fun. Yeah, that's all the trivia
I had taken down anyway. When we normally do the end of the trivia. So sometimes you do budget
(42:35):
and box office, but yeah, we've already sort of covered that. Yeah, I didn't look at the budget and
box office of Bobbit Trigger Island. I think it was a 70 74 million cost, but there's no box office
to it. Oh, interesting. Yeah, did it not come with theatrical release? I don't I'm not sure. I
definitely had it on the age I look at I'm I imagine it did amazing numbers in the age I sales.
(42:58):
Because that was that whole thing. And that's that's something that I've realized that shocked me
recently. Unless you go to like, even though I'm going to JB Hi-Fi. For those who don't know,
it's like a, you know, it's a very much like electronics, records, CDs, DVDs, games, headphones,
(43:19):
that kind of thing, you know, that big, everything in there. The DVD selection is shrunk so massively.
We were into warehouses recently. For those who don't know warehouses like Target. Yeah,
kind of like Target. They don't have they don't even have them as a section anymore.
(43:40):
Yeah, that really surprised me. And it's very much down to streaming services like destroying
that entire market. And it really concerns me because streaming services are now eating itself.
Being that you can't get everything you want on one streaming service. So you either end up having
(44:01):
to have multiple subscriptions, which are then expensive. The attitudes that certain studios
within those streaming services are taking, which they're going, Oh, cool. We're not doing anything
complicated. And we're just making shock from now on. Because that's what people watch the most of.
Therefore, it gives us the most watch time. Therefore, it's the most popular. And therefore,
(44:26):
we must create more of that. Where I feel like Apple TV, on the other hand, are doing the opposite
of that and making really interesting niche stuff. And it's very difficult at this time
at this time that we probably won't get any more. What's the word? Straight to DVD,
(44:53):
spin offs of big movies that don't have the budget to make another movie like Aladdin, for an example.
You won't get any revitalization within the genre like we had with Firefly. And because
the DVD sales did so well, we got the Serenity movie. And I feel like that's really, really.
(45:15):
It's because everything's constrained to streaming. Yeah. Those kind of things that just
are Netflix or on Disney plus. You don't need to see a Avengers movie. You just wait three months
and it's for free on Bloody Disney Plus. Well, it's not for free, you're paying it.
Wow. Yeah. More and more of a subscription every year. I can't find the budget for
(45:37):
Mobile Treasure Island, but it made $34 million in box office, which adjusted for reflection is $83.7
million. So it lost as well. Well, I can't find anything to say a budget for it anywhere.
Okay, because I like the Wikipedia and I see the budget of it.
I only see the box office on Wikipedia. Oh, maybe I'm looking at the wrong sign name. Hang on.
(45:59):
Not that I don't believe you. I don't believe you.
I did just it's box office of this is 47 million on here. Well, I don't know what that's
coming from. I found multiple other sources that say 34 million as a box office. Strange.
(46:21):
Anyway, yes, why don't I how much it how much it cost? But you know, that's a decent amount. I mean,
that's not including as you mentioned VHS sales, which it would have made a lot in, I think. Yeah,
because they were via Jesus or Spines of back in the day and Muppet movies typically do pretty
well on Disney movies and Muppet movies both do well in VHS sales. I think Treasure Planet may have
(46:45):
been the last Disney movie to be released on VHS because then they went to DVD. Yeah, I think
Treasure Planet at least would have been one of the first that was released on both
pages of DVD. I know we had an Emperor's new groove on VHS, which might have been after it.
Certainly, I think it was the last of the Ron Clemens drama musker films to be released on VHS.
(47:10):
I don't know. Yeah, somewhere around that era is when they would have been still while they were
releasing on both DVD and VHS. So I think I'm not sure whether we had Treasure Planet on VHS or DVD.
Maybe that might have been one that we had both Emperor's new groove. We had VHS, which is around
the same time. Right. But then I think me the Robinson's we only had DVD. Brother Bear, I think,
(47:38):
was only DVD. Anyway, so somewhere around that era they cut off. So I mean, it couldn't have been
fantastic sales, Treasure Planet. But obviously, it's considered a huge financial loss for Disney,
which is a shame because it's a fantastic movie. And it still lives up. I mean, like if you look at
because here's the thing, it's considered Disney's experimental era because when they were like
(48:02):
doing bits and pieces of CG and you know, hand drawn about whatever of all those movies,
this one is probably age the best in terms of CGI. Like it still looks incredible. I don't think it
looks dated at all. Yeah, it's it. I think it looks beautiful. Most people have listened to this podcast,
no my argument between practical effects and CGI. But it's a it's an animated film. Yeah. And I think
(48:27):
that's where that like you haven't seen reboot. That looks awful. But like meet the Robinson's,
which is a film I love and I still love the story of it. But if you look at the CD, the
Robinson's that is massively dated by now. What was the other one that was into the wild?
(48:51):
Oh, my God. Well, yeah, that's bizarre. That's ridiculous. Chicken Little was around then as well.
And that's also kind of it. It was more stylized, which I think helps to keep it not not date so
much. And that was the difference between the wild and Madagascar that Madagascar was very stylized.
So it kind of kept its luck whereas, you know, but it's like if you look at the first toy story
(49:14):
movie versus toy story three or toy story four, and it's a massive wild world of difference.
But I genuinely think this movie, which is what 2002 completely holds up. I think the CG unit
looks fantastic still. I think they did a really good job blending those animation styles.
(49:35):
The blending is the main part and they did really, really well.
You know, it's still thoroughly enjoyable. Even, you know, with my dislike of CGI and things.
Yeah, I mean, you know, the solar sails and the ship itself all being kind of a, you know,
(49:55):
with the deep canvas thing and the cyborg parts and the robot parts all being CG on a, you know,
either on this deep canvas ship or on a hand drawn background. And it still looks fantastic to this
day. You know, I think that, you know, for an experimental film, incredible work. I do think
(50:17):
Atlantis does a decent job as well, which is around the same time. I think it's 2001. If you
watched Dinosaur, which was another Disney film from that era, that looks terrible.
So it was hitting this. But I think, yeah, I think this is one that's slept on. I think people
don't talk about Treasure Planet enough. It doesn't get as much love as it should, but it's an
(50:39):
incredible film. It's a really good adaptation. You know, that they kept the core story and kept
a lot of elements, you know, that are in the book, you know, they've actually stuck to a lot of it.
But put it in this sci-fi world and with all these experimental animation styles and managed to
make something that is still beautiful, you know, 20 odd years later. And of course, Muppets are
(51:04):
always practical. Yeah, Muppets are great. And Tim Curry perfection in that movie. He's so good.
He's just so good. He considers that one of his favorite films, apparently, that he's been in.
Which, you know, if I was in that movie, I would also consider it.
(51:25):
Yeah, I think he's incredible in it. The songs, the music in both films is great.
That's another thing we should check out. The music in both films is great. Very little in the way
of songs in Treasure Planet because it's not necessarily a musical Disney film. Like, you know,
(51:47):
some of them are very much musical, some of them are not. It does have that one
song that we talked about over the montage about the rest of just Indian credits. Whereas
Muppet Treasure Island has got so many songs and they're very funny. And the lyrics are just
wonderful. Like, you could watch that movie a dozen times and hear something new in the lyrics of
(52:11):
the songs each time. You'd be like, oh, I didn't even notice that last time. And there's definitely,
you know, we won't go into the detail of them. There's definitely jokes and references in Muppet
Treasure Island that are put in there for the adults watching as well. Oh, 100% like no child
going into their movies going to know who Henry Kissinger is. Yeah, yeah. So there's a few, you
(52:31):
know, a few very funny jokes that are quite subtle most of the time, but are funny for adults and the
kids won't get them at all until they're older and they rewatch it and they go, haha, did notice
that when I was a kid. So it's definitely a movie that's, I think both are movies that are
suitable for, you know, enjoyable for adults to watch. So they're both both movies that are good
(52:56):
for kids, but also very enjoyable for adults to watch. So you've enjoyed for adults to watch.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please join us on our Discord and you can find every link to
everything on our website. It takes two dot co dot NZ. Yep. Thank you for joining us on this
(53:18):
lovely adventure into the high seas of treasurousness and mutiny and family, family-ness. We'll catch
you next time. Bye bye. Bye.
Music
(00:18):
Hi everyone, I'm Lisa. And I'm Nick. And you're listening to It Takes Two, the podcast where two
people take two movies with the same plot or premise and watch and discuss them.
Arr ye land lubbers! Batten down the hatches. It's two adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's
1883's Treasure Island, where you're covering off Muppet Treasure Planet from 1996 and Treasure
(00:47):
Planet from 2002. Yep. So two adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's novels. Oh my god.
I separate his names. I said Robert Louis Steven Novelson, where there are very few humans.
Very few of them, both of these. Have you read it? I have not read it. Have you read any
(01:14):
Robert Louis Stevenson novels? I don't think I have. We'll see the other one, the famous.
Connect is the one that I read. Oh, there was another one that he was famous for. I think
Treasure Island is, we are 100%. I'm going to cut it off right now and say we are definitely going
to mix up the words Treasure Island and Treasure Planet multiple times. Strange case of Dr. Jekyll
(01:35):
and Mr. Pied. Yes, that's what he's written. I don't know if I've read that. I'm more likely
to have read that than Treasure Island, I think. Though I feel like we had both books in the house
when I was a kid, so I could have read them. But I feel like, no, I don't think I did read Treasure
Island. We did have it, but I don't think I ever read it. I kind of mostly just watched a lot of
(01:59):
Muppet Treasure Island and also the page master goes into it. And I had PC game versions of both
of those movies as well. So that was my Treasure Island knowledge. The Treasure Island knowledge
was the Muppet movie and the Muppet based game. A Muppet based game and also a page master game.
(02:19):
Fair. It's interesting because you're right about the fact there's very limited human characters.
Obviously the same character archetypes are in both. They just play slightly different things.
Yeah, it's very interesting to compare characters, I think. I don't know where you...
(02:42):
I feel like that's probably what the book of this might be, but there's also obviously
changes in story that are made. A, because one is Muppets, and B, because the other is Set in Space.
Though can I just say I love the aesthetic. I know it doesn't make a lot of practical
sense, but I love the aesthetic of just pirate ships sailing through space.
(03:05):
Yeah, so the concept of solar sails, the only bit that asks me about Treasure Planet is the fact
that they can breathe in space. If you had a sail ship that was enclosed in some sort of
like boom or double. Yeah, I assume we're supposed to assume because they've got artificial gravity
(03:27):
on the ship. I assume that they're supposed to be like a kind of an atmosphere around the ship,
but then it doesn't make sense how at one point Jim is off kind of...
First of all, the lifeboats don't make a lot of sense, but then also there's a bit where Jim has
made a makeshift hoverboard and he just like... and it makes sense on a planet, but then he sails off
into space and it's like what distance does he need to be from that ship before he suffocates?
(03:51):
Yeah, so it's a weird concept because you could argue that maybe some of the aliens
can you know don't need atmosphere or air or something, but he's clearly a human.
I don't know how much you know about aliens, but nothing can survive.
I know, yeah, I know what I'm saying. You could say like there's you know,
(04:14):
it's sci-fi, they're taking liberties and they've created an alien species who can do this, you know,
but when your main character is a human, you're sending off into space with no atmosphere.
So there is bacteria apparently growing on the outside of the International Space Station.
That's really cool and scary.
Tardigrades, aka water bears who also survived being exposed to a vacuum of space,
(04:39):
they're like insane, they're like one of my favorite small things, all the small things.
Yeah, that's the only bit that really kind of annoys me. I love the aesthetic, I love the fact
that they replaced him having a peg leg with being a cyborg. The problem is is Tim Curry.
(05:00):
The problem is Tim Curry.
His performance is fantastic and makes the rest of the movie look kind of like bad in comparison.
Oh, the Muppet Treasure Island. It's great. I have seen someone say and I think it is so true
and I think about it quite regularly that the Muppet Christmas Carol works because Michael Cain
(05:23):
treats the other Muppets as real actors. And the Muppet Treasure Island works because Tim
Curry treats himself as a Muppet. And I think that's what's happening is that he is like,
they're all up, it's cool. I'm one too. So he treats them as his equal but he's on a different
(05:43):
playing field to Michael Cain in Muppet Christmas Carol. I think he's fantastic. But I think the
kid is actually really good as well. The kid playing Jim Hawkins. Kevin Bishop was the actor.
Kevin Bishop, I think he's like because he was a no one. That's his first film.
I think he continued to be a no one unfortunately.
(06:04):
Oh, well they auditioned apparently they auditioned hundreds of actors for it but he had been the
first one to audition. So can you imagine you auditioned like hundreds of actors for role
and then you're like actually that first kid was really good. But the Muppets are great.
The Muppets are always great. Yes. You know, it was Sam the Eagles first big role in a Muppet
(06:28):
movie. He was a fantastic Mr. Arrow. Interestingly, I think from what I've read in the book, Mr. Arrow
is like a drunkard and he's not really as honorable as he is. In both of these adaptations,
he's like super honorable, strict with rules and things. He's keeping everybody in line.
(06:54):
Yeah. Yeah, it's um the main plot is identical. Jim gets the map. He gets together with the crew.
He's stationed with Long John Silver. They get along. They have fun together. They bond.
(07:16):
Then a mutiny happens. Then they all end up on Treasure Island slash Planet.
And it's the bond between Jim and Long John Silver that ends up making them go on a separate
ways. It's sort of like I'll see you around kind of material rather than like next time I'll see
you or kill you. And then no one gets the treasure. It's pretty much the whole thing.
(07:42):
Yeah, that's the whole thing. Nobody ever gets the treasure. The treasure was the friendship
they forged along the way. There's some interesting parallels in these in things where they were they
diverted from the book. For example, they both have a like a love story between the captain
(08:04):
and the character, which I don't believe. I don't think Captain Smaller gets a love story in the
original book. Certainly not with Ben Gone. The Struggice Road. It was an interesting way to
introduce Miss Piggy. It's the character of like the Queen of the like primitive pigs on the Treasure
(08:28):
Island. We've seen quite a few adaptations of this throughout the years under different things.
We I would say recently completed Black Sails. Yeah, relatively. Within the last five years.
Yeah, which was sort of a prequely series with all the same characters.
(08:51):
And you see the characters develop along the way Billy Bones, Captain Flint and also Long John Silver.
Yeah. It's a very well rounded story that can go from Muppets to sci-fi animation because it is
animated. I really there's nothing really that stands out either movie, which was worse than the
(09:19):
other other than the little nitpicky pieces we've gone over of, you know, how the hell do people
breathe in space and space whales and what we didn't mention the space whales with the space whales.
The space whales. Yeah. I genuinely love both these movies. This is by the way,
this is coming out on my birthday this episode. This is my birthday present to myself is that we
got to watch Treasure Planet and Muppet Treasure Island. I legitimately really love both of these
(09:45):
movies. I mean, I'm always a Muppet fan. I know Treasure Planet is the better rated film.
It also was the bigger flop. Yeah. Which I think I think I do think that Treasure Planet is one
of the most underrated Disney movies. Brother Bear is another one that I really love that and and
(10:10):
Basil Great Mass Detective, which was by the same duo who made Treasure Planet.
And so they did Basil, then they did Little Mermaid Aladdin Hercules, Treasure Planet,
and then Princess and the Frog. So they yeah, I fantastic duo, Ron Clemens and John Lusker.
(10:38):
And I yeah, I do. I don't know. I will always have a softball from of it. I think Muppet Treasure
Island will be will be higher for me and in these two in terms of how much I love it.
What Treasure Planet is probably a better film. But only slightly, I'd say they're pretty on par
with each other. It's been very heavily adapted. Yeah, of course it has. So there was oh my god.
(11:07):
I mean, I've also seen another animated Treasure Planet, but I don't know if anyone wants us to
compare that to anything or if people even know it exists. The 86, 7 one. Is that what it was?
Is that as a major Bulgaria? So this is a cold treasure planet and it's Bulgarian.
No, so there's another one. Yeah, so I think it was at the 60s. The Bulgarian Treasure Planet.
(11:33):
So 1982, a Bulgarian animated science fiction adaptation.
Absolutely bizarre. What a weird movie. What an incredibly weird movie. Maybe someday we'll do
that Treasure Planet and this Treasure Planet because it's literally insane. I'm showing you
(11:53):
a clip of it, right? I think so. I can share I can share the clip of it in our social media.
Because I mean, like it gives you good indication of how bad shit insane it is.
I've just remembered that this is supposed to be a child friendly episode and I hope that that wasn't
straying outside of child friendly. Anyway, these movies are both great. Do we want to talk? So
(12:17):
is there much in the story you want to talk about or do you want to just talk characters and how
the characters have been reinvented for these movies? Because obviously there's a big liberties
taken. So in the story, I feel like there's a little bit more world building in Treasure Planet
than there is in Muppet Treasure Island. Muppet Treasure Island starts off Jim's hanging out with
(12:40):
Gonzo and Rizzo. They're orphans. They're in the case of in the care of a tavern owner who's
extremely, well, I don't even know the word, she can hear when her name is taken in vain.
Billy Bones is a drunk and they end up getting the map and then he basically just runs off,
(13:07):
you know, it's his call to adventure. With Jim in Treasure Planet, he's from a loving home where
his father left and didn't come back. So he's definitely searching for that father figure,
which shows when he's why he gets so attached to Long John Silver so quickly. I don't even think
(13:28):
there's his name in the Treasure Planet. I think they definitely call him Mr. Silver. I think
they just call him John Silver. I don't know. I think they might ditch the long part of it.
And but he's like, he very much reminds me of something I made you watch recently,
(13:49):
which is the Kelvin timeline of Star Trek, which is when James T. Kirk's dad is killed.
Right. He becomes a rebellious teenager and it's very much the same with Jim in the beginning of
the movie. When Hinman and his mother are happy, so clearly within this concept, his father's still
in the picture. He's obsessed with the story of Captain Flint, watching like a really cool holographic
(14:15):
book of his adventures and the fact that he just like disappeared. And you know, there's a secret
that he was like hiding all his treasure from a thousand worlds on this one planet that no one
could find. And that sort of change is very cool because obviously within the difference between
say the golden age of piracy and the Caribbean, where a lot of liberties have been taken with
(14:43):
the way that people have written stories about piracy, where they were not hoarding it and
burying it on islands and making treasure maps and telling the diggers they were spending it and
like trying to build their own empire. And, you know, people don't know a lot about piracy outside
of Disney basically. Disney and adaptations. But there's also been, I mean this is coming from my
(15:09):
knowledge of national treasure. Hang on, let me get my national treasure in the jail. There have been
so many rumors and stories over the years of treasures, big hordes of treasures that have
gone missing. And so there's always going to be this idea of like, oh what if it's here, what if
(15:30):
it's there? You know, there's people going searching caves in Arizona because they think that there
might be treasure hidden in there. I think there's an entire, and I say documentary with air quotes
here because it's not really a documentary. Like one of those reality TV shows where there's like
treasure hunters. Yeah, absolutely. There's more than one, I think. Yeah, but they're more along the
(15:52):
lines of like trying to find shipwrecks that had, you know, like, oh, we're down here and we're
waiting the logs. And that's the beginning of national treasure is that they're searching
and arctic, no, they're searching the arctic, I'm trying to think of which one, searching the arctic
for a ship that would have been where it disappeared. They've realized that it's Charlotte,
(16:14):
yeah, Charlotte, the ship. They realize that like, you know, with ice caps freezing and melting and
freezing, it's actually way inland. And it's this concept of there are these stories that have been
told about, you know, this person had all this treasure and then they died, where did it go?
(16:34):
And that's how you end up with stories like Treasure Island where you're like, you know,
well, there was this famous pirate captain and, you know,
you know, he killed everyone. There's a line in parts of Caribbean kind of
referencing these stories where, you know, they're saying, oh, you know, and so the stories say that
(16:55):
he had killed everyone who knew about it and it's like, well, then who's telling the stories?
And that's very much how it goes in Muppet Treasure Island, because the opening, I mean,
the opening is so cool. And it's like, it's an underrated song for a Muppet movie,
which ends with the line, shiver my timber, shiver my sails, dead man, tell no tales. And then it
(17:17):
shows Captain Flint shooting the crew. Yeah. You know, and the idea is that he killed everyone
who knew about where the treasure was. And then it's like, it put Long John Silver and Billy
Bones and Blind Pew were all on his ship with him. And they clearly know about it. And Billy Bones
has the treasure map, you know, and it's like, okay, all these people, and you know, Ben Gone is
(17:41):
stranded on the island and then Muppet version, he's, you know, it's Miss Piggy. And she's Ben
Jemina Gone. And then she's got her previous love interest is Captain Smaller, but she also was,
you know, had a had a relationship with Captain Flint and it's implied that she had a relationship
with Long John Silver. And then in Treasure Planet, Ben is a robot who had his memory pulled out
(18:07):
because he because Flint didn't want him to tell anyone about that he booby trapped the treasure
because in that version, Flint is so bent on keeping the treasure even after he dies that he
literally is essentially buried himself in the treasure and set up traps so that no one else
(18:28):
can take it. And it's, you know, it's like, what's the point of the treasure? If you're not using it
to spend on things, and you don't want someone else to have it after you die.
That's a message for all the billionaires in the world. Yeah, yeah, spend your treasure to help
people. And genuinely, I mean, that's why Captain Flint is certainly in the Treasure Planet version.
(18:49):
And he's like a billionaire who's hoarding the wealth and then doing nothing with it.
Yeah. The Goonies. Goonies, yeah. Goonies also has the whole Berry Treasure under the island thing.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a very common trope. I mean, I do think obviously Robert Louis Stevenson
is a big part of any future ones. Like about, you know, it's like how Bram Stoker's Dracula
(19:12):
has influenced every other vampire story since it was written, you know,
you could think they were always very much the same until I guess it would have been
Anne Rice's novels that really changed vampires with a pop culture. Because before they were always
very like foreign counts coming to England to prey on, you know, women and be all spooky and
(19:40):
stuff with their like, you know, telepathy and, you know, with them, Renfield was Bram Stoker's
Dracula, not Serato. And it wasn't until like obviously later on, but then in saying that Blade,
Blade the original comics was a little bit obviously is very different from what we saw on screen.
(20:02):
But it's also like, you know, how Tolkien influenced the fantasy genre. Yeah. Yeah.
That how many fantasy novels written since since the Lord of the Rings have been influenced by
the Lord of the Rings, you know, it's actually fascinating because he his novel changed the
(20:23):
entire it's everything. Everything. Like you go back and you boil it all down at his Tolkien's work.
Yeah. You know, if you picture an elf in your head,
like an elf soldier, they're always using bows, you know, they're always like in the woods and
then dwarves are always like using hammers and axes that are underground and they're big and heavy.
(20:45):
And they're big like bears and the women of bears. It's very. Orcs are always like, you know,
in the darkness and you know, scraggly looking hodgepodge armor that's not mass produced. It's
and that goes into dragons, dragons, like elder scrolls, elder scrolls less with the orcs, but
(21:10):
is very much very like. Yeah, I think elder scrolls tend to go into Norse mythology a little bit as
well. Definitely. But so did Tolkien. Tolkien dipped into Norse mythology. Anyway, we're getting way
off track here, but it but the point still stands that like a lot of pirate related things,
(21:30):
you know, from the 1880s onwards were very much inspired by Treasure Island because it was kind
of the core, you know, well known pirate book. And obviously the story is still, you know, well
2014 was when Black Sails came out and it was the last sort of like major. People are still interested
(21:52):
in it. You know, but the Pirates of Caribbean series definitely touch on stuff from from.
Yeah, definitely within the same sort of it's not it's not.
Though there are very similarities between the Black Pearl and Treasure Islands. They are
very similar secrets separate sorry. We're just the way but then again, we don't know
(22:18):
the motivations of the writer who wrote the original ride because they were like, oh,
you know, can I copy your homework? Yeah, but change it a little bit kind of, you know, well,
the kind of the ride is just you go through a town that's where it's all the pirates are spending
their money. So it is more like, you know, what you're saying about the golden era of Piracy.
(22:43):
Yeah, but it isn't but there is also then the imagery that we see in Treasure Planet,
where you get to a point where it's the skeleton in a he's, you know, he's hoarded all this gold
and then he's just he's scout needs to die but he's pouring the the wine into him which they
use that imagery obviously in the Piracy Caribbean movie Barbosa does a drinks wine and it goes through
(23:08):
and but yeah, but there is so there is to some extent, even in the Pirates of Caribbean ride,
they're referencing like, you know, oh, and here's the greedy pirate captain who kept all his
treasure and, you know, and ended up dying with it, which is very much the kind of Captain Flint
idea. Yeah. Anyway, character wise, I think what you were saying earlier about
(23:37):
how much we see of Jim Hawkins, you know, family life in Treasure Planet is interesting because
it's they don't show it until he's getting to know John Silver. Yeah. So there's a lovely montage
with a song that is that appears in my Spotify top 100 every year, I think, where John Silver and
(24:04):
is John Silver is showing is like putting Jim to work but at the same time he's getting he's
feeling proud of him. Yeah. And Jim, you know, is doing this kind of half bonding half rebellion,
half work or you know, whatever that's one and a half. Anyway, with with John, but at the same
(24:25):
time it's it's put alongside clips from his past where it's him waiting on his dad to come back and
then, you know, trying to get his dad his attention when his dad does come through, but he kind of
just like pass on the head and walks by. And then, you know, it culminates with, you know, Jim letting
down the lifeboat for John Silver to to go off and when he disappears out of frame, you see his
(24:48):
face change and then it shows you him waking up and hearing, you know, because he heard there's no
sound, there's no doubt it sounded but you could assume it's because he heard the door slam. And
he looks at the windows, he's his dad heading towards a boat and he runs down as mom was crying
downstairs, then he runs out and he gets to the pier right as the boat has taken away and it's the
(25:09):
last, you know, presumably the last time he saw his dad. And then John Silver comes back for him
and gets takes away with him on the boat and it's the, you know, he has made the link in his own
mind. Oh, this is, you know, he's he's started to trust this guy and see him as a father figure
and then he's like, oh, he's gonna leave me too. And then he goes, oh, he won't. You know, and whereas
(25:32):
in Muppet Treasure Island, what they have is a conversation where it shows you not so much that
Jim sees John Silver as a potential father figure, but that John Silver sees himself in Jim, which is
when Jim, you know, when he goes to long done silver goes to dangle the compass over the edge of the
(25:53):
water because he's trying to teach him to navigate by the stars and said, and Jim gets upset and he
says, that's my, you know, that's my father's the only thing I have of him. So John asked him
when his father died, he said he was seven and then long done to I was eight and my father died.
And my father was a first mate or was that right? First mate, I think. And then Jim's like, so was
(26:15):
mine. And they realized that like, to some extent, they are each other. And I think in both movies,
they kind of do show you that long done Silver sees enough of himself in Jim that he knows that Jim
could turn out to be like him, and that he doesn't necessarily want Jim to turn out to be like him.
And in both, but in both he does at some point, try to convince him to like, oh, you know, you can
(26:38):
come to his pirate life with me. Once Jim knows that he's a pirate, but ultimately, I think he's
happier that Jim doesn't choose that life. Because he knows that that's, you know, the life that he
chosen for himself, he's put himself on the run constantly. And, you know, and he would rather Jim
(26:58):
get to have a life that he didn't get to have. Yeah. It's very interesting because like, you can't
really obviously want science fiction. But like, even with that and that, there's sort of like, no
time placement of it. Because like, the, I think the last age of piracy, well, especially in the
(27:19):
Caribbean, there was like, Blackbeard's era. So it would teach. Right. It's, it's, and that is around
when Treasure Island's supposed to be set. Right? Yeah. Because Flint was supposed to be a contemporary
of teach. Yeah. Treasure Island's supposed to be set slightly after. Yeah. So it's 1715 to 1726.
(27:45):
Right. There was a golden age of piracy. So that was when it was like uncontrolled. Yeah. So
1650 to 1730. So it was actually a decent time. Yeah. But there was, you know, there was,
rather, there was in the Americas anyway, which is why, because then in Treasure,
(28:07):
Muppet Treasure Island, and obviously Treasure Island, the book, they're setting sail from Bristol
in the UK, but they're heading towards the Caribbean. Yeah. So it is kind of the same thing.
Or like the same area. Apparently, in the book, Billy Bones mentions 1745 and his log dates on the
(28:34):
Treasure Maps. So the movies or the book is supposed to take place between around 1757 to 1762.
So it is a little while after the golden age of piracy, which makes sense because, you know,
they're not expecting everyone to be pirates and they're going to dig up treasure that was left
by pirates. Do you know how long it would teach, aka Black Beach? So you know the character, right?
(28:59):
Yep. Do you know how long he was a pirate for? Like five years, I think. From 1716 to 1718.
Two years. Yeah. And then if our flag means status to believed,
he then was just in a relationship with another form of pirate. Yeah. Benjamin Hornigold was
(29:24):
another pirate who took, who's pretty famous. Yeah, he's in Black Sails as well. Yeah. So
Hornigold, Charles Vane, Black Bart, Calico Jack, Henry Morgan's, well famous for other reasons.
But they're, you know, these were all real people. Yeah. And Bonnie, another famous pirate, very,
(29:51):
very few famous female pirates, unfortunately. Mary Reed, obviously the other one. It's a very
interesting genre because it is sort of this weird love affair of a time that had long passed,
even when, you know, the book was written. Yeah, yeah. The book, it's set about 100 and something
(30:13):
years before the book was written. And you sort of have to wonder what, like, things are going to
come out from our culture about times in the past. And you see it a lot with science fiction in the
very least, maybe not so much with contemporary stuff, but you do feel like even, even even Star Trek
(30:38):
has a very sort of like, because they are starships. So they're very much like a naval sort of thing.
And you could say that like in early Star Trek, you have the captain of the ship and his first
mate, and then they're going off on these adventures. And then, you know, Klingons,
you could came as pirates because they're very much about honor with themselves and their warriors.
(30:59):
And, you know, and it's, I think even, even though, you know, it's over 300 years ago,
the legacy of these people, the legacy of this era is really carried forward in pop culture.
And the way we tell stories and the type of stories we tell, they're still very relevant.
(31:26):
And, you know, it's such a such an interesting thing to be so like, you know, do you have adaptations
of these that carry so much weight, even though, you know, you can change the story by having
characters being muppets or having them as, you know, cyborgs in the future.
(31:49):
And I think, I mean, I think the relationship between Jim and Long Dawn Silver is part of that.
Yeah, I think that, well, obviously, you know, the, the concept of piracy and or an adventure,
you know, this like young kid going off on this huge adventure to see the world and think that
that is, you know, something that's always going to resonate with people. But I think the reason
(32:10):
why this particular story is so adaptable and you can change it into, you know, whatever setting you
want to, and it still works is because it's very much about that central relationship between this
kid who doesn't have a dad and this guy who sees potential, but also he sees the potential for
(32:31):
God and the potential for battle, the kid. And I know in, you know, Muppet Treasure Island,
we don't necessarily get as much of the potential for bad because he is kind of, you know, almost
like a goody-to-toosie little kid. And he's a bit younger and a bit more naive. Whereas in
Treasure Planet, he's already being arrested, you know, he's already kind of a little bit of a
(32:56):
delinquent. You know, he's already kind of going down the wrong path. And you do, you know that he
doesn't want to be because he has that moment where he's like, I'm gonna, you know, finally I have
something that's going to help me change how people see me, you know, and make people look at me and
realize that, you know, I'm not all these bad things. And in both, you know, especially Muppet
(33:21):
or especially Treasure Planet, he's definitely got like a lot of potential. He's an intelligent kid.
You know, he's, he's, he actually gets on well with people when he tries. I mean, I know in,
I know in, you know, more in Muppet Treasure Island, he's easily getting along with everyone
whereas in Treasure Planet, he's, you know, there's an edge to him. But when he actually
(33:46):
lets his walls down, he gets on with people really well. And he's like, in that one, he's very
technically minded. And he's very good at, you know, robotics and shipbuilding and, you know,
all sorts of kind of things. And a very quick learner. I think he's a quick learner in both.
And, you know, and there is so much potential for him to go and put good into the world and,
(34:11):
you know, do something worthwhile with his life. But there's also potential
for him to end up exactly like Long John Silver. And I think that, that just like core
central story could be put into any setting. It doesn't even necessarily need to be pirate related,
(34:32):
but the pirates are fun. Treasure Island. Yeah. It's just some kind of, you know,
adventure where he gets to grow into himself and discover what his own potential is.
I think a lot of people will see themselves in that.
(34:53):
Yeah, I agree with you. Do you want to cover off some tidbits, little bits of fun face?
Yeah. Is there anything else you want to talk about?
Not particularly, but maybe something will pop up while you're talking.
Muppet Treasure Island. So I just took note of who wrote the songs because I love the songs in
(35:14):
this movie. So they're written by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, who also worked together on
an American Tale, which also has good songs. Apparently after shooting wrapped, they gifted
the studio gifted Tim Curry with a Muppet version of himself as Long John Silver,
(35:34):
which is very cute. This I thought was very funny. So you know, when there's a kind of native pigs on
the island, and the first one we meet his name is Spa Am. Hormul Foods corporations, the makers of
Spam sued the production company for having a warthog named Spa Am. And they lost their lawsuit,
(36:00):
but the judge made a note in the deliberation. What he said was one might think Hormul would
welcome the association with a genuine source of pork. Kevin Bishop, who plays Jim Hawkins,
went through puberty and his voice broke during filming. So a lot of his singing is overdubbed
(36:23):
with like older recordings they had of him practicing the songs. So just just while they
had the older versions of it, I mentioned that he was the first person to audition. And they did
hundreds of actors and he ended up getting the role. This was made apparently after the success
of Muppet Chris's Carole, the Jim Henson productions decided that they wanted to cast Kermit and his
(36:48):
friends in another period piece. And apparently the screenwriter said it had been a toss up between
an adaptation of Treasure Island or a take on King Arthur. So we almost ended up with a Muppet's
Camelot movie instead. That's interesting. Yeah. Also originally, Jim Hawkins wasn't going to be a
(37:08):
human in it. They were going to split the role like they did with Marley in Muppet Chris's Carole.
They were going to split the role in two and have Gonzo and Rizzo play characters named Jim and
Hawkins as two separate characters. But then they realized that like I was just saying,
the story is very important. The core of the story is very much about this young boy's experiences.
(37:31):
And they were like, no, we need to keep the boy in it. And they just put Gonzo and Rizzo kind of
as themselves. Tim Curry modeled his accent and his voice on his own grandfather who was a sailor.
Just to say a pirate. Yeah, maybe. It's a seafaring. Yeah. So he just basically did an impression
(37:53):
of his own grandfather for the movie. And Sir Billy Connolly takes great pride in being the
first person to die on screen in a Muppet movie as Billy Bones. For Treasure Planet, it seems like
it was in production hell for a very long time. So it said on it that the movie took 10 years to
(38:14):
make, which is the longest production cycle of any movie in Disney's experimental era, which is that
you know, era after their kind of Disney Renaissance. But I think it was longer than that
really, because apparently they were it was pitched to to the makers before they did or
(38:35):
while they were working on Basil the Great Moust Detective, which came out in 86. That's a long
time. Yeah. So and then they were but then they kept being given other movies to do. And eventually
when they were told that they were going to work on Hercules, they were like, we're only going to
do Hercules if we can finally do this Treasure Planet movie afterwards. Because that's that old
(38:57):
tale about people who were failing at their jobs on Prince of Egypt. They got shrieked. They got
shrieked. They got put on track. They had to go work on track. No, I mean, these guys made like the duo made fantastic movies. You know, I think every one of the movies they've made has been really good. But they
yeah, they eventually were like, listen, we're only going to do Hercules if you let us finally do this movie afterwards. So the production mainly started
(39:22):
after the release of Hercules. The look of the movie was based on 19th century oil paintings, which is
it? Yeah, it was the first feature film to release simultaneously in regular theaters and IMAX theaters,
which is interesting. The human characters ended are hand drawn. John Silver's Cyborg Leg,
(39:49):
Arm and I are and Ben are all flat rendered CGI. And then they used a process called deep canvas to
create the ship. So in some scenes, all three types of animations appear simultaneously, which is really
interesting. They've got like just multiple different kinds of animation. It is the most expensive,
traditionally animated film ever made. It cost $140 million to make it. And then they had another 40
(40:15):
million for advertising, but had a total worldwide gross of $101 million. So it lost about $80 million.
So it is, I think, well, this was up until this was written in 2011. It was Disney's biggest financial loss. I feel like
they probably haven't had a bigger one since. But also, it's hard to tell in the era of streaming services,
(40:37):
you know, how much money certain films have made, especially ones that were, you know, during the COVID
pandemic that were released straight to streaming services. So it might not be the biggest loss
anymore, but it certainly would still be up there. Because they had a plain sequel for Trisha Plano.
Yeah. So when they, I can't remember who it was, when they brought in someone as head of the studios.
(41:05):
What, Bob Weigar? I don't know. Anyway, at some point they brought in someone as head of the studios
and the first job he was given was to axe any sequels in production or planning,
which is why it never got a sequel. And the other bit of trivia that I took down,
which I thought was interesting, is that at the end of the movie, so Dr. Doppler and Captain Amelia
(41:29):
have got children at the end of the movie, apparently they had to cut some lines from the movie
that had revealed that it was Dr. Doppler who gave birth to the children. Because Disney,
Disney themselves ordered that they cut it because they thought that having a male give birth,
(41:50):
even an alien, was too risque for a children's movie. So they didn't want, I mean, male seahorses
give birth. I don't think it's that weird. I mean, I watched this as a kid and I wouldn't have been
weirded out. I would have been like, oh, he gave, he had the babies. But Disney were like, no,
you cannot, you cannot include these lines that say that a man gave birth to these children.
(42:15):
But they didn't put any line to say otherwise. So I think canonically, canonically, Dr. Doppler
is the one who gave birth to those babies at the end, which is fun. Yeah, that's all the trivia
I had taken down anyway. When we normally do the end of the trivia. So sometimes you do budget
(42:35):
and box office, but yeah, we've already sort of covered that. Yeah, I didn't look at the budget and
box office of Bobbit Trigger Island. I think it was a 70 74 million cost, but there's no box office
to it. Oh, interesting. Yeah, did it not come with theatrical release? I don't I'm not sure. I
definitely had it on the age I look at I'm I imagine it did amazing numbers in the age I sales.
(42:58):
Because that was that whole thing. And that's that's something that I've realized that shocked me
recently. Unless you go to like, even though I'm going to JB Hi-Fi. For those who don't know,
it's like a, you know, it's a very much like electronics, records, CDs, DVDs, games, headphones,
(43:19):
that kind of thing, you know, that big, everything in there. The DVD selection is shrunk so massively.
We were into warehouses recently. For those who don't know warehouses like Target. Yeah,
kind of like Target. They don't have they don't even have them as a section anymore.
(43:40):
Yeah, that really surprised me. And it's very much down to streaming services like destroying
that entire market. And it really concerns me because streaming services are now eating itself.
Being that you can't get everything you want on one streaming service. So you either end up having
(44:01):
to have multiple subscriptions, which are then expensive. The attitudes that certain studios
within those streaming services are taking, which they're going, Oh, cool. We're not doing anything
complicated. And we're just making shock from now on. Because that's what people watch the most of.
Therefore, it gives us the most watch time. Therefore, it's the most popular. And therefore,
(44:26):
we must create more of that. Where I feel like Apple TV, on the other hand, are doing the opposite
of that and making really interesting niche stuff. And it's very difficult at this time
at this time that we probably won't get any more. What's the word? Straight to DVD,
(44:53):
spin offs of big movies that don't have the budget to make another movie like Aladdin, for an example.
You won't get any revitalization within the genre like we had with Firefly. And because
the DVD sales did so well, we got the Serenity movie. And I feel like that's really, really.
(45:15):
It's because everything's constrained to streaming. Yeah. Those kind of things that just
are Netflix or on Disney plus. You don't need to see a Avengers movie. You just wait three months
and it's for free on Bloody Disney Plus. Well, it's not for free, you're paying it.
Wow. Yeah. More and more of a subscription every year. I can't find the budget for
(45:37):
Mobile Treasure Island, but it made $34 million in box office, which adjusted for reflection is $83.7
million. So it lost as well. Well, I can't find anything to say a budget for it anywhere.
Okay, because I like the Wikipedia and I see the budget of it.
I only see the box office on Wikipedia. Oh, maybe I'm looking at the wrong sign name. Hang on.
(45:59):
Not that I don't believe you. I don't believe you.
I did just it's box office of this is 47 million on here. Well, I don't know what that's
coming from. I found multiple other sources that say 34 million as a box office. Strange.
(46:21):
Anyway, yes, why don't I how much it how much it cost? But you know, that's a decent amount. I mean,
that's not including as you mentioned VHS sales, which it would have made a lot in, I think. Yeah,
because they were via Jesus or Spines of back in the day and Muppet movies typically do pretty
well on Disney movies and Muppet movies both do well in VHS sales. I think Treasure Planet may have
(46:45):
been the last Disney movie to be released on VHS because then they went to DVD. Yeah, I think
Treasure Planet at least would have been one of the first that was released on both
pages of DVD. I know we had an Emperor's new groove on VHS, which might have been after it.
Certainly, I think it was the last of the Ron Clemens drama musker films to be released on VHS.
(47:10):
I don't know. Yeah, somewhere around that era is when they would have been still while they were
releasing on both DVD and VHS. So I think I'm not sure whether we had Treasure Planet on VHS or DVD.
Maybe that might have been one that we had both Emperor's new groove. We had VHS, which is around
the same time. Right. But then I think me the Robinson's we only had DVD. Brother Bear, I think,
(47:38):
was only DVD. Anyway, so somewhere around that era they cut off. So I mean, it couldn't have been
fantastic sales, Treasure Planet. But obviously, it's considered a huge financial loss for Disney,
which is a shame because it's a fantastic movie. And it still lives up. I mean, like if you look at
because here's the thing, it's considered Disney's experimental era because when they were like
(48:02):
doing bits and pieces of CG and you know, hand drawn about whatever of all those movies,
this one is probably age the best in terms of CGI. Like it still looks incredible. I don't think it
looks dated at all. Yeah, it's it. I think it looks beautiful. Most people have listened to this podcast,
no my argument between practical effects and CGI. But it's a it's an animated film. Yeah. And I think
(48:27):
that's where that like you haven't seen reboot. That looks awful. But like meet the Robinson's,
which is a film I love and I still love the story of it. But if you look at the CD, the
Robinson's that is massively dated by now. What was the other one that was into the wild?
(48:51):
Oh, my God. Well, yeah, that's bizarre. That's ridiculous. Chicken Little was around then as well.
And that's also kind of it. It was more stylized, which I think helps to keep it not not date so
much. And that was the difference between the wild and Madagascar that Madagascar was very stylized.
So it kind of kept its luck whereas, you know, but it's like if you look at the first toy story
(49:14):
movie versus toy story three or toy story four, and it's a massive wild world of difference.
But I genuinely think this movie, which is what 2002 completely holds up. I think the CG unit
looks fantastic still. I think they did a really good job blending those animation styles.
(49:35):
The blending is the main part and they did really, really well.
You know, it's still thoroughly enjoyable. Even, you know, with my dislike of CGI and things.
Yeah, I mean, you know, the solar sails and the ship itself all being kind of a, you know,
(49:55):
with the deep canvas thing and the cyborg parts and the robot parts all being CG on a, you know,
either on this deep canvas ship or on a hand drawn background. And it still looks fantastic to this
day. You know, I think that, you know, for an experimental film, incredible work. I do think
(50:17):
Atlantis does a decent job as well, which is around the same time. I think it's 2001. If you
watched Dinosaur, which was another Disney film from that era, that looks terrible.
So it was hitting this. But I think, yeah, I think this is one that's slept on. I think people
don't talk about Treasure Planet enough. It doesn't get as much love as it should, but it's an
(50:39):
incredible film. It's a really good adaptation. You know, that they kept the core story and kept
a lot of elements, you know, that are in the book, you know, they've actually stuck to a lot of it.
But put it in this sci-fi world and with all these experimental animation styles and managed to
make something that is still beautiful, you know, 20 odd years later. And of course, Muppets are
(51:04):
always practical. Yeah, Muppets are great. And Tim Curry perfection in that movie. He's so good.
He's just so good. He considers that one of his favorite films, apparently, that he's been in.
Which, you know, if I was in that movie, I would also consider it.
(51:25):
Yeah, I think he's incredible in it. The songs, the music in both films is great.
That's another thing we should check out. The music in both films is great. Very little in the way
of songs in Treasure Planet because it's not necessarily a musical Disney film. Like, you know,
(51:47):
some of them are very much musical, some of them are not. It does have that one
song that we talked about over the montage about the rest of just Indian credits. Whereas
Muppet Treasure Island has got so many songs and they're very funny. And the lyrics are just
wonderful. Like, you could watch that movie a dozen times and hear something new in the lyrics of
(52:11):
the songs each time. You'd be like, oh, I didn't even notice that last time. And there's definitely,
you know, we won't go into the detail of them. There's definitely jokes and references in Muppet
Treasure Island that are put in there for the adults watching as well. Oh, 100% like no child
going into their movies going to know who Henry Kissinger is. Yeah, yeah. So there's a few, you
(52:31):
know, a few very funny jokes that are quite subtle most of the time, but are funny for adults and the
kids won't get them at all until they're older and they rewatch it and they go, haha, did notice
that when I was a kid. So it's definitely a movie that's, I think both are movies that are
suitable for, you know, enjoyable for adults to watch. So they're both both movies that are good
(52:56):
for kids, but also very enjoyable for adults to watch. So you've enjoyed for adults to watch.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please join us on our Discord and you can find every link to
everything on our website. It takes two dot co dot NZ. Yep. Thank you for joining us on this
(53:18):
lovely adventure into the high seas of treasurousness and mutiny and family, family-ness. We'll catch
you next time. Bye bye. Bye.
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