A couple of nights ago, during one of my girlfriend's random existential moments, I offered an exchange from the Luc Besson classic Lucy. Researching for this blog, I found out I butchered it.
Russ (simplifying): Ignorance is bliss.
Lucy: Ignorance brings chaos, not knowledge.
Russ (simplifying): Ignorance is ignorance.
Why am I referring to this calling it a night conversation? Because I was discussing if it was okay to keep baby boomers out of the loop. Since they got 20-30 years left, on the surface, it sounds like a good idea since the left has to be unified in 2020 (I am leaning towards Andrew Yang now, but Beto just knows his rights from wrong), but no human should want that. It just feels like Fox News is doing what I always joked about whenever the "Hooked on Phonics" commercial came on the tube in the 90's. Why had not anyone tried to teach people how to be stupid? Is there something wrong with me for always wanting to try and reimagine and bastardize "As Seen on TV" products?
After thinking through that paragraph, I realize that all Fox News is doing is just keeping old people and idiots ignorant instead of devising some strategy to reverse their intelligence like my plan to make people unlearn reading. Refusing to learn is an entirely different think.
Which brings us to Don Bluth's last great effort to stay in the animation game, "Titan A.E." It is a well-meaning effort, but insisting on sticking to his trademarks took away from anything new the film tried to introduce. (Sorry for failing to use Fox News experiment and "Rats of NIHM" transition).
In 3028, a race of aliens who are made up of pure energy, The Drej, destroy Earth in attempt to prevent Professor Sam Tucker from succeeding in his latest experiment, the Titan. Since the Drej will be focusing on destroying him, the professor determines that it was best to leave his son Cale in the care of Tek, an alien who proves to be a good mentor as humans have become ridiculed by other races for struggling on.
15 years later, Cale is working on a space salvage crew and has given up on humanity getting off the endangered species list. That is until Captain Joseph Korso shows up, and requests that he actually make an effort to save the human race. The kid must serve a greater purpose in the preservation of mankind because The Drej are not far behind Korso. Saving humanity and running for his life make joining the Korso's team his only option.
But why have the Drej involved Cale in their goal of expediting homo sapien extinction. It turns out that the ring his father gave him when they went their separate ways is a means to track the location of the Titan. If Korso's crew can get to it first, humanity maybe able to start again. If the Drej do, all hope is lost. We all need hope, so Cale's cynicism is abandoned and the fate of our culture rests with him.
If a ninety-minute, science fiction tale takes three paragraphs to summarize coherently, (at least by myself, more power to the Netflix sleeve writer), it may be a tough feature for most to get through. "Titan AE" is at least tougher than "Fist of the North Star" which took only two paragraphs and was a half hour longer. The butt rock and late 90's MTV punk soundtrack does not help 20th Century Fox's animated feature.
"Titan A.E." soundtrack and pace is very reminiscent of "The Transformers: The Movie". The soundtrack for the latter was better, but otherwise, Don Bluth put a lot of effort into his feature. Unfortunately, he still is in love with the great environment created, that his characters are downplayed, and with CG effects, are almost invisible at points. This leaves us with many scene where you got to squint to determine if anything is moving or are you just staring at a matte-painting.
As for the use of CG in creating the Drej, I think it still holds up nearly 20 years later, but aside from looking different, dare I say alien, there is not much to their design. On top of that, there is not much to their character, let alone their motivation. They are willing to deal with other humans to destroy the less greedy ones which makes no sense without spoilers.
Like "Transformers" a vague enemy means you are just trying to compose a film with a bunch of action scenes, and to do that, they just put our characters on random adventures. Perhaps there are too many protagonists. The biggest problem with that is the flick has a lot of great voice talent.
It is a Matt Damon starring movie, so there is going to be some "white-washing", and I just feel Ron Perlman is misused in normal roles, but you will like John Leguizamo performance, Nathan Lane's seems more unique than most of his roles, and Janeane Garofalo shows that Hollywood had always under utilized her. If there can be any complaints about these characters is that the chemistry between Damon and Drew Barrymore is just something we as an audience are just supposed to accept. It is very much Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise from "Top Gun". You almost have to admire "Transformers" for Arcee not giving Hot Rod a wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
If you are going to sit a kid down and distract them for 90 minutes, "Titan A.E." might be an adequate change from Disney. Of course, I have a nephew and niece who sing Fall Out Boy after seeing "Big Hero 6." They would be a lot cooler yelling out some Stan Bush. Just trust me that your little ones may get something out of it and it is beyond appropriate for them, that way you do not have to yearn for Don Bluth's 80's by watching this film.
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