I'm trying to figure something out, so if people here could please answer the following questions honestly....

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I want to find out people's opinion of Titan A.E. and Atlantis: The Lost Empire (the Disney one). Please, don't give me a one word answer. I'd like to know if you liked it, hated it, never saw it but are planning on it, never saw it and won't, think Disney is the devil....whatever your opinion is. Please elaborate, as much detail as possible. Thanks.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I thought it had excellent animation. It started to look like a really nice sci-fi flick. However, the drop point for me on that film was when the guy holds his breath, breaks a window into space, and doesn't just explode from the effects of being in space unprotected. That's when I knew it was going to be a unrealistic and cliqued movie. The plot wasn't bad, but FF:TSW was a helluva lot better. This was some nice eyecandy before it came out, and I think that was the goal of Titan A.E. I guess I was expecting too much, but it was a fairly fun ride.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Atlantis was just so-so. Titane A.E. however was way better than I anticipated. I had written it off after seeing the previews, but after I saw it on DirecTV, I wish I had seen it in the theater. They did a lot of really good stuf and it's really a shame it bombed so badly...</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>k. One more question: what did you think of the previews for it compared to the movie? Also, did Atlantis appeal to you at all?</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Please elaborate a bit on Atlantis. Why was it so-so? WHat could they have done better? Also, why did you write off Titan A.E.? What made it better than you thought?</div>

[Stephen]

<div style='font: 10pt Arial; text-align: left; '>Didn't see either one, don't really care to. I'm not interested in teeny-bopper sci-fi, and Disney's recent films all look the same to me.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>As far as Atlantis, I tend to stay away from most of Disney's films nowadays, but the shit with the anime-ripoff only further pushes me away. I might see Ice Age when I get the chance, but that's about it.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Good</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>k, thanks</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Fair enough, but Atlantis is like nothing Disney has done with their main animated films. It's much more like a Disney-fied anime that a Disney animated film.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Ah, times when I wish I could delete posts in every forum :-)</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3 ... 47.html</a>

You don't explode if you go into space without a suit.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>The reasons being that both Atlantis and this Anime were based on 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, so of course there are going to be similarities.

The fuss over the Lion King, however, is a different story.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Nothing incredible, but it was entertaining, and the animation was pretty cool. However, I do remember it looking pretty fake when they tried to mix CG with animaiton. The contrast between the two made me lose my suspension of disbeleif.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>For the record, I had thought it would happen as well.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Heh. You mean to tell me you expected that out of the 50 some members of this forum not ONE of us was going to be an asshole? : )</div>

[Torgo]

<div style='font: 9pt Arial; text-align: left; '>I didn't like Titan A.E. at all. Final Fantasy VIII's cut-scenes were better looking than a lot of the CG scenes in A.E, save the ice planet. I also found most of the characters, to be pretty annoying. I'm sorry, I like John Leguizamo, but he should not play a comic relief character in an animated movie, especially a bad one like this.

I enjoyed Atlantis a lot more. I heard that it is uncannily similar to Nadia, but the first movie that popped in my mind while watching this was Stargate. Seriously, replace parallel dimension Egypt with Atlantis and you pretty much have the same plot. The characters were hit and miss; but none of them bothered me as much as Titan A.E.</div>

[Tessian]

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>Can't stand it... not his voice mind you, but rather it put to that character's face.. just doesn't fit for me at all.

As for Titan AE, that's the kinda movie I originally meant to go see and just never did. If you handed my the DVD I'd make time to watch it, or if I saw it at Blockbuster and saw nothing better I'd get it...</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>10,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Was that the prequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? They just couldn't go down as far or what?</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Seriously, though, there are WAAY too many similarities with the characters for it not to have been heavily influenced. I mean, 3/4 of the characters are identical in their looks and backgrounds. That's too big a coincidence for me</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>k. But what were your impressions of Atlantis from the trailers?</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I thought the same thing about Atlantis being similar to Stargate. It's incredibly similar, even though it is a fairly basic plot. Personally, I thought the CG in Titan was amazing, though.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Your SOLE reason for not wanting to see Atlantis is Fox? Give Titan a rent, it's one of the cheaper rentals now</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>*beginning to sweat under Zeus's incessant questioning* Well, heh, I...I dunno Zeus. I just didn't like Atlantis too much. As far as Titan A.E. goes, refer to Stephen's answer. After seeing the preview with Creed in the background, I immediately wrote it off too.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>It looked like Disney might be actually making a movie that just happened to be animated, instead of an animated kiddy movie. That impression was largely lost when I saw all the normal product tie-ins.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://utd500.utdallas.edu/~hairston/at ... is.html</a>

What I was referring to. Keep in mind I've seen neither.</div>

[Tessian]

<div style='font: 11pt Dominion; text-align: left; '>It just didn't seem like that good of a movie... I don't much enjoy those 'loser nerdy scientist gets financed by an unstable man with wayy too much money on his hands and becomes a hero and gets the girl' kind of movies</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Which is to say that they are ripping off of Gentz already :)

In any case, I leery of the article. I could turn around and say that "The Lion King" and "Simba the White Lion" are not similar, and then point out the differences. Or the fact that "The Little Mermaid" and the John Christian Anderson story of his are not similar (which in reality, aren't), but that doesn't change the fact that they just ripped it off, and changed the bad ending (in which the mermaid doesn't get the guy and commits suicide). Disney is, and has always been, good at "Disnifying" their works. It's so bad that there's probably the word in the dictionary by now.

I think the main case in point is that Disney hasn't created an original story (that isn't based on anything) for many, many years.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Sometimes you have too much faith in this guy (but I guess for good reason). I still think that the massive pressure change is at least going to kill you fairly quickly. I only used the explosive theory as an extreme case (and for comical value).</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I'll only be impressed with Disney if they could produce something like Princess Monoke. But, of course, they can't because it's for kids. "Uncle Disney" will never reach the calibre of good anime.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>k, fair enough.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It was Disney who released Mononoke here, BTW. Of course they won't release stuff too edgy under the Disney label, they've built a multi-billion dollar industry on their image. That's why they own Touchstone and Mirimax, to release the edgy stuff for them</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>There was a site posted here when the film came out that showed the uncanny similarities between the two. It's insane, at least 3/4 of the characters among other things. I wish I still had the site bookmarked, it would destroy this guy's letter</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>He uses what we like to call "evidence." You're relying on what you THINK the case should be, not on what evidence has demonstrated to be the case.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>I actually noticed some of the specious argument tactics when I read it the second time around. Having not seen either, I really can't make a judgement though.</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://www2.freenet.jp/nadia/nadia_vs_a ... tml">Nadia vs. Atlantis</a>

Use Google, bitch!</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>That's not the site. This one compared the characters one by one beside each other from each anime. It was a lot more convincing</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I suppose when we launched our first manned mission to the moon, they got out of the shuttle without any suits, exploded, and then we had the evidence we needed to create suits? :)</div>

[SineSwiper]

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Well, on the Mirimax label anyway. My point is that Disney will never release an animated movie (for adults) like, say Squaresoft has. Disney will never take that first step. They are still too afraid of losing their kiddie image. And because of that, they lose the emotional impact.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Did you even read it? An author wrote in explaining that four astronauts were exposed to 11 and a half minutes of zero pressure, and they most definitely did not explode. They died, but they didn't explode.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Actually, Straight Dope has testimony of an ex-Disney animator who said that Lion King was not infuenced by Kimba. Not consciously at least anyway. Still suspicious though</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Ha. That's actually the site where I found my sig quote, coincidentally enough : )</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>...is that he does a fairly good job of doing away with the apparent similarities individually, but I think the sheer number of them merits some suspicion. Granted, as you said, they both found their basis in 20,000 Leagues, but still. There are similarities between the two films that have nothing to do with 20,000 Leagues.

For example, we have the two main characters as spectacle-sporting scholarly submarine captains. Now, the author of the site makes the claim that glasses on cartoon characters denotes intelligence and you have to be pretty intelligent to operate a submarine. Actually, I glasses, while a sign of intelligence, are more a sign of nerdiness in cartoons - especially on younger men - and nerdiness is a trait that you certainly would expect to be rare in a submarine captain. I might be lead to buy that point if it stood by itself though...but then we have the fact that the main Atlantean female in each is a young dark-skinned girl with a powerful, yet mysterious amulet. I mean, yeah, there's lots of cartoons with mysterious amulets, and lots of cartoons with dark-skinned exotic princesses, but here we see <i>both</I> along with a nerdy submarine captain main character in each. It starts too add up.</div>

[Kupek]

<div style='font: 10pt verdana; text-align: left; padding: 0% 10% 0% 10%; '>Actually, what did it for me was seeing character stills from each movie side-by-side on a site linked here. I just can't believe that's coincidence.</div>

[Gentz]

<div style='font: 11pt arial; text-align: left; '>Yeah, really. The most non-incriminating explanation I'd accept is subconscious plagurism due to lack of creativity. And even that's a stretch.</div>