Sunday, December 26, 2010

Titan A.E. (2000)


My mind is set to space cowboys and adventures for several reasons:
1. I want to watch "Cowboys vs. Aliens"
2. I re-watched a few Doctor Who episodes
3. I just finished the only season of "Firefly"

It was no surprise that my memory was jogged by one of my favorite sci fi animation movies, "Titan A.E."

The movie is set far off in the future. The earth has been shattered by an alien race called the Drej. Only a few of the humans were to escape. One such human was a young boy named Cale who becomes separated from his father. Fast forward years later, Cale is now a grown man who is very resentful of being dumped by his father.
During this time, the survivors of Earth are now lowly refugees. Cale is stuck working at a salvage dump. This is where he meets with Akima and her crew of the Valkyrie. The reason they've looked for Cale is the ring that he was left with. It contains a map with the locations of some sort of device that can restart Earth. So begins the adventure!


I just love the idea that there could be alien societies out there. I'm also fond of the kind of stories where the tables are turned. Coming from a planet where humans were the top predators, out in space they have been slung down to the bottom of the rung.

If you had the means of to remake Earth (no matter how implausible they may be) would you do it? What if all the other survivors were gas tycoons? Or mass murders? Or the cast members of the Jersey Shore?

That just opens up a whole can of speculations, so I won't go there.

One of my favorite scene that I can remember is when they're navigating through I think its the Anduli something. It looks like wispy ghosts or something but it was beautiful.

As a female, I really loved Akima. She was one of the few strong female archetypes I had growing up. She was bad ass, shot guns, strong as hell AND she has purple streaks in hair. The purple streaks were bad-ass.

Cale definitely reminds of an animated Hans Solo. He's such a bad ass with a heart of gold that you immediately like him. Matt Damon voiced the character but it's okay to overlook that.

Speaking of voice cast members, this movie is full of big names: Drew Barrymore, Nathan Lane, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman, Jeaneane Garofalo, .... Tone-Loc. Ahhh, that cracks me up. Was Tone-Lock in every single movie in the nineties???

I have no idea how I came upon this movie. My brother was probably the one who watched it first and I got stuck watching it too. Now that I think about it, this was probably one of the dystopic animation movies out there. I know there's a pirate one with Disney but it's not dystopic.

Alot of people have complaints that the story telling was poor and it took ideas out of other science fiction movies. Well I say screw you to that this movie was made FOR KIDS!!! If the story was any more complicated I would have been bored. If it was completely original, I would not have related to it. Storytellers are constantly extracting ideas from other stories. The ones who make it work, make it stick in their audience mind. Just think of J.K. Rowling and James Cameron.


I really loved "Titan A.E.". I loved the story, I loved the visuals. This movie was just amazing to watch. It was just chock full of actions and fun.

If my VHS copy hadn't been damaged, I would delight in watching it now.


The ultimate, ULTIMATE cherry on top for this movie was the music video that Lit did. I LOVE LIT:

2 comments:

The Inspired Cook said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Inspired Cook said...

I am amazed by your memory, Toni! I watched this movie years ago and don't remember a thing about it. Come to think of it, I think I watched the Disney one. See what I mean about my memory with movies?