The Film That Changed My Life: Titan A.E.
“Every day I wake up and it’s still the same boring present. I don’t think this future thing exists.”
How the team behind Titan A.E. managed to wrangle Matt Damon into saying that line in their animated flop is anyone’s guess. It is also a secret the team will take with them to the grave. Titan AE - the film that changed my life - also changed the life of Fox Animation by failing so hard in the box office that the studio was permanently closed.
There’s noticeable irony in a film called “Titan” killing the thing that created it. At least there is for all the Greek mythology fans out there. Just how can one little animated movie have severed a limb of the mighty multimedia conglomerate? How can 20th Century Fox Animation have been kneecapped by a film that was only 90 minutes?
Another question also stands: why did it make me fall in love with science fiction?
Ultimately, none of the narrative or thematic components of the 2000 animated feature are ground-breaking. Story beats are pinched from its sci-fi peers left and right (unsurprising – seeing as this was Don Bluth’s first piece set in space).
Included in this list of borrowed tropes and plots are:
· A species of all-consuming aliens
· Hotshot charismatic space pilots
· Messages hidden inside a piece of family technology
· A boy with an emergent destiny, grasp of robotics and no parents
· A litany of planetary corpses and bad guys with shockingly bad aim
Cale (voiced by Matt Damon, one of many familiar faces in this star-studded cast) loses his father in an onslaught by the Drej and their planet-levelling mothership. Cale has no choice but to look on as his home planet is reduced to splintered rocks before his very eyes, presumably alongside his father. We smash cut to 15 years later, where we see our now adult protagonist slicing the broken hull of a CG spaceship to bits with a laser saw – accompanied by some truly awful rap-rock.
Cale struggles daily with mistreatment for being human among aliens, not being allowed to have ketchup on his dinner and the constant realisation that the world is so much bigger than he first thought.
Here is our first entry point for its child audience – while he is playing maybe not the most original protagonist, Matt Damon brilliantly embodies a lot of the concerns of Titan A.E.’s younger viewership.
This character archetype rears its head in the cult classic Treasure Planet as well. In that film, Joseph Gordon Levitt takes on the angsty younger protagonist role as Jim Hawkins. Animated films that evolve into cult classics after troubled box-office performances seem to rely, at least in part, on this element as a cornerstone of their nostalgic draw.
The quote from the film we saw earlier really encapsulates this. It is the same draw that Star Wars, Alex Rider, and the Percy Jackson series have. Young audiences long for there to be something more, an affirmation of a rich tapestry to come. We learn the basics of language from the tales our parents read to us - we want to believe we are going to have a story to tell.
Further to that, the type of story we weave is important. Titan A.E. spins a familiar yarn, but does so with the most glorious, captivating threads. Bluth and Goldman’s knack for directing animation really shows here, the parts of A.E.’s universe that they show us are meticulously realised and utterly captivating.
The film was originally meant to be live action, and then CGI, and then a CG-Animation blend was decided upon. With art direction from Kenneth Valentine Slevin (whose animation credits include Anastasia and The Land Before Time), the diverse and inventive planet design shows a new approach to animated science-fiction aesthetic. As has been already mentioned, Bluth and Goldman had not worked in sci-fi animation before, so their more fantasy-led aesthetic stylings bring some delightful originality to the film’s look.
Speaking of renders, what is even more fascinating is that a CG/animation blend from 2000 still looks as good as Titan A.E. While moments are somewhat jarring, the majority of the 3D animation blends absolutely perfectly with the traditional animation, lending a unique weight and momentum to the world and its dynamic movements.
So no, the story is not particularly original. The script is not dripping with unique style or hugely witty banter. It is also a brand-new animated property aimed at the teenage boy demographic, a massive swerve from the Bluth’s traditional demographic. It hit at just the wrong time as well, delivering a unique, niche product to an animation audience at the turn of a millennium. As such, the audience was not exactly sure what it wanted – but it knew it was not Titan A.E.
As such, it led to the untimely death of Fox Animation only a few weeks later. In death, Fox Animation jettisoned Titan A.E., safe and sound in its little escape pod of nostalgia. This film never needed to be narratively ground-breaking or thematically rich. In order to embed it in the collective memory of its cult following. For me, Titan A.E. was my first exposure to the science fiction genre, one that has had an indelible impact on me.
Titan A.E. cleverly identifies what will matter to its intended audience: a relatable buy-in with the protagonist and a beautifully realised, believable universe. I used to watch this film on car rides when I was younger, on a portable DVD player that kept my brothers and I entertained on long drives to Scotland. At the time it felt so real, so tangible in its attention to the details of an awe-inspiring universe.
There is a scene where Cale, in his first time piloting the crew’s Valkyrie spaceship, ducks and dives alongside sapphire “wake angels” in an atmospheric thunderstorm hued like dried blood. As the craft moves within the storm, it impacts through and ricochets off the backdrop. The sense of the ship navigating a more three-dimensional universe with some gorgeously detailed animation is one that never left me, and still captivates me on a re-watch today.
It may have cost an entire animation studio, but Titan A.E. survived, nestled among the nostalgia of its fans. Like the genetic memory of Earth stored in the fabled Titan spaceship that Cale searches for, things never really die unless they are forgotten. Likewise, the work and tireless labour put into this little masterpiece of science fiction design lives on as long as it is remembered.
Written by Martin Docherty
Martin is a recently recovering English Graduate, hoping to rehabilitate himself by producing content about all the media he can. You can find him on the Movies and Martins podcast chatting about films and despairing at the Now You See Me films.