Film AHC: Save Titan A.E.

NKVD

Figured I'd get in on this.

IOTL, Titan A.E. tanked, and it's duel with another movie (Treasure Planet, I think) not only destroyed an entire studio, but Don Bluth's career. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make Titan A.E. a box office success.

My two cents: IIRC (according to TVTropes) production on Titan A.E. was rushed due to the duel with Treasure Planet. It might help to have whoever came up with the idea for the film fall down a flight of stairs or something.
 

Mike Stearns

Taking Titan AE away from Don Bluth would probably be a really good start. Visually, parts of Titan AE are great, the destruction of Earth, the Drej, the Ice Field and the creation of New Earth, but the computer graphics and the 2D animation never really integrate very well. The big issue is the story though. The movie never explains were the Drej came from, why they are afraid of us or why they destroyed Earth.
 

MerryPrankster

It's been over a decade since I saw Titan A.E., but I don't remember it being a bad film.

The Wikipedia article attributes its failure to being poorly marketed--it was sold like a kids' animated movie (complete with fast-food toys, IIRC), but its content was much more adult.

(The movie starts out with the killing of most of humanity, humans are subjected to racism by aliens, lots of gun and space fights, a female character answers the door wearing only a towel with "in or out?," there's a graphic neck-breaking, etc.)

Think John Carter, only it would have been much easier to make the money back.
 

historyfool

From what I remember the movie was really not bad, but I think as well that the target audience was the wrong one. It might have had much more success by addressing an older audience. Making the atmosphere darker and the signs of decay more obvious would help here. It would perhaps work better as a life action movie. Due to the focus on children the surroundings seemed simply too "clean" for the themes and the colors too bright. Logically the film fell through: not light enough to attract the young and to childish looking to attract an older audience.
 
Zor

Zor

Advertise this film for teens. This does not mean that Kids won't want to see it. Also keep some deleted scenes in, such as Akima busting people out.

The film is actually pretty good for what it is. Not great but I still love it.

Zor
 

MerryPrankster

historyfool said:
From what I remember the movie was really not bad, but I think as well that the target audience was the wrong one. It might have had much more success by addressing an older audience. Making the atmosphere darker and the signs of decay more obvious would help here. It would perhaps work better as a life action movie. Due to the focus on children the surroundings seemed simply too "clean" for the themes and the colors too bright. Logically the film fell through: not light enough to attract the young and to childish looking to attract an older audience.
Click to expand...

Making it live action would have made it very expensive though.

However, darker colors and a more depressing atmosphere would be more doable.
 

MerryPrankster

Zor said:
Advertise this film for teens. This does not mean that Kids won't want to see it. Also keep some deleted scenes in, such as Akima busting people out.

The film is actually pretty good for what it is. Not great but I still love it.

Zor
Click to expand...

Are the deleted scenes in the DVD, either as part of the film or in a "Deleted Scenes" section?

I might buy the DVD at some point.
 

sharlin

Banned
I remember going to see Titan AE when it came out, had to travel from Aldershot to...er...oh god....town nearby to see it as it wasn't being shown there at the time. I remember it being good and it had a kick arse soundtrack too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKlMOblghiQ

As for saving it, not a clue sadly.
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

The Movie had several major problems

the 20th Century Fox had no Idea how to promote this movie, its poor marketing was a master disaster !
In Germany there were almost non marketing on TV radio or newspaper, i discover the movie luckily in Cinema on way to another movie: Disney Treasure Planet, also a box-office bomb like Titan A.E.
today they made Media blitzkrieg for Movies like "The Smurfs" until audience brains burns out :mad:

the Two movies had also same problem: a poor Sci-fi story for non identified target audience.
Is Titan A.E. a anime from a video game ? or something adult like Heavy Metal or just Sci-fi fables for Family ?
here Don Bluth, Goldman, David Kirschner miss a opportunity to go a next step into Adult theme Animation im Stile of "Heavy Metal"

the Script
it's trow the audience, in middle of some think that ended in destruction of Earth, then jumps on a RPG like quest.
and it give us not real person and childlike supporting characters, who audience can't identified with self.
the RPG quest is only is a site seen tour true the Universe, so turing audience into bored tourist...
and jumps in middle of some think that ended in recreation of Earth, Ze End

A better focus on "humanity lost there Worlds and try to survive in a Mad Universe ala Heavy Metal", had help the movie much better.
also change the childlike supporting characters, more into the character Preedex Yoa.
eccentric scientist Gune: "i wanna study closely the Humans extinction" or
Stith "i do this Quest, that you stinky humans can left my home planet" while Cale Tucker enraged answer "God dam you, on your planet we perishing in your Ghettos !"

Sadly they not use that chance...
 
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Draco

As others have already stated the film was somewhat inconsistent with who their target demo was firming that up from the get go would probably help a lot. I think a big part of that problem was that while Bluth's style was a bit more mature than say the average animated Disney movie his forte was still kids movie while Titan A.E. really should have been aimed at the teen/young adult market.

To that end I think maybe giving Joss Whedon not only more control over the script but bringing him on as an executive producer or even as a co-director would do wonders (what the chances of that happening I couldn't say.) If that were to happen though I think he would have been a good counter balance to Bluth who frankly did his best work when he had a strong colaberator i.e. Steven Spielberg.

Another big thing might be to splurge on getting solid dub casts particularly for the Japanese market as quite frankly even today getting the American audience overall to see an animated film as anything other than kids fare is a tough sell even more so a decade ago so getting close to breaking even may well require a strong foreign box office showing.

The last thing I can think of is better marketing. While I doubt its possible to get the studio to spend noticeably more than it did it's certainly possible for the film to have better targeted marketing which again plays into the tightening up of the target demographic.
 

Isot the Terrible

Banned
MerryPrankster said:
--it was sold like a kids' animated movie (complete with fast-food toys, IIRC), but its content was much more adult.
Click to expand...

Actually I diagree. I watched it expecting an animated adult sci-fi movie and was disappointed when I found myself watching what was basically a kids movie, complete with kangaroo and turtle people. Had I approached it in the right frame of mind, knowing what it was, I would have been far more satisfied.

In my opinion it should have been marketed as an intelligent kids movie.
 

John Fredrick Parker

Donor
If Titan AE manages to at least make its money back at the box office, does that mean Don Bluth makes another animated film in the aughts? If so, what does he do?
 

Time slip

John Fredrick Parker said:
If Titan AE manages to at least make its money back at the box office, does that mean Don Bluth makes another animated film in the aughts? If so, what does he do?
Click to expand...
Maybe a Dragon's Lair movie? It seems like Bluth wants to make one, but I think he has had trouble getting the funding for it.

The problem is even if Titan AE doesn't flop, I don't think Bluth makes very many more movies. I can still see the studios abandoning traditional animation for computer animation for the same reasons they did in OTL, where flops like Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas convinced them audiences preferred computer animation.
 
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