By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 17 seconds ago
Growing up, I always respected Don Bluth, whose animated films felt like the weirder, scruffier alternative to the squeaky-clean movies of Walt Disney. Some of these were moving and inspirational, like An American Tail. Others were almost horrifying in their own way, like The Secrets of NIMH and All Dogs Go To Heaven. In a weird way, that was part of the charm: while you generally know what to expect from a Disney movie, you never know what you’ll get from Don Bluth. That’s especially true of his forgotten, turn-of-the-millennium sci-fi classic: Titan A.E.
To put it mildly, Titan A.E. is a movie that shouldn’t work. The plot is filled with warmed-over sci-fi cliches, the 2D and 3D animation clash, and the voice cast is beyond eclectic. However, all of these bizarre elements add up to a strange brew that is surprisingly tasty. The movie has also aged surprisingly well, especially now that Star Trek and Star Wars have started circling the drain. If you want a genuinely fresh view of the future, then you need to take a trip to the past. Fortunately, it’s just a click away: Titan A.E. is currently streaming for free on Tubi.
In Your Space
The plot of Titan A.E. is that after Earth is attacked by evil aliens, humans must wander the galaxy, each trying to cobble together a living. One such human is Cale, whose father was working on an ambitious project that caught the aliens’ attention. As a young man, he joins a ragtag crew who need his help (and the holographic map in his ring) to track down his father’s old ship. According to dear old dad, that ship may hold the key to saving what’s left of humanity. But unless our hero can outwit an alien army and find allies he can truly trust, the human race may be completely doomed.
The most striking thing about Titan A.E. is its animation style. The film came out a few years after Toy Story normalized CGI animation. As such, this movie has a mixture of styles: most of it is animated in gloriously beautiful 2D animation, but some of the action (basically, anything involving aliens or spaceships) is animated with CGI. This ends up effectively being a double-edged sword for Titan A.E. On the one hand, the animation styles visually clash, and some of the computer-generated imagery has aged particularly poorly. On the other hand, this mixture of styles gives Titan A.E. a very distinct style, which is only fitting for a movie that, to this day, is like no other cartoon that you’ve seen.
Witty And Wordy
While Titan A.E. will appeal to many audiences (including animation fiends and sci-fi nerds), it will particularly resonate with fans of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. That’s because Joss Whedon is one of the film’s writers, and he does a great job bringing these quirky characters to life. Also, while saying this may get me staked by crazed fans, the writing in Titan A.E. arguably represents Whedon at his peak: the dialogue is funny and memorable without feeling like it’s trying too hard. Personally, I’ll take dialogue like this any day over Whedon’s attempts at humor in The Avengers, a movie where a quarter of Tony Stark’s lines are dumb puns and outdated references.
Of course, the dialogue in Titan A.E. is that much more memorable thanks to the movie’s weirdly stacked cast. Lion King alumnus Nathan Lane provides great comic relief as a cutesy alien, while Bill Pullman is all grizzled charisma as a gruff space captain. Janeane Garofalo lends her comedic talents to a kind of stern, den mother of an alien, and Drew Barrymore is all sexy confidence as a pilot turned love interest. At the heart of it all is Matt Damon, whose rich performance helps protagonist Cale stand out as one of the freshest and funniest main characters in sci-fi history.
In Space, Everyone Can Hear You Rock
Beyond the unique animation, great writing, and immersive voice cast, Titan A.E. has one more secret weapon in its arsenal: a killer alt-rock soundtrack. We get fun needle drops from millennial-friendly bands like Lit, Jamiroquai, and Powerman 5000, making this the perfect movie for anyone who went to high school in the ‘90s. Heck, this is a film that prominently included Creed’s “Higher” in its trailer, cementing this movie as an artifact of a simpler time. Will the soundtrack make aging nerds want to stand up and shake their groove thing? Yes. Will you probably need a little pain medicine after you do it? Also yes.
All of this adds up to a movie greater than the sum of its parts. The story is a mishmash of various sci-fi cliches, but it remixes them well enough that the resulting film feels surprisingly fresh. The animation styles clash at times, but the combination of 2D and 3D looks better than almost any modern cartoon. Plus, while the needle drops from yesteryear seriously date the film, that’s not necessarily a bad thing; rather, they serve as a bass-shaking reminder that Titan A.E. hails from the waning twilight of the golden age of animation.
Want to reexperience that golden age for yourself? Don’t worry: you won’t have to form a ragtag band to find answers on the far side of the galaxy. All you need to do is check out Titan A.E., which is currently streaming for free on Tubi. This film is Star Wars meets Firefly, and it will appeal to anyone who has ever obnoxiously quoted the works of Joss Whedon. Throw in a rollicking soundtrack and a pitch-perfect celebrity cast, and you have a forgotten epic that’s worth sharing with the entire galaxy.
