Animonday: Titan A.E.
This week’s animated feature comes from the US rather than Japan but it certainly owes a debt to anime films with its epic SF ideas. In the first ten minutes we’ve witnessed the destruction of the earth by an alien race bent on the annihilation of the human race, with the remnants of mankind scattered throughout the galaxy.
If the ideas are anime inspired the characters are straight out of Star Wars, Matt Damon’s Cale and Bill Pullman’s Korso are Luke and Han from Lucas’s space opera, with the only real difference being that Korso is the optimist and Cale the realist. We also get a spunky female character in the shape of Akima, voiced by Drew Barrymore.
The plot is simple, a search for the lost ship Titan that holds the future of mankind within its metal hull, but it does take an unexpected (and very un-Star Wars) turn midway through the film that you don’t expect in an American animated film.
It’s the visuals that really make the film stand-out, with its blend of both old style and computer animation. The chase through the hydrogen trees and the cat and mouse game in the ice crystals are the highlights. In fact the latter has a touch of Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn about it and that film is also plundered for Titan A.E.’s ending with the Titan very reminiscent of Project Genesis.
