Film Reviews: Treasure Planet (2002) and The Hero's Journey

Fig. 1: Theatrical release poster for Treasure Planet (2002). 

Ron Clements and John Musker’s Treasure Planet (2002) is an animated science fiction film about a young boy named Jim Hawkins who has a desire for adventure, ignited by tales told to him by his mother in his childhood. He embarks on a journey with a space pirate crew and a family friend to find the fortune and adventure he dreamed about when he was younger. This review will be looking at if and how Treasure Planet matches the stages of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey template.

Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey template argues that “the great enduring myths from around the world all share an underlying structure” (August, 2019). This structure is split into three main acts; the ‘Separation’ or ‘Departure’, the ‘Initiation’, and the ‘Return’, each split further into many smaller acts. For the first act of Separation, these are ‘Ordinary World’, ‘Call to Adventure’ and the following ‘Refusal of the Call’, ‘Supernatural Aid’ or ‘Meeting of the Mentor’, ‘Crossing the First Threshold’, and ‘Belly of the Whale’ and all focus on the hero being separated from the life that they are familiar with and the world around them begins to change (Straker, 2002).

The second act is divided into the ‘Road of Trials’, ‘Meeting with the Goddess’, ‘Women as Temptress’, ‘Atonement with the Father’, ‘Apotheosis’, and ‘Ultimate Boon’, wherein the hero faces multiple trials and difficulties only to emerge victorious (Straker, 2002). Lastly, there is the third and final act of the Return which is split into ‘Refusal of the Return’, ‘Magic Flight’, ‘Rescue from Without’, ‘Crossing of the Return Threshold’, ‘Master of Two Worlds’, and ‘Freedom to Live’, as the hero overcomes their biggest struggles yet and triumphs at the end (Straker, 2002). Treasure Planet exhibits many qualities of ‘The Hero’s Journey’ layout, though there are some aspects that are more difficult to pinpoint and examine as some of the acts tend to overlap and intertwine with one another.

Beginning with the Ordinary World, the film begins with a flashback of a much younger Jim Hawkins captivated by tales of space pirates and treasure read to him by his mother, with particular reference to a notorious pirate named Nathaniel Flint. Later, a more rebellious adolescent Jim is shown to be living in the Benbow Inn with his mother, Sarah Hawkins, on planet Montressor. He rather reluctantly assists his mother in running the inn, and they are accompanied by family friend Doctor Delbert Doppler, an anthropomorphic dog who is an astronomer. Jim is stated to be troublesome, doing things like building and riding machines that are forbidden in the area that he lives.

The Call to Adventure arrives when a ship crashes outside of the Benbow Inn. Inside is pirate Billy Bones, and with him is a treasure chest he claims a currently unknown enemy is attempting to pry from him. Jim helps the dying Bones inside, with the latter’s last words warning Jim to “beware the cyborg”. Bones opens the chest and hands Jim its contents. The inn is consequently destroyed upon being ransacked and burnt down by a hostile band of pirates tailing Bones, forcing Jim, his mother, and Doppler to retreat to Doppler’s residence. It turns out that the item Jim now possesses is an intergalactic map leading to a “treasure planet” on which Flint hides his treasure (also known as Flint’s Trove), and as such, functions as The Supernatural Aid.

Fig. 2: The map left behind by Bones serves as both a supernatural/otherworldly guide for most of the film as well as Jim’s initial call to adventure (2002).

The Refusal of the Call occurs when Jim insists on undertaking a personal quest to go and locate the planet; instead of Jim himself refusing the call, it is Sarah that denies Jim the opportunity to accept it. She scolds him and claims that it is dangerous, but when Doppler (of whom Sarah evidently believes to be trustworthy) steps in and offers to not only finance the trip but to watch over Jim, she agrees, albeit reluctantly.

The Meeting of the Mentor occurs after Doppler and Jim’s departure to the space station and they board the RLS Legacy. They quickly become acquainted with its crew, including Captain Amelia, an anthropomorphic cat responsible for the ship and its crew members, and a cyborg named John Silver. Silver adopts the role of a mentor and father figure to Jim over the course of the film after Jim is initially forced to spend time with him and assist him in the ship’s kitchen.

Fig. 3: Silver serves as both Jim’s father and mentor figure throughout most of the film despite his intentions to inevitably betray him (2002).

The Crossing of the First Threshold is when the RLS Legacy takes off into space shortly afterwards, and Jim’s adventure officially begins. Following this is the Belly of the Whale. One of the crewmates, Scroop, begins to antagonise and threaten Jim when the latter bumps into him while trying to clean the deck. This sends the other crewmates into a frenzy until Silver followed by first mate Mr. Arrow intervene. As it turns out, Silver is in cahoots with Scroop; Silver has full command over the rest of the crewmates including Scroop, and together, they are secretly planning a mutiny. This culminates in Scroop murdering Arrow in efforts to claim it was an accident caused by Jim’s inexperience when a nearby star turns supernova, collapses into a black hole, and traps the ship in the middle of a cosmic storm.

Fig. 4: Arrow’s death serves as a reminder to the audience and Jim that space and the crew that they are travelling with are dangerous just as Sarah warned (2002).

The Road of Trials seems to be applicable to Jim’s struggle following the rest of the crew’s loss of respect for him as they’re convinced he caused Arrow’s death. Silver comforts him and they bond in a montage during which Silver acts as a stern father figure towards Jim, teaching him many useful skills while also retaining a strict and occasionally borderline uncaring front in efforts to persuade the other crewmates that he doesn’t have a soft spot for Jim. This could also apply to a scene later on in the film in which Jim, Doppler and Amelia are stranded on an empty planet with no way out following the mutiny of their fellow crew members, led by Silver who is desperate to obtain the map.

Meeting with the Goddess is somewhat more difficult to discern, but it could potentially apply to either the RLS Legacy itself or even Amelia; she seems to be in control for most of the film and knowing of the map upon Jim’s first encounter with her.

Women as a Temptress could typically be said to apply to Amelia, though it seems more fitting to apply it to other characters such as Silver or even Flint’s Trove itself. For example, Silver uses temptation to try to lure or trick Jim into forming an allegiance with him, promising an abundance of riches and other rewards simply to attack Jim or steal the map from him. He also has the advantage of the father-son or mentor-mentee that he uses at his disposal to manipulate Jim. The trove, however, works as a temptation since most of the characters within the film seek to find it as a primary goal, and as such, it drives most of them to commit misdeeds out of greed and desire.

Atonement with the Father revolves around Jim’s relationship with Silver. Since it is established early on in the film that Jim has issues pertaining to his real father abandoning him at a young age and that Silver, despite the havoc he causes, retains a soft spot for Jim, it leads to a resolution of their relationship later on. Towards the end of the film, Silver has a change of heart regarding his motives and decides that saving Jim’s life is more valuable to him than the trove’s treasure; Silver departs shortly after and leaves Jim with Morph, a shape-shifting magical creature he grew close to throughout the events of the story. This seems to allow Jim to move on from his biological father’s abandonment.

The Apotheosis is potentially served by the map itself. When the pirates land on a planet with strange inscriptions on its surface, Jim implants the map and allows it to open portals to numerous different worlds and by extension universes; this bestows upon them an unlimited amount of power due to the consequent access to untold riches. This leads on to the Ultimate Boon. By locating and entering Flint’s Trove with the use of the map, the characters then have a direct gateway to the reward of the treasure they had heard about in the tale of Flint.

Fig. 5: Flint’s Trove is the ultimate reward for the characters (2002).

Following this, the Refusal of the Return occurs when BEN, a robot created by Flint and who Jim helped regain his memories, informs the pirates and Jim that Flint’s Trove is actually rigged with traps designed to kill whoever stumbles upon it in effort to protect Flint’s hoard of treasure. Jim then insists on staying behind to try to stop the traps from detonating and destroying not only the treasure but the crew themselves.

Magic Flight happens when Jim uses a makeshift solar-powered surfboard capable of flight (or, as the film refers to it, a ‘solar surfer’) to leave the ship on its way out of the portal and fly back to where the map was planted to try and save everyone from certain doom.

The Rescue from Without could be said to be two different scenes; the first contender is the moment that Silver is forced to choose between saving Jim’s life or the treasure in the trove, and he, after a moment of debating the ultimatum, opts to rescue Jim. The second is when Doppler and Amelia are captured by the rebelling crew when stranded on the empty planet. They manage to escape, take back control of the RLS Legacy, and rescue Silver and Jim before the trove explodes.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold occurs when the ship escapes through the portal back on track to the space station the precise moment that Flint’s Trove detonates.

Fig. 6: The ship and Jim escape exactly on time and everyone returns home (2002).

The Master of Two Worlds stage happens when Jim’s troublesome habits of creating machines and solar surfing from the beginning of the movie prove useful in aiding everyone’s successful escape from the destruction of the treasure planet. He is ultimately regarded as a hero, gains everyone’s respect and is beloved by those around him in contrast to being thought of as an inconvenience, troubled, or immature as at the beginning of the film.

The final stage, the Freedom to Live, is following the characters’ safe return to the space station and then Montressor where Jim reunites with his proud mother. Some time later, Doppler and Amelia are shown to have married and started a family, Jim has become a military cadet, and BEN now assists Sarah in running the Benbow Inn after its grand reopening. It is also implied, from a vision of Silver that Jim sees in the clouds outside of the window during this scene, that the former is still adventuring somewhere in space and continuing his hunt for treasure.

Fig. 7: Jim returns to the Benbow Inn and reunites with his mother (2002).

It seems to be that Treasure Planet does indeed follow the structure of The Hero’s Journey layout, though the order is slightly askew compared to other films where this ordering of each stage would probably be linear. Treasure Planet seems to swap some stages around – in fact, there are even stages that might not be particularly relevant at all, such as the ‘Meeting the Goddess’ stage, since Amelia could be said to change role over the film as she is weakened or overpowered at certain points.

Bibliography:

• August, J. (2019), What is the hero’s journey? [Online] At: https://screenwriting.io/what-is-the-heros-journey/ (Accessed 15 October 2019)
• Straker, D. (2002), Campbell's 'Hero's Journey' Monomyth [Online] At: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/hero_journey/hero_journey.htm (Accessed 15 October 2019)

Illustration List:

• Fig. 1: Theatrical release poster for Treasure Planet (2002). [Poster for Treasure Planet (2002), dir. Ron Clements and Jon Musker] [Online] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133240/mediaviewer/rm807443713 (Accessed 15 October 2019)
• Fig. 2: The map left behind by Bones serves as both a supernatural/otherworldly guide for most of the film as well as Jim’s initial call to adventure (2002). [Film still from Treasure Planet (2002), dir. Ron Clements and Jon Musker] [Online] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133240/mediaviewer/rm2962919425 (Accessed 15 October 2019)
• Fig. 3: Silver serves as both Jim’s father and mentor figure throughout most of the film despite his intentions to inevitably betray him (2002). [Film still from Treasure Planet (2002), dir. Ron Clements and Jon Musker] [Online] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133240/mediaviewer/rm3953045504 (Accessed 15 October 2019)
• Fig. 4: Arrow’s death serves as a reminder to the audience and Jim that space and the crew that they are travelling with are dangerous just as Sarah warned (2002). [Film still from Treasure Planet (2002), dir. Ron Clements and Jon Musker] [Online] At: https://feelinganimatedblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/film-review-treasure-planet-2002/ (Accessed 15 October 2019)
• Fig. 5: Flint’s Trove is the ultimate reward for the characters (2002). [Film still from Treasure Planet (2002), dir. Ron Clements and Jon Musker] [Online] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133240/mediaviewer/rm784076032 (Accessed 15 October 2019)
• Fig. 6: The ship and Jim escape exactly on time and everyone returns home (2002). [Film still from Treasure Planet (2002), dir. Ron Clements and Jon Musker] [Online] At: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133240/mediaviewer/rm1587187713 (Accessed 15 October 2019)
• Fig. 7: Jim returns to the Benbow Inn and reunites with his mother (2002). [Film still from Treasure Planet (2002), dir. Ron Clements and Jon Musker] [Online] At: https://feelinganimatedblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/16/film-review-treasure-planet-2002/ (Accessed 15 October 2019)