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Titan A.E.
Directed by	Don Bluth Gary Goldman
Produced by	Don Bluth Gary Goldman David Kirschner
Written by	Screenplay: Ben Edlund John August Joss Whedon Story: Hans Bauer Randall McCormick
Starring	Matt Damon Bill Pullman John Leguizamo Nathan Lane Janeane Garofalo Drew Barrymore
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	June 16, 2000
Running time	94 min.
Language	English
Budget	$75,000,000 (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Titan A.E. is a 2000 animated science fiction adventure film from Fox Animation Studios and Twentieth Century Fox. The title refers to the fictional spacecraft that is central to the plot, with A.E. meaning "After Earth."

The film's animation technique combines traditional hand-drawn animation and extensive use of computer generated imagery. The film is in color, running 94 minutes in length, and is rated PG for "action violence, mild sensuality, and brief language." Its working title was Planet Ice.

Titan A.E. was not financially successful. After it made only $9,376,845 during its opening weekend, Fox Animation Studios was shut down. The film only grossed a total of $22,753,426 in theaters. A video game in the works for PlayStation was cancelled in order to save money.^{[citation needed]} It is often listed with Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and The Iron Giant as an example of a critically praised animated science fiction/fantasy film that failed to attract an audience.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Plot 2 Notes on the film 3 Prequels 4 Cast 5 Soundtrack 6 Cinematography, Influences and Music 6.1 The Digital Screening 7 External links

It is the dawn of the 31st century, deep space travel has become a daily routine for the human race, and they have by now used their advanced technology to reach into the deepest reaches of the Galaxy, persuing domination.

In the year 3028 A.D., Earth is attacked by the Drej, a hostile alien race composed of pure energy. The Drej mothership sends a squadron of smaller Drej ships to attack Earth just as hundreds of space vehicles (as well as the secret Titan ship with Professor Sam Tucker aboard) manage to escape with the last of mankind aboard. One of the escapees is Sam's young son Cale, who carries with him a ring given to him by his father. In a matter of minutes, the Drej mothership fires an energy beam directly at the planet's core, and Earth completely vanishes in a devastating explosion which even takes the Moon with it. The remaining rubble explodes moments later to give way to the main title.

Fifteen years later, in 3043, Cale, having been raised and looked after by his father's alien friend, Tek, works on a salvage station built into an asteriod, Tau 14, making out a rough life and hating his father for having disappeared aboard the Titan so long ago. Without a home planet, surviving humans have been reduced to outer space drifters and are constantly bullied and looked down on by other space-faring races. A human captain named Joseph Korso, of the Valkyrie and his pilot Akima seek out Cale and explain that he must help them find the Titan which contains a mechanism that will create a new Earth and therefore unite all of humanity, providing them with another chance at life and battle against the Drej. Meanwhile, the Drej want to find the Titan so that they can destroy it.

With Korso's help, Cale discovers that the ring his father gave to him contains a genetically encoded map to the Titan, and thus begins his race across the Universe with Korso and his ship and crew, including: Preed, a wisecracking, English-accented, rat-like humanoid (an Akranian) who is Korso's first mate; Gune, an eccentric, green-skinned scientist (a Grepcan); and Stith, a tough, hard-as-nails female weapons expert who resembles something of a kangaroo (a Soggwan). The map first leads them to a a seemingly dead planet, Sesharrim, littered with explosive Hydrogen Trees above the water. They meet with a bird-like race, the Gaol, and their leader uses the planet's broken moon to show Cale the way to the Titan. However, they are attacked by Drej, who kidnap Cale and Akima and take them back to their mothership. En route, Cale asks Akima why the Drej want to destroy mankind. She responds that the Drej are afraid of what humanity would become.

On the mothership, the Drej Queen uses the map to locate the Titan to a Nebula. She orders Cale imprisonment and Akima to be sent to a slaver station. Cale manages to escape and takes control of a small ship while Korso, Preed and Stith rescue Akima, only to find that she has freed herself with ease and beaten her lecherous cellmates up.

Cale manages to pilot the Drej ship to the Valkyrie, and after a small confrontation follows, but Cale sends Korso a number-code to say that it's him and not the Drej. Korso intercepts the code, and allows Cale inside. Cale informs them that the Drej have copied the map, but Gune examines it once more, and realises that it is pointing to a Nebula known as the Ice Rings of Tigrin. Later on, Korso shows Cale how to pilot the ship to race some Wake Angels (Good Luck omens) for fun.

Before long, after they stop at a drifter colony for supplies, Cale and Akima find out, through a conversation between Korso and a Drej Queen hologram, that Korso is searching for the Titan in order to hand it over to the Drej for money. In the ensuing confrontation, Korso reveals that the Drej have long killed Sam Tucker (who refused to tell them where the Titan is hidden), and that he believes that it makes no difference whether or not the human race find another home, since the Drej will keep pursuing them until they are all wiped out. They narrowly escape from him and Preed, who is working with Korso, only to become stranded on the drifter colony. Cale and Akima manage to repair one of the wrecked spacecraft on the station, The Phoenix, and use it to make their way to the Ice Rings of Tigrin, in which the Titan has been hidden, with Korso in hot pursuit. A cat-and-mouse chase ensues, but Cale and Akima eventually manage to evade Korso, finding the Titan at last.

Within the Titan, Cale and Akima discover that Professor Tucker had been one of the main architects in designing the craft. The designers, anticipating the destruction of Earth, gave the Titan the ability to create a new planet and loaded it with the DNA of every living Earth species for the purpose of repopulating the new world. Unfortunately, according to a holographic message left by Sam Tucker for Cale, the ship's energy has been long since drained and the process cannot be activated.

Korso finds and boards the Titan accompanied by Preed. Preed leaves Stith and Gune a communication watch, which later turns out to have been a bomb (Korso needed Stith and Gune out of the way), and Gune apparently sacrifices himself to detonate the bomb away from Stith. Korso and Preed confront Cale and Akima. Cale tries to reason with Korso, but he doesn't listen. Then, Preed turns on Korso, having been promised his life and a substantial amount of money by the Drej in exchange for him killing Cale, Akima and Korso. However, Preed hesitates, and a confrontation follows, in which Preed single-handedly defeats his three opponents until Korso sneaks up from behind and kills Preed by breaking his neck. Korso then fights with Cale before falling over a railing. Cale grabs hold of Korso's hand, trying to save him as Korso goads him to let him fall to his death. Cale refuses to let go, but Korso slips from Cale's grip and falls. However, Korso survives by hanging onto a rope. Akima and Cale, joined by Stith, then work together to defend the Titan against the impending Drej attack, and Cale realizes that the energy comprising the Drej and their ships may be used to power up the Titan's systems, and they work to bring the vessel online, until they see that one of the circuits is jammed.

As Cale gets into a space suit to see to the problem himself, Akima and Stith use the Titan's guns to counterattack the Drej ships and keep them away from Cale. The Drej ships destroy the guns and leave Cale and the Titan as sitting ducks, until Gune, who miraculously survived the explosion, pilots the Valkyrie to fight the Drej ships, but manages to damage one which pins Cale against the Titan's outer wall.

Korso shows up again, but unexpectedly frees Cale, realising that they might just have a chance to defeat the Drej after all, and continues to fire at the ships to cover Cale. The ships then return to the mothership, which is preparing to fire. Korso joins Cale in the circuitry room, and persuades him to use his ring to power up the system while he sacrifices himself to bridge the jammed circuit with his gun (to redeem himself for trying to kill them earlier). Reluctantly, Cale agrees, and bids farewell to his friend. Korso, bleeding to death after a blast from a Drej ship, uses his final moments to bridge the circuit, losing his life in the process as the Drej mothership fires a destructive beam at the Titan. Cale, at the last moment, uses the ring to channel the beam's power into its system. The Titan powers up and drains all the Drej energy, disintegrating the Queen and the mothership and creating a new Earth out of the Ice Rings.

The film ends with Akima and Cale standing upon their newly-created world, with Stith and Gune flying above them aboard the Valkyrie, and bidding their friends good-bye just as they prepare to kiss. Akima wants to name the planet "New Earth," while Cale suggests naming it "Bob" as a joke. The final scene is of the human refugees coming to the planet labeled "New Earth [Planet Bob]." It is now the year 16 A. E. (After Earth).

One of the reasons most commonly given for the financial failure of Titan A.E. is its poorly identified target audience.^{[citation needed]} People were unsure, having seen trailers for the film, if it were intended for the older sci-fi fan crowd, or whether it was pitched more at children.^{[citation needed]} This confusion was further increased by the mixture of people used to write and direct the production. Joss Whedon, was, at the time, famous for the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as for making contributions to films such as Speed, whereas Don Bluth and Gary Goldman were more noted for creating G-rated children's cartoons such as The Secret of NIMH. Bluth later added to the confusion when he stated during an interview with HBO's First Look, "This is not one of those cute, little kid musicals; this film is nothing but action." The film treats its soundtrack as a purely background element. However, the film garners a 68% "fresh" rating among users at Rotten Tomatoes and a "C+" at Box Office Mojo. Notably, though, film critic Roger Ebert loved it, giving it 3.5/4 stars for its "rousing story," "largeness of spirit," and "galactic visuals [which] are beautiful in the same way photos by the Hubble Space Telescope are beautiful." He cited the Ice Rings sequence as "a perfect examine [sic] of what animation can do and live action cannot."[1]

An odd element of the film was the mixture of traditional cel animation and advanced computer graphics. In several of the scenes (notably the interior of the Titan), the rough drawings are apparent but this can then be contrasted with the higher quality computer graphics of the cat-and-mouse sequence amongst the Ice Rings of Tegrin. The closing CGI images of the New Earth were widely panned.^{[citation needed]}

The original idea for the film was to render all the characters and backgrounds in CGI, but had to use traditional cel animation with CGI aliens and special effects due to cost concerns.^{[citation needed]}

To tie in with the film, there was a series of prequel novels released, as well as a prequel comic book mini-series.

• Cale's Story told the adventures of Cale, ending with the beginning of the film.
• Akima's Story told the adventures of Akima, ending with the beginning of the film.

The Dark Horse Comics prequel comic told the story of Sam Tucker and his crew, and their quest to hide the Titan.

• Matt Damon — voice of Cale Tucker
• Drew Barrymore — voice of Akima
• Bill Pullman — voice of Capt. Joseph Korso
• John Leguizamo — voice of Gune
• Nathan Lane — voice of Preed
• Janeane Garofalo — voice of Stith
• Ron Perlman — voice of Professor Sam Tucker
• Alex D. Linz — voice of Young Cale
• Tone Loc — voice of Tek
• Jim Breuer — voice of The Cook

1. "Over My Head" — Lit
2. "The End is Over" — Powerman 5000
3. Cosmic Castaway — Electrasy
4. "Everything Under the Stars" — Fun Lovin' Criminals
5. "It's My Turn to Fly" — The Urge
6. "Like Lovers (Holding On)" — Texas
7. "Not Quite Paradise" - Bliss 66
8. "Everybody's Going to the Moon" — Jamiroquai
9. "Karma Slave" — Splashdown
10. "Renegade Survivor" — The Wailing Souls
11. "Down to Earth" — Luscious Jackson

• Creed's song "Higher" was played in many of the theatrical trailers for Titan A.E., but the song did not appear either in the movie or on the soundtrack.

• The film is credited as being produced using CinemaScope, when in fact it is a regular anamorphic film and does not use the long retired CinemaScope process which was notorious for causing visual problems with animated films. As with his 1997 film Anastasia, Don Bluth insisted the CinemaScope credit be used.

• In the first scene when they arrived at New Bangkok, as the camera pans out, you can clearly see a Death Star-looking formation around the center of the space station.

• The Tattoo on Cale's upper right arm bears a striking resemblance to the emblem of the "Terran Empire" from Star Trek

• For the "New Genesis" scene, Blue Sky Studios created the entire CGI. Blue Sky is known for feature-length animated films such as Robots, Ice Age, and Ice Age: The Meltdown. They have also done a lot of live-action work, including the 'sliding' penguin in the movie Fight Club, and the infamous talking fish on the HBO series The Sopranos.

• The theatrical poster depicted Cale running forward and firing a gun. However, this film was released during the fallout of the Columbine High School massacre, and movie companies were coming under heavy criticism for violence in films. As a result, for the home video release, an altered version of the movie poster was used for the box cover which depicted Cale in a similar pose, except instead of the gun, his hand was outstretched, revealing the map.

• Due to the high, rasping voice of his character, Gune, John Leguizamo developed problems with his voice during production, as stated in the movie's Fox Kids special "The Quest for the Titan," which can be seen on the film's DVD release.

Titan A.E. became the first major motion picture to take part in end-to-end digital cinema. On June 6, 2000, ten days before the movie was released, at the SuperComm 2000 tradeshow, the movie was projected simultaneously at the tradeshow in Atlanta, Georgia as well as a screen in Los Angeles, California. It was sent to both screens from the 20th Century Fox production facilities in Los Angeles via a private internet LAN line. [2]

• White Paper (pdf) by Qwest communications about historic digital screenings
• Titan A.E. at the Internet Movie Database
• Titan A.E. at Rotten Tomatoes
• Titan A.E. at Box Office Mojo
• IGN Information Page on the cancelled game

v • d • e Don Bluth

Video games: Dragon's Lair (1983) • Space Ace (1984) • Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp (1991) Animated films: The Small One (1978) • Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979) • The Secret of NIMH (1982) • An American Tail (1986) • The Land Before Time (1988) • All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) • Rock-a-Doodle (1991) • Thumbelina (1994) • A Troll in Central Park (1994) • The Pebble and the Penguin (1995) • Anastasia (1997) • Bartok the Magnificent (1999) • Titan A.E. (2000)  Related articles: Sullivan Bluth Studios • Fox Animation Studios

v • d • e Joss Whedon
Television - Written & Directed	Buffy the Vampire Slayer · Angel  · Firefly  · Dollhouse  · Rosanne
Films - Written & Directed	Serenity
Films - Written	Buffy the Vampire Slayer · Speed · Waterworld · Toy Story · Twister · Alien: Resurrection · Titan A.E. · X-Men
Comics - Written	Fray · Tales of the Slayers · Tales of the Vampires · Serenity: Those Left Behind · Buffy: Season 8 · Astonishing X-Men · Runaways · Serenity: Better Days