Titan A.E. Cale's Beginnings & The Importance of Fatherhood
Yes we're moving towards analyzing this movie
It is no secret that Don Bluth despises what he calls the ‘sci-fi movie’ he refuses to even call it by name. He once told me; ‘I knew it was going to fail, from the moment they forced me to work on it.’ He also told me, ‘I hated that project’, and told me to read his awesome biography ‘My Animated Life’ to know why. The reason was simple; Don Bluth was a purely fantasy and fairy-tale guy, he loves the same genre as I, maybe that’s why during the week I spent with him he seemingly doted on me, more than some others. I remember swapping reading materials, writing ideas and project ideas.
I never disagreed with Don. Why? I revere him as much as I do my grandfather, and came away no longer looking up to him as a hero persay, but rather I looked on him as said as a kind of grandfather. But there was one topic I STRONGLY disagreed with him on; ‘the space movie’.
Titan A.E. is not a perfect movie. It’s a middling thing if we’re being kind. Yet what it has is a lot of heart, there’s at the core of the film beauty and a sense of loss, which is important.
In a way I’ve come to think of the movie as a metaphor for modernity; it is about a son searching for his father even as humanity has fallen into near extinction. Is that not the perfect description of our current times? And what is more is that humanity is fighting against an alien force bent on its destruction, all in the hopes to restore the earth and humanity to what they once were.
Thus, there is hope beneath the veil of darkness. It is important to poke beneath the ‘cool scifi noise’ to find the meaning of Cale’s journey and no it isn’t to bang Asian Drew Barrymore, but to find his father and to incorporate the lessons the man sought to pass on into himself.
The movie thus has potential, though it falls flat at times. In a lot of ways it was a ‘prototype Treasure Planet’.
The first opening scene though show-cases the most important thing about Cale; he is caught playing outside when his father finds him, he loses his toy and the boy cries out that he’s lost his toy.
“I’ll help you make a new one, son,” his father tells him holding him close.
What is fascinating is that his father shakes and trembles with emotion and fear. He knows that the earth is doomed, that he himself is doomed. He is terrified for his beloved planet, terrified for his own life, and seems to cling to his son as one might a blanket as a child.
Yet does he seek to keep his son from leaving? Does he decide to take him with him? Nope.
The father gives over his son to be raised by another, in the hopes that Cale will survive. Takes off to take off with the Titan in the hopes that the Satanic energy-based aliens will not destroy humanity’s only remaining hope to fight back against them.
Why this scene is important is that Cale loses something important; his father promises him he’ll get a new one and then has to go on a suicidal mission.
Really it could not be plainer; Cale loses his way on his journey to manhood as he doesn’t have any real icons of masculinity to look up to.
His father sacrifices himself all while showing him the way, the hope and the truth of what a real man is like. All this with no one else but Cale in his heart, as it is his son who inspires him and makes him dream and gives him the strength to defy the odds.
Cale for his part grows up scorning his father, blaming him and only later realizes he was wrong. It is honestly a blood moving intro, and also a heart-rending one when you watch as an adult.
Watching as something of a parent, or as a parent, you really feel for Cale’s father even as a son or daughter you can’t help but feel for poor Cale. So that with a little effort this movie could have been movie of the year, but the trouble was there were some disjointed elements and some problems with the script but it isn’t half as bad as Don claims it is.
20th Century Fox must have ordered him to do it and he wasn't in a position to refuse. I have a copy of his autobiography I've been meaning to read, so I don't know for sure, but I think that was what it was he hated about it.
One thing is for sure: Don Bluth's worst movie will always be better than some incompetent hack's best one.
I love this movie.