ANI-MOVIES, *Titan A.E.

For what at the time was Don Bluth's swansong in theatrical animation, Titan A.E. was released in a time when the genre of outer space adventure didn't have much of foothold among young movie watchers. Aside from the "success" of the first Star Wars prequel, there were few films dealing in space swashbucklers, although it proved popular enough for Disney to make their own take on it in Treasure Planet. Considering that Bluth was a longtime on-and-off animator for Disney before going solo with his own production company, Titan A.E. did manage to make a substantial contribution to sci-fi movies. Another point of note is that the screenplay was written by Joss Whedon and Ben(The Tick)Edlund who later went on to make the space cowboy cult classic, Firefly.

In the mid 31st Century, Earthlings are forced to leave their home planet when it gets targeted by a race of pure energy invaders called the Drej. They destroy the Earth, forcing the remaining humans to seek refuge among the stars, becoming subjected to alien races while trying to niche out their own place during a time now referred to as "After Earth". One survivor is Space Ace-lookalike Cale, that works as an asteroid miner, and is picked up by Tek, an old friend of Cale's father who was a brilliant scientist. Tek is searching for a large spacecraft called the Titan which Cale's father created to give the surviving humans a second chance on a new home. Tek's crew of the starship Valkyrie includes the snarky bat humanoid Preed, the kangaroo girl Stith, the turtle-ish Gune, and the only other human Akima who is a dead ringer for Freefall from Gen 13(aka: Magical Drama Queen Roxy). Their star trek has them running into the Drej who really want to wipe out mankind altogether because they fear their possible evolution, which would overshadow their own. Cale has a special compass in his hand while bearing a special ring that can lead them to the Titan. Aside from the Drej, Cale has to put up with some backstabbing crew mates, with other aliens either helping or impeding his progress.

Titan A.E. was important in the field of animation as it was first one to be screened fully in digital cinema, as well as one of the last theatrically released films be done largely in a hand-drawn production. The best feature is the all-star cast of Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman, Matt Damon, Janeane Garofalo, and Nathan Lane. The flow of the story pads out more like a mid-80s space opera, but does provide some solid originality, including an actually smart security guard!