©Disney

Treasure Planet is coming to theaters in just a few short weeks. Perhaps you have seen those cool looking trailers. Spaceships that resemble ocean ships. A spaceport shaped like a crescent moon. Unusual looking aliens and robots. Jim Hawkins flying through the air on a contraption resembling a surfboard. But I have one main reason for wanting to see Treasure Planet, and that reason is Glen Keane.

Glen has been with Disney since the mid 1970s. He has risen from an inbetweener to one of the top animators in the world. After serving as an animator on The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound, and Mickey's Christmas Carol, he really started making his mark in The Great Mouse Detective, in which he animated Ratigan. His animation gave Ratigan an over-the-top style to perfectly match the vocals of Vincent Price, making the character a classic villain. Ratigan's actions easily gave away the fact that he was the bad guy, but there was still something fun to watch about him, as there is with every convincing villain.

From there Glen went on to Oliver and Company, where he worked on Fagin and Sykes. Skyes once again has a heavy presence as the obviously mean villain. But Fagin comes across as a lovable thief, mainly trying to provide for himself and the dogs.

Up next for Glen was Ariel in The Little Mermaid. Wonderful animation once again. This time with the challenge, or perhaps the freedom, of having the character float in the water instead of being tied down to the surface. This meant animating Ariel's hair to be moved around by the water, slightly different than animating a land-based character whose hair is a little more static. At the time The Little Mermaid was the highest grossing animated film ever, thanks in part to believable animation.

Next came The Rescuers Down Under, in which Glen animated the eagle. This may seem like a minor character for someone as talented as Glen. But actually the eagle was the focal point of the story, and that character required a convincing look to tie everything together.

This was followed by what many consider Glen's greatest performance as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. Obviously much thought and emotion was poured into the design and animation of the Beast, from getting his look just right to making him believable as a powerful beast as well as someone with whom Belle would fall in love. An interesting feature on the recently released Beauty and the Beast DVD has Glen describing how he animated the scene of the Beast's transformation into the Prince, and how that transformation mirrored his spiritual journey, a change from the inside out.

Glen was the lead animator of the title character in Aladdin, again responsible for the overall look of the character. While much attention for this film was focused on Eric Goldberg's animation of the Genie, it was of course Aladdin who really held the film together.

He again served the same function for Pocahontas supervising the design and animation of the lead character. It is interesting to see how Glen and the other animators can create their characters to fit into the different visual styles of each film, proving their talents as artists.

After taking some time off, Glen returned as the supervising animator of the title character in Tarzan. He was responsible for the idea of Tarzan "surfing" through the tree tops. And Glen was up to the challenge of having his animated character moving through the dynamic jungle scenes created using the Deep Canvas process. Before this, most backgrounds in animated films remained stationary. But now it could appear that the camera was constantly moving, providing more of a challenge for the character animators to make their characters appear part of this 3D world.

That brings us to Treasure Planet, where Glen is the supervising animator for John Silver. It appears that Glen has always enjoyed challenges, from working with computer animated sets in The Great Mouse Detective to designing a complex character such as the Beast to working with new technological advances in Tarzan. In Treasure Planet, John Silver is part man, part cyborg. As such, it was decided to have his cyborg parts be computer animated, while the rest of his body is hand-drawn animation. The challenge for Glen was to make John Silver appear to be one seamless character. If you become distracted by noticing the animation process, then the film loses some of its meaning. It should be interesting to see how well John Silver comes across on the screen. Based on past experiences, I'm sure it will be nothing short of amazing.

Treasure Planet opens in movie theaters, as well as IMAX and other large format theaters, on November 27.

- Story by Steve Burns; Graphic ©Disney
Posted

Steve is a three-time Disney Store National Trivia finalist and webmaster of BurnsLand, home of Steve's Disney Railroad Adventures.

E-mail Steve at steve@startedbyamouse.com, discuss this article in the StartedByAMouse.com Disney Discussion Forums or use the Talkback feature below.

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