"Hercules" - Disney's Superman

A quick Google search just told me that I am far from the first person to talk about this, but I'm going to still go for it. Maybe I can add something new to the conversation, or at least reignite it.

Sometimes you really have to sit back and admire the pipeline of Disney Animation in the nineties. The studio went from a French fairy-tale (Beauty & The Beast), to an Arabian fairy-tale (Aladdin), to Shakespeare's Hamlet with talking lions (The Lion King), to a fictitious dramatization of American history (Pocahontas), to a family-friendly but somehow still-faithful adaptation of a Victor Hugo novel (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and then...Hercules. What range.

What is Hercules? You're probably saying "Well obviously Chris, it's an adaptation of Greek mythology." and you would be right...in a way. As I learned long ago in my high school Mythology class, Disney's Hercules is an adaptation disconnected to its source material even more so then Hunchback...but maybe not as much as Pocahontas. Seriously there's "Pocahontas & John Smith are the same age and romantically involved" inaccurate, and then there's "Zeus is a loving and loyal father figure" inaccurate...also Hades wasn't evil, Hera wasn't Hercules's mother, Hera killed Meg and Hercules' children, Hercules was born a demigod first because Zeus slept with a mortal woman, there was no Phil, the protagonist's real name isn't even Hercules. It's Heracles, but I digress...

Alright so if Hercules isn't a Greek mythology film then what is it? Easy my friends. It's a superhero film.

Obviously the film is inarguably saturated with Greek mythology. I'm not trying to do this Disney-Adult version of gaslighting on you. But when you look at the story in its base form, Hercules has more align with a classic superhero origin story. Specifically one superhero origin story in particular.

That film being Richard Donner's 1978 film, Superman, starring the late Christopher Reeve. A film that has recently come back to the forefront of my mind, thanks to a recent screening of the documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story I attended (Great film by the way. Reeve really was Superman. Bring tissues.) 

It's weird how the mind works sometimes. Listening to Christopher Reeve talk in the documentary, something inside me said "His voice has a similar cadence to Tate Donovan. I think if they ever did a biopic Tate Donovan might play a good Christopher Reeve." Then I remembered Tate Donovan voiced Hercules. As Kronk in The Emperor's New Groove would say "Oh yeah. It's all coming together..."

Hercules's story starts out almost identical to Superman's. He is the descendant of these beings from another world with godlike strength, and due to unfortunate circumstances, he is left alone as a baby on Earth, and lo and behold adopted by farmers.

When Hercules and Clark Kent both start to feel like outcasts due to their extraordinary abilities, they leave home searching answers. This leads Clark to the Fortress of Solitude, and for Hercules that is the Temple of Zeus. Whereas a projection of his late father Jor-El comes to Clark/Kal-El, a projection of Zeus comes to Hercules.

Both heroes start to gain fame and notoriety through public acts of heroism, and they're is a cynical, female love-interest there to witness it all (Megara for Hercules, Lois Lane for Superman). There's not much of a comparison between Lex Luthor and Hades (They do both have cartoonishly large maps of the worlds they wish to conquer though). If anything, I'd say Pain and Panic and Otis have more in common.

The true parallel comes in the final act(s). Megara lays dying as Hercules fights to save Olympus from Hades and The Titans. Lois Lane gets trapped in her car during an earthquake, as Superman works to prevent other natural disasters. Neither hero is able to save both the world and their love...or are they?

Both Hercules and Superman defy fate to save their loves. Hercules rescues Megara from the underworld, risking his own life. Superman goes against Jor-El's teachings, and uses his powers to turn back time and save Lois. This is a critical moment for both. Hercules learns that his heart, his humanity, is what makes him a true hero. Not his godlike powers. 

Conversely, Kal-El had been instructed by his father to only inspire humans, and not to interfere with them. He even says to his son that he will be like a light to them to show them the way, almost like a God. But when the woman he loves dies, Kal-El chooses humanity over divinity, and that is what makes him a true hero. And similar to how Kal-El continues to live among humans in the guise of Clark Kent, Hercules decides to remain on Earth with Megara, declaring it's where he belongs.

Maybe it's just a bizarre coincidence that Tate Donovan was cast as Hercules, and it wasn't because the directors were looking for a "Christopher Reeve-type" to voice the character. Maybe I'm the only one who hears the similarities in the two actors' voices. But it got me here. Down this rabbit hole. A place where many others have been before. The place where we all know Hercules is Disney's Superman.

...Maybe I should do those Top Films of 2022 & 2023 now...or just go to bed...

"Into The Woods" A Fine Film and Flawed Adaptation

I can say with confidence that my favorite musical is Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods. Now I admit I haven't seen a ton of Broadway shows, in fact most of the ones I've seen have been adapted from Disney films. So there's some irony in that I was introduced to my favorite musical...through its film adaptation by Disney!

Long ago I placed Into The Woods sixth in my Top 10 Films of 2014, which I don't know if I would do again. Frankly I'm a little appalled at my past self for not including How To Train Your Dragon 2, and embarrassed for not seeing John Wick or Whiplash at the time (still haven't seen the latter). The point is, the more I've learned about Into The Woods the musical, the less I've enjoyed Into The Woods the film.

Before we go any further I'm just going to let everyone know I'm not here to trash James Corden...but I get it. Also this will contain spoilers so...don't go any further if you care about those.

For those that don't know, Into The Woods is what I describe as an "ensemble adaptation" that takes multiple fairy tales like Cinderella, Jack and The Beanstalk, and Red Riding Hood, and intertwines them into one narrative. At the center are the original characters of The Baker and his wife, who are cursed by their witch neighbor due to past misdeeds of The Baker's father, and preventing them from having a child. The witch tells them she can create a potion to lift the curse if they collect four specific ingredients in three day's time: the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold. These ingredients are where the other fairy tale characters come in. 

The Baker sets out into the titular woods to retrieve the items, while at the same time Cinderella, Jack, and Red also set out into the woods (Ahaha!) to achieve their specific goals (go to the ball, sell the cow, etc.) There's also Rapunzel, a couple of Prince Charming's, and an omniscient narrator. Now "Happily Ever After" does come for these fairy tale characters, but that is not where Into The Woods ends. That's just the first act.

Some time has passed, and as the narrator tells the audience, despite some minor inconveniences, the cast is still happy. Cinderella is bored with the princess life, meanwhile her Prince Charming (and his brother) are becoming unhappy with married life. Jack longs for more adventures atop the beanstalk. The Baker and his wife, now with their infant son, need more space in their home. But these characters keep singing they're "so happy" as if to convince the audience (and themselves) that they are living happily ever after.

The majority of the second act has the characters dealing with an attack from a second giant, who is the wife of the giant Jack killed. To make a long story short, this conflict leads to the deaths of Jack's mother, Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother, Rapunzel, and The Baker's wife (who falls to her death after having a brief fling with Cinderella's Prince. Interesting chain of events there, Sondheim...). Eventually this lady giant is defeated, and the story ends with Cinderella, Jack, and Little Red moving in with The Baker and his son. I'm really not doing the second act much justice with this summary but I'm trying not to waste too much time on the recap.

So, this sounds like a pretty bleak ending right? A bit bittersweet isn't it? Yes, but...that's kind of the point. Sondheim is making the point that "Happily Ever After" is a false construct. "The End" is not the end. There will always be more more giants, wolves, and witches. There will always be more obstacles, more consequences, and more hardships. That's life. People have to continue to grow, to learn, to go "into the woods". Pinning the blame on a fairy tale villain like a giant or an evil witch is not going to make your problems go away, nor is a magic slipper or bean going to make your life perfect. 

Through Into The Woods, Sondheim masterfully uses fairy tales to tell his audience, not to believe fairy tales. It's genius. But...is it cinema?

Translating a story from one medium to another is always going to present challenges. Creatives have to be willing to make changes to the source material in order for their adaptation to work. Into The Woods fits perfectly into a two-act play structure. The first act is the regular fairy tale, and the second is what happens after. Disney's 2014 film adaptation really stumbles here. Not counting the credits, it's an hour and fifty-seven minute film, but we don't get to the second act until an hour and fifteen minutes in. 

Now you're probably saying "Chris that's not that egregious." Well it is, and it isn't. On the stage, we get an intermission, and act two starts with a rearrangement of the opening song. Some time has passed for the characters, and they're not super content with their current situations. There is no intermission in a film, and the filmmakers decided to cut the time jump. Just as Cinderella and Rapunzel have married their princes, Mrs. Giant attacks and we're right back into the fray (or...woods).

Omitting songs from film adaptations is not a new practice, however, eliminating the time jump and the second-act prologue changes the message of Into The Woods for the film. The characters do not get the chance to lament their happily ever afters, much less enjoy them. Instead they find themselves having to continue to fight for them, and as I mentioned earlier, that comes at the cost of some lives. Suddenly the message isn't so much "There is no such thing as a happily ever after" as much as "Be careful what you wish for" which while that is still an important message, it is a very tired and cliche one.

Another song omission from act two really messes up the flow of the film, and that's the reprise of "Agony" (You know that upsets me...). The reprise has the two princes getting tired of their wives (Cinderella and Rapunzel) and becoming smitten with two other princesses (Sleeping Beauty and Snow White). Eliminating this song totally makes the Prince's fling with The Baker's Wife seem completely out of left field, and sort of makes it seems like the film is punishing her for cheating...because she dies immediately after? Yeah I'm still not sure what purpose her death serves if anyone wants to help me out here, please. Sure, earlier in the film (played by Chris Pine and Emily Blunt) they share a few moments but it's not enough for us to "ship it" as the kids say.

Side-note, the characterization of The Baker's Wife in the film misses the mark, too. In the musical she clearly wears the pants in the marriage and has to push The Baker to do more. In the film she's a much more gentle character and far more his biggest cheerleader. The musical makes it more believable for her to cheat. 

There is one more detail from the film I want to touch on, and that's how they handled The Narrator and The Baker's Father. They're played by the same actor on stage, but they're not the same character...at least that's how I interpreted it. Anyway, on stage The Narrator is an actual character that interacts with the audience, and in the second act, the other characters. When Mrs. Giant is hunting for Jack, the characters turn on him and offer him up as a sacrifice. The Narrator pleads with them to spare his life, because they'll be lost without him telling the story. It's very clever because once the Narrator is gone, that's when the characters have to start taking responsibility for their own actions, hence Princes and Wives having flings, the four main characters screaming at each other in a song called "Your Fault" etc.

The film has no narrator character. Instead The Baker (Corden) acts as narrator. Now that's kind of a nice change. It brings the film full circle when he tells the story to the baby at the end. But again, the message of the musical is lost. 

Now his father. His father is a supporting player in the first act, acting as an unnamed mysterious stranger helping the characters through the woods. When the curse is finally lifted, he passes away having paid for his misdeeds. In the second act, after his wife has died and the witch has abandoned the group, The Baker retreats and leaves his son with the others. It is then when a vision of his late father comes to him, and through the song "No More" (Mad the film cut this one), he realizes he hasn't learned anything, he is jus repeating the cycle, and it's time to take responsibility for his own life. The father doesn't appear in the first half of the film, save for a brief flashback in the prologue, but does show up in the second act. He appears as a vision to his son, but only through a brief pep talk does he tell his son to be "better than me". This just feels tacked on because the character was cut out of the rest of the film.

That's kind of the whole problem with how this film handles act two of the musical. It just tacks it on at the end and breezes through it (Was I trying to make that point with my quick recap of it earlier? I'll never tell!). Eliminating too much from this portion of the musical undercut the whole message and point of Into The Woods and thus the film fails at being a proper adaptation.

Now, I've bashed the film quite a lot here, and I could go on...but I really do enjoy it. The performances are great. The production design is top-notch, and the arrangements of the songs are really wonderful. I just came to this epiphany...in many ways this is the Disney live-action remake of Into The Woods. It takes a lot out of the source material, doesn't add much, but still enjoyable at the surface level because it's well casted and the new arrangements of the songs are good. 

Really how much you like the musical of Into The Woods will determine how much you like the film Into The Woods. As I've grown to love the musical more over time, I've lost interest in the film. Does that mean I hate it? No. I still enjoying watching the 2017 remake of Beauty & The Beast, but I'll never take it over the original 1991 classic. That's sort of how I look at Into The Woods the film. It's not perfect, but at times, it can satisfy.

Could another film adaptation of Into The Woods work? Perhaps, but it's not clear we'll ever see it in this lifetime, and maybe that's a good thing. As the film said, and not the musical, be careful what you wish for.

"Atlantis" & "Treasure Planet" - Disney's Unjust Failures

Last year I made the decision to rewatch all of the films produced by Walt Disney's Animation Studio, chronologically from beginning to end. So that means starting from Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs, and then going all the way to Raya & The Last Dragon Encanto. Yeah it's taken a bit longer than I expected...life, what can I say?

However I am approaching the end. So you're probably thinking "Oh so now he's going to rank them all." Lord no. That's sixty films, my guy. Some of the studio's earlier films I haven't watched in over year. Not a challenge I have the time and mental capacity for right now. 

No instead I've decided to write a couple think pieces, each focusing on a specific film or films. While I've seen many of these films numerous times, others I was watching for the first time in years, or believe it or not, for the first time ever.

Last week this House of Mouse Marathon brought me back to two films from The Experimental Era of Disney Animation (1999-2008), Atlantis - The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet. These two films are quite similar. They're both sci-fi adventure films, that blend hand-drawn and computer animation, and believe it or not, each feature a cast member from Frasier. Both films are products of their time, and in many cases are victims of it.

At the time of their respective releases, each received average-to-poor reviews from critics (Critics were nicer to Treasure than Atlantis), and turned out to be box office failures. Atlantis made very little profit, and Treasure didn't even break even. Fast forward to present day and many see both films as cult classics. 

So...what happened?

I think a lot factored into the unjust failures of Atlantis and Treasure Planet. Atlantis was released in June of 2001 and Treasure in late November of 2002, over the Thanksgiving holiday. They were some of the first films released by Disney Animation in the new millennium, and after the hot streak that would become known as The Disney Renaissance (1989-1999, so The Little Mermaid through Tarzan).

On paper, there are a lot of consistent threads throughout the films of The Disney Renaissance. They're all based on either fairy tales or classic literature, musicals, and family friendly (for the most part). Atlantis...is none of those things. It is Indiana Jones meets 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and a lot (A LOT) of people die in the action sequences. To be a background character in Atlantis is the Disney equivalent of being a red-shirt in Star Trek or a Stormtrooper in Star Wars. Treasure Planet is based on Robert Louis Stevensons's Treasure Island (Which Disney previously adapted in live-action in 1950), but like Atlantis is much more mature and heavy in its action.

Suffice it to say, these films were a stark contrast from the ones Disney released in the prior decade. Gone were the singing teapots, magic genies, and talking lions of the nineties. Atlantis and Treasure were weren't exactly what audiences had come to expect from Disney Animation, and could be seen as unconventional choices for the studio. But then again, so were Dinosaur, The Emperor's New Groove, and Lilo & Stitch which also came out in the same three-year period. This was a time when the studio was moving away from the animated musical formula, and trying new things (Hence the name The Experimental Era).

Atlantis and Treasure were definitely the most adult-oriented films that came out during this period, and I say that well aware of the fact there is an alien in Treasure Planet that speaks in fart ("Flatua" if you wanna get technical). Animation is not specifically for kids though (Say it again with me...ANIMATION IS NOT JUST FOR KIDS. Stupid Oscars.) Disney was already experimenting with more mature themes and ideas in their animated films prior to the 2000's, see The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, and I guess Pocahontas. This was also a time when traditional hand-drawn animation was starting to decline in popularity, and computer-animation was on the rise. Disney for the longest time had become synonymous with traditional animation. As audiences became less interested in the medium, they became overshadowed by the likes of Pixar and bold new offerings like Shrek from Dreamworks, and Ice Age from Blue Sky. It is worth noting that Atlantis and Treasure both have great traditional animation that combines CGI elements beautifully. Atlantis does the blend flawlessly, while Treasure definitely has some shots where the tech hasn't aged well.

Atlantis came out the first year the Academy Awards decided to instate the Best Animated Feature category. Shrek would go on to win the Oscar, while Atlantis wasn't even get nominated. Treasure would secure a nomination alongside Lilo & Stitch, Ice Age, and Spirit - Stallion of The Cimarron, but the Oscar went to Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, which is traditionally animated in the Japanese style. 

By that class of nominees alone you can see that there was still an audience for hand-drawn animation, although I wouldn't use the Oscars as the best example of it. In future years the Academy would nominate the likes of Shark Tale and...The Boss Baby.

At the box office, these two films were failures. Atlantis was released on June 3rd 2001, which sounds like a perfect release date for a film like it. Schools were getting ready to close for summer vacation, and it being a sci-fi adventure, it should have fit perfectly into the traditional blockbuster season. It came out the same weekend as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie, and came in second place to it. It wouldn't be fair to say they were competing for the same audience, although they are both adventure films. Atlantis also had to deal with the fact that Shrek had come out less than a month ago.Why would parents take their kids to see "another Disney cartoon" when all they've heard lately is how good Shrek is? Atlantis wouldn't have a chance to make up for lost profit over the summer, when films like Dr. Dolitte 2, The Fast & The Furious, Jurassic Park III, and Planet of the Apes came out in the following weeks. Ultimately it ended up in fifteenth place at the overall 2001 summer box office.

Now Treasure Planet...this film was set-up to fail. It released over the same Thanksgiving weekend as Die Another Day, the fourth and final film to star Pierce Brosnan. Not exactly a film it would be in direct competition with. It also had to go against another Disney film, The Santa Clause 2, which had already been out for a few weeks, delivered holiday cheer for the season, and already had an established audience because like Die Another Day it was a sequel. Speaking of sequels, what also came out earlier that month...was Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets...Treasure Planet had no chance.

What kills me is Disney didn't learn from this mistake and made a far worse decision nine years later when they released a new Winnie the Pooh film on the same day Deathly Hallows Part 2. But "oh no hand-drawn animation is dead! It's not our poor business decisions..."

Treasure Planet, also a sci-fi adventure like Atlantis, could've benefited from a release during summer blockbuster season. Of course these days blockbuster films get released all year round. Unfortunately, Disney also released Lilo & Stitch that year and gave it a June release. You could argue that because Lilo & Stitch came out a few months before, families might have had their fill of Disney Animation for the year. Why did they decide to release both in the same year? Who knows. Apparently Disney didn't do a lot of marketing for Treasure Planet either, which is sad when you remember the superb marketing for Lilo & Stitch. Those trailers where Stitch invaded iconic moments in other Disney films? Genius.

Did Disney even care about Treasure Planet? The story goes that legendary animation directing team Ron Musker and Jon Clements pitched the idea to Jeffrey Katzenberg after The Great Mouse Detective got the studio back on solid ground. Katzenberg pretty much went "Nah I don't care for it". Katenzberg is a sourpuss and a jerk, though to be fair Disney Animation was struggling back then, especially after the colossal failure of The Black Cauldron. Treasure Planet was probably seen of too much of a risk at the time (ironically, the film probably would have thrived in the eighties).

Over the next few years a pattern unfolded that pretty much went like this:

"Can we make Treasure Planet now?"

"No make The Little Mermaid."

*The Little Mermaid is a hit*

"Can we make Treasure Planet now??"

"No make Aladdin"

*Aladdin is also a hit*

"Can we make Treasure Planet now???"

"No BUT, if you make one more successful film (Hercules), then you can."

*Hercules does alright"

"Can we make Treasure Planet now????"

*Jeffrey Katzenberg has left the chat*

Although Katzenberg was long gone as chairman by the time Treasure Planet was made (He left in 1994, the film was released in 2002!!!), he and the studio honored his word, and Musker and Clements were finally allowed to make their passion project. We already know how it turned out. 

The fact that the man who allowed Treasure Planet to be made had already flown the coop well before its release gives you some sort of idea of how much the studio was invested in it...or does it? I mean Musker and Clements were clearly well-known and well-liked at Disney or they wouldn't have gotten this far. They even went on to make Princess & The Frog and Moana after this. Not to mention a sequel was in pre-production, and there were talks of a franchise. Willem DaFoe set to play the villain. These plans were scrapped when the film had a poor box office performance.

The crazy thing is, Disney also had similar plans for Atlantis that were canceled as well (No I didn't forget about Atlantis). A television series titled Team Atlantis was in the works, but was scrapped due to the film's poor performance. The few episodes that were produced were repurposed into a direct-to-video sequel Atlantis: Milo's Return. Here's a fun fact...both films were considered for the rebranding of the Submarine Voyage ride at Disneyland. Eventually they did find a film to rebrand it with, Finding Nemo, which seems more appropriate anyway. So Disney definitely saw franchise potential in both Atlantis and Treasure, and frankly why wouldn't they?

I've already mentioned who directed Treasure Planet and their body of work at length. They also wrote it alongside Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, who together wrote Aladdin, Shrek, and rather fittingly, the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Atlantis was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, another iconic Disney duo. Together, Trousdale and Wise helmed Beauty & The Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and they also wrote the script with Joss Whedon (*Before* we knew he was garbage). Combine all this with the stellar animation and voice casts, each of these films had all the makings to be Disney classics, but sadly it wasn't meant to be.

Now I don't have a lot of memories of watching these films. I didn't see either of them in theaters. I was gifted Atlantis on VHS, and watched it a fair amount. Treasure Planet I didn't see until years later when kids I was babysitting had it on DVD and requested a viewing. Neither film really stuck with me through the years. Have my opinions on them changed with recent rewatches? Yes and no.

Atlantis has great animation, stellar action sequences, and a wonderful ensemble of characters. The protagonist, Milo Thatch (Micheal J. Fox), can be a little annoying at times, and Mole (Corey Burton)...he's just there for the kids I guess. Man though is Vinny (Don Novello) a riot. The voice cast is great, featuring Fox, Novello, James Garner, Cree Summer, and many more. The amount of detail that went into crafting the Atlantean culture is really impressive. I will say though that the plot and the villains, are a little cliche and predictable. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad film, but it does make it a bit less substantial. That, and like Trousdale and Wise's previous film Hunchback of Notre Dame, there's a bit of an uneven tone. It's not as bad as like the slapstick of the Gargoyles, but there is an imbalance. It's almost like how people complain when MCU films undercut a lot of serious moments with one line-OH MY GOD I FORGOT THIS FILM WAS WRITTEN BY JOSS WHEDON...Anyway, despite its flaws I think Atlantis is a solid viewing.

I never really went for Treasure Planet's "steam-punk gimmick". It's old, it's futuristic, just make up your mind. Now, I think it's pretty creative. You have to admire the detail that went into the world-building. The animation is also spectacular here, but like I said a bit dated in some shots. Some of the designs of the aliens are a little too off for me. Some are cute, some are ugly (I remind you of the one that speaks in fart), they cover all their bases. Thankfully the designs of all the main cast are appealing, and again this a wonderful ensemble of characters with a great voice cast. Young Joseph Gordon Levitt is great in the lead role of Jim Hawkins. Brian Murray is iconic as Silver. David Hyde Pierce, Emma Thompson, Laurie Metcalf are superb in their supporting roles. I hate to say it, but Martin Short as the robot B.E.N. is awful, and it's not his fault! The character just does nothing but yell and panic. It's a waste of Short's talents to cast him as Disney's version of Jar Jar Banks (Is that too harsh?). Other than that, my only real problem with Treasure Planet is the use of modern pop songs in the montage where Jim and Silver grow close, and the final scene. They just don't mesh with the rest of the film, and using "I'm Still Here" by John Rzeznik in the montage just helps gloss over important character development. It's not a non-traditional musical like Tarzan where there are songs throughout not sung by the characters. It's this one, isolated musical moment in a film that's not musical. That said, the music composed by James Newton Howard is amazing and I love the main theme.

So yeah, it took me a few years but I do enjoy and appreciate Atlantis and Treasure Planet. It took a lot of people a few years to appreciate them. Thankfully both are now part of the massive Disney Plus library, where they can find new audiences, and their part in the Disney Legacy can carry on. Do they have their flaws? Yes. Are they bad films? No, and Disney has made much worse. Forgive me for saying this but, these two are some of the very few Disney animated films that could *benefit* from a live-action remake.  

Atlantis - The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet had a lot working against them. Changes of taste in both audiences and filmmakers, poor release strategies, but it can all be summed up in one phrase: Bad Timing. They shouldn't be looked at as terrible failures of Disney, because they came out during a period when nothing that was coming out of their animation studio was really succeeding (except for Lilo & Stitch). Timing can be a B-word, but time can also have a way of working things out. Atlantis, Treasure Planet, and other Disney films from this era have thrived since their initial releases, been given second chances by audiences and achieving cult-classic status.

I wouldn't call either of these film failures...maybe just late bloomers, and as The Emperor in Mulan said "the flower that blooms in adversity, is the rarest and most beautiful of all"

...That's probably overselling it but you get it.