Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Based on the legend of Atlantis seen in Plato’s works as well as the works of Jules Verne such as Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
In 6,800 BC, an explosion sends a tsunami towards the city of Atlantis. The Queen is lifted up into a floating crystal, leaving a young Princess Kida behind. The crystal merges with the Queen and creates a protective dome over the city's innermost district, which sinks beneath the waves.
8,714 years later, in 1914, Milo Thatch, a Smithsonian Institution linguist prepares to give a presentation on The Shepherd’s Journal, which is said to have been a firsthand account of Atlantis and it’s exact whereabouts. His dream is to find Atlantis which is was also a dream of his grandfather, Thaddeus, who had also searched for Atlantis but was ostracized and made a laughing stock by the scientific community. Milo’s proposal is denied and he returns home disheartened. Upon returning home, Milo is taken by Helga Sinclair to eccentric millionaire Preston B. Whitmore, an old friend of Milo's grandfather. Whitmore reveals that he made a bet with Milo's grandfather to fund an expedition to Atlantis and gives Milo the Shepherd's Journal and offering him a place in the expedition. The expedition is headed by Commander Rourke and includes his second-in-command Helga; demolitions expert Vinny; geologist Molière; medical officer Dr. Sweet; head mechanic Audrey; radio operator Mrs. Packard; chef Cookie; and dozens of soldiers and sailors. Their submarine the Ulysses is attacked and destroyed by a mechanical leviathan guarding the entrance to Atlantis, leaving only a handful of survivors. Following the journal, they travel through many obstacles but are followed by several hooded figures. Milo learns about his other team members as they grow closer. One night, Milo accidentally rattle firefly’s that combust anything they touch, forcing the survivors to flee. They end up in the bowels of a dormant volcano where Milo meets an adolescent Princess Kida who heals him. He follows her eventually leading the survivors to Atlantis where they meet with Kida’s elderly father, the King of Atlantis.
The King is wary of the outsiders and allows them one night to rest but they must leave the following day. Against her father's wishes, Kida enlists Milo to help Atlantis regain its glory, as its culture and knowledge have been decaying for centuries. Milo learns that a huge crystal, the Heart of Atlantis, gives the people longevity, and once powered their devices via smaller crystals they all wear. He also discovers that Rourke and the rest of the crew have known all along of the crystal and used the expedition as part of Rourke's secret plan to steal and sell it, leaving Atlantis to slowly decay. Rourke fatally punches the king when he refuses to give up the location of the crystal but discovers the crystal's chamber regardless. Sensing the threat, the crystal merges with Kida. Rourke imprisons her in a crate, whereupon Milo convinces the crew to turn on Rourke, unwilling to be party to an innocent people's extinction. Rourke, Helga, and the soldiers start for the surface with Kida and destroy the bridge to trap the others behind. The dying King gives Milo his own crystal, explaining that he had tried to weaponize the Heart which caused the prior explosion and the fate of his wife. He says the crystal selects a royal host when the city is in danger, and begs Milo to save Atlantis and Kida, who will be lost to the crystal forever if not separated from it in time.
Milo and his friends rally the Atlanteans to reactivate their flying machines and pursue the mercenaries. They quickly defeat Rourke's men, but he and Helga nearly escape with Kida. Rourke betrays Helga and throws her to her death. As she dies, she shoots the airship containing Kida's crate while Rourke and Milo fight, with the bullet damaging the airship. While the airship over the Heart burns, Milo slashes Rourke with a crystal-charged shard of glass, turning Rourke into a crystal monster before being shattered by the airship's propellers, killing him in the process. The airship awakens the volcano as it crash-lands. Milo and the rest flee back to Atlantis with Kida, who, still merged with the crystal, rises into the sky and awakens ancient Stone Guardians, who rise from the flooded portion of Atlantis, creating a dome to protect it from the lava flow. Once the danger is neutralized, the Crystal returns Kida, alive, to Milo.
Milo, as a reward for saving Atlantis from Rourke, elects to stay in Atlantis with Kida, with whom he has fallen in love, and the rest return to the surface, each with their own Atlantean crystals and a portion of treasure. During the film's epilogue, Whitmore reviews photographs of the adventure taken by Mrs. Packard, but makes the others swear to secrecy to preserve Atlantis's safety. In the stack of photos, Whitmore also finds a heartwarming note from Milo and an Atlantean crystal. Meanwhile, back at Atlantis, Milo and Kida honor her late father by orbiting a carved stone effigy of him, along with the other past kings's, around the Heart of Atlantis as it once again hovers above the newly restored city.
TRIVIA
Visual Style
Atlantis was notable for adapting the distinctive graphic, angular visual style of comic book creator Mike Mignola, who wrote Hellboy.
Atlantis was shot in anamorphic format i.e. shooting a widescreen picture (70 mm) on standard (usually 35mm) film.
Linguist Marc Okrand, who developed the Klingon language for the Star Trek films, was hired to devise the Atlantean language for Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Guided by the directors' initial concept for it to be a "mother language", Okrand employed an Indo-European word stock with its own grammatical structure. He would change the words if they began to sound too much like an actual, spoken language. The written language was boustrophedon: designed to be read left-to-right on the first line, then right-to-left on the second, continuing in a zigzag pattern to simulate water flow.
The filmmakers visited museums and old army installations to study the technology of the early 20th century (the film's time period), and traveled 800 feet underground in New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns to view the subterranean trails which would serve as a model for the approach to Atlantis in the film.
Atlantis’ design was inspired by Mayan architecture, styles of ancient, unusual architecture from around the world, and the look of Southeast Asian architecture. The team later took ideas from other architectural forms, including Cambodian, Indian, and Tibetan works. The idea was to take and deconstruct architecture from around the world into one architectural vocabulary and use that for Atlantis.
The overall design and circular layout of Atlantis were also based on the writings of Plato, and his quote "in a single day and night of misfortune, the island of Atlantis disappeared into the depths of the sea" was influential from the beginning of production.
Technology
Several important scenes required heavy use of digital animation: the Leviathan, the Ulysses submarine and sub-pods, the Heart of Atlantis, and the Stone Giants.
Greg Aronowitz was hired to build a scale model of the submarine to be used as a reference for drawing the 3D Ulysses.
Deleted Scene(s)
A deleted scene set in 997 AD follows a group of vikings who are using the Shepherd’s Journal to find Atlantis but meet their untimely demise from the Leviathan.
Notable Scene(s)
Final shot of the whole city of Atlantis