The spectacle of Atlantis. © Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire, the first summertime animated feature by Disney in the new millennium, looks to be a hit that will establish the bedrock for a new era in animated storytelling. It continues the recent trend at Disney to avoid musicals, as demonstrated with Tarzan and The Emperor's New Groove, and to concentrate instead on more action-laden stories. Atlantis is an ambitious behemoth in every sense of the word. From its widescreen CinemaScope (C-Scope) format to its multitude of digital effects, Atlantis propels Disney's animated features into a new realm of action/adventure. Hang on to your seats this summer because the House of Mouse has a manifold of inspiring tricks up its sleeve!

The last decade provided such a renaissance for Disney animated features that names like Gary Trousdale, Don Hahn, Kirk Wise and Alan Menken, among others, now carry tremendous respect within the animation community. Hahn, Trousdale and Wise, the men at the helm of such films as The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, reunited on Atlantis as producer and directors respectively to conquer a new kingdom. "We as film makers felt we had done musicals as good as we could. We couldn't do something better than Lion King or Beauty or Hunchback," explains Trousdale and Wise. "We felt we had to try something new. We had to do something different."

The directors' desire to delve into the genre stemmed from their respect of great action/adventure films like George Lucas' Indiana Jones trilogy. Moreover, Walt Disney himself established the criteria for the genre decades ago with classics like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Swiss Family Robinson. "We visited Fantasyland so often," says Hahn, "It was time we took a turn towards Adventureland to add to its legacy."

Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox) and Princess Kida (Cree Summer) bring a new face to Disney features. © Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

In keeping with Hercules and The Emperor's New Groove, Disney used a nontraditional looking style of animation in Atlantis. To best capture the aquatic and exploratory motif, Disney approached comic book artist Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame to influence the Disney animators with his Southeast Asian-like style of drawing. Hahn, Trousdale and Wise were all fans of Mignola's work and they combined his style with the look found in propaganda posters from the early 20^th century, creating a wild, unusual foundation from which Atlantis' graphic world evolves.