The Darkest Disney Movie Nobody Talks About

hello and welcome back to the upset of generation films my name is american ben when we think of disney we often think of our childhood spent riding magic carpets across the sky pulling swords from stones and fighting off mighty hun armies oh yes the enchantments of disney animation are many the stories of which permeate every facet of american society the morals and messages of such films are so deeply ingrained in the american psyche that we all seem to just operate on the assumption that lions are affable beasts and that deer are the good guys okay i mean lions are cool but deer deer are like the worst people on earth the point is that along with their mesmerizing visuals catchy music and unforgettable characters disney films are loaded with messaging of course this has been said before disney films are often darker than their surface narratives suggest i mean pinocchio is the most disturbing 88 minutes you'll ever witness on screen and that includes the entire canon of japanese horror nonetheless we know this we know that disney films are darker than meets the eye and almost all of them have been analyzed to death that said one film that no one seems to ever give more than a passing thought is atlantis the lost empire after all while the movie does have a cult following it's not considered a disney classic it's not one of the cool kids and yet the truth is that the film is rather blatant with its messaging compared to the more well-known disney stories specifically it's a critique of western capitalism and imperialism now just a note before we get into this here i'm not espousing any sort of personal opinion one way or the other in this video aside from positing what certain elements of atlantis's plot intend to convey to the audience be a capitalist be a communist i don't care as long as you watch my videos so i'm just putting this analysis out there for you to weigh in on okay now the movie tells the story of a human expedition to find the lost city of atlantis it begins in the ancient city with the atlanteans having a really bad day probably a monday as a cataclysmic tidal wave smashes down upon their streets the queen of atlantis is then sucked up into the air and merges with this weird crystal energy leaving her daughter and husband of the king behind we then move forward a few thousand years to 1914 washington dc where milo thatch is working as a cartographer and linguist at the smithsonian institution milo has inherited a passion for all things atlantis from his late grandfather an explorer who in his lifetime was the laughing stock of his profession for his unrelenting obsession with the lost city milo however is undeterred by his grandfather's legacy and he seeks to convince the higher-ups at the smithsonian to fund his planned expedition to find atlantis and bring back a sample of the special power source which according to legend is contained within the city the smithsonian's board of directors are portrayed as a bunch of seedy looking fat cats who want nothing to do with milo's wacky plans their appearance emphasizes wealth and crookedness more so than knowledge and esteem milo's boss fenton q harcourt is not interested in committing funds to an expedition that could easily lead to nowhere harcourt and the other directors all seem to be living very comfortably and thus see no reason to risk wasting money on big ideas that could result in massive failure now to be fair harcourt isn't an entirely demonic individual he does tell milo you have a lot of potential milo don't throw it all away chasing fairy tales but overall he does seem more concerned with financial security than he does with progress such is the pitfall of a capitalistic system that prioritizes money making over all things everyone is forced to act as a capitalist even people in academic and scientific professions that said if someone came to me and asked me to fund a mission to atlantis i'd probably tell them to screw up too anyway given the director's intransigence milo returns home where he finds a woman has broken into his pad and he reacts rather well to the intrusion all things considered the woman helga sinclair brings milo to preston b whitmore a multi-millionaire industrialist and philanthropist who reveals tamil that he funded a successful exposition to recover the shepherd's journal an ancient manuscript that purportedly contains directions to atlantis whitmore knew milo's grandfather and had promised to fund a mission to find the lost city if the shepherd's journal could be found first whitmore feels compelled to live up to the bet he agreed to and asks milo to take part in the expedition along with a crew of specialists led by commander lyle tiberius rourke what is it with evil rich people in three names or a middle initial it's like first name last name that's what a normal person goes with the team sets out and ventures deep into the sea following a supposed route to atlantis along the way they run into a giant mechanical lobster and lose most of their crew in the process of escaping the mysterious creature we see the crew bound forward with little hesitation as to what they're walking into even drilling through artifacts to get to their destination we witness here the intersection of capitalism and imperialism whereby there is nothing sacred to the capitalist but money and the imperialist does not restrain himself from running over what is sacred in order to expand his power vladimir lenin actually wrote a book called imperialism the highest form of capitalism in which he posited that imperialist colonialism is the final stage of capitalist development as militaristic expansion can continually ensure greater and greater profit as a military commander privately hired for this expedition work is an apt representation of the imperialist capitalist when the crew finally gives up for the night there's some time set aside for character exposition the team members all have blue collar working-class backgrounds my family owned the flower shop we would sell roses garnish and baby's breath you name it and you get the feeling that they all agreed to be dragged along on this reckless dangerous mission for the sake of money no seriously i mean the movie is pretty direct with this maybe you're just in it for the money money money money money i'm gonna say money the movie isn't suggesting that the crew members are greedy and selfish they simply hail from a society that doesn't provide them enough means to be able to turn down morally questionable job opportunities that likely entail serious injury and or death i'm saving up so my puppy and i can open another shop these people are helpless cogs in the capitalist machine chief mechanic audrey who comes from humble beginnings laments that our father never wanted daughters well i took this job when my dad retired but the funny thing was he always wanted sons right one to run his machine shop and the other to be middleweight boxing champion capitalism dictates that the value of an individual is measured by how much money he can be expected to make human life does not have value outside of its capitalistic potential the most critical parts of the story however come when the team finally does arrive at what remains of atlantis on the way into the city we see helge and rourke have the following exchange commander they were not supposed to be people down here it changes everything this changes nothing once again human life does not take precedence over the pursuit of capital rourke will justify the sacrifice of these lives as acceptable for the sake of profit in the city the crew meets the now fully grown and actually very old princess keita and her father the king of atlantis the king does not trust the capitalists especially as they bring weapons but we are peaceful explorers men of science and yet you bring weapons when atlantis was drowned so many years ago the king was blinded by that weird crystal energy known as the heart of atlantis though while he is now blind to the material world he has a higher vision that protects him from the enticements of the capitalists work on the other hand can see the physical world but he is blind to the sacred his spirit is corrupted by money meanwhile keita is eager to work with the capitalists to help save her culture and people a thousand years ago the streets were lit and our people did not have to scavenge for food at the edge of a crumbling city the people are content they do not know any better keita believes that the atlanteans are suffering without awareness of their plight a bit of a contradiction the king sees no reason to fall for the capitalist allure when the people of atlantis are satisfied with life as is money is not the answer in his eyes but keita does not want her people to live in ruins she thinks they're suffering even if they don't know it so she cultivates a relationship with the outsiders of course the capitalists take advantage of keita's cooperation and seize control of the city when he discovers rorke's true motivations milo remarks such an idiot this is just another treasure hunt for you you're after the crystal oh you mean this capitalist see everything as a treasure hunt and if there is no treasure to be had then there is no use to the hunt milo is sincere he is there to explore and learn but he was a bit unwise to lead the capitalists into the city when milo calls rorke a mercenary rourke even playfully rejects the term and offers mercenary i prefer the term adventure capitalist milo tries to reason with work by appealing to his morality he tells him that without the crystal the atlanteans will die that crystal is the only thing keeping these people alive you take that away and they'll die well that changes things helga what do you think knowing that i'd double the price milo is naive to think that he can guilt rorke out of his plans to attain the crystal rork's very conscience works to justify all profit-producing actions as moral he even disingenuously attempts to defend colonialism and the looting of artifacts from foreign cultures as necessary for the sake of scholarship if you gave back every stolen artifact from a museum you'd be left with an empty building we're just providing a necessary service to the archaeological community this is an obvious allusion to the many ways in which capitalists defend the unethical methods they employ to achieve profit they will often say they engage in such tactics for the good of society when in reality they do so mostly for the sake of the ill-gotten prophet itself rourke uses the method of imperialism to attain his prophet he doesn't even think to explore how the two societies his and that of the atlanteans might develop a mutually beneficial relationship well as usual diplomacy is failures obviously diplomacy isn't going to work when your demand is that the state you're negotiating with hand over its most prized possession that which keeps its citizens alive rurik mocks diplomacy because in his mind such a tactic doesn't work to achieve unilateral profit and as we see in the idea of the military-industrial complex war in itself even without a name can be a profitable endeavor for certain entities of course the capitalist isn't left invulnerable in our analysis here rather his greatest shortcoming is that he does not have self-control in chasing down financial capital when rourke and his mercenaries are warned again and again about the power of the atlantean crystal they scoff at the danger and think only of profit you don't have the slightest idea what this power is capable of true but i can think of a few countries who'd pay anything to find out in pursuing money so recklessly the capitalists will often meet his downfall as he messes with power and technology he doesn't fully understand and isn't ready to handle work himself presses on despite the warnings from milo and finds the special atlantean crystal power source known as the heart of atlantis sensing a threat and in order to defend itself the crystal merges with keita infusing her mind and body with its powers and what does rorke and his crew do they detain a living god as we said nothing is sacred to the capitalist he is blind to the spiritual and worships only money i mean rourke can literally see the magic of the crystal he can see keita walking as a godlike figure before him and still he is not moved enough to relinquish his selfish pursuit of profit that is to the movie's creators the quintessential capitalist nothing not science not the health and well-being of the environment not religion can stop him as rook tries to escape at the captured princess the expedition crew turns on work and backs milo you can't be serious this is wrong and you know it remember they are the unwilling capitalists beholden to the dollar for the sake of survival they are the working class while the true capitalist on the other hand is guided only by money and no higher principle we're this close to our biggest payday ever and you pick now of all times i grow a conscience workers have morals and because of their suffering in the capitalist system they can empathize with milo's struggle and that of the atlanteans when they reject prophet to protect what is sacred they reclaim the purity of their souls milo now goes to meet with the king and the two have perhaps the most important conversation in the entire film the king explains what the heart of atlantis is the crystal thrives on the collective emotions of all who came before us the crystal is a living force powered by the emotions of all atlanteans throughout history perhaps we can think of this amalgamation of emotions as the collective sentiments of a nation whether in the form of anger grievance sadness and so on these emotions expressed together become a single conscious nationalistic entity that endows the nation and its people with great power but as this power grows unchecked it tempts its wielder to use it for domination over others in my arrogance i sought to use it as a weapon of war but its power proved too great to control power corrupts the spiritual society and turns an appetite and thus the capitalist is born and out of the capitalist comes the imperialist this is why at one point the king says takeda what they have to teach us we have already learned the version of atlantis that the expedition crew finds is post-capitalist and content to reject the allure of gold and other materialistic pursuits eventually rourke's unrestricted pursuit of profit does indeed lead to his demise the atlanteans live happily ever after and milo's crew sand milo returns to the surface and to their respective homes a happy ending for sure but perhaps not an entirely traditional one we might normally expect that at the end somehow the cultures of the western world and atlantis meet and develop a harmonious relationship yet instead the crew agrees to keep the discovery of atlantis a secret and the movie ends with the lost city rebuilt to its former glory this seems to imply that the prosperity of atlantis is best achieved isolated from the capitalist world there's a bit of a contradiction here because indeed it was the atlanteans interaction with the people from the western world that led to the rebirth of their city however to be fair milo is an academic someone who is according to this movie a bit of a foil to the capitalist don't do this academics you never want to get your hands dirty perhaps then the message we can take from this is that non-capitalist societies must keep themselves sheltered from the venomous touch of capitalism and everybody should just stay to themselves and all that whatever um that's the video hope you enjoyed it definitely excited to hear your comments down below do give it a like um if you got anything out of it or if you just watched it just hit the damn like button it helps us out i think um subscribe to this channel hit that notification bell and um for now my name is american ben i'll catch you next time generation films peace

Channel: Generation Films

Views: 455,132

Keywords: atlantis, disney, disney film, milo thatch, theory, film theory, disney theory, disney movies, hidden message, dark disney, disney hidden message, disney easter egg, disney secrets, dark secrets, disney dark secrets, film analysis, subliminal messages, hidden meaning, disney hidden meaning, disney subliminal message, secret message, disney secret messages, inappropriate disney, adult messages, disney animation, the lost empire, atlantis the lost empire

Id: OMwDDrN3jYc

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2020