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Description
Lets continue our Disney marathon with an epic adventure to discover a legendary lost civilization.

A massive tidal wave, triggered by a distant explosion, threatens to drown the island kingdom of Atlantis. In the midst of an evacuation from the capital city, the Queen of Atlantis is caught by a strange, hypnotic blue light and lifted up into the "Heart of Atlantis", a powerful crystal protecting the city. The crystal consumes her and creates a dome barrier that protects the city's innermost district. She leaves behind her husband, the King of Atlantis, and her young daughter, Princess Kida, as the island sinks beneath the ocean. Several thousand years later, in 1914, Milo Thatch—a cartographer and linguist at the Smithsonian Institution who is marginalized for his research on Atlantis—believes that he has found The Shepherd's Journal, an ancient manuscript allegedly containing directions to the lost island. After his proposal to search for the Journal is rejected by the museum board, a mysterious woman, Helga Sinclair, introduces Milo to Preston B. Whitmore, an eccentric millionaire. Whitmore has already funded a successful effort to retrieve the Journal as repayment of a debt to Milo's grandfather and recruits Milo to lead an expedition to Atlantis as soon as he deciphers it. The expedition departs with a team of specialists led by Commander Rourke, who also led the Journal recovery expedition. The crew includes Vinny, a demolitions expert; Mole, a geologist; Dr. Sweet, a medical officer; Audrey, a mechanic; Mrs. Packard, a radio operator; and Cookie, a mess cook. They set out in the Ulysses, a massive submarine, but are soon attacked by the monstrous Leviathan, a robotic lobster-like creature that guards Atlantis' entrance. The Ulysses is destroyed but Milo, Rourke, and part of the crew escape and make their way to a cavern, described in the Journal as the entrance to Atlantis. After traveling through a network of caves and a dormant volcano, the team reaches Atlantis. They are greeted by Kida—who, despite her age, resembles a young woman—and discover that the Atlantean language is the basis of many existing languages (which allows the Atlanteans to understand English). Kida enlists Milo in helping her decipher the Atlantean writing, which was long forgotten by the natives. By swimming deep within the city's submerged ruins and translating underwater murals, Milo helps Kida uncover the nature of the Heart of Atlantis: it supplies the Atlanteans with power and longevity through the crystals worn around their necks. He is surprised this is not mentioned in the Journal, but upon examination realizes a page is missing. Returning to the surface with Kida, Milo discovers Rourke has the missing page. Rourke and the crew betray Milo, intending to bring the crystal to the surface and sell it. Rourke mortally wounds the King of Atlantis while trying to extract information about the crystal's location, but finds its location for himself hidden beneath the King's throne room. The crystal detects a threat and merges with Kida. Rourke and the mercenaries lock Kida in a crate and prepare to leave the city, knowing that when the crystal is gone the Atlanteans will die. Milo berates his friends for betraying their consciences and ultimately convinces them to leave Rourke and remain in Atlantis. The King explains to Milo that the crystal has developed a consciousness; it will find a royal host when Atlantis is in danger. Now it's up to Milo and his allies to save Kida and all of Atlantis, and stop Rourke.

Pros:
1. Milo is a well developed protagonist.
2. Kida, Vinny, Joshua, Audrey, Wilhelmina, Cookie, Mole, Helga, Whitmore, and Kashekim are all very memorable and serviceable support.
3. Awesome and intense action scenes.
4. There is some decent comedy.
5. A good amount of drama and suspense.
6. The vocal performances are well acted.
7. James Newton Howard provides an excellent and epic score.
8. Amazing animation that differs from the usual Disney style, and contains great character designs, highly detailed and massive backgrounds, and stellar effects.
9. The film offers a unique and different take of the Atlantis legend, and it really pays off.
10. Milo and Kida, the film's romantic couple, only give a hug rather than kiss and/or get married. To have an animated film do something like this with romantic leads is extremely rare.
11. The story is very well written and engaging.

Cons:
1. Rourke is a very underwhelming villain, although his death was pretty cool.
2. It can be cliched at times.

Overall:
This is a neat adventure from Disney, and one of their most underrated.

Rating:
9/10 (Amazing)

Production Notes and Trivia:
1. The idea for Atlantis: The Lost Empire was conceived in October 1996 when Don Hahn, Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, and Tab Murphy lunched at a Mexican restaurant in Burbank, California. Having recently completed The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the producer and directors wanted to keep the Hunchback crew together for another film with an Adventureland setting. Drawing inspiration from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, they set out to make a film which would fully explore Atlantis (compared to the brief visit depicted in Verne's novel). While primarily utilizing the Internet to research the mythology of Atlantis, the filmmakers became interested in the clairvoyant readings of Edgar Cayce and decided to incorporate some of his ideas—notably that of a mother-crystal which provides power, healing, and longevity to the Atlanteans—into the story. They also 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.
2. The filmmakers wanted to avoid the common depiction of Atlantis as "crumbled Greek columns underwater", said Wise. "From the get-go, we were committed to designing it top to bottom. Let's get the architectural style, clothing, heritage, customs, how they would sleep, and how they would speak. So we brought people on board who would help us develop those ideas." Art director David Goetz stated, "We looked at Mayan architecture, styles of ancient, unusual architecture from around the world, and the directors really liked the look of Southeast Asian architecture." The team later took ideas from other architectural forms, including Cambodian, Indian, and Tibetan works. Hahn added, "If you take and deconstruct architecture from around the world into one architectural vocabulary, that's what our Atlantis looks like." 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. The crew wore T-shirts which read "ATLANTIS—Fewer songs, more explosions" due to the film's plan as an action-adventure (unlike previous Disney animated features, which were musicals).
3. Marc Okrand, who developed the Klingon language for the Star Trek franchise, 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. John Emerson designed the written component, making hundreds of random sketches of individual letters from among which the directors chose the best to represent the Atlantean alphabet. 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 the flow of water.
4. Joss Whedon was the first writer to be involved with the film but soon left to work on other Disney projects. According to him, he "had not a shred" in the movie. Tab Murphy completed the screenplay, stating that the time from initially discussing the story to producing a script that satisfied the film crew was "about three to four months". The initial draft was 155 pages, much longer than a typical Disney film script (which usually runs 90 pages). When the first two acts were timed at 120 minutes, the directors cut characters and sequences and focused more on Milo. Murphy said that he created the centuries-old Shepherd's Journal because he needed a map for the characters to follow throughout their journey. A revised version of the script eliminated the trials encountered by the explorers as they navigated the caves to Atlantis. This gave the film a faster pace because Atlantis is discovered earlier in the story.
5. The character of Milo J. Thatch was originally supposed to be a descendant of Edward Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard the pirate. The directors later related him to an explorer so he would discover his inner talent for exploration. The character of Molière was originally intended to be "professorial" but Chris Ure, a story artist, changed the concept to that of a "horrible little burrowing creature with a wacky coat and strange headgear with extending eyeballs", said Wise. Don Hahn pointed out that the absence of songs presented a challenge for a team accustomed to animating musicals, as solely action scenes would have to carry the film. Kirk Wise said it gave the team an opportunity for more on-screen character development: "We had more screen time available to do a scene like where Milo and the explorers are camping out and learning about one another's histories. An entire sequence is devoted to having dinner and going to bed. That is not typically something we would have the luxury of doing."
6. Hahn stated that the first animated sequence completed during production was the film's prologue. The original version featured a Viking war party using The Shepherd's Journal to find Atlantis and being swiftly dispatched by the Leviathan. Near the end of production, story supervisor John Sanford told the directors that he felt this prologue did not give viewers enough emotional involvement with the Atlanteans. Despite knowing that the Viking prologue was finished and it would cost additional time and money to alter the scene, the directors agreed with Sanford. Trousdale went home and completed the storyboards later that evening. The opening was replaced by a sequence depicting the destruction of Atlantis, which introduced the film from the perspective of the Atlanteans and Princess Kida. The Viking prologue is included as an extra feature on the DVD release.
7. At the peak of its production, 350 animators, artists and technicians were working on Atlantis at all three Disney animation studios: Walt Disney Feature Animation, Disney Feature Animation Florida, and Disney Animation France. The film was one of the few Disney animated features produced and shot in 35mm anamorphic format. The directors felt that a widescreen image was crucial, as a nostalgic reference to old action-adventure films presented in the CinemaScope format (2.39:1), noting Raiders of the Lost Ark as an inspiration. Because switching to the format would require animation desks and equipment designed for widescreen to be purchased, Disney executives were at first reluctant about the idea. The production team found a simple solution by drawing within a smaller frame on the same paper and equipment used for standard aspect ratio (1.66:1) Disney-animated films. Layout supervisor Ed Ghertner wrote a guide to the widescreen format for use by the layout artists and mentioned that one advantage of widescreen was that he could keep characters in scenes longer because of additional space to walk within the frame. Wise drew further inspiration for the format from filmmakers David Lean and Akira Kurosawa.
8. The film's visual style was strongly based upon that of Mike Mignola, the comic book artist behind Hellboy. Mignola was one of four production designers (along with Matt Codd, Jim Martin, and Ricardo Delgado) hired by the Disney studio for the film. Accordingly, he provided style guides, preliminary character and background designs, and story ideas. "Mignola's graphic, angular style was a key influence on the 'look' of the characters," stated Wise. Mignola was surprised when first contacted by the studio to work on Atlantis.
9. The final pull-out scene of the movie, immediately before the end-title card, was described by the directors as the most difficult scene in the history of Disney animation. They said that the pullout attempt on their prior film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, "struggled" and "lacked depth"; however, after making advances in the process of multiplaning, they tried the technique again in Atlantis. The scene begins with one 16-inch piece of paper showing a close-up of Milo and Kida. As the camera pulls away from them to reveal the newly restored Atlantis, it reaches the equivalent of an 18,000-inch piece of paper composed of many individual pieces of paper (24 inches [61 cm] or smaller). Each piece was carefully drawn and combined with animated vehicles simultaneously flying across the scene to make the viewer see a complete, integrated image.
10. At the time of its release, Atlantis: The Lost Empire was notable for using more CGI than any other Disney traditionally animated feature. To increase productivity, the directors had the digital artists work with the traditional animators throughout the production. 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. During production, after Matt Codd and Jim Martin designed the Ulysses on paper, Greg Aronowitz was hired to build a scale model of the submarine, to be used as a reference for drawing the 3D Ulysses. The final film included 362 digital-effects shots, and computer programs were used to seamlessly join the 2D and 3D artwork. One scene that took advantage of this was the "sub-drop" scene, where the 3D Ulysses was dropped from its docking bay into the water. As the camera floated toward it, a 2D Milo was drawn to appear inside, tracking the camera. The crew noted that it was challenging to keep the audience from noticing the difference between the 2D and 3D drawings when they were merged. The digital production also gave the directors a unique "virtual camera" for complicated shots within the film. With the ability to operate in the z-plane, this camera moved through a digital wire-frame set; the background and details were later hand-drawn over the wire frames. This was used in the opening flight scene through Atlantis and the submarine chase through the undersea cavern with the Leviathan in pursuit.
11. Since the film would not feature any songs, the directors hired James Newton Howard to compose the score. Approaching it as a live-action film, Howard decided to have different musical themes for the cultures of the surface world and Atlantis. In the case of Atlantis, Howard chose an Indonesian orchestral sound incorporating chimes, bells, and gongs. The directors told Howard that the film would have a number of key scenes without dialogue; the score would need to convey emotionally what the viewer was seeing on screen.
12. Gary Rydstrom and his team at Skywalker Sound were hired for the film's sound production. Like Howard, Rydstrom employed different sounds for the two cultures. Focusing on the machine and mechanical sounds of the early industrial era for the explorers, he felt that the Atlanteans should have a "more organic" sound utilizing ceramics and pottery. The sound made by the Atlantean flying-fish vehicles posed a particular challenge. Rydstrom revealed that he was sitting at the side of a highway recording one day when a semi-truck drove by at high speed. When the recording was sped up on his computer he felt it sounded very organic, and that is what is heard within the film. Rydstrom created the harmonic chiming of the Heart of Atlantis by rubbing his finger along the edge of a champagne flute, and the sound of sub-pods moving through water with a water pick.
13. Atlantis: The Lost Empire was released on VHS and DVD in 2002. Both a single-disc DVD edition and a two-disc collector's edition were released. Disney digitally remastered and released Atlantis on Blu-ray in 2013, bundled with its sequel.
14. A TV series based on the film titled Team Atlantis was planned, but eventually dropped after the film underperformed. The episodes that were completed for the aborted series were bundled together and marketed as a direct to video sequel in 2003 titled Atlantis: Milo's Return. A more official sequel titled Atlantis II: Shards of Chaos was planned, but that too was cancelled.
15. Several video games based on the series were made. Direct tie ins were released on PlayStation, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance. Two games titled Search for the Journal and Trial by Fire were released for PC.

Description
Lets continue our Disney marathon with an epic adventure to discover a legendary lost civilization.

A massive tidal wave, triggered by a distant explosion, threatens to drown the island kingdom of Atlantis. In the midst of an evacuation from the capital city, the Queen of Atlantis is caught by a strange, hypnotic blue light and lifted up into the "Heart of Atlantis", a powerful crystal protecting the city. The crystal consumes her and creates a dome barrier that protects the city's innermost district. She leaves behind her husband, the King of Atlantis, and her young daughter, Princess Kida, as the island sinks beneath the ocean. Several thousand years later, in 1914, Milo Thatch—a cartographer and linguist at the Smithsonian Institution who is marginalized for his research on Atlantis—believes that he has found The Shepherd's Journal, an ancient manuscript allegedly containing directions to the lost island. After his proposal to search for the Journal is rejected by the museum board, a mysterious woman, Helga Sinclair, introduces Milo to Preston B. Whitmore, an eccentric millionaire. Whitmore has already funded a successful effort to retrieve the Journal as repayment of a debt to Milo's grandfather and recruits Milo to lead an expedition to Atlantis as soon as he deciphers it. The expedition departs with a team of specialists led by Commander Rourke, who also led the Journal recovery expedition. The crew includes Vinny, a demolitions expert; Mole, a geologist; Dr. Sweet, a medical officer; Audrey, a mechanic; Mrs. Packard, a radio operator; and Cookie, a mess cook. They set out in the Ulysses, a massive submarine, but are soon attacked by the monstrous Leviathan, a robotic lobster-like creature that guards Atlantis' entrance. The Ulysses is destroyed but Milo, Rourke, and part of the crew escape and make their way to a cavern, described in the Journal as the entrance to Atlantis. After traveling through a network of caves and a dormant volcano, the team reaches Atlantis. They are greeted by Kida—who, despite her age, resembles a young woman—and discover that the Atlantean language is the basis of many existing languages (which allows the Atlanteans to understand English). Kida enlists Milo in helping her decipher the Atlantean writing, which was long forgotten by the natives. By swimming deep within the city's submerged ruins and translating underwater murals, Milo helps Kida uncover the nature of the Heart of Atlantis: it supplies the Atlanteans with power and longevity through the crystals worn around their necks. He is surprised this is not mentioned in the Journal, but upon examination realizes a page is missing. Returning to the surface with Kida, Milo discovers Rourke has the missing page. Rourke and the crew betray Milo, intending to bring the crystal to the surface and sell it. Rourke mortally wounds the King of Atlantis while trying to extract information about the crystal's location, but finds its location for himself hidden beneath the King's throne room. The crystal detects a threat and merges with Kida. Rourke and the mercenaries lock Kida in a crate and prepare to leave the city, knowing that when the crystal is gone the Atlanteans will die. Milo berates his friends for betraying their consciences and ultimately convinces them to leave Rourke and remain in Atlantis. The King explains to Milo that the crystal has developed a consciousness; it will find a royal host when Atlantis is in danger. Now it's up to Milo and his allies to save Kida and all of Atlantis, and stop Rourke.

Pros:
1. Milo is a well developed protagonist.
2. Kida, Vinny, Joshua, Audrey, Wilhelmina, Cookie, Mole, Helga, Whitmore, and Kashekim are all very memorable and serviceable support.
3. Awesome and intense action scenes.
4. There is some decent comedy.
5. A good amount of drama and suspense.
6. The vocal performances are well acted.
7. James Newton Howard provides an excellent and epic score.
8. Amazing animation that differs from the usual Disney style, and contains great character designs, highly detailed and massive backgrounds, and stellar effects.
9. The film offers a unique and different take of the Atlantis legend, and it really pays off.
10. Milo and Kida, the film's romantic couple, only give a hug rather than kiss and/or get married. To have an animated film do something like this with romantic leads is extremely rare.
11. The story is very well written and engaging.

Cons:
1. Rourke is a very underwhelming villain, although his death was pretty cool.
2. It can be cliched at times.

Overall:
This is a neat adventure from Disney, and one of their most underrated.

Rating:
9/10 (Amazing)

Production Notes and Trivia:
1. The idea for Atlantis: The Lost Empire was conceived in October 1996 when Don Hahn, Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, and Tab Murphy lunched at a Mexican restaurant in Burbank, California. Having recently completed The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the producer and directors wanted to keep the Hunchback crew together for another film with an Adventureland setting. Drawing inspiration from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, they set out to make a film which would fully explore Atlantis (compared to the brief visit depicted in Verne's novel). While primarily utilizing the Internet to research the mythology of Atlantis, the filmmakers became interested in the clairvoyant readings of Edgar Cayce and decided to incorporate some of his ideas—notably that of a mother-crystal which provides power, healing, and longevity to the Atlanteans—into the story. They also 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.
2. The filmmakers wanted to avoid the common depiction of Atlantis as "crumbled Greek columns underwater", said Wise. "From the get-go, we were committed to designing it top to bottom. Let's get the architectural style, clothing, heritage, customs, how they would sleep, and how they would speak. So we brought people on board who would help us develop those ideas." Art director David Goetz stated, "We looked at Mayan architecture, styles of ancient, unusual architecture from around the world, and the directors really liked the look of Southeast Asian architecture." The team later took ideas from other architectural forms, including Cambodian, Indian, and Tibetan works. Hahn added, "If you take and deconstruct architecture from around the world into one architectural vocabulary, that's what our Atlantis looks like." 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. The crew wore T-shirts which read "ATLANTIS—Fewer songs, more explosions" due to the film's plan as an action-adventure (unlike previous Disney animated features, which were musicals).
3. Marc Okrand, who developed the Klingon language for the Star Trek franchise, 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. John Emerson designed the written component, making hundreds of random sketches of individual letters from among which the directors chose the best to represent the Atlantean alphabet. 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 the flow of water.
4. Joss Whedon was the first writer to be involved with the film but soon left to work on other Disney projects. According to him, he "had not a shred" in the movie. Tab Murphy completed the screenplay, stating that the time from initially discussing the story to producing a script that satisfied the film crew was "about three to four months". The initial draft was 155 pages, much longer than a typical Disney film script (which usually runs 90 pages). When the first two acts were timed at 120 minutes, the directors cut characters and sequences and focused more on Milo. Murphy said that he created the centuries-old Shepherd's Journal because he needed a map for the characters to follow throughout their journey. A revised version of the script eliminated the trials encountered by the explorers as they navigated the caves to Atlantis. This gave the film a faster pace because Atlantis is discovered earlier in the story.
5. The character of Milo J. Thatch was originally supposed to be a descendant of Edward Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard the pirate. The directors later related him to an explorer so he would discover his inner talent for exploration. The character of Molière was originally intended to be "professorial" but Chris Ure, a story artist, changed the concept to that of a "horrible little burrowing creature with a wacky coat and strange headgear with extending eyeballs", said Wise. Don Hahn pointed out that the absence of songs presented a challenge for a team accustomed to animating musicals, as solely action scenes would have to carry the film. Kirk Wise said it gave the team an opportunity for more on-screen character development: "We had more screen time available to do a scene like where Milo and the explorers are camping out and learning about one another's histories. An entire sequence is devoted to having dinner and going to bed. That is not typically something we would have the luxury of doing."
6. Hahn stated that the first animated sequence completed during production was the film's prologue. The original version featured a Viking war party using The Shepherd's Journal to find Atlantis and being swiftly dispatched by the Leviathan. Near the end of production, story supervisor John Sanford told the directors that he felt this prologue did not give viewers enough emotional involvement with the Atlanteans. Despite knowing that the Viking prologue was finished and it would cost additional time and money to alter the scene, the directors agreed with Sanford. Trousdale went home and completed the storyboards later that evening. The opening was replaced by a sequence depicting the destruction of Atlantis, which introduced the film from the perspective of the Atlanteans and Princess Kida. The Viking prologue is included as an extra feature on the DVD release.
7. At the peak of its production, 350 animators, artists and technicians were working on Atlantis at all three Disney animation studios: Walt Disney Feature Animation, Disney Feature Animation Florida, and Disney Animation France. The film was one of the few Disney animated features produced and shot in 35mm anamorphic format. The directors felt that a widescreen image was crucial, as a nostalgic reference to old action-adventure films presented in the CinemaScope format (2.39:1), noting Raiders of the Lost Ark as an inspiration. Because switching to the format would require animation desks and equipment designed for widescreen to be purchased, Disney executives were at first reluctant about the idea. The production team found a simple solution by drawing within a smaller frame on the same paper and equipment used for standard aspect ratio (1.66:1) Disney-animated films. Layout supervisor Ed Ghertner wrote a guide to the widescreen format for use by the layout artists and mentioned that one advantage of widescreen was that he could keep characters in scenes longer because of additional space to walk within the frame. Wise drew further inspiration for the format from filmmakers David Lean and Akira Kurosawa.
8. The film's visual style was strongly based upon that of Mike Mignola, the comic book artist behind Hellboy. Mignola was one of four production designers (along with Matt Codd, Jim Martin, and Ricardo Delgado) hired by the Disney studio for the film. Accordingly, he provided style guides, preliminary character and background designs, and story ideas. "Mignola's graphic, angular style was a key influence on the 'look' of the characters," stated Wise. Mignola was surprised when first contacted by the studio to work on Atlantis.
9. The final pull-out scene of the movie, immediately before the end-title card, was described by the directors as the most difficult scene in the history of Disney animation. They said that the pullout attempt on their prior film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, "struggled" and "lacked depth"; however, after making advances in the process of multiplaning, they tried the technique again in Atlantis. The scene begins with one 16-inch piece of paper showing a close-up of Milo and Kida. As the camera pulls away from them to reveal the newly restored Atlantis, it reaches the equivalent of an 18,000-inch piece of paper composed of many individual pieces of paper (24 inches [61 cm] or smaller). Each piece was carefully drawn and combined with animated vehicles simultaneously flying across the scene to make the viewer see a complete, integrated image.
10. At the time of its release, Atlantis: The Lost Empire was notable for using more CGI than any other Disney traditionally animated feature. To increase productivity, the directors had the digital artists work with the traditional animators throughout the production. 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. During production, after Matt Codd and Jim Martin designed the Ulysses on paper, Greg Aronowitz was hired to build a scale model of the submarine, to be used as a reference for drawing the 3D Ulysses. The final film included 362 digital-effects shots, and computer programs were used to seamlessly join the 2D and 3D artwork. One scene that took advantage of this was the "sub-drop" scene, where the 3D Ulysses was dropped from its docking bay into the water. As the camera floated toward it, a 2D Milo was drawn to appear inside, tracking the camera. The crew noted that it was challenging to keep the audience from noticing the difference between the 2D and 3D drawings when they were merged. The digital production also gave the directors a unique "virtual camera" for complicated shots within the film. With the ability to operate in the z-plane, this camera moved through a digital wire-frame set; the background and details were later hand-drawn over the wire frames. This was used in the opening flight scene through Atlantis and the submarine chase through the undersea cavern with the Leviathan in pursuit.
11. Since the film would not feature any songs, the directors hired James Newton Howard to compose the score. Approaching it as a live-action film, Howard decided to have different musical themes for the cultures of the surface world and Atlantis. In the case of Atlantis, Howard chose an Indonesian orchestral sound incorporating chimes, bells, and gongs. The directors told Howard that the film would have a number of key scenes without dialogue; the score would need to convey emotionally what the viewer was seeing on screen.
12. Gary Rydstrom and his team at Skywalker Sound were hired for the film's sound production. Like Howard, Rydstrom employed different sounds for the two cultures. Focusing on the machine and mechanical sounds of the early industrial era for the explorers, he felt that the Atlanteans should have a "more organic" sound utilizing ceramics and pottery. The sound made by the Atlantean flying-fish vehicles posed a particular challenge. Rydstrom revealed that he was sitting at the side of a highway recording one day when a semi-truck drove by at high speed. When the recording was sped up on his computer he felt it sounded very organic, and that is what is heard within the film. Rydstrom created the harmonic chiming of the Heart of Atlantis by rubbing his finger along the edge of a champagne flute, and the sound of sub-pods moving through water with a water pick.
13. Atlantis: The Lost Empire was released on VHS and DVD in 2002. Both a single-disc DVD edition and a two-disc collector's edition were released. Disney digitally remastered and released Atlantis on Blu-ray in 2013, bundled with its sequel.
14. A TV series based on the film titled Team Atlantis was planned, but eventually dropped after the film underperformed. The episodes that were completed for the aborted series were bundled together and marketed as a direct to video sequel in 2003 titled Atlantis: Milo's Return. A more official sequel titled Atlantis II: Shards of Chaos was planned, but that too was cancelled.
15. Several video games based on the series were made. Direct tie ins were released on PlayStation, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance. Two games titled Search for the Journal and Trial by Fire were released for PC.