History Trivia / AtlantisTheLostEmpire

* OrphanedReference: The commentary tells a story about how there used to be a mystic named Zoltan (who used to speak in the third person, for some reason) along for the ride. At one point everybody sounds off after falling down a hole. For the longest time he was still there shouting "Zoltan is okay!" even after his character had been written out of the script.

* CreatorKiller: The film's failure at the box office was one of the events that led to Michael Eisner being exiled from Disney and stalled the careers of directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale (who'd previously directed ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'' and ''Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame''); Trousdale has since gone on to work on Creator/DreamWorks animated shorts while Wise eventually moved to a few documentaries, but was credited on an animated film with ''Open Season''. In addition, this was the first in the set of dominoes that made Disney give up on traditional animation (apart from [=DisneyToon=] Studios) for [[Disney/ChickenLittle a]] [[Disney/MeetTheRobinsons brief]] [[Disney/{{Bolt}} period]]. Then they returned to traditional animation for a [[Disney/ThePrincessAndTheFrog short]] [[Disney/WinnieThePooh time]], but now it seems as though that won't happen again.

* DuelingMovies: This was the second Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon film in a row to deal with Creator/DreamWorksAnimation's ''WesternAnimation/TheRoadToElDorado'', this time with the hidden city/MsFanservice lead angle. This duel was much closer than the one with ''Disney/TheEmperorsNewGroove'' thanks to both ''Atlantis'' and ''El Dorado'' scoring about the same Rotten Tomatoes score (upper 40's), underperforming, and becoming [[StillbornFranchise Stillborn Franchises]]. ''Atlantis'' does have an edge as it got a DirectToVideo sequel, while ''El Dorado'' was a worse BoxOfficeBomb and buried that franchise stone dead before DWA could do anything with it.

* RefittedForSequel: The lava whales from ''[[Disney/AtlantisMilosReturn Milo's Return]]''.

** The submarine ride at [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland]] was originally going to be based off this film, but the film's failure resulted in that ride being based off ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'' instead. However, there is a restaurant at Castaway Cay called Cookie's BBQ, and part of Port Discovery's background music at Tokyo DisneySea is taken from this movie.

* AuthorExistenceFailure: Jim Varney, who played Cookie, died from lung cancer in February 2000, over a year before its release. According to those who worked with Varney, he signed on knowing he wouldn't live to see the finished film.

* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Kida was the first Disney Princess to become a queen in her opening film. This wouldn't happen again until Frozen twelve years later.

* The cutscenes in the game adaptation are actual clips of the film but with the voice actors re-dubbed by the game's VA cast.

* CastingGag: Creator/LeonardNimoy, who voices King Kashekim Nedakh, hosted ''Series/InSearchOf'', a TV series about different mysteries and phenomena in human history, one of which included the City of Atlantis.

** [[AxCrazy/AnimatedFilm Ax-Crazy/Animated Film]]

* ExecutiveMeddling: The film was originally intended to be a creature feature adventure film. Then the Disney execs decided that they needed to get to Atlantis quicker, and so much potential was wasted. Kida was also downgraded into a FauxActionGirl due to this.

* ActorAllusion: When Milo first meets Commander Rourke, the latter comments that he "prefers a good western." This could be seen as a reference to James Garner's earlier television series ''Series/{{Maverick}},'' where he played a gambler in TheWildWest.
** Two for Creator/MichaelJFox and ''Film/BackToTheFuture''. In his first scene, Marty/Milo is rehearsing something, only to realize he's late. Later, when Milo realizes [[spoiler:King Kashekim Nedakh is dying]], he says "What a nightmare", which was what Marty says when he wakes up in the "improved" 1985 in the end.

** In his first scene, [[Film/BackToTheFuture Michael J. Fox's character is rehearsing something, only to realize he's horribly late]].

* RefittedForSequel: The lava whales from ''Milo's Return''.

* BoxOfficeBomb: It made only $186 million against a budget of $120 million, making it one of Disney's biggest underperformers. This film along with poor reception of ''Film/PearlHarbor'', [[http://decentfilms.com/articles/quovadisdisney prompted Disney Studios chairman and Disney Animation alumni, Peter Schneider to step down as chairman of Walt Disney Studios to form his own theatre production company]].

** In the Spanish version, the voice of Vanessa Garcel from the Mexican dub was used for Audrey's dialogue. Audrey was already voiced by Spanish voice actress Cristina Yuste but was presumbably replaced by Garcel's recordings to give her [[ShownTheirWork a distinctive Latina personality and accent]]. Yuste did however voice Audrey in the videogame of the film.

* CreatorKiller: The film's failure at the box office was one of the events that led to Michael Eisner being exiled from Disney and stalled the careers of directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale (who'd previously directed ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'' and ''Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame''); Trousdale has since gone on to work on Creator/DreamWorks animated shorts while Wise eventually moved to a few documentaries, but was credited on an animated film with ''Open Season''. In addition, this was the first in the set of dominoes that made Disney give up on traditional animation (apart from DisneyToon Studios) for [[Disney/ChickenLittle a]] [[Disney/MeetTheRobinsons brief]] [[Disney/{{Bolt}} period]]. Then they returned to traditional animation for a [[Disney/ThePrincessAndTheFrog short]] [[Disney/WinnieThePooh time]], but now it seems as though that won't happen again.
* CreatorsFavorite: Cree Summer lists Princess Kida as her favourite role, because she got to be a Franchise/DisneyPrincess.