Muppet Treasure Island was the fifth feature film to star The Muppets, and the second produced after the death of Muppets creator Jim Henson. Released in 1996 and directed by Jim Henson's son Brian Henson, it was one of many film adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.

As in the earlier Muppet Christmas Carol, the key roles were played by human guest stars - in this case, Tim Curry as Long John Silver and Kevin Bishop as the putative protagonist Jim Hawkins - while the Muppets filled in supporting roles, including Kermit as Captain Smollett, Fozzie as Squire Trelawney, and Miss Piggy (who Tim Curry states is the prettiest co-star he's ever had) as Benjimina Gunn. Following their success as the narrators of The Muppet Christmas Carol, Gonzo and Rizzo appear in specially-created roles as Jim Hawkins' best friends, and steal the show.

The film featured a non-specific ocean referred to as the "Big Blue Wet Thing". Even though Silver (using the stars) finds out that they are heading southwest so the only logical sea they could be in is the Atlantic Ocean as they set off from England.

Plot

---

Jim, Gonzo and Rizzo are slop boys at an inn, listening to Billy Bones (Billy Connolly) tell stories of his days as a pirate and Captain Flint's treasure. When a pirate, Blind Pew, arrives at the inn and gives Bones the Black Spot, they realise his stories are true. Before Bones dies of a heart attack, he gives Jim a treasure map. Gaining a ship from young Squire Trelawney (and the man who lives in his Finger), they set out, but Captain Smollett is concerned that the crew (consisting largely of Muppet monsters) cannot be trusted. It transpires that most of them were hired on the advice of the ship's cook, Silver, who had befriended Jim.

After the disappearance of the first mate, Jim and his friends learn that the crew are pirates, and Silver is their captain. They warn Smollett, who asks them to go for provisions, planning to sail away and return when the fight has gone out of the pirates. This plan is abandoned when the pirates take Jim with them.

Arriving on the island, Smollett, Gonzo and Rizzo are captured by wild boars, and are to be sacrificed to their Queen, who turns out to be Benjamina Gunn, still furious that Smollett left her at the altar. Simultaneously, the pirates use Jim's compass to locate where the treasure should be buried, but it has gone. Silver holds the mutinous pirates off while Jim escapes.

Jim rescues Smollett and his friends, while Silver talks the pirates round. The three cabin boys head back to the ship, while Smollett stays to talk to Benjamina. They are interrupted by Silver, who has realised Benjamina must have the treasure. After she tells him where it is, he leaves her and Smollet to die.

Jim and his friends retake the ship with the help of Mr Arrow. They then rescue Benjamina and Smollett. With the good guys reunited, they take on the pirates. Smollett has a swordfight with Silver which goes well, until his sword slips out of his hand. However, Jim stands to protect the captain, and the rest of the crew stand to protect Jim. When Silver tries to escape, he finds himself faced with Benjamina and the wild boars.

Everyone returns to the ship with the treasure. In the brig, Silver realises he still has the keys from when he stranded Arrow. Jim, who is on watch, allows him to escape, but says he never wants to see him again. But the life boat he is rowing sinks and he winds up stranded on the island with only a joke-telling Easter Island Head for company.

Changes from the novel

---

While the film is mostly true to the novel, there are changes, mostly to make the characters fit the Muppet personalities, or to tighten up the plot. Amongst them are:

• The Admiral Benbow is no longer run by Jim's family. Instead he is an orphan and the inn's owner is a Mrs. Bluveridge.
• Jim Hawkins is given two companions: Gonzo and Rizzo
• In the novel Captain Smollett initially appears as a stern and forbidding figure, overly concerned with regulations, although he later proves to simply be appropriately cautious. In the film he is sympathetic from the first.
• By contrast, Mr Arrow is shown as obsessed with regulations and the correct way of doing things (though he meekly follows Smollett's orders), as suits a character played by Sam the Eagle. In the book, he is a drunkard, and overly-familiar with the men. He is also killed by being thrown overboard, whereas in the film he is merely tricked into taking one of the boats for a test run, and presumed dead.
• Benn Gunn is female, and renamed Benjamina. She has had former relationships with Smollett, Flint and Silver.
• Squire Trelawney is a "rich half-wit", who takes advice from a man he believes to live in his finger.
• Dr Livesey (played by Bunsen Honeydew) is an inventor with an assistant (Beaker)
• Captain Flint (the parrot) is replaced by Polly, a lobster whom Silver "raised from a fingerling".
• An attack on Gonzo and Rizzo by three of the pirates is added; this leads both to the stranding of Mr Arrow (so Silver can let them out of the brig), and from there to the scene in the book when Jim hears Silver conspiring while in an apple barrel.
• Much of Parts Four and Five, "The Stockade" and "My Sea Adventure" is omitted.
• A running subplot, which has very little effect on the main course of the film, involves the ship's rats, who believe they have signed onto a modern-day Caribbean cruise. They are not treated like other characters - for example, while the ship's crew, pirate or not, are greeted with hostility by the boars, the rats are met with indifference, if acknowledged at all.

External links

---

• Muppet Wiki: Muppet Treasure Island
• Film Sculptor Special Effects Sculptor who worked on the film

1996 films | Comedy films | Henson films | Muppet films | Films based on children's books