Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy Voiced A King In An Underrated Sci-Fi Movie Streaming On Disney+

It goes without saying that the late Leonard Nimoy's most famous role is Spock, the lovably logical Vulcan first officer in "Star Trek: The Original series" and beyond. He retired the Spock ears following the final original series crew film "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," with Nimoy and DeForest Kelley both turning down appearances in "Star Trek Generations." Nimoy instead used his distinctive baritone to focus mostly on voice work in the 1990s and into the 2000s. While that primarily meant narration in documentaries and the like, he also had a few roles in animated films — including the part of King Kashekim Nedakh in Disney's "Atlantis: The Lost Empire."

"Atlantis" tells the story of Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox), a cartographer and linguist who discovers that the mythical underwater city of Atlantis is a real place. While there, he becomes romantically entangled with the princess of Atlantis, Kida Nedakh (Cree Summer), which doesn't sit well with her father, Nimoy's King Nedakh. The film had a lot of marketing muscle behind it: Disney had high hopes for not only the movie itself, but for the "Atlantis" brand, with execs making big plans for what was to become an entire "Atlantis" franchise. The poor box office performance of the movie put an end to all of that.

It was speculated even before "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" hit theaters that Disney's costly gamble wasn't going to pay off, largely due to some very stiff competition from "Shrek" and "Monsters, Inc." Its fate was sealed when critics started dunking hard on it: "Atlantis" joined the ranks of Disney animated movies with a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes. "Atlantis" is said to have cost as much as $120 million to produce, a figure it failed to recoup at the domestic box office, where it made a little over $100 million. The total worldwide haul was $186 million, but, after marketing costs, it still wasn't enough to make the movie a success.

We never got to see the planned "Atlantis" sequel, with the only follow-up being a direct-to-video affair that was put together using episodes of a scrapped tie-in TV series. However, time has been kind to "Atlantis." It is now generally considered to be an underrated gem, with its ever-growing fandom arguing that it was a victim of a poorly-timed release and overspending by Disney. More and more people are now discovering "Atlantis" on Disney+ and are surprised that such a delightful fantasy sci-fi adventure is considered little more than a footnote in the history of Disney animated movies.