Atlantis: The Lost Empire Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
47 free Atlantis: the Lost Empire trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is the Disney film that swapped songs for explosions. Made by the Hunchback of Notre Dame team in 2001, it sends linguist Milo Thatch, a crew of mercenaries and a submarine called the Ulysses after the sunken city, with a look borrowed from Hellboy artist Mike Mignola, a language built by Klingon creator Marc Okrand and a cast that includes Michael J. Fox, James Garner and Leonard Nimoy. It opened against Shrek and Tomb Raider, missed at the box office, and has since been reappraised as a cult classic. This quiz covers the plot, the crew of the Ulysses, the Shepherd's Journal, the Heart of Atlantis and the crystal that merges with Kida, plus the production lore: the Mexican-restaurant lunch where it was conceived, Edgar Cayce's mother-crystal, the crew T-shirts, the scrapped Viking prologue, the 18,000-inch pull-out shot, the champagne-flute sound design, the Nadia plagiarism row and the Team Atlantis series and theme-park rides that never happened. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play on your phone or print it for a movie night.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The directors of Atlantis: The Lost Empire had earlier directed which Disney film?
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast, the first animated Best Picture nominee, came from the same directing pair, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. A decade later they swapped fairy tale for a pulp adventure about explorers.
Q 02Who voices linguist Milo Thatch in Disney's Atlantis?
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox was the directors' first choice: they pictured Milo as 'a Jimmy Stewart, Harold Lloyd guy' and wanted the 'spunky underdog quality' they heard in his voice.
Q 03Who voices Commander Rourke in Atlantis: The Lost Empire?
James Garner
James Garner, the easygoing star of Maverick and The Rockford Files, makes the expedition's commander bluff and fatherly, the kind of leader a crew would follow anywhere.
Q 04Who voices Princess Kida?
Cree Summer
Her animator found her so intimidating in person that it shaped how Kida meets Milo.
Q 05Which Star Trek actor voices the King in Disney's Atlantis?
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy learned his Atlantean lines from Berlitz-style tapes. One critic called him that rare actor asked to master both Vulcan and Atlantean.
Q 06Which Airplane! star was cast as Whitmore in Disney's Atlantis but died before finishing the role?
Lloyd Bridges
Lloyd Bridges had already begun recording the part. John Mahoney of Frasier took over, and his zest led the makers to rework the character's personality.
Q 07Which Atlantis voice actor died in February 2000, before the film was finished?
Jim Varney
Jim Varney, the voice of Cookie the cook and of Slinky Dog in Toy Story, had recorded most of his lines. His sessions always ran long: the first hour went on stories about Tennessee.
Q 08Atlantis: The Lost Empire is set on the eve of which war?
World War I
World War I broke out in 1914, the year the expedition sets off. When the crystal is stolen, Milo fears that the thief is 'probably gonna sell it to the Kaiser'.
Q 09What is the name of the ancient manuscript that guides the expedition?
The Shepherd's Journal
Writer Tab Murphy invented it because the characters needed a map to follow.
Q 10What is the name of the expedition's submarine in Disney's Atlantis?
Ulysses
The Ulysses is a huge submarine, and when it comes under attack it launches a swarm of small sub-pods to fight back.
Q 11In Disney's Atlantis, what destroys the submarine at the cave entrance?
A mechanical leviathan
A mechanical leviathan, a lobster-shaped war machine still guarding the way in, tears the sub apart. The explorers' old book had warned of it, but Milo took the creature for a myth.
Q 12In Disney's Atlantis, roughly how old is the young-looking Princess Kida?
Thousands of years
Thousands of years: Kida was a small child when Atlantis sank, and she remembers it. The crystals her people wear have kept them alive ever since.
Q 13In Disney's Atlantis, what can Milo do that the Atlanteans no longer can?
Reading their written language
Q 21Which 19th-century author's adventure novels inspired Atlantis: The Lost Empire?
Jules Verne
Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth was the makers' first idea for a film. They decided the lost city of Atlantis deserved a whole story of its own instead.
Q 22Which comic book artist's angular style shaped the look of Disney's Atlantis?
Mike Mignola
Mike Mignola, the creator of Hellboy, was hired as a production designer, and Disney's animators were taught to draw in his blocky, square-fingered manner instead of the studio's rounded house style.
Q 23The linguist who invented Atlantean for Atlantis: The Lost Empire had earlier created which language?
Klingon
Reading their written language is a skill the Atlanteans lost in the disaster, so Kida cannot make sense of the inscriptions on her own people's machines until Milo translates them.
Q 14In Disney's Atlantis, what is the giant crystal that powers the city called?
The Heart of Atlantis
The Heart of Atlantis keeps the city's people alive through the small crystals they wear. The explorers' old book mentions it, then breaks off: the page that explains it is missing.
Q 15In Disney's Atlantis, what does the dying King say brought about the city's destruction?
He tried to weaponize the crystal
He tried to weaponize the crystal 'in my arrogance', and its power proved too great to control. Afterwards he hid it away, and his people slowly forgot what they once knew.
Q 16In Atlantis: The Lost Empire, who was absorbed by the crystal when the city sank?
The princess's mother
The princess's mother, the queen, was lifted into the crystal, which then threw a shield over the city. She never came back, which is why the King fears the same fate for Kida.
Q 17Where does Milo Thatch work at the start of Atlantis: The Lost Empire?
The Smithsonian
The Smithsonian employs him as a linguist and mapmaker but keeps him in the boiler room, and its board slips away rather than hear his plan to find Atlantis.
Q 18Which Atlantis crew member was raised among the Arapaho?
Joshua Sweet
Joshua Sweet, the expedition's doctor, tells Milo he was 'born and raised' with the Arapaho: his father, an Army medic, settled in Kansas Territory after meeting his mother.
Q 19Which member of the Atlantis expedition is its teenage chief mechanic?
Audrey Ramirez
Audrey Ramirez is the youngest of the crew, and Milo is warned not to let her age fool him: she has 'forgotten more about engines' than he will ever know.
Q 20What is the profession of Gaetan 'Mole' Molière in Disney's Atlantis?
Geologist
Geologist, and a digger with 'a nose for dirt': a story artist turned him from a dry professor into a burrowing little creature with a wacky coat and extending eyepieces.
Klingon's inventor gave Atlantean a grammar of its own, and Disney's artists drew its 29 letters with his help. Milo's animator sketched him during their meetings, as the only linguist he had ever met.
Q 24Who pays for the expedition in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, settling a bet with Milo's late grandfather?
Preston Whitmore
Preston Whitmore, an eccentric tycoon, was an old friend of Milo's grandfather and builds the whole expedition to honour their wager. 'When you settle a bet, you settle a bet,' Milo tells him.
Q 25How is the written language in Disney's Atlantis read?
In zigzags
In zigzags: left to right on one line, right to left on the next. The film's linguist suggested it because the movement reminded him of flowing water.
Q 26Which television creator shares a story credit on Atlantis: The Lost Empire?
Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon was the first writer on the project and kept a story credit alongside five others after he left. The screenplay is by Tab Murphy, who had a version the team liked within about four months.
Q 27Why can the Atlanteans greet the crew in French and Chinese in Atlantis: The Lost Empire?
Their tongue is a root language
Their tongue is a root language, Milo decides, 'just like the Tower of Babel'. The film's linguist built Atlantean from Indo-European roots so that it would sound like the ancestor of other tongues.
Q 28The deleted original prologue of Disney's Atlantis followed which group to their doom?
A Viking war party
A Viking war party sailed in search of the city and was wiped out within minutes. The finished scene was dropped in March 2000 for one showing the fall of Atlantis, because audiences weren't caring enough about its people.
Q 29Which staple of Disney's 1990s hits did the makers of Atlantis: The Lost Empire replace with action scenes?
Character songs
Character songs were left out on purpose: the producer felt audiences were 'screaming' for something different after a decade of Disney musicals. The film's one song plays over the closing credits.
Q 30Which member of the expedition in Atlantis: The Lost Empire turns out to be after the crystal for profit?
Commander Rourke
Commander Rourke has been carrying the old book's missing page in his boot all along. Called a mercenary, he says he prefers the term 'adventure capitalist'.