The ships that get our hearts racing

polygon.com:

It’s Valentine’s Day, so obviously we all have one big thing on our minds: our favorite ships in fiction.

Fandom has largely claimed the word “ships” to mean “relationships,” as in “two (or more) people you think belong together,” as in “I ship Dean Winchester and Castiel from Supernatural.” That’s all well and good, but it isn’t what we’re talking about. We mean what “ships” used to mean before fandoms stole the word — vessels designed for transporting people or goods across space, through the air, or on the sea. Isn’t there something inherently romantic about being aboard a fearless ship that soars and/or sails through the unknown? As it turns out, there are a lot of fictional ships to get all swoony over — especially as they turn from simple vessels to important narrative devices for the characters involved.

There are far too few “spaceships that are also traditional sailing ships” out there, but Disney’s sci-fi take on Treasure Island, 2002’s Treasure Planet, helps fill the gap. The movie was a huge flop when it came out, but it has absolutely gorgeous visuals, and it really pushes the button on what that weird blend of CG and traditional animation at the turn of the millennium could accomplish. These things are not mutually exclusive.

The R.L.S. Legacy exemplifies the best that Treasure Planet has to offer. It looks like a traditional galleon, but it soars through space. It embodies all the romance of sailing the high seas, coupled with the splendor of space. Some of the movie’s most gorgeous scenes come from Jim Hawkins dangling on the rigging and gazing out at the vast expanse of the galaxy. — Petrana Radulovic

One of the cutest quirks of the Hunter x Hunter world is that blimp and zeppelin-like airships are