Jim Hawkins and John Silver are arriving in December 2026. But only one of them had never received a figure before, and he is by far the more interesting release. For a movie that had to wait twenty years to exist, waiting this long for its best character almost feels fitting.
A movie that waited twenty years to exist
The story is worth revisiting, because it explains the unusual status this Disney movie holds.
In 1985, Ron Clements and John Musker pitched two projects during a "Gong Show" organized by Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg. The first was a space-set reimagining of Treasure Island. The second was The Little Mermaid. The studio chose the mermaid and rejected the planet: Katzenberg believed the story was not suited to animation.
The two directors kept pushing the idea for nearly twenty years, after Aladdin and again after Hercules, eventually putting their own contracts on the line. It took the direct intervention of Roy E. Disney, then chairman of the board, for the movie to finally be made.
What happened next is well known. Released in 2002 with a budget of $140 million, the movie grossed less than $110 million worldwide and became one of the biggest commercial failures in Disney animation history. It still earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature, losing to Spirited Away, and has since become one of the studio's most passionately defended films among fans.
Jim Hawkins and his map – POP #1821
The full official name is Jim Hawkins with Map, and that detail matters.
The map is not a decorative accessory: it is the golden sphere Billy Bones gives Jim as he dies, the object that sets the entire movie in motion and opens into a holographic projection revealing the route. Funko is therefore not just releasing the character, but the moment when he inherits the adventure.
The official description even opens with the movie's most recognizable image: "Hoist the solar sails!" The sail-powered space galleons are the visual concept that makes this Disney movie unique in the studio's catalog, and Funko chooses to reference that rather than simply describe the figure.
There is one nuance, though: Jim Hawkins is not a first. The character already received a figure in 2022, riding his solar surfer in a convention-exclusive Rides format. This is his first standard-line release, which will make it much easier to find, but it is not his first appearance in the Funko catalog.
John Silver, the real newcomer – POP #1822
This is the release that really justifies the article.
The cyborg captain had never received a POP before, and Funko introduces him without much subtlety: "Beware this cyborg pirate when he arrives to loot your Disney's Treasure Planet collection."
Silver was also the character carrying the movie's entire technical gamble. According to producer Roy Conli, he was created fifty percent digitally and fifty percent by hand: his mechanical arm and leg were modeled in three dimensions and combined with a body drawn frame by frame. He was the demonstration of what Disney was trying to achieve at the time, a blend of two animation techniques, and this specific character carried that ambition.
Turning him into a figure therefore means putting the movie's real technical innovation on display, along with its strongest character.
My take on this release
John Silver is one of the three or four best morally ambiguous characters in the entire Disney catalog, up there with Frollo and the Kipling version of Baloo. A manipulative pirate who grows attached to the boy he was supposed to betray, and ultimately chooses to let him go: there is more nuance in this character than in half of the studio's villains. His figure arrives twenty-four years too late, but at least it is finally here.
On the other hand, releasing this duo without Morph is a difficult omission to understand.
Morph is the most obviously marketable character in the movie: a pink blob that constantly changes shape, exactly the kind of design Funko usually prioritizes in every other license. He is also, within the story, the emotional link between Jim and Silver, moving back and forth between the two. Leaving him out while releasing those exact two characters is like releasing two corners of a triangle and forgetting the third.
The same criticism applies, to a lesser extent, to Captain Amelia and B.E.N., the amnesiac robot. Both have their fans, and for a license that has been waiting twenty years for recognition, limiting the wave to two figures feels more like a market test than a proper line.
In practical terms: get Silver. Jim is worth considering if you own nothing from the license, but the 2022 Rides version is still more visually interesting, and you may end up wanting that one afterward. Pre-orders are open, with the release scheduled for December 2026.
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