I've always had some ideas that I thought would make it appeal to me a little more, at least:

• Make the sci-fi make sense! I love the idea of a far future inspired by colonial seafaring, but... Make the ships have airlocks for God's sake. Take a standard spaceship, deck it out in brass with lots of windows and statuesque whorls and maybe a bowsprit, I think that's enough to make it recognizably a tribute while not being illogical.
Here's an idea: some past event caused the loss of a lot of knowledge, including how to engineer proper thrusters, so everything has to be solar sail based. Maybe they lost wireless communication too, so that recalls the isolation of a sailing ship at sea. Obviously sailing only works inside a solar system so you need to build the universe to make that work – say, there are ancient mysterious jump gates at the heart of every system. • Make the aliens even MORE alien to really sell the idea of Jim leaving the familiar behind. • Make Treasure Planet, the planet, more of a threat. Being stranded on an alien planet should be a big deal– show it! Maybe the atmosphere is wrong and they have limited air? Maybe there are wild animals? Why has this apparently habitable pirate hideout not been colonized before– or if it has, what changed? •Just fucking kill Ben. He's unnescessary. •Add some new element that's not from Treasure Island in terms of conflict. • and as a final gripe about the aesthetic of the universe: ditch the unexplained crescent spaceport and instead, we spend the first while seeing a ring in Montressa's sky. No big deal, planets have those. And then do the moon zoom on that, slowly gaining resolution as we realize, holy shit, that thing's artificial!