The Black Cauldron

♥	This article is dedicated to John Hurt (the voice actor of The Horned King), who died of cancer at the age of 77 (22 January 1940 - 25 January 2017). May he rest in peace.

The Black Cauldron
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask of Disney animated films.
Genre: Adventure Dark fantasy Horror Directed by: Ted Berman Richard Rich Based on: The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander Starring: Grant Bardsley Susan Sheridan Freddie Jones Nigel Hawthorne Arthur Malet John Byner Phil Fondacaro John Hurt Production company: Walt Disney Animation Studios Release date: July 26, 1985 Country: United States Budget: $44 million Box office: $21.3 million

The Black Cauldron is a 1985 American animated adventure dark fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation in association with Silver Screen Partners II and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 25th Disney animated feature film is loosely based on the first two books in The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, a series of five novels that are, in turn, based on Welsh mythology.

Summary

A young boy and a bunch of misfit friends embark on a quest to find a dark magic item of ultimate power before a diabolical tyrant can.

Heroic Qualities

1. Much like The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas, it shows that Disney is more than capable of making films that aren't entirely light-hearted, innocent, and happy-go-lucky and have a darker, more serious tone while still being aimed at kids.
2. Wonderful animation with nicely done backgrounds and settings.
3. Nicely done grasp of its source material.
4. Brilliant voice acting, mainly from Grant Bardsley as Taran (the main protagonist), the late Susan Sheridan as Princess Eilonwy, and the late John Hurt (who previously voiced Hazel in Watership Down) as the Horned King.
5. Well-done character and story development.
6. The Horned King and his undead army of Cauldron Born are nightmarish, spine-chilling antagonists.
7. Memorable, interesting characters, such as Taran himself.
8. The plot for the movie is very original and well thought out.
9. Though the film has its funny and heartwarming moments, it can also get very serious and suspenseful at times which is something very new and original for Disney.

Evil Qualities

1. It can get extremely dark and terrifying for Disney’s younger target audience, which spawned some controversy and got the movie banned in many countries, like the Middle East and Southeast Asia (See BQ#5).
2. The characters come across as underdeveloped at times, as does the plot. (It's a condensation of the first two Prydain books.)
3. Gurgi can get rather annoying at times.
4. Expanding on that topic, it flopped so hard that even The Care Bears Movie of all movies was more commercially successful than this one.
   • As a matter of fact, just like Legend (which also came out in the same year), the film will never get a sequel or remake due to its box office failure.
5. Very troubled production history, as well as executive meddling: Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too light-hearted. In turn, original directors Dave Michener and John Musker left to work on The Great Mouse Detective and were replaced by The Fox and the Hound directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. Production was divided into units that had little contact with one another, resulting in a lack of direction for the animators, a miserable working environment, and a revolving door of personnel. The task of animating the film was also arduous, thanks to the brand-new APT (animated photo transfer) process used in its production, its use of computer animation (the first animated feature to do so), and being shot in Cinerama; as a result, its budget ballooned to $44 million, the most expensive animated feature ever produced at the time.
   • Meanwhile, in 1984, the late Walt Disney Productions President and CEO Ron W. Miller was ousted by the Disney board of directors (partly due to the constant budget overruns on The Black Cauldron), and replaced in the latter capacity by Michael Eisner, who was brought in Jeff Katzenberg to head the animation department. After a test screening of the film's rough cut proved far too frightening for the children in the audience, Katzenberg ordered heavy cuts on the film; when producer Joe Hale objected to the demands, Katzenberg responded by editing the film himself. When informed by Hale of what Katzenberg was doing, Eisner told him to stop, and while he obeyed, he requested that the film be delayed from its intended Christmas 1984 release date to July 1985, so that it could be reworked. In the end, the film's inflated budget and unusually dark nature that made it difficult to market caused The Black Cauldron to become one of the biggest box-office bombs in Disney's history, not only making back less than half its budget but nearly killing Disney itself.
   • Hale was subsequently fired from the company, with Berman only avoiding the same fate because he left voluntarily around the time the film was released, and neither they nor Miller would ever work in animation again; Rich lasted a little bit longer and was put to work on Oliver & Company, only to be fired himself after falling out with the new studio management. In 2016 the company announced they were looking into doing a more faithful adaptation of the source material The Chronicles of Prydain in live action, but little has been heard of it since as the film's reputation continues to make people wary of having anything to do with it.

Reception

The film currently has a rating of 54% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.3/10 rating on IMDb.

Trivia

• The Black Cauldron is the first Disney Animated Canon film to receive a PG rating due to scary moments.
• It's one of the few, if not the only, Disney Animated Canon film so far not to have any of its characters in the Kingdom Hearts franchise as of May 2024.

Comments

Loading comments...