The Black Cauldron (1985)


This morning I finished reading the first two books of The Chronicles of Prydain, so today I decided to tackle one of the two Disney pre-Renaissance films I had never seen, the infamous movie The Black Cauldron.

The movie:

 The Black Cauldron is the 25th movie in the Disney Animated Canon.  The notoriously troubled production came at the lowest point of Disney's "Dark Age," and at the time ended up being the most expensive animated movie ever made.  The movie was a box office bomb and nearly caused the bankruptcy of the Walt Disney Company.

The Black Cauldron is drawn in very, very loose strokes from the first two books of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain, The Book of Threes and the Newbery Honor Book The Black Cauldron.  The movie tells the story of Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper, who is tasked with caring for the very unique Hen Wen, a pig that has visions.  After Hen Wen is captured by forces of the Horned King, Taran sets out to rescue his pig.  Along the way, he meets up with the more-than-an-animal Gurgi, the Princess Eilonwy, and the bard Fflewddur Fflam.

Ok, so maybe I might have enjoyed the movie a bit more if I hadn't watched it so soon after reading the books.  However, the books have so much material that wound up left out, it's hard not to imagine what could have been.  While it seems like an unlikely choice in Disney's trend of animated classics to live-action films, done properly, a good adaptation could be every bit of a Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia saga.

As to this version, it is easy to see the ambition in what Disney was going for.  At times, the animation is stunning and revolutionary for its time.  More often than not, however, it comes off as cheap and poorly done.  The characters, which even in the books were at times lacking in depth and nuance, come across in the movie as extremely one-dimensional.

The one place where the movie does stand out is the score.  Written by legendary film composer Elmer Bernstein, the music in The Black Cauldron is some of the most epic of any Disney movie.  And atypical for a Disney movie, there's not a single song.

Presence in the Parks:

 It should come as no surprise that there is not anything related to The Black Cauldron currently featured in the Disney Parks.  However, it might come as a surprise to discover that there used to be.

In the old days of Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom, tucked between Snow White's Scary Adventures and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, was a restaurant called the "Lancer's Inn."  In 1986, that restaurant was renamed "Gurgi's Munchies and Crunchies" after the character from The Black Cauldron.  Now considering the movie underperformed at the box office and wasn't even released on home video until 1998, it is likely that most Disney guests had no clue as to who Gurgi was.  The restaurant was closed in 1993, and it was remolded and rethemed after a much more well-known character, reopening as "Lumiere's Kitchen."  It later became "The Fry Station" and is currently "The Friar's Nook."

On a side note, The Horned King did pop up in Tokyo from 1996 to 2006 as part of Cinderella's Castle Mystery Tour.

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