betsy@dartvax.UUCP (Betsy Hanes Perry) (06/27/85)
I was in my local bookstore yesterday when I saw
"The Black Cauldron Coloring Book", a Disney tie-in to the movie
of the same name. I skimmed it for clues as to how closely
the movie would follow the book. Here follow some hasty impressions:
o Visually, the movie owes far more to Sleeping Beauty than to the
original illustrations for the Alexander book. That is to say, Prydain
is far cleaner and more wholesome than I'd imagined it. It looks like
a Disney movie; what can I say?
o As an example of this, Gurgi is about knee-high and is clean. (no
dirt and leaves in his fur.)
o Eilonwy is a dead ringer for the Disney Alice.
o The Prince who sacrifices his life to break the Cauldron has vanished
entirely. Instead, the Dark Lord is knocked into the Cauldron by Taran.
(Somehow, I don't think they'll be making a sequel...)
o Hen Wen is round, pink, and clean. She looks rather like the
tidied-up Wilbur from Charlotte's Web.
o The Dark Lord, however, is at least as scary-looking as the evil witches
in Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. A definite seat-wetter.
Don't get me wrong; I'll be in line, $5 in hand, as soon as the box
office opens. I'll simply be expecting another charming Disney movie,
not a close approximation to the Lloyd Alexander books.
--
Elizabeth Hanes Perry
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CSNET: betsy@dartmouth
ARPA: betsy%dartmouth@csnet-relay
"Ooh, ick!" -- Penfoldknight@rlgvax.UUCP (Steve Knight) (07/21/85)
Short review of Disney's "The Black Cauldron" (for those who don't like
reading more than one screenful):
Not the masterpiece it could/should have been. The story is rather
sketchy (only marginally based on any of the Prydain books) and
generally not handled well. The animation is inconsistent; fine effects
animation but otherwise servicable at best. Plenty of the broad comic
touches found in the Disney features of the last two decades. The kids
at the showing I saw loved it; take your grade schooler.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Long, indulgent review:
With that out of the way, I have to ramble. I saw "The Black Cauldron"
at a preview last Friday night. I've been looking forward to this film
(with some trepidation) for several years now, and will give you the
film's background as I know it, followed by my impressions. Those (such
as Chuq) with more knowledge about it than I can correct me.
"The Black Cauldron" is based on Lloyd Alexander's five-book Prydain series,
the second book of which is also entitled "The Black Cauldron." TBC was
the last project which Walt Disney himself initiated before he died, the
studio having bought the rights to the Prydain series shortly before.
Because of this, TBC has been a very important project at Disney since
Walt's death. The intent was that TBC was to be a milestone in animation
(much as Walt tried to do with "Sleeping Beauty"), a fitting memorial to
Walt, if you will. Unfortunately, this was about the time (late 1960s--
early '70s) that most of older, experienced animators at Disney started
retiring or passing on. Finding good replacement animators has not been
easy, because most animation studios can only remain solvent turning out
"limited animation" drek for Saturday morning TV. Thus, TBC has been an
off-and-on project at Disney for some 15 years now, while they produced
things like "Robin Hood", "The Rescuers", and "The Fox and the Hound",
supposedly to provide training for the younger animators before embarking
on TBC.
THE FILM ITSELF: If you've read the Prydain series, don't expect anything
like the books. What they've done is taken (some of) the characters and
background of the Prydain series and built a new story around them. This
is reasonable; since they somehow decided not to concentrate on just one
of the books (which probably would have led to a better film, but let's
not quibble), it's better to start from scratch than to try to cram all
five books into one film. The film's story concerns Taran, a young
Assistant Pig-Keeper who dreams of adventure. Taran's master, the
enchanter Dallben, divines that the evil Horned King needs only to find
the legendary Black Cauldron to conquer all of Prydain. So that the
Horned King will not use the powers of Hen Wen (Dallben's pig, whom Taran
cares for) to locate the Cauldron, Dallben sends Taran to take the pig to
safety. (If you think they make it without any trouble, or that Taran
doesn't acquire an odd assortment of followers on his journeys, you're
very naive.)
Now although this is a definite departure from any of the books, they've
chosen their bits and pieces rather well, and put together an engaging
premise that could have been the start of a very good film. Very
unfortunately, I can't say that I think it's very good, and I think the
main reason is that the story takes place in a vaccuum. When I compare
it with "Snow White" or "Pinnochio" (both unfair but inevitable
comparisons), I feel that the earlier films work well because the
conflict is on a very intimate level, a single person's (or puppet's)
struggle to escape with her life, or become a real boy. Thus, they
can get away with not providing a lot of surrounding detail only
indirectly concerned with the story. But in "The Black Cauldron", if
I'm to care that the Horned King wants to conquer Prydain, I'd better
be shown enough surrounding detail to convince me it's a real place
populated with real creatures. I think a sense that the whole land of
Prydain was banding together against the imminent threat of the Horned
King would have helped give TBC some much-needed grandeur. (My own
speculation is the story fell prey to a case of too many cooks; I
counted 16 people given credit for the story, I think seven directly
and nine for "contributions." Wonder what would've resulted from the
hands of one or two people with a clear vision of a story to tell.)
Of course, the Disney people know their main audience, and there are
a number of comic secondary characters to please the kids. This is
expected and tolerable (although I never thought I'd live to see
cleavage jokes in a Disney animated feature).
ANIMATION: TBC is a film filled with fire, crumbling rocks, splashing
water, and, believe it or not, slick editing. Now I'm only an interested
layman when it comes to animation, but I suspect this is because it's
easy to hide mediocre animation behind flashy effects. (I'm reminded
of the criticism that the animation in "Watership Down" looked good
because since rabbits move in a jerky fashion, you couldn't tell that
the animation wasn't smooth.) Don't get me wrong; I think the effects
animation is genuinely impressive and, well, for an animation fan like
me, might even be worth another admission. (I found the birth of the
Cauldron-Born to be particularly striking.) But that doesn't mask the
fact that the animation of the main characters is nothing to write home
about; none of them move with any real weight.
On a technical level, I was pretty disappointed--and I don't know that
much about animation technique. For a milestone-in-animation film, I
would have expected the cels to be hand-inked. Instead, we get the
sketchy lines of time-and-money saving xerography, a technique which can
look good in the right style of film (e.g., "101 Dalmations"), but which
only struck me as looking shabby when it was used here. And where were
the multiplane camera shots, which use multiple cels to give a three-D
effect? I only counted two, but maybe I just wasn't looking carefully
enough (or don't know what to look for).
On balance, "The Black Cauldron" is bit of a disappointment. If you're
into animation, you'll probably want to go to see the effects animation
(but then, you'd go even if I didn't tell you to). If you have young
children, they'll love it, if I can judge by the reaction of the numerous
children brought at the preview. Otherwise, I can't really call it a
waste of time, but I don't feel you'd be missing too much if you don't
see it--which is what's really unfortunate about the film.
--
Steve Knight
{seismo,allegra,some other sites}!rlgvax!knightleeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (07/31/85)
THE BLACK CAULDRON
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review(*): This is the most ambitious animated fantasy from
Disney since the 1950's. But budget constraints hurt the art and animation
quality and shortened the film to the point that it gutted the logic. Too
many of the characters are too cute.
When you think of animated fantasy, what studio most often comes to
mind? No question! Disney Studios. They created the standard. But even
at Disney Studios, there are major and minor animated films. The majors
tend to be classic stories, often fairy tales, that are made for perennial
re-release. Oh, occasionally they put RESCUERS or 101 DALMATIONS into
circulation, but their majors are films like SNOW WHITE, SLEEPING BEAUTY,
PINOCCHIO, and three or four more you can probably name off the top of your
head. For a decade, Disney Studios has worked on what seems to be their
first major in a good long time. Now it is out. THE BLACK CAULDRON is an
adaptation of parts of two books in Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain" series,
itself based on the Mabinogion.
THE BLACK CAULDRON has the same basic age-old plot that STAR WARS had.
Boy from humble background (in this case, he's an assistant pig-keeper)
dreams of glory in battle. Before he realizes it, he is swept into and
becomes the key turning factor of a titanic battle. In this case, the
battle is against a supremely evil supernatural being called "The Horned
King." I don't know if we ever find out what he is king of, but he does
have a few subjects that we see and will have a good deal more if he can
unleash the power of the McGuffin of the title.
There is a serious problem with THE BLACK CAULDRON--it has too much
story. SLEEPING BEAUTY and SNOW WHITE had simple short plots you could tell
in two or three sentences. They are ideal for animated films. An animated
film takes a lot of work to make and Disney's tend to be 75 minutes or so.
This one is 80 with a long credit sequence at the end. This means that the
script does not have time to make things logical. Too many sequences are
required to tell the story and so each sequence must be short. Let's look
at at an example. The hero is backed up against a wall. Evil guards are
throwing a hail of spears at him and he's clearly in trouble. Someone
realizes that he (the hero) has a magic sword that cuts through metal, so
they stop throwing spears. Why? This sword is not a shield. The magic
sword is no better than a regular sword against that sort of an attack, but
it is a good excuse for ending the sequence and getting to the next one.
There are several other escapes that are similarly senseless.
The visualizations of characters are classic Disney, which is to say
that the images of evil are decent and the images of good are enough to put
you in diabetic shock. The hero is callow, the heroine is pretty, the pig
is cute and looks very little like a real pig. Then there is a cute
creature that looks like a miniature cross between a sheepdog and Albert
Einstein.
The art style is an odd mixed bag of styles and at times somewhat below
the Disney standard. In the early parts of the film it is much the usual
Disney animation, though not as complex. At other times, they do a sort of
pastel impressionistic background to save painting effort. A few scenes
have live action mixed in to show flame or smoke. There was a lot of
corner-cutting on the animation.
On the other hand, Disney has the highest standards in the industry for
print quality. The print was done on high-quality celluloid with no frame-
long white flashes or dark specks from cheap film. When I saw a brand new
print of KRULL, there were so many little flashes on the screen I though at
first they were intentional. That never happens with a Disney film and it's
time they got some recognition for that.
On the whole, though, I am indifferent to this film, mostly because of
a script that was so rushed that it killed the logic of the story. Rate it
a straight 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
(*) Note: the suggestion to include capsule reviews is probably a good
one. I will try it for at least a little while.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeperjrb@wdl1.UUCP (08/05/85)
Does anyone know if there is any truth to the rumor that Disney has closed their animation department? John R Blaker UUCP: ...!fortune!wdl1!jrb ARPA: jrb@FORD-WDL1 and blaker@FORD-WDL2
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (08/06/85)
Well, since I have finally gone to see <The Black Cauldron>,
and most of the other reviewers seem not to have read the books, I
will now make a few comments.
For me the main disppointment was the *shallowness* of the
story developement compared the the books. I really enjoyed their
philosophical tone. Many of the more touching and significant
moments were either left out or distorted in the movie. For instance,
the basic points of how the sword was discovered were taken from the
books(except for being in the wrong castle), then Disney went and
ruined it all by allowing Taran(the Asst Pig Keeper) to actually
draw the sword(in the book only a person meeting a very exacting
qualification could draw that sword without being killed). Or the
incredible fanciful approach to magic, I mean making Eilonwy's bauble
*fly*, there is *no* valid reason to do that, all it does is provide
some cheap thrills(and only for kids at that). Of course, even worse
was turning the three "old ladies" into simple hyper-powerful witches!
Even the first time they are met in the books it is obvious that they
are something *quite* different than they appear, but just what is
unclear, this really intriguing bit of mystery is totally lacking in
the rather straight treatment they recieve in the movie. For instance,
in the books, while they are always *threatening* to turn people into
frogs, they are never *actually* seen to do so. As someone said, the
fair folk were too cute for words. I mean Doli as a klutzy, flighty
sprite with wings! Good points, well there were a few. The
characterizations of the main heros were actually fairly close to
what they were in the books. Yes, I can see the similarity between
Taran and Luke Skywalker, but Taran *predates* Skywalker, not the
other way around! And Gurgi, other than being to neat and clean,
was fairly well done(they actually *did* mention that he was
pungent).
By the way, the movie was really only based on the first
two of the books(<The Book of Three> and <The Black Cauldron>.
Unfortunately, they closed off too many of the loose ends to continue
with the series!(Or perhaps fortunately).
--
Sarima (Stanley Friesen)
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