What always annoys me is that when things fail (movies, tech, whatever). Execs decide the whole idea was "bad" rather than actually figuring out what went wrong & why audiences/ customers didn't like something. Often the failure is at the top- too much exec influence, bad marketing, etc. But they never realize that. If Black Cauldron was MARKETED to teens I think it would have done better. But you can't make a movie for teens & then give it to kids and expect it to work.
Maybe it would've done better, but there's only so much you can do when the story sucks and is badly presented, while Gurgi and all of the side characters are terribly annoying. It would've been better if Gurgi had stayed dead from both a storytelling perspective and just to get rid of that nasty creep.
Some of that I think was reputation. Disney had never done a teen-focused animation before. Black Cauldron was also the first ever Disney animation to earn a PG rating. Since it was Disney, I'm guessing a lot of the audience did not notice or expect that kind of thing from Disney. It's a cartoon from Disney, how bad could it be? It would be 15 years before Disney released another PG rated animated movie (Atlantis).
@@michaelbarrington2806 Ironically, all of the Disney animated movies (including Pixar) these days get PG ratings. Hardly anything can manage to get a G rating anymore!
The worst part is, since this film flopped, no other media has covered The Chronicles of Prydain since and has fallen out of most public consciousness. Very sad since they are very good books.
I read the entire 5-book series back in elementary school and always thought they'd make fantastic movies, animated or otherwise. If Disney still owns the film rights, I think they could give it a good honest shot in live-action. They seem to throw everything else at the wall these days, why not?
I've read the Chronicles of Narnia, but I've never heard of the Chronicles of Prydain. I'll have to see if I can buy them and be able to read them. If they made cartoon continuing movies, like they did with the live action Narnia and Harry Potter movies, maybe the Black Cauldron would've been more successful.
This is one of those "back in the day audiences were NOT primed for long format entertainment, and splitting the five books into five films would have been utter lunacy" moments in regard to cinema history Additionally, the whole "cartoons are supposed to be for toddlers" mentality swooshed in not long after. Thanks, Jeffrey >:(
But they could still have just done one book. I'd bet that the book has a satisfying beginning middle and end, but they chose to do the whole series. It's like trying to cram all of the Lord of the Rings into one movie for no reason
Sometimes even one book is too much. Remember the mess that was Eragon? They crammed a book the size of 2 of those big VHS cases stacked into one movie, and it was horrid. Granted it had other issues too, and only about 90 seconds was worth watching.
They really only did book 2 anyways, and glimpses of book 1 were shoehorned into the beginning/middle of the movie to give the story credence and legs to hold it up. They never tackle what happens in the 3 books that came after the death of the horned king. 🤷♀️ Returning the princess and Tarans' ultimate destiny were never touched on, just the part of his story where he confronts the horned king. I have long wanted somebody to pick this franchise back up and give it the chance it deserves. ❤❤
"Was quickly forgotten by audiences..." Well it wasn't forgotten by me! I had a reoccurring nightmare about the all the skeletons being resurected from the time I was 5 till I was 11!
It was the 1986 success of The Great Mouse Detective that kept the Disney Animation alive to the Renaissance. Furthermore, the basic concepts and character types were reworked for Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, the TV animated series that established Disney as a revolutionary force in TV animation and began a Renaissance in that medium on its own.
The person shown onscreen at 2:53 is actually Roy E Disney, not Roy O Disney - he was the son of Roy O Disney and never worked as Disney CEO, though he was senior in the company
I really don't understand why studios insist on turning multiple books into a single movie. They finally stopped doing that with the live action Lord of the Rings (RIP animated LotR), and now they've gone in the reverse direction and take a single book and turn it into multiple movies.
Franchises are a big risk, they don't want to compromise to so sequels, the only one was Star Wars bc IJ were autoconclusive movies, now with the sucess of HP or Marvel studios finally they see the potential
They did that with the movie of a series of unfortunate events. Though there is now a Netflix series as well, the movie (with Jim Carrey) was a combination of the first three books. Idc if the Netflix series is more faithful to the books or generally regarded as better, I grew up with the movie. And I have read most of the books.
The biggest failing of the movie is that the story barely makes any sense and while key points are similar to the book, it feels like it takes place in a tiny and empty world, whereas the books have excellent world building. If they ever remake it I hope it's the full series and not just the first book, as I would love to see how they handle Taran Wanderer.
@@azraelle6232 Same. I loved the quieter, more contemplative tone, the memorable characters, the openly metaphorical plot points all about how to figure out what kind of person to be when you realize you’re not who you always thought you were. It’s a universal theme, and seems right in line with the kinds of movies teens are responding well to these days.
Loved the movie and the books, although what Disney's produced is a pale shadow of Lloyd Alexander's story. As long as Disney is sitting on his IP, they might as well reboot it into something worthy of the source material.
1000%. I never considered the stories dark, they were epic. And when I got old enough to read the Mabinogion I got an even clearer picture of the history. I thought Lloyd Alexander was fabulous, his books were approachable and readable for anyone.
Favorite Disney film. The opening scene where he pretends a stick is a sword is basically my childhood. In 2019 I became a world champion with swords, and my interest in them can be traced back to my first viewing of the film.
Now this is a story that totally deserves the live-action remake treatment! I would totally go for it. If Disney decides to reimagine it into a full R rated broad scaled and overall consistent piece of entertainment....
With the amount of remakes that have been released, announced, or even just rumoured, I'm sure they'll get to it eventually. It's just gonna be more of a waiting game than usual
The sad irony of remakes is that the movies that would be the best choices to remake, those that were mediocre or even bad but had unrealized potential a remake could bring out, are also the movies least likely to get a remake because the executives that actually make those decisions only hear the 'mediocre or even bad' part and immediately stop listening.
Honestly the only live action i cant wait for them to make. This cartoon was so cut op, the scenes just cut off or the characters say random stuff with no response or a response to no question that was asked 😅
If Disney or another studio, live action or animated, wants to do this story justice then they should be allowed to but this version should not be the starting point. It has too much baggage. Disney learned a lot of lessons from this failure but not all of them were the right lessons.
Right, instead of getting better, they made things worse with their 3D and live action remakes, and getting rid of 2D animation, the true magic of Disney.
Tim Burton going in as a Disney animator is a mindboggling concept for me. All the various history this video talks about is very interesting & it was cool to see some of the early black cauldron sketches. Neat video!
I went to see this disaster at the theater. Less than halfway through, I distinctly remember saying to myself, "They wasted a 65mm negative on THIS?" The writing was abysmal, the characters grating. Even Bernstein's score was (for me) a rare misfire, as if he was trying to give the film a grandeur that the rest of the production had already kneecapped.
You should read Don Bluth's book Somewhere Out There. It's a cool history story of what Don Bluth's life and career was like, even while working at Disney.
Underrated classic. Very flawed, but as a kid I was blown away (and terrified) by it. I fondly remember having the book-on-tape as well. Black Cauldron and Flight of Dragons were the two films that made fantasy real for me as a child.
Honestly, compressing multiple books into ONE movie was a BAD idea. Among other things, it REALLY causes a constant sense of "Did I miss something?" throughout the film. Case in point: Princess Eilonwy just showing up out of nowhere, saying she's a princess...and of course The Horned King later calls her a "scullury made." A bit of backstory for her would've been nice! As it stands she's little more than a proto-Hermionie. (And don't get me started on the witch deliberately squishing a frog-ified character in between her GAZOOMBAS, in full view of the audience....)
It should never be forgotten that this movie was beaten out at the (domestic) box office by The Care Bears Movie of all things. Black Cauldron did do better internationally, though, particularly in France, but most people don't seem to count the international gross, probably because that sort of thing was harder to calculate in the 80s
Not only is it an interpretation of the Welsh “The Mabinogion” a mythological story rewritten to be child friendly”. It is also a history of Welsh mythology from thousands of years ago. The written seris, the book of three, the black cauldren, The Castle of Llyr, Traren Wader, and The Hight King. Were every bit as epic as the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Just like those books had to tolerate crappy interpretation to cartoons. This series is based on the Myth of Wales and it deserves a movie series that takes it as seriously as the most current Lord of the Rings series! And I hope they do it in my life time. I loved those books as a kid and have given them to my kids, their friends and their children as well.
When my siblings and I were kids, we would sprawl on my parents’ bed while my mom read us the series. Always sad the series doesn’t get more attention.
The failure of The Black Cauldron is even more disappointing when looked in the context of The Last Unicorn - which showed you can adapt a more adult facing fantasy novel with elements of darker animation.
Still remember watching this movie in the theater because it was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater! For me this is the greatest Disney movie ever made! 🖤
Thank goodness for "The Great Mouse Detective" for keeping Disney animation going long enough until their Rennaissance began with "The Little Mermaid."
One thing I don't think helped the movie was that it came out during the Satanic Panic. I remember reading somewhere that some churches actually picketed the movie bc they said it was full of satanic imagery 🙄
If that happened, it was localized. The movie was never in a wide enough release for that to happen, and incidentally, the first time I ever saw it was a Friday afternoon in a Christian school. We rotated this and Flight of the Navigator.
i watched it as a kid alongside the sword in the stone. Cauldron back then was my favourite film and I watched it a lot. It would be a dream come true to get a full 2d animated remake or an entire saga of the whole story. It was the most engaging thing I watched and i loved it as much as lord of the rings
Honestly 1980's Disney That Wasn't Touchstone Pictures doesn't do It for me I loved Splash, Three Men and a Baby, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Turner and Hooch , Even Baby Secret Of The Lost Legend was entertaining to me to Watched that alot back then
this was one of my fav movies as a kid, next to mulan and matilda. I had them in vhs and watched them so many times that they started to wear out. I never new matilda and the black cauldron were "failures" for they respective studios until 10 years later when I was 18 yrs
I Love this film. The Black Cauldron is one of the very few Disney films that should and needs a good sequel. From what I'd realise, based on stuff I learned about the film, it came out at exactly the wrong time, both being too late to capitalise on the popularity of the fantasy genre of the late 1970s & early 80s and too early for it to capitalise on the resurgent popularity in the 90s-2000s, which is such a shame as the film was actually brilliant, though quite flawed... Also, Princess Eilonwy IS a Princess, and thus IS (or really should be considered to be) a Disney Princess (note, The Horn King was actually cruelly mocking her, calling her a scullery maid as an insult... because he's an evil villain who captured her). It would be cool if The Black Cauldron was featured in a future Kingdom Hearts game, with The Horned King as a major villain in it, a villain that even scares even Maleficent.
Due to marketing reasons not every Disney princess can be a Disney Princess. Then you have cases like Esmeralda and Tink who were like Pocahontas and Mulan at first, but for different reasons were removed. I think Eilonwy would be considered an Esmeralda type...too "mature" for the line...despite meeting other requirements. Tink? She's a fairy, they're notorious for being fickle...depends on the day these days especially after the Disney Fairies thing.
Well, since the Black Calderon is essentially 5 books crammed into one movie, wouldn't it make sense for them to make a 5 part movie series, instead? Like, the first movie could be based on the first book, the second movie based on the second book, etc.?
Actually they never planned on doing all of them. They originally wanted to adapt the first three books but due to time and budget constraints they could only adapt parts from the first two.
3:20 I feel so much like I’m watching a cartoon version of Frodo Baggins and Sméagol! I mean, Gurgi’s voice sounds like a spot-on impression of Gollum. (Though obviously this movie came out before the LOTR movies)
It wasn't a great adaptation, so it largely missed the book fans, and on its own a lot of the characters were rather bland, there were pacing issues, and disjointed scenes. It makes sense to me why it didn't do well, despite a lot of very good animation. That said, I really would like a live action adaptation of this series, actually based on the books and not the Disney version.
This movie is definitely an underrated classic to me. I rented it from the library so many times as a kid. I think it very much depends on the person watching it. However it also depends on what you’re looking for. It’s also depends on what you’re looking for and if you want a full adaptation of the original story that’s not what this is. Still a better movie than some people give it credit for though.
I really wish the Zelda movie willbe an Anime or X Men 97 quality cartoon. It's disgusting to see Disney's Live Action movies and horryfying to think Nintendo will do the same. Disney is dead but Nintendo should learn from their mistakes.
I recall liking it as a child, and when I first got Disney plus The Black Cauldron was one of the first movies I watched. Having then seen it again as an adult, I felt like it held up. I was still entertained by it.
The "furry sidekick" (whatever its name is) of this movie is one of the most annoying characters ever created! It's almost as bad as Jar-Jar Binks! I do vaguely remember seeing this movie when I was a kid (probably on VHS).
I watched it for the first time last year and I thought it was pretty bad. It had potential but the writing and plotting were pretty terrible, leading to really strange moments that made it very hard to get invested. The characters were pretty unlikable and too trope ridden for me to take them too seriously.
I appreciate your comment. Most people in the comments were kids when they saw this movie (myself included) and I don’t think they were old enough to understand what was going on other than it was visually striking. But I think that’s mostly the reason they like it. Nice to get a different perspective on the film from someone that hadn’t had previous knowledge.
Wow…i loved this movie as a kid, it was in a Disney VHS collection. I adored Taran! Did not realise it was based on Welsh Folklore till now. Most of the original voice cast are dead now 😢
Yeah, Gurgi taking all the blame wanting to do whatever he could to save his friends. Some people compare him to the Jar Jar hate but he was always my favorite. They muffled his voice a bit too much making it a bit hard to understand some dialogue but that just made me pay closer attention. Plus this was my introduction to the books that are similar to things like LOTR so that got me reading them all. Still want to get a collectors edition set.
This movie is the godfather of a troubled production history of an animated film. It's the culmination of everything that was wrong with Disney at the time. Young animators were hired and wanted to prove their talent, but had conflicts with the studio management. The departure of Don Bluth and his entourage delayed production. There was a 1982 animators' strike. There were internal creative conflicts. Then, there's the advent of Eisner and Katzenberg into Disney, the disastrous test screenings, and the 12 minutes that were cut. It's a miracle the film is still watchable today.
There's poetic justice for you. I never noticed before, but the hand-drawn Taran stands out from his computer-generated surroundings like a sore thumb or coal in a snowbank.
Thanks to Disney + I've watched the Black Cauldron and I liked it. I'm a 90s kid. My favorite movies are FernGully, Once Upon a Forest, and many other Don Bluth movies of the time. They were dark with realistic themes and most I wish I could get on DVD or Blu-ray. So the Black Cauldron for me was quite good. The movie that freaked me out as a kid was Watership Down.
Except it isn't if you actually watched the video. It's based on book written before Zelda was even conceived. Not to mention that this movie was already in post production long before Zelda was even released.
I haven't seen it since, but I recall being enthusiastic to see this in the theaters and loving it when I did. And I was 10 at the time, so well younger than the teen audience it was directed at.
I decided to sit through it once, and it's not underrated nor a classic. It's just as bad as everyone says it is, and that's before you consider the harm it did as a poor partial adaptation of an actual set of literary classics (or so I've heard, as I haven't read them), "The Chronicles of Prydain." While adaptation compression is far from the only problem with the movie, it did teach moviemakers the dangers of compressing a literary series too much when adapting it to film, even if the rare very thick single book actually requires two movies to adapt properly. As such, movie series based on book series like "The Lord of the Rings," "Twilight," "The Hunger Games," and "Harry Potter" (well, except for movies 4 & 5 in the latter case) have since received pretty good adaptations in terms of both accuracy to the source material and overall movie quality. In fact, "The Hobbit" was given so much room to breathe and added filler that it got 3 movies when it really only needed 2 of them.
Underrated classic for sure! I really liked it as a kid and on a rewatch as an adult I appreciated it even more! Same with some non-Disney beauties like The Princess and the Goblin and A Troll in Central Park!
I just randomly remembered about this movie two days ago, and then this video comes out. The timing cannot be real. Now, with the neverending season of failed Disney remakes, I would love to see the Pridayn saga properly adapted to TV or cinema, and preferably in animation, to show that this was rather a bad execution of an interesting world than a bad idea by itself.
I really hope one day someone unearths the lost full uncut version of this movie ive been wandering for years what the hell could of been so bad like this
I would watch a Peter Jackson version of this entire series. Five books, five movies. Or, even six movies, if it won't fit into five 2.5 hour movies (3 hours is too long, sorry). I don't know if I would enjoy a Disney version.
Thanks! It’s truly a beautiful movie, filled with heroism and longing, and the adaptation was excellent IMO despite the hitches. It’s true it could be scary for little kids. I took my brother to the theater (in those times a teen needed an excuse to watch cartoons) and he started screaming like a siren right in the middle 😂 I covered his eyes and kept going. Later he decided his name would be Hen Wen so go figure
This was a very scary movie for me as a child, then cool as a tween and now that Im an adult i appreciate Disney taking risks but I know why they dont do it anymore lol
I was probably 7 or 8 when I saw this, probably on VHS and not in the theatres. I was too young to “love” it. But I could tell it was something very special and mature, maybe even for a 10 year old!! I guess it ultimately proved scarier than that though. If you go to Tokyo Disneyland, since Disney doesn’t run the park, there is still a lot of Black Cauldron theming, especially in the dungeons of the castle. Seeing the army of the dead rise up, while a tour guide frantically yells at you to run away, all in incomprehensible Japanese, was nevertheless one of the scarier things from my early 20s! (A little Japanese boy erupted in tears!!!)
I've actually gotten a chance to see this on the big screen at a second run theater in my city and yea this is a real overlooked GEM. A lot of people have issue with it because it's a Disney movie and it goes to dark places but I think if it were released now it would fair much better. They could do a live action version and it would be one of the few reboots that warrants it and where you could really use the live action aspect effectively in the story.
Still my favorite Disney movie, even if it almost ruined them. It has been since I was a kid. I loved the story, the characters, and the art. I still watch it every once in a while to relive the nostalgia of watching it for the first time.
The Black Cauldron animated film is boring and slow in terms of pacing. Gurgi in the Pyrdain Chronicles is way more likeable than in the film. The only highlight is the horned king, his army and the pig henia wen. Hopefully someday, The Pyrdain Chronicles gets readapted in a movie series. Combine the first two books together: The Book of Three and the Black Cauldron. 1st movie 2nd movie Castle of Lyrr 3rd film Taran the Wanderer 4th film: The High King.
I remember seeing clips of this movie among the trailers that played on video tapes I had of Disney Movies before finally watching it on Disney Channel’s Wonderful World of Disney and I will admit the Horned King the scene where the cauldron born rise out of the green smoke were what made this film so scary. Still the Horned King became one of my fave Disney Villains and this movie became one of my fave Disney Films and a staple of my Halloween marathon. This is also a world I would love to see in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.
What always annoys me is that when things fail (movies, tech, whatever). Execs decide the whole idea was "bad" rather than actually figuring out what went wrong & why audiences/ customers didn't like something. Often the failure is at the top- too much exec influence, bad marketing, etc. But they never realize that. If Black Cauldron was MARKETED to teens I think it would have done better. But you can't make a movie for teens & then give it to kids and expect it to work.
Used to at least. Nowadays they release failure after failure but keep trying to push the same thing.
Maybe it would've done better, but there's only so much you can do when the story sucks and is badly presented, while Gurgi and all of the side characters are terribly annoying. It would've been better if Gurgi had stayed dead from both a storytelling perspective and just to get rid of that nasty creep.
Some of that I think was reputation. Disney had never done a teen-focused animation before. Black Cauldron was also the first ever Disney animation to earn a PG rating. Since it was Disney, I'm guessing a lot of the audience did not notice or expect that kind of thing from Disney. It's a cartoon from Disney, how bad could it be? It would be 15 years before Disney released another PG rated animated movie (Atlantis).
@@michaelbarrington2806 Ironically, all of the Disney animated movies (including Pixar) these days get PG ratings. Hardly anything can manage to get a G rating anymore!
The worst part is, since this film flopped, no other media has covered The Chronicles of Prydain since and has fallen out of most public consciousness. Very sad since they are very good books.
I read the entire 5-book series back in elementary school and always thought they'd make fantastic movies, animated or otherwise. If Disney still owns the film rights, I think they could give it a good honest shot in live-action. They seem to throw everything else at the wall these days, why not?
I've read the Chronicles of Narnia, but I've never heard of the Chronicles of Prydain. I'll have to see if I can buy them and be able to read them. If they made cartoon continuing movies, like they did with the live action Narnia and Harry Potter movies, maybe the Black Cauldron would've been more successful.
This is one of those "back in the day audiences were NOT primed for long format entertainment, and splitting the five books into five films would have been utter lunacy" moments in regard to cinema history
Additionally, the whole "cartoons are supposed to be for toddlers" mentality swooshed in not long after. Thanks, Jeffrey >:(
But they could still have just done one book. I'd bet that the book has a satisfying beginning middle and end, but they chose to do the whole series. It's like trying to cram all of the Lord of the Rings into one movie for no reason
The books are Elementary level. I read them. As an adult. Very boring and not much Substance.
I think that at the end, Jeffrey was also kinda tired of the Disney stuff too. That’s why he created shrek
Sometimes even one book is too much. Remember the mess that was Eragon? They crammed a book the size of 2 of those big VHS cases stacked into one movie, and it was horrid. Granted it had other issues too, and only about 90 seconds was worth watching.
They really only did book 2 anyways, and glimpses of book 1 were shoehorned into the beginning/middle of the movie to give the story credence and legs to hold it up.
They never tackle what happens in the 3 books that came after the death of the horned king. 🤷♀️
Returning the princess and Tarans' ultimate destiny were never touched on, just the part of his story where he confronts the horned king.
I have long wanted somebody to pick this franchise back up and give it the chance it deserves. ❤❤
"Was quickly forgotten by audiences..." Well it wasn't forgotten by me! I had a reoccurring nightmare about the all the skeletons being resurected from the time I was 5 till I was 11!
I had the same problem with ET.
I had recurring nightmares about the horned king! This may be the most influential Disney movie on me. Time for a re-watch
The Black Cauldron is one of the few movies I wouldn’t mind a live action remake of.
It was the 1986 success of The Great Mouse Detective that kept the Disney Animation alive to the Renaissance. Furthermore, the basic concepts and character types were reworked for Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, the TV animated series that established Disney as a revolutionary force in TV animation and began a Renaissance in that medium on its own.
Ratigan, the best Disney villain ever!
Good point! Also, I loved the Gummi Bears cartoon.
Barely maybe , because Great Mouse Detective was still an underrated film , but not as underrated as Black Cauldron ..
@@MindMan424 Regardless, it made the Disney Renaissance possible.
The person shown onscreen at 2:53 is actually Roy E Disney, not Roy O Disney - he was the son of Roy O Disney and never worked as Disney CEO, though he was senior in the company
Roy E sounds like the updated version of Roy O...
I really don't understand why studios insist on turning multiple books into a single movie.
They finally stopped doing that with the live action Lord of the Rings (RIP animated LotR), and now they've gone in the reverse direction and take a single book and turn it into multiple movies.
And then they stretch one book into three movies with Hobbit.
@@kennyleung9909
Did you not finish reading my comment?
Franchises are a big risk, they don't want to compromise to so sequels, the only one was Star Wars bc IJ were autoconclusive movies, now with the sucess of HP or Marvel studios finally they see the potential
They did that with the movie of a series of unfortunate events. Though there is now a Netflix series as well, the movie (with Jim Carrey) was a combination of the first three books.
Idc if the Netflix series is more faithful to the books or generally regarded as better, I grew up with the movie. And I have read most of the books.
@@josef.ramoss.8457
You have shown your age and ignorance with this comment
The biggest failing of the movie is that the story barely makes any sense and while key points are similar to the book, it feels like it takes place in a tiny and empty world, whereas the books have excellent world building. If they ever remake it I hope it's the full series and not just the first book, as I would love to see how they handle Taran Wanderer.
Taran Wanderer was my favorite of the 5. I read it multiple times throughout school.
@@azraelle6232 Same. I loved the quieter, more contemplative tone, the memorable characters, the openly metaphorical plot points all about how to figure out what kind of person to be when you realize you’re not who you always thought you were. It’s a universal theme, and seems right in line with the kinds of movies teens are responding well to these days.
Loved the movie and the books, although what Disney's produced is a pale shadow of Lloyd Alexander's story. As long as Disney is sitting on his IP, they might as well reboot it into something worthy of the source material.
I di appreciate the movie making me interested in reading the books as a kid tho
1000%. I never considered the stories dark, they were epic. And when I got old enough to read the Mabinogion I got an even clearer picture of the history. I thought Lloyd Alexander was fabulous, his books were approachable and readable for anyone.
Modern Disney doing something that isn't boring trash? Hahahaha that's a laugh!
If they're going to reboot it, they should do it in live action so as not to confuse it with this embarrassing animated first attempt.
I was born in 1991 and I remember LOVING this movie as a kid. I’d replay the tape over and over and fall asleep to it. Lol
same! I was born in 1996, and with 8 yrsd old loved this movie and also had it on vhs
Me too! Born in 94. Such an underrated gem!
91 kid also. I remember unwrapping the vhs box one Christmas and loved it.
Me too! Also a 91 baby
Oh my gosh you and
Me both。 the soundtrack is just phenomenal even the creepy bits
Favorite Disney film. The opening scene where he pretends a stick is a sword is basically my childhood. In 2019 I became a world champion with swords, and my interest in them can be traced back to my first viewing of the film.
Now this is a story that totally deserves the live-action remake treatment! I would totally go for it. If Disney decides to reimagine it into a full R rated broad scaled and overall consistent piece of entertainment....
Taran Wanderer in live action would especially be awesome
With the amount of remakes that have been released, announced, or even just rumoured, I'm sure they'll get to it eventually. It's just gonna be more of a waiting game than usual
Make it a series, there's 5 damn books, that's 5 seasons, 6-8 episodes per season
The sad irony of remakes is that the movies that would be the best choices to remake, those that were mediocre or even bad but had unrealized potential a remake could bring out, are also the movies least likely to get a remake because the executives that actually make those decisions only hear the 'mediocre or even bad' part and immediately stop listening.
Disney only wants to remake stuff they're certain will be a success. It's financially a smart decision, but not the best creatively.
Honestly the only live action i cant wait for them to make. This cartoon was so cut op, the scenes just cut off or the characters say random stuff with no response or a response to no question that was asked 😅
If Disney or another studio, live action or animated, wants to do this story justice then they should be allowed to but this version should not be the starting point. It has too much baggage. Disney learned a lot of lessons from this failure but not all of them were the right lessons.
Right, instead of getting better, they made things worse with their 3D and live action remakes, and getting rid of 2D animation, the true magic of Disney.
Tim Burton going in as a Disney animator is a mindboggling concept for me. All the various history this video talks about is very interesting & it was cool to see some of the early black cauldron sketches. Neat video!
I went to see this disaster at the theater. Less than halfway through, I distinctly remember saying to myself, "They wasted a 65mm negative on THIS?" The writing was abysmal, the characters grating. Even Bernstein's score was (for me) a rare misfire, as if he was trying to give the film a grandeur that the rest of the production had already kneecapped.
This story definitely deserves another adaptation.
Disneys history from 1966, when Walt passed away, to 1989 whem they were back on top is fascinating
You should read Don Bluth's book Somewhere Out There. It's a cool history story of what Don Bluth's life and career was like, even while working at Disney.
Underrated classic. Very flawed, but as a kid I was blown away (and terrified) by it. I fondly remember having the book-on-tape as well. Black Cauldron and Flight of Dragons were the two films that made fantasy real for me as a child.
My beloved childhood fantasy films were Willow, The Last Unicorn, Flight of Dragons, Neverending Story, and Little Nemo.
Honestly, compressing multiple books into ONE movie was a BAD idea. Among other things, it REALLY causes a constant sense of "Did I miss something?" throughout the film. Case in point: Princess Eilonwy just showing up out of nowhere, saying she's a princess...and of course The Horned King later calls her a "scullury made." A bit of backstory for her would've been nice! As it stands she's little more than a proto-Hermionie. (And don't get me started on the witch deliberately squishing a frog-ified character in between her GAZOOMBAS, in full view of the audience....)
"No longer in danger of firing all it's animators"
But they'll more than likely do it anyway.
It should never be forgotten that this movie was beaten out at the (domestic) box office by The Care Bears Movie of all things. Black Cauldron did do better internationally, though, particularly in France, but most people don't seem to count the international gross, probably because that sort of thing was harder to calculate in the 80s
The old care bears films are good
Well, the first Care Bears Movie was actually a better film. (Yes, I have seen both of them and not just as a little kid).
@@Compucles Agreed, though I always liked the second one better.
Not only is it an interpretation of the Welsh “The Mabinogion” a mythological story rewritten to be child friendly”. It is also a history of Welsh mythology from thousands of years ago. The written seris, the book of three, the black cauldren, The Castle of Llyr, Traren Wader, and The Hight King. Were every bit as epic as the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Just like those books had to tolerate crappy interpretation to cartoons. This series is based on the Myth of Wales and it deserves a movie series that takes it as seriously as the most current Lord of the Rings series! And I hope they do it in my life time. I loved those books as a kid and have given them to my kids, their friends and their children as well.
When my siblings and I were kids, we would sprawl on my parents’ bed while my mom read us the series. Always sad the series doesn’t get more attention.
I was a little sad to see Disney return to Narnia when the opportunity to adapt Prydain was right there
As a child scared me as a teen my 4th favourite
I think it says a LOT that Disney didn't release this on VHS until 1998.
Ouch
The failure of The Black Cauldron is even more disappointing when looked in the context of The Last Unicorn - which showed you can adapt a more adult facing fantasy novel with elements of darker animation.
The Last Unicorn is a beautiful and melancholy book and film.
Still remember watching this movie in the theater because it was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater! For me this is the greatest Disney movie ever made! 🖤
Thank goodness for "The Great Mouse Detective" for keeping Disney animation going long enough until their Rennaissance began with "The Little Mermaid."
One thing I don't think helped the movie was that it came out during the Satanic Panic. I remember reading somewhere that some churches actually picketed the movie bc they said it was full of satanic imagery 🙄
Ugh. Some people. 🙄
If that happened, it was localized. The movie was never in a wide enough release for that to happen, and incidentally, the first time I ever saw it was a Friday afternoon in a Christian school. We rotated this and Flight of the Navigator.
Thank you for covering this. Now, just be sure to keep moving and keep your head down. :)
i watched it as a kid alongside the sword in the stone. Cauldron back then was my favourite film and I watched it a lot. It would be a dream come true to get a full 2d animated remake or an entire saga of the whole story. It was the most engaging thing I watched and i loved it as much as lord of the rings
They will only greenlight 3d or "live action" remakes these days-and that scares me.
I remember hearing about how bad the black cauldron was, but honestly after seeing it, I fell in love with it
8:48 - You say that now..........
The books were amazing
Saw the Black Cauldron in theaters, and it is one of my favorite movies. Just wasn't right for the time.
Honestly 1980's Disney That Wasn't Touchstone Pictures doesn't do It for me I loved Splash, Three Men and a Baby, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Turner and Hooch , Even Baby Secret Of The Lost Legend was entertaining to me to Watched that alot back then
I used to love this film as a kid. I haven't seen it in over 10 years, but I still regard it as one of my favorite Disney films.
While Disney is longer in danger of firing their staff they’re still gonna do it for the CEO pay. I mean 100 millions of dollars as salary.
Disney's tanking of the Wes Ball production of Mouse Guard shows that they have not learned anything from the Black Cauldron fiasco.
Another animated video from Nerdstalgic, that illustrates the importance of a film by drawing some unique conclusions.
this was one of my fav movies as a kid, next to mulan and matilda. I had them in vhs and watched them so many times that they started to wear out. I never new matilda and the black cauldron were "failures" for they respective studios until 10 years later when I was 18 yrs
I watched this movie as a preschooler and I was never scared by it lol
I’ve always imagined an animated Dark Souls would be just like TBC. They have such a similar creepy, medieval vibe
I Love this film. The Black Cauldron is one of the very few Disney films that should and needs a good sequel. From what I'd realise, based on stuff I learned about the film, it came out at exactly the wrong time, both being too late to capitalise on the popularity of the fantasy genre of the late 1970s & early 80s and too early for it to capitalise on the resurgent popularity in the 90s-2000s, which is such a shame as the film was actually brilliant, though quite flawed... Also, Princess Eilonwy IS a Princess, and thus IS (or really should be considered to be) a Disney Princess (note, The Horn King was actually cruelly mocking her, calling her a scullery maid as an insult... because he's an evil villain who captured her). It would be cool if The Black Cauldron was featured in a future Kingdom Hearts game, with The Horned King as a major villain in it, a villain that even scares even Maleficent.
Due to marketing reasons not every Disney princess can be a Disney Princess.
Then you have cases like Esmeralda and Tink who were like Pocahontas and Mulan at first, but for different reasons were removed. I think Eilonwy would be considered an Esmeralda type...too "mature" for the line...despite meeting other requirements. Tink? She's a fairy, they're notorious for being fickle...depends on the day these days especially after the Disney Fairies thing.
The Black Cauldron deserves a live action adaptation, pferably as a series of either films or a episodic series.
It's a shame that this movie is forgotten. This movie would work today. I like to see disney exploring dark and mature themes.
Had they stuck to their guns and made the full on epic they wanted to make, The Black Cauldron could have been something very special.
Well, since the Black Calderon is essentially 5 books crammed into one movie, wouldn't it make sense for them to make a 5 part movie series, instead? Like, the first movie could be based on the first book, the second movie based on the second book, etc.?
Actually they never planned on doing all of them. They originally wanted to adapt the first three books but due to time and budget constraints they could only adapt parts from the first two.
God, PLEASE don't let Disney ruin this one with live action.
Let us have this one unsullied.
I'm surprised disney hasn't remade it. Multiple books. Fantasy.
They announced they were remaking the "Chronicles of Prydain" series back in 2016, but nothing concrete has announced since.
I thought to myself this week how great it would be to see a video essay on this film. Thanks for posting.
3:20 I feel so much like I’m watching a cartoon version of Frodo Baggins and Sméagol! I mean, Gurgi’s voice sounds like a spot-on impression of Gollum. (Though obviously this movie came out before the LOTR movies)
It wasn't a great adaptation, so it largely missed the book fans, and on its own a lot of the characters were rather bland, there were pacing issues, and disjointed scenes. It makes sense to me why it didn't do well, despite a lot of very good animation. That said, I really would like a live action adaptation of this series, actually based on the books and not the Disney version.
This is my favourite Disney cartoon.. Cant wait for all the books to be developed, but hopefully by a decent studio who will do them justice.
"No longer in danger of firing all its animators..."
*Sees Pixar in the hot seat for Inside Out 2...
This movie is definitely an underrated classic to me. I rented it from the library so many times as a kid. I think it very much depends on the person watching it. However it also depends on what you’re looking for. It’s also depends on what you’re looking for and if you want a full adaptation of the original story that’s not what this is. Still a better movie than some people give it credit for though.
I really wish the Zelda movie willbe an Anime or X Men 97 quality cartoon.
It's disgusting to see Disney's Live Action movies and horryfying to think Nintendo will do the same.
Disney is dead but Nintendo should learn from their mistakes.
So what I took from this is that you are telling me, that there was a shot that Don Bluth coulda worked on this movie as an animator?!
I recall liking it as a child, and when I first got Disney plus The Black Cauldron was one of the first movies I watched. Having then seen it again as an adult, I felt like it held up. I was still entertained by it.
The Black Cauldron Is My Favorite Disney Movie And Especially The Horned King He's Cool And Creepy At Same Time In The Film.
The "furry sidekick" (whatever its name is) of this movie is one of the most annoying characters ever created! It's almost as bad as Jar-Jar Binks! I do vaguely remember seeing this movie when I was a kid (probably on VHS).
Felt like a cheap furry knockoff of Smeagol/Gollum. Down to the voice! 😂
@@Hard_Boiled_Entertainment Yes, that too, even though this character's voice came first.
@@MatthewTheWanderer True enough. Goes to show, Andy Serkis fights fair.😏
Absolutely is a variation on Gollum, but is far more endearing in the books. Also larger, he's a credible physical threat there.
I watched it for the first time last year and I thought it was pretty bad. It had potential but the writing and plotting were pretty terrible, leading to really strange moments that made it very hard to get invested. The characters were pretty unlikable and too trope ridden for me to take them too seriously.
I appreciate your comment. Most people in the comments were kids when they saw this movie (myself included) and I don’t think they were old enough to understand what was going on other than it was visually striking. But I think that’s mostly the reason they like it.
Nice to get a different perspective on the film from someone that hadn’t had previous knowledge.
8:50 you misunderstand, they aint doing that because movies actually would benefit from a remake
Wow…i loved this movie as a kid, it was in a Disney VHS collection. I adored Taran! Did not realise it was based on Welsh Folklore till now. Most of the original voice cast are dead now 😢
The sacrificial death made me cry
Yeah, Gurgi taking all the blame wanting to do whatever he could to save his friends. Some people compare him to the Jar Jar hate but he was always my favorite. They muffled his voice a bit too much making it a bit hard to understand some dialogue but that just made me pay closer attention. Plus this was my introduction to the books that are similar to things like LOTR so that got me reading them all. Still want to get a collectors edition set.
“”Black Cauldron is the worst Disney Animation of all times!””
WISH 2024: Hold my beer 🍺!!!
This movie is the godfather of a troubled production history of an animated film. It's the culmination of everything that was wrong with Disney at the time. Young animators were hired and wanted to prove their talent, but had conflicts with the studio management. The departure of Don Bluth and his entourage delayed production. There was a 1982 animators' strike. There were internal creative conflicts. Then, there's the advent of Eisner and Katzenberg into Disney, the disastrous test screenings, and the 12 minutes that were cut. It's a miracle the film is still watchable today.
I'm a sucker for a dark high fantasy epic, but Black Cauldron just didn't do it for me.
There's poetic justice for you. I never noticed before, but the hand-drawn Taran stands out from his computer-generated surroundings like a sore thumb or coal in a snowbank.
I think it’s time Disney gave this franchise another shot.
Black Cauldron is one of my all time favorite Disney movies, it deserves more love!
I think BC should be redone as a series rather than a single movie.
Thanks to Disney + I've watched the Black Cauldron and I liked it. I'm a 90s kid. My favorite movies are FernGully, Once Upon a Forest, and many other Don Bluth movies of the time. They were dark with realistic themes and most I wish I could get on DVD or Blu-ray. So the Black Cauldron for me was quite good. The movie that freaked me out as a kid was Watership Down.
Except it isn't if you actually watched the video. It's based on book written before Zelda was even conceived. Not to mention that this movie was already in post production long before Zelda was even released.
I always thought this movie was so cool and creepy as a kid
if disney can redo this movie somehow they can turn themselves around
Wasn't forgotten by me, either. I remember seeing it in the theaters. Looking at the release year, I guess that would make me 9 years old.
I haven't seen it since, but I recall being enthusiastic to see this in the theaters and loving it when I did. And I was 10 at the time, so well younger than the teen audience it was directed at.
I decided to sit through it once, and it's not underrated nor a classic. It's just as bad as everyone says it is, and that's before you consider the harm it did as a poor partial adaptation of an actual set of literary classics (or so I've heard, as I haven't read them), "The Chronicles of Prydain."
While adaptation compression is far from the only problem with the movie, it did teach moviemakers the dangers of compressing a literary series too much when adapting it to film, even if the rare very thick single book actually requires two movies to adapt properly. As such, movie series based on book series like "The Lord of the Rings," "Twilight," "The Hunger Games," and "Harry Potter" (well, except for movies 4 & 5 in the latter case) have since received pretty good adaptations in terms of both accuracy to the source material and overall movie quality. In fact, "The Hobbit" was given so much room to breathe and added filler that it got 3 movies when it really only needed 2 of them.
This mmovie deserves a second chance and a remake
With the right director.
Underrated classic for sure! I really liked it as a kid and on a rewatch as an adult I appreciated it even more!
Same with some non-Disney beauties like The Princess and the Goblin and A Troll in Central Park!
I just randomly remembered about this movie two days ago, and then this video comes out. The timing cannot be real.
Now, with the neverending season of failed Disney remakes, I would love to see the Pridayn saga properly adapted to TV or cinema, and preferably in animation, to show that this was rather a bad execution of an interesting world than a bad idea by itself.
8:48 “…no longer in danger of firing all its animators” - but it has fired quite a hefty chunk of its employees in recent months, has it not?
Not all animation are for children and combine 5 books in one movie was a mistake
I really hope one day someone unearths the lost full uncut version of this movie ive been wandering for years what the hell could of been so bad like this
I was 7 when it hit theaters, and I loved it. Not sure where all the disapproval comes from
I would watch a Peter Jackson version of this entire series. Five books, five movies. Or, even six movies, if it won't fit into five 2.5 hour movies (3 hours is too long, sorry). I don't know if I would enjoy a Disney version.
Thanks! It’s truly a beautiful movie, filled with heroism and longing, and the adaptation was excellent IMO despite the hitches. It’s true it could be scary for little kids. I took my brother to the theater (in those times a teen needed an excuse to watch cartoons) and he started screaming like a siren right in the middle 😂 I covered his eyes and kept going. Later he decided his name would be Hen Wen so go figure
The timing with Creeper saying, "We did it sire! We did it! I-I-I mean, you!" Cuz it really was him lol
I have a mini poster autographed by the animators. John Byner refused to sign it. I saw it at a Vegas test screening
This was a very scary movie for me as a child, then cool as a tween and now that Im an adult i appreciate Disney taking risks but I know why they dont do it anymore lol
I was probably 7 or 8 when I saw this, probably on VHS and not in the theatres. I was too young to “love” it. But I could tell it was something very special and mature, maybe even for a 10 year old!!
I guess it ultimately proved scarier than that though. If you go to Tokyo Disneyland, since Disney doesn’t run the park, there is still a lot of Black Cauldron theming, especially in the dungeons of the castle. Seeing the army of the dead rise up, while a tour guide frantically yells at you to run away, all in incomprehensible Japanese, was nevertheless one of the scarier things from my early 20s! (A little Japanese boy erupted in tears!!!)
"no longer in danger of firing all of it's animators" -- really tempting the hand of fate are we ?
I've actually gotten a chance to see this on the big screen at a second run theater in my city and yea this is a real overlooked GEM. A lot of people have issue with it because it's a Disney movie and it goes to dark places but I think if it were released now it would fair much better. They could do a live action version and it would be one of the few reboots that warrants it and where you could really use the live action aspect effectively in the story.
I LOVED this movie as a child. I was surprised to find out most people did not like it.
Still my favorite Disney movie, even if it almost ruined them. It has been since I was a kid. I loved the story, the characters, and the art. I still watch it every once in a while to relive the nostalgia of watching it for the first time.
The Black Cauldron animated film is boring and slow in terms of pacing. Gurgi in the Pyrdain Chronicles is way more likeable than in the film.
The only highlight is the horned king, his army and the pig henia wen.
Hopefully someday, The Pyrdain Chronicles gets readapted in a movie series.
Combine the first two books together: The Book of Three and the Black Cauldron. 1st movie
2nd movie Castle of Lyrr
3rd film Taran the Wanderer
4th film: The High King.
I read all 5 books. Gurgi isn't likeable. It's annoying and "mentally challrnged".
Like a hyperactive a u tistic child
@@CordeliaWagner1999 Ouch.
I remember seeing clips of this movie among the trailers that played on video tapes I had of Disney Movies before finally watching it on Disney Channel’s Wonderful World of Disney and I will admit the Horned King the scene where the cauldron born rise out of the green smoke were what made this film so scary. Still the Horned King became one of my fave Disney Villains and this movie became one of my fave Disney Films and a staple of my Halloween marathon. This is also a world I would love to see in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.
Having a bias towards their epic musicals, I do wish TBC had gotten a similar treatment.