elicopperman
In the 1970s, the Walt Disney Company was not doing so well. Considering both Walt and his brother Roy had passed on, the crew was left without much direction and were constantly asking themselves "Oh, what would Walt do?" in a desperate plead to let the films prosper. It doesn't help that the 9 old men were either dying or retiring, and a whole new group of animators had to fill in the positions. However, what happened when the new generation took on the task of creating their first feature film on their own? Years of development hell, animators pitching in ideas only to be discarded, and the original 92 min length getting reduced to 80. That film is the 1985 flop called The Black Cauldron, a film so infamous that Disney themselves don't even want to acknowledge it even exists, and good thing too, because this film really left a stain on Disney's legacy.The biggest problem this film suffers from is the story. Now it could be because the writers were trying to condense a couple of books from The Chronicles of Prydain series into one movie, but even as a movie on its own, the story is just disjointed. The goal seems to be to find the black cauldron, and yet the film keeps on switching from the main hero having to rescue his pig that has psychic powers (OK), to him being captured by the villain and having to escape, to then searching for the cauldron and ending up with fairies, and THEN when he and his group finally find the cauldron....the villain takes it, and then the heroes make it out and escape the king's demise....yeah, not a very exciting story if I do say myself. Also, the film constantly shifts in tone from dark menacing action scenes to cutesy fantasy junk with the creature Gurgi and a bunch of fairies....ugh.Also, this is the first animated Disney film with no songs, and while it does help move the story along, it just leaves me bored without much amusement. As for the characters, most of them are either bland, annoying, or both. The main protagonist Taran wants to be a warrior so much that he ends up being the most irritating to witness, and even the situations he ends up in are either accidental or just pure luck that he even got himself saved in the first place. Princess Eilonwy is OK but her backstory is never brought up, Fflweddur Fflam is basically the same, and Gurgi....well despite one heroic act in the end, he offers nothing to the table and is more annoying than charming. It doesn't help that the film barely if at all develops the characters, as there's never a moment where we get to hear them have a meaningful conversation or even monologue about their pasts. The only character worth praising is the villain the Horned King, and that's only because of how menacing he is; though at the same time he barely does anything, and he's easily defeated in the end.....what a chump.To the film's credit, the animation is very well done. It's dark and gritty, the character animation is pretty solid, the effects look superb, and the backgrounds drip with influence from European fantasy books. Not to mention, this was the first Disney film to use computer effects, and the sporadic usage of it really adds in to the occasional intense scene. The only problem with the animation is that while it is well crafted, it looks less like Disney and more like if Hanna Barbara got a big budget (if you know what I mean), and the cute characters of Gurgi and the fairies don't really contrast well with the gritty environments. Also, the music score by Elmer Bernstein is quite solid, as it fits every scene with grace, whether it be the menacing music attributed by the Horned King or the whimsical enchanted melodies attributed by the main characters and the fairies. So is this the worst animated Disney film? No, I'll still take this over Chicken Little any day. But even with its quality animation, brisk music score and menacing at best villain, this is an otherwise forgettable feature that lacks excitement, character development, and even solid storytelling. It's a really good thing the crew at Disney pushed up their game with the likes of The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast, and more in the future, because as ambitious as this may have been, it overall left so much to be desired.
Mauvins
This ones tough. It's not terrible, but the things it does wrong haunt the movie considerably. They were almost there, but I believe the writing was all over the place for this movie. I was starting to like the characters, until the introduced the next one and the next one and the next one! I never even fully got to enjoy all the characters. I needed more of what they had. Im a HUGE fan of how this film looks. It can be pretty at times and very atmospheric. The character designs are timeless too, it's just sad that their personalities don't match.
flavia_cj
Need to say, the only good thing about The Black Cauldron it's good quality of backgrounds animation, a quality that was not seen in the Disney studio since "Sleeping Beauty" (1959). But honestly, I don't care if this film has become "cult". Remains as bad as ever.First, Taran is the most forgetabble protagonist in Disney history. Unlike other friendly boys as Mowgli (1967) or Arthur (1963), Taran is boring and has no charisma. All other characters also suffer from the same problem. The villain looks like a character who was taken from some cheap episode of Scooby-Doo. Fairies / gnomes (or what the hell are those things) sound like dull rip-offs of the Seven Dwarfs. Gurgi was created to be friendly and for we to care with him, but he's just an animated version of Jar Jar Binks we wish to see dead.As if things were not already worse enough, the script of this film is problematic. In the beginning, we have a nut with "magical" powers (in my opinion the only sympathetic character in the movie), which seems to be the essential key to the climax of the film, but in half the movie to the end, she simply leaves to follow Taran and disappear in history. In my view, a serious flaw script. Add to the fact that history doesn't have any memorable moment, and we realized the disaster that The Black Cauldron is.
SnoopyStyle
In the land of Prydain, Taran is the young assistant to Dallben. He doesn't understand why the pig Hen Wen is pampered. The evil Horned King is searching for the Black Cauldron which can create an invincible army of undead warriors. Hen Wen turns out to be an oracular pig who can reveal the location of the Black Cauldron. Dallben sends Taran away to hide with Hen Wen but the Horned King captures the pig. Taran is joined by pesky creature Gurgi in his rescue mission. Only he is captured and thrown into the dungeons where he joins Princess Eilonwy. They escape with bumbling bard Fflewddur Fflam.This is an old fashion Disney fantasy adventure with a little bit of CGI. The characters aren't that charismatic. They are out of a standard script with a young man, a feisty princess, a bumbling old fool and an animal sidekick. The pig is the one that keeps me scratching my head. I appreciate something unusual but it strikes me as very wrong. The old bard isn't as funny as he needs to be. I like Gurgi but I don't necessarily love him. This is fine but it is inferior to other Disney animated movies.
