Disney 1985 film The Black Cauldron was an experiment that failed | Hacker News Reader

Disney 1985 film The Black Cauldron was an experiment that failed

bbc.com

46 pointstigerlily44 comments

It's got some incredible animation. The story and studio infighting was what hurt the film, but it's still worth a watch if you haven't seen it. It really should have been a better movie. Targeting older audiences was a good idea and fantasy was a big genre. On the animation side The Last Unicorn was a recent success that was also darker fantasy than what disney was offering (fire and ice too, although that didn't get as wide an audience) and in live action Legend released that same year and Willow came after and both attracted a lot of fans. I really wonder what that movie might have been if Disney had been fully committed to the idea.

Sierra made an adventure game of it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cauldron_(video_ga...

https://archive.org/details/msdos_Black_Cauldron_The_1986

I have many fond memories of this game. Of course it had all the issues that existed in that genre — in particular it was easy to get stuck… forever. But being a kid back then with a lot of free time and not many other distractions it was great.

Don't suppose anyone has the archive.org link for the floppy images? There are several, but it's unclear which is the most definitive/canonical.

This source seems legit: https://allowe.com/downloads/games.html

It's the first I'd ever heard of this story. Played it with my friend at the public library. Never watched the Disney movie but ended up reading the series.

They mentioned The Little Mermaid. Divine was slated to voice Ursula ... I wonder how that would have changed the legacy. Ursula was designed after Divine but that was fairly insider knowledge.

Having the John Waters drag queen actually voice her, it might have made a lot of people not consider it a family film in 1989.

Disney has a long history of gay-coded characters that the mainstream doesn't really pick up on and just reads as wacky or eccentric, such as here, in 1941: https://youtu.be/H2iT9kfsMKU?si=-5Z6_qgaUyucDJXg&t=82

The Taran books hold a special place in my heart. I read the first one when I was 12 and I immediately identified with the protagonist.

I read the last one last year for the first time aged 40, and like me the character had changed. I doubt I would have understood the message of that last book of the series when I was a kid, a message of the futility of violence and the importance of people.

There are so many beautiful things in that book, what touched me most is: The epitaph on the tombstone of their greatest warrior is: “Here lies Coll, grower of turnips”, since he himself considered growing things his greatest achievement.

> The Black Cauldron also had a PG rating, a first for Disney

If you ignore 1979's The Black Hole (another flop)

I immediately thought of John Carter.

I loved that movie, and everyone I know at least liked it, a lot.

It flopped because of The Lorax, and THAT was massively disappointing.

It also had poor advertising and, reportedly, the director overestimated John Carter's name recognition as a character. Yes, he was a character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs (a name people might recognize, but not be able to place) who also created Tarzan (a name people would recognize). But no connection was brought up between Tarzan (popular, well-known) and John Carter (unknown by the time of the movie).

I didn't see that when it came out, heard it was a flop, and disregarded it for years. Then we watched it over winter break a few years ago, and it's basically the same as Phantom Menace - pretty good action, pretty good but dated effects, pretty ok but miscast lead actor, pretty clunky plot. It might have lost a ton of money, but it's like a B- movie at worst.

But that's the thing. The B-movie budget usually lends a hand in doling some B-movie charms. But Carter didn't, it felt so bland. Maybe I should give it another chance?

If you enjoy the Phantom Menace for any reason, you'll probably enjoy John Carter.

Would a flop been able to give us such classic lines as "In, Through, Beyond"?

according to this list, the first was Treasure Island 1950 with a couple more before The Black Hole.

https://doctordisney.com/disney-movies-list-of-years-running...

> Would a flop been able to give us such classic lines as "In, Through, Beyond"?

And don't forget Ernest Borgnine! My elementary school library had the read-along picture book and it always stuck with me, so when I saw it on Hulu recently I had to give it a watch.

Even in '79, Ernest looked old, but that's probably the youngest I've seen Robert Forster. I don't remember when I saw this compared to Star Wars, but I remember really liking the little robot with his beat up companion. I also remember my mom talking about being somewhat shocked by the gore when the "evil" robot used his spinning hands.

That would've been rated well after the fact, since the MPAA didn't introduce film ratings until 1968.

If you make a PG movie without it being called PG, does that mean it's any less of a deviation from the G-rated content? Even the G-rated content wouldn't have had a rating as well, but these would have been noticeably different at the time.

Tron in 1982 also got a PG rating. Quite controversial in my mother's circle of parenting friends. "How can Disney release a PG movie like that?" said one parent.

Worth remembering that PG in those days was a very broad rating. _Airplane_ was rated PG and includes a topless scene. Indiana Jones and the Tempke of Doom was rated PG and was pretty gory for the time. Both would get PG-13 or maybe even R ratings today.

An R rating for… displaying a female chest?

PG had plenty of that in the 80s, see Irreconcilable Differences (actually a pretty good movie)

Not saying it is proper or moral or whatever. But that will do it these days. See the auto reply bot here that explains it.

https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-take-for-a-movie-to-get-a...

There was a "clean" version too, with the woman wearing a T-shirt with the words "Moral Majority" on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VeioVSvl1w

I remember the controversy around Temple of Doom. It was the inspiration for PG-13.

Common misconception on the part of the writer, The Black Cauldron was their first animated feature to receive the rating. It was a notable distinction at the time, and the original cut before Katzenberg took a hatchet to the project would have pushed the rating fairly hard.

If you're interested in the "dark age" of Disney history, I recommend the book After Disney by Neil O'Brien - https://amzn.to/4mvMxgX

I loved that movie as a kid and after re-watching as an adult I still do.

First movie I ever saw when my parents brought me to the theater. I was a little kid. Haven't seen it since and still remember the awful skeletons parade.

Competing against National Lampoon's European Vacation, a re-release of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, and Back to the Future?

Ouch...that's tough sledding.

Surprised there’s no mention of how they chickened out and butchered the ending.

(mild spoilers)

Someone needs to sacrifice themselves to destroy the great evil. The book has one of the human champions die, but Disney decided one of the non-human fantastic creatures would do the deed instead.

I actually never saw the movie but I had a comic version of it as a kid and liked it.

Same!

To relive that nostalgia, I found myself searching for and purchasing the comic on eBay, as I had long misplaced my original copy during all my moves. I’d like to say that it retained its charm after nearly 40 years, but alas, that was not the case.

Gosh, I remember my family renting this and the VHS player to watch it as a kid. I remember nothing about the plot. Only pizza, soda, VHS rental, and this title specifically.

As far as I know The Black Cauldron is not referenced in their parks and if anything some fantasy land (outside say the princess castle and sword in the stone) would be great.

I actually think it was a good movie. The airy, strange, but very capable princess seemed like an interesting change from the typical Disney princess.

Granted I get it, people had expectations of Disney movies and that one was not it.

If you haven't read the books, she is even better in them.

The Taran book series is incredible. Basically anything that Lloyd Alexander’s pen ever touched was gold.

Fun fact about the name Lloyd, it's an anglicization of the Welsh word Llwyd, meaning grey, and was originally an epithet applied for being the color grey, or grey haired, or in some cases brown and related colors. So it's a bit like the last name Brown or White, but has become first name, oddly enough.

And the welsh word is pronounced with that particular welsh "Ll" sound, a fricative around the tongue, but the word Lloyd lost that pronunciation - but not before we had alterations like Floyd and Fludd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_(name)

My all-time favorite series.

The Horned King used to appear in Tokyo Disneyland. Unfortunately earthquake regulations got him, so you are correct today.

https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Cinderella_Castle_Mystery_Tou...

The article claims it failed because it was too dark, my recollection is that felt stiff and klunky.

For a second my brain was mixing this up with The Dark Crystal.

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