Ladies and Gentleman,
This is Disney's 1985 film THE BLACK CAULDRON
If you're too young to remember,
A loose adaptation of the first two books of LLOYD ALEXANDER'S THE CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN series.
Or you're old enough but simply forgot this film existed in the first place,
Disney's 25th Animated film is famous and infamous for several things.
It's infamous for ALMOST KILLING DISNEY'S ANIMATION DEPARTMENT just because of Studio Politics, obsession with making Animation Kid-Friendly, and Ousting Ron Miller and replacing him with Michael Eisner, Jeffery Katzenberg, and Frank Wells.
And for going up against the GODDAMN CARE BEARS in the BOX OFFICE to which the studio brass called their fight against Nelvana as the PROVERBIAL ROCK BOTTOM.
Right on LOU PICKLES!!!
SCREW YOU CARE BEARS!!!! YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE!!!
ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU RUINED NELVANA'S ROCK AND RULE
FOR EVERYBODY BACK IN 1983!!!
Nobody likes THE CARE BEARS, except for saccharine Parents, Babies,.....
I commend your choice of words.
Despite the negative press,
BLACK CAULDRON is still famous for being a Wakeup call for DISNEY on making sure not to TRY TOO HARD with these adaptations.
Concurrently at the same time during production, Disney had another film that they could fall back to in the event of CAULDRON'S failure...
But for now until next year when we PROPERLY celebrate MOUSE DETECTIVE's 40th Anniversary, this year, we will focus on THE BLACK CAULDRON.
This film took almost 4 YEARS to make but that's nothing when compared to the Production time that it took for SLEEPING BEAUTY(1959) which was a good chunk of the 1950s.
This film was pretty much a migration period for the Animation studio where the old guard was completely dropped in favor of the newer animators who took the reigns here.
Amongst them being Andreas Deja for example.
As for release, did you know that BLACK CAULDRON was susposed to be released on December 1984?
NO?
Well the reason it wasn't a 1984 release was because the film was screened at one point during a test screening and due to reactions from kids at the time and also due to a change of guard after the ousting of RON MILLER,
Jeffery Katzenberg wanted to edit the film so that it's more Child Friendly and avoid a potential R-Rating.
Ironically but also miraculously, depending on your point of view, Michael Eisner stepped in and had a spat with Katzenberg about final editorials.
"Word of advice, if the film is complete, DON'T EDIT THE CRAP OUT OF IT!!!"
This film was also the first to introduce Disney's newest technique for Ink and Paint called
THE ANIMATION PHOTO TRANSFER Process.
I forgot to mention this on my two Xerox posts and my CAPS post but this technique was somewhat short-lived and patented only for Disney so I didn't mention it.
The technique was an extension of the Xerography method where the drawings were photographed on HIGH-CONTRAST LITHO FILM and the resulting photo negative would be transferred on to acetate cel sheets that would transfer the lines and colors, therefore eliminating the laborious hand-inking method.
But starting with THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER in 1990,
The computer would make India Ink Hand-Inking, Lithograph Plate Xerography, and the Animation Photo Transfer Process,
ALL OBSOLETE
In favor of Photo Scanners, Wacom Tablets, proprietary paint software, CGI Software from Alias, editing software from AVID, and UNIX Machines from SGI, Sun Microsystems, & DEC.
Speaking about CGI, BLACK CAULDRON is one of the very first films to use CGI on screen in a 2D Animated film.
.....
Yeah Yeah. CGI on 2D Animation.
A Controversial Marriage, especially amongst Richard Williams or Ollie Johnston DRAWING IN 24FPS PERSPECTIVE Purists.
But I still call this a major achievement,
even if the CGI in CAULDRON is limited to Image Manipulation, Optical image replacements such as explosions, Eylonwy's Light Orb, and the smoke coming out of the Cauldron near the end of the movie.
Though I read that the mist was actually optical photography of
Dry Ice.
The irony is that BLACK CAULDRON was the second in production order to use CGI when MOUSE DETECTIVE was the first to use it but that film wouldn't release until July 2nd 1986.
As you can see in the image above, Black Cauldron marked the return of
ULTRAWIDE for a Disney Animated flick since SLEEPING BEAUTY.
Though after Cauldon's bombing in the BOX OFFICE, the company wisely decided against the lenses in favor of 1.85:1 until the release of ATLANTIS in 2001 but that will have to wait for a blog post on 2026 to commemorate that film's 25th Anniversary.
I felt compelled to make this post, not because it's the film's 40th Anniversary but earlier this year on JANUARY 29 2025, we lost JOE HALE, producer of THE BLACK CAULRDON.
If you want to watch the film in 4K, Disney+ has it, and as a matter of fact, it's the only way to watch in in 4K due to the MOUSE HOUSE's past apathy for the film.
The most recent release for the film on Physical Media is a 1080p HD Blu-ray but that's only for those who are in the MOVIE REWARDS PROGRAM....
At least it's a much better offer than what the Mouse House did with their release of DOUG's 1ST MOVIE on DVD back in 2012.
In 2019 when the service launched, the film was added, Black Cauldron was given the 4K Treatment. Something that wouldn't be given to it's successor MOUSE DETECTIVE & Oliver,
Though Mermaid was given it's 4K Treatment.
And yes, I did watch THE BLACK CAULDRON on the DISNEY+ service the same year it launched..... which I did sign up for when that serviced launched on November 12 2019.
Anyway, hope you're doing what you can to celebrate BLACK CAULDRON'S 40th anniversary in spite of the fights the film had during production and after.
So what are you waiting for, sit back on your LA-Z Boy Recliners or Couches, grab a bag of Canadian-produced LAYS Potato Chips, fire up your PS5s, XBOXs, Roku's or whatever you use for streaming or Blu-Ray, or DVD, and enjoy your 40th Anniversary screenings with device.
(Headphones or Soundbars recommended.)
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