Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews: Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp

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NOTE: Throughout the month of May I’m raising money for the American Cancer Society, Please read to the very end of the post to see how you can help.

“Are there any of you who wish to live happily ever after?”
– A tantalizing offer from the Genie of the Lamp

Aladdin: genies, magic lamps, flying carpets, vast deserts, beautiful princesses, wicked viziers, it’s just your basic Arabian fairytale from The One Thousand and One Nights, right?

Though the stories within The One Thousand and One Nights (aka The Arabian Nights) were collected by Asian, Arabic, and African authors over several centuries, Aladdin was shoehorned in by Antoine Galland as part of his French translation of the anthology. It was based on a folktale that Galland claimed he heard from the Syrian storyteller Hanna Diyab in 1709. This “original” iteration takes place in China though it retains the Arabian elements we’ve come to expect, including there being a sultan instead of an emperor. There’s also an unusual epilogue where the evil sorcerer’s brother disguises himself as a medicine woman as part of an elaborate ruse to get revenge on Aladdin. Considering the bizarre, forced turns many of the Disney direct-to-video sequels took in order to justify their existence, I’m surprised none of the Aladdin sequels decided to take a page from there and give us “JAFAR’S CRAZY BROTHER!!”

Yeah, yeah, I know this exists, shut up.

With the advent of cinema and rise of filmmaking technology, Aladdin and Aladdin-type stories became a recurring staple of adventure-fantasy flicks set in the Middle East (as viewed through the West’s warped exoticism-heavy lens, of course). The earliest surviving animated film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, boasts elements of Aladdin, as does Richard Williams’ unfinished masterpiece The Thief and the Cobbler; the latter, in addition to The Thief of Baghdad and The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, would go on to inspire the best-known (and overall best) version of the story in modern culture, the 1992 animated Disney classic. Today’s Faerie Tale Theatre episode is one of the last adaptations of Aladdin before Disney swallowed everything that came before and after it. So how does it hold up?

Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews: The Emperor’s New Clothes

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“The people care not one whit for the inner workings of government. They only care that I look the part. If I’m to appear as a slovenly, disheveled ragamuffin, the subjects would assume that I am as common and ordinary as they are and unfit to rule this vast kingdom. No, they want to look up to me. They need to admire me. They demand I oppress them! And I shall.”
– The Emperor’s raison d’etre that proves to be his undoing

Now we go from one fashion-centric fairytale about maintaining royal appearances to another. The Emperor’s New Clothes is the story that best encapsulates the lesson “clothes (don’t) make the man”. Though popularized by Hans Christian Andersen, the original version goes as far back as 1300s Spain. It’s one of many cautionary tales collected by Prince Juan Manuel of Villena in his moralistic compendium Libro de los ejemplos. Leaning into the fact that these stories were not intended for children, the king in this narrative is tricked into buying a suit that’s “invisible” to any man who’s not the son of his presumed father. A similar story is told in India, where the ruse is exposed when the commoners ask their king if he’s become a naked monk.

Andersen was unfamiliar with the Spanish original but based his take on a German translation. The alterations he made reflected his ire towards the vanity, pride, and false intellectualism of the upper class. One such change, however, reflects an incident in Andersen’s own life. As a boy, his parents took him to see the king’s procession through town; so much hype was built up around him that upon seeing the monarch for himself, young Andersen declared “But he’s only a man!” Despite his family shushing him, he would not be silenced. There’s little doubt that this scene influenced the climax of his story.

Hollis Robbins, in her critique of The Emperor’s New Clothes, states that the tale is so transparent that there’s no need for scrutiny. If you’ll forgive the expression, it wears its moral on its sleeve. And yes, I can see where Robbins is coming from, but that doesn’t make it any less important. In the wake of certain administrations and the ongoing battle to bring them to justice, it’s more important than ever to point out the naked truth regarding corrupt, self-serving officials instead of swallowing the lies they deck themselves in. This story is foundational in teaching those young and old that change can begin when someone has the courage to say that the Emperor has no clothes.

Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews: The Pied Piper of Hamelin

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“‘Please your honors,’ said he, ‘I’m able, by means of a secret charm, to draw all creatures living beneath the sun that creep, or swim, or fly, or run, after me so as you never saw! And I chiefly use my charm on creatures that do people harm: the mole, and toad, and newt, and viper; And people call me the Pied Piper.’”
-An introduction to a character that needs no introduction

For 300 years, a stained glass window depicting a colorfully dressed piper stood in the church of the German town of Hamelin. Although the window was destroyed in 1660, records detail the message enshrined upon it:

In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul on June 26, by a piper, clothed in many kinds of colors, 130 born in Hamlin were seduced and lost at the place of execution near the koppen.

Another entry in Hamelin’s town records dating from 1384 follows up with a grim assessment:

It has been 100 years since our children left.

It’s said that every folk story and fairy tale has a grain of truth to them…which can make the tale in question even more disturbing when there are written accounts to back it up. Such is the case with The Pied Piper of Hamelin. We know something terrible right out of a fantasy story did indeed happen, but the details and reasoning behind it are lost to time. From there the human imagination takes over and fills in the spaces with dark suppositions. What of this enigmatic Piper who lured so many victims to an unknown fate? Is he Death personified? One of the fae? A remnant of the mysterious dancing plague that struck 14th century Europe? Was he a colorful recruiter of German colonizers looking to settle further east? A metaphor for the Children’s Crusade, where thousands of children were rounded up to take the Holy Land only to never return? Or, perhaps, a dark manifestation of the fear of child predators?

Curiously, neither the window nor documents make any mention of a rat plague that so often accompanies retellings of the Pied Piper story. That aspect didn’t appear until the 16th century. The wonder and terror surrounding the Piper’s doings have inspired one interpretation after another. Can Faerie Tale Theatre recapture the magic, or is it full of sour notes?

Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews: The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers

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“I’ve got to learn about the shivers, and this seems like such a sure thing.”
“Do you not want the treasure?”
“Treasure? What would I do with treasure?”
– Our protagonist’s reasons for seeking danger

I usually begin these reviews with a brief discussion of each fairy tale’s origin and history. This time, however, let’s talk a bit about a certain folkloric archetype: The Fool.

When I first started writing these reviews, I considered combining this episode with a later one, The Princess Who Never Laughed, because both have fools at the heart of their story. A fool’s true purpose is to provide more than just comic relief. They are uninhibited by social conventions and often maintain a childlike innocence towards the world. Through their ridiculous words and actions – or the appearance of such – they reveal truths that the characters and audience might not have discovered otherwise.

The most notable example is in Shakespeare’s King Lear. Lear’s Fool is the only one allowed to openly criticize him without repercussion thanks to phrasing his jibes to sound like harmless jokes. Perhaps if the mad monarch listened to him, his story wouldn’t have ended so tragically. Likewise, Lady Olivia’s fool Feste in the play Twelfth Night is quick to snap her out of her melancholy by pointing out the folly of grieving her late brother: “The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven.” (Act One, Scene Five)

In other cases, the Fool demonstrates how selflessness and kindness will always outweigh strength and wit, like in the Russian folktale The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship. The story even contains the line “God loves a fool, and will turn things to their advantage in the end.” Though denigrated by his own family for his perceived simple-mindedness, this Fool is a caring soul to everyone he meets, and hits the karmic jackpot as a result: a cabal of super-powered friends, the hand of a princess, the adulation of his fellow countrymen, and of course, the only airborne schooner known to man.

The Fool archetype has gone even beyond the written word. In the tarot Major Arcana, The Fool is the first numbered card in the pack. He’s often depicted as a cheerful youth, sometimes accompanied by a dog, making his way down a sunny path without really looking where he’s going. Should The Fool wander into your tarot reading, it signifies the start of an exciting new journey in your future…or, perhaps, a fool’s errand.

This all ties into today’s episode and the story it entails. It’s another tale brought to us by the Brothers Grimm. Though there were a few variants beforehand, this iteration was directly influenced by an Arthurian story of Sir Lancelot spending a night in a haunted castle. Alternate titles in various fairy tale collections replace the word “Boy” with “Youth” or “Fool”; no matter the difference in sobriquet, it’s the same main character with the same foolish attributes. In keeping with both themes, this fool teaches us that some common fears might not be as terrible as they seem, and other things that are actually worth fearing may never have crossed our minds before…

Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews: The Princess and The Pea

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“That’s…IMPOSSIBLE! Nobody could feel a PEA beneath TWENTY MATTRESSES!!” “The Queen is almost as clever as the Fool.”
– Prince Richard and the Fool discovering the Queen’s implausible test and earning their snarky reviewer cred simultaneously

If you’ve ever been in community theater or took it up while in school, chances are you’ve been in either of the following productions at least once: Bye Bye Birdie, or Once Upon A Mattress. They’re frothy, light and fun shows that remain popular because they’re so easy to put on. Oddly enough, that was the main criticism Hans Christian Andersen received after penning the fairy tale Mattress is based on, The Princess and The Pea (my, it’s been a while since we’ve covered one of his narratives, hasn’t it?) Critics disliked the story’s laid-back tone and lack of morals and ripped into it like an old-school film auteur when asked about superhero movies. Despite the chilly reception, time was kind to The Princess and The Pea; when Andersen passed away, it was considered one of his most beloved stories.

As ol’ Hans tended to create his own fables as opposed to gathering them for posterity like the Brothers Grimm, I expected this to be a wholly original tale. Remarkably, there’s some precedence set by folktales spanning throughout Europe and Asia focusing on sensitivity as a mark of femininity. Sweden’s The Princess Who Lay On Seven Peas has the princess prove her pedigree by sleeping on, well, seven peas; she’s already aware of the test, though, thanks to being warned by her cat. An Italian story has a prince search for the most sensitive woman to make his bride, ending with him marrying a lady whose foot is injured by a falling flower petal. India’s variation, The Three Delicate Wives of Virtue-Banner, features a king solving a riddle about which of the maharajah’s wives is the most fragile. The earliest known story, however, is the medieval Islamic tale al-Nadirah. Though it’s likely all the previous stories originate from this one, the ending is less than happy. Princess al-Nadirah falls in love at first sight with the Persian king Shaupur I, betrays her father to him, and marries him – all while he’s in the middle of besieging her city, making this the first instance of Stockholm Syndrome before the term was even coined. She has trouble sleeping once they start sharing a bed, though. The culprit is a myrtle leaf found under the mattress. When Shapur asks how Nadirah can be so alarmingly delicate, she says it stems from how well her dad treated her. Shapur, appalled by how she could throw such a caring father under the bus, calls her out on her ingratitude and executes her. Well, there’s your morals for ya, backstab your family to bed a usurper and you get what you deserve.

Returning to the topic at hand, why has The Princess and The Pea grown into such a well-known fairy tale? What is it about it that makes it ripe for retelling? Some researchers believe it’s one of Andersen’s biting critiques of the upper-class; that the infamous mattress test pokes fun at the ridiculous measures taken by the nobility to prove their bloodlines pure. Others view it as another self-insert where Andersen expresses his longing to be part of the elite, and the extreme sensitivity he felt trying to fit in. As for me personally, the ridiculous and mirthful nature of the story is a nice break from some of Andersen’s more infamously dour tales. It’s endlessly optimistic, with the time-honored messages of not letting appearances deceive you and what’s on the inside that counts standing fully at the forefront – and it so easily lends itself to the romantic comedy genre. Today’s entry is the prime example of that. It boasts a lead in need of a partner who turns his worldview around, a love interest who’s more than what she seems, a comic relief best friend, a domineering mother figure and false-flag fiancées who provide obstacles, misunderstandings galore…the only thing that’s missing is a director’s credit for Garry Marshall.

Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews: Jack and the Beanstalk

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“When you mounted that beanstalk, you started to climb that ladder to fortune!”
– The Mysterious Old Man, reminding us that opportunities are worth the arduous climb

What’s in a name? Would that which we would call a Jack by any other name be as wily, cunning, adventurous or tricky? Perhaps, but then he wouldn’t be nearly as memorable as those who share the namesake. Funny how you find a lot of Jacks in fairy tales and nursery rhymes, isn’t it? There’s Jack Sprat, Jack Horner, Jack Be Nimble, Jack O’Lantern, and of course, Jack The Giant Killer, a distant cousin of today’s story. Thanks to the multitude of English and Appalachian tales featuring a hero with that sobriquet, naming a character Jack has become shorthand for a clever, agile, and often charming personality, a tradition in fiction which continues to this day (Jack Sparrow, Reacher, and Skellington, anyone?) Of course, it’s only natural that someone with a larger-than-life persona would have an enemy in someone who is, quite literally, larger than life.

Myths of giants and giant killers have rocked the folkloric landscape since the days of Greek and Norse mythology. The story of Jack and the Beanstalk, however, grew almost entirely out of England. Scholars have found its roots go as far back as 4500 BC, with some signs that it may have originated in early Iran. Inspired by the aforementioned Jack The Giant Killer and passed down through years of oral tradition, the story as we first know it appeared in English publications in 1734 as “The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean” (I can see why the title got whittled down). It was later popularized in 1845 by Henry Cole, the man who invented greeting cards, and again by Australian folklorist Joseph Jacobs in 1890. Jacobs’ version is the one that stuck around the longest, and is the take on Jack’s adventures that we’re all familiar with, for better or worse.

See, while all those qualities I mentioned earlier can be noble in some Jacks, they can be villainous in others, like Spring-Heeled Jack and Jack The Ripper – and even in the case of this particular Jack. Back in the salad days of Jack and the Beanstalk’s popularity, no one really questioned the morality of Jack’s actions. I suppose just being a giant (and an implied man-eating one at that) were wicked enough traits to make him the designated antagonist. When the Victorian period dictated that all children’s stories should teach morals in as hamfisted a manner as possible, Andrew Lang and Benjamin Tabart rewrote Jack and the Beanstalk so that Jack has a tragic backstory that gives him the moral high ground and makes the Giant more monstrous from the reader’s perspective. While the idea does have merit, I’m left wondering if two wrongs really do make a right. Does stealing from someone and eventually murdering them negate your culpability if the victim committed those same crimes against you first? What if your retribution left behind a widow with no one to support her? Does that still make you a hero, or leave you in the need of some good PR? I suppose that’s why I lean towards versions where Jack realizes his greed is making him as much a monster as the giant, or where the consequences of his actions catch up to him and he must take responsibility in order to set things right (hi, Into The Woods). I definitely don’t expect Faerie Tale Theatre’s to delve into such a moral gray area, but how do they handle making this Jack a hero worth rooting for?

An Introduction to Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews

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“Hello, I’m Shelley Duvall. Welcome to Faerie Tale Theatre.”

Once upon a time in the faraway land of Malta, an actress named Shelley Duvall starred in a little movie called Popeye. A blithe innocent spirit, Ms. Duvall kept herself entertained with a charming book of fairy tales in between shooting. Duvall recounted the story of The Frog Prince to her costar, Robin Williams, who found the tale humorous enough to his liking. From there, an idea sprung that would stay with many a child of the 80s and 90s.

From 1982 to 1987, Duvall produced and hosted Faerie Tale Theatre, a 27-episode long anthology series on Showtime. She convinced many of the biggest stars of the time to play the roles and even a few well-known auteurs to direct using her clout and gregarious charm. Duvall herself would star in seven of the episodes as well. This show, along with HBO’s Fraggle Rock, proved to be one of the first successful examples of cable programming and cemented itself as a cult classic. My own experience with Faerie Tale Theatre stems from renting episodes on VHS from my library at a very young age. Back in the day, if you really wanted to know what you were in for, then you could turn to the VHS cover. Yes, we’re all familiar with the old adage about not judging a book et cetera, but there’s an art to home media releases that’s tragically all but lost. The VHS tapes of Faerie Tale Theatre had a specifically crafted painting made for each episode done in a famous art style that the episode itself replicated in its set and costume design. Apart from giving you an idea about the content on the tape, it was just pretty to look at. Tell me, which is the more inviting, this –

or THESE?

After a lengthy time gap, I rediscovered the entire series on Youtube and watched with fascination. While many of the effects and the over-reliance on green screen certainly dates it, there’s a nostalgic charm that’s far from a deal-breaker. This was well before Disney began building upon and later deconstructing classic fairy tales with the Renaissance and Revival periods of animation, meaning the stories are told completely straight with just the bare amount of changes needed to fill an hour runtime. Seeing a score of well-known actors in fantasy costumes playing to the cheap seats can make you feel like you’re watching a pantomime, but there’s hardly a moment where it seems like they’re doing it just for the paycheck. Everyone involved looks like they’re in on the idea of putting on an entertaining show. Some performances remind us how excellent some of the actors are at their craft, others show sides to their talent that were rarely seen – though for the most part, there’s plenty of ham to go around, ham smothered in heaps of delicious cheese.

So I’ll be going through every episode in order, providing a ranking, a little bit of the stories’ history, why they were changed, and how they hold up compared to other versions. I won’t be classifying the reviews season by season as the amount of episodes in each one is erratic, with some having as many as six or as few as two. Despite their being only twenty-six of them (plus one reunion episode), there’s going to be a lot to unpack.

See you tomorrow when I review the first entry in this series, The Tale of the Frog Prince.

October/Special Request Review: Return To Oz (1985)

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“Hey, Ironic Disney Logo, you’ve been gone for a while. How are you feeling?”

“A bit better, thanks. Having to relive The Black Cauldron and Mickey’s Christmas Carol in the same year took a toll on me. The 80’s were a rough decade.”

“Funny you should mention that. I’m looking at another 80’s Disney movie and wanted to ask if you’d give your two cents.”

“Which one is it?”

“Return to Oz.”

“OHHHHH NO, you get yourself another logo to drag through this nightmare ’cause I’M. NOT. DOING IT.”

“Too late, you’re already in the review talking about how you don’t want to be in it.”

“I-but-I…fine. Just let me have a good hard drink first while you do the intro.”

“Gladly.”

Few know that one of Walt Disney’s unrealized dreams was to make an Oz movie he could call his own. There’s plenty of books in the series beyond the first and most popular one, and Walt bought the rights to them before they went into the public domain. He could take the material in any direction he wanted so long as he didn’t tread on MGM’s toes. The closest we ever got to seeing his vision was an episode of Walt Disney Presents where the Mousketeers “pitched” a musical called The Rainbow Road To Oz to their beloved leader. It was a perfect way to build hype for a movie…that never even made it past the planning stage for whatever reason. Since then Disney released a few Oz-themed song and story records, but Filmation was the first to make their own unofficial sequel. It starred Judy Garland’s daughter Liza Minelli as Dorothy and Margaret Hamilton as Aunt Em –

Wait, Margaret Hamilton was the actress that played the Wicked Witch of the West. What was it that she said at her most evil moment in the original movie?

“I’LL give you Auntie Em, my pretty! AAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!”

“Run, knockoff animated Dorothy!! IT’S A TRAP!!!”

Anyway, Disney all but sat on the Oz books until the 1980’s when the copyright on them was set to expire. Just like Sony with Spider-Man before the MCU came a-knocking, they rushed to come up with a movie so they could hold on to the rights for that much longer*. By a staggering coincidence, Walter Murch was interested in launching his directing career with a new Oz story. Murch is a legendary Academy Award-winning editor and sound designer, and this is his first – and as of writing this review, only – cinematic directorial venture. A pity he didn’t stick with it; based on what we got from Return To Oz he could have been one of the greats. That’s a hole not even three Oscars, a Nikola Tesla award, the 2015 Vision Award Nescens and two honorary doctorates could ever hope to fill.

Return To Oz was released in 1985, the same year as The Black Cauldron. And just like that experimental venture into the darker side of fantasy, it was a box office bomb that went on to develop an immense cult following. Some big names that have come out as fans include the Scissor Sisters, who wrote an entire song inspired by and named after the film on their first album, and no less an authority on the cynical side of fantasy/sci-fi than Harlan freaking Ellison. But why did it flop to begin with? Well, dear reader, there are a few reasons as to that:

1. Change of Management

Return To Oz was filmed as Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells stepped in to give Disney a much-needed overhaul. I’ve already discussed the pros and cons of their sweeping changes to the animation department, but live-action is a trickier subject. Whenever there’s a regime change at a major studio, expect certain previously announced movies to either get axed or rushed out to theaters with little fanfare depending on the new CEOs’ tastes. By the time Wells, Katzenberg and Eisner took over, Disney’s live-action features had gone from safe, bland “What would Walt have done” fare to edgier fantasy flicks, though neither routes had turned a desired profit. Return To Oz was the last of the latter category to be released; when it wasn’t the box office or critical darling they hoped it would be, it left theaters almost as quickly as it came and hasn’t been mentioned again since. It’s not the first instance of this sort of thing happening to great films (alas, poor Baron Munchausen) and it won’t be the last.

And this ties into…

2. Misaimed Marketing

Return To Oz was marketed as a straight-up sequel to the 1939 classic, so people came in expecting a lighthearted musical romp and walked out not knowing what had hit them. Unlike the other attempts at sequels that more or less followed the formula of the first film, Return To Oz is much closer in terms of plot, character and tone to the novels. There were complaints that it was unfaithful to the Oz stories, but as someone who’s read most of them, I disagree; if anything, Return To Oz is far more faithful to the L. Frank Baum books than The Wizard of Oz ever was, deftly combining elements from the second and third entries into a deep, cohesive narrative that still manages to tie into the first one. The only thing that even remotely links Return To Oz to The Wizard of Oz are the ruby slippers, which Disney paid a hefty fee to MGM to use. This makes the movie more of a spiritual sequel than a canon continuation, at least for me. If the original Wizard of Oz had stuck to the aesthetic and writing of the book it was based on, then this would have been a direct sequel; though I understand how difficult it must be to market a sequel to a version of a beloved movie that was never made.

3. Behind The Scenes Drama

With the amount of major set pieces, special effects and hands that go into making any film, it’s usually no big surprise if some drama breaks out. Shooting Return To Oz went over schedule and over budget, the script was rewritten many times to try to combat the darker tone, and Walter Murch’s clashes with executives nearly resulted in his firing. He barely kept his job through some divine intervention:

“Mr. Shortmeind, a trio of directors wish to have a word with you.”

“Jeeves, how many times have I told you not to interrupt my hourly money fanning?!”

“Don’t worry, Jeeves, we’ve got this.”

“S-Spielberg…Lucas…Coppola!! I am at your beck and call, gentlemen! Say the word and you and all your beautiful box office returns can have whatever you wish!”

“Save your groveling for awards season, Shortmeind. What’s this we heard about our good friend Walter Murch being fired from his Oz movie?”

“Fired?! Wha-wh-who said anything about being fired? No no no, I said Murch was…inspired! Yeah, that’s it! Inspired! What a damn good director he is!”

“So we trust there’s no issue with him finishing what he started?”

“Absolutely, gentlemen! Everything’s peachy keen here!”

“Good. We’ll be back on Wednesday to discuss the plans for Star Tours, Roger Rabbit, and the Apocalypse Now re-theming of the Jungle Cruise. Toodles!”

“Jeeves!! Get Murch on the phone and tell him to be back here first thing in the morning!”

“At once, sir. Shall I check in on Mr. Katzenberg’s progress in editing The Black Cauldron as well?”

“This money ain’t gonna fan itself, Jeeves! There’s only so much of me to go around!”

4. It’s Terror Time Again

If Ironic Disney Logo hasn’t clued you in already, Return To Oz has a reputation surrounding it – that being it’s one of those films that terrified an entire generation of 80’s kids. It doesn’t downplay the grimmer elements borrowed from the novels – hell, it bravely takes them even further. I only caught glimpses of Return To Oz on tv a few times though I somehow always missed the frightening bits; yet when I finally saw it in full in my teens, I totally understood why certain scenes would leave a few scars. But there’s no gore, nudity, swearing or terrible messages that would make this movie unsuitable for children. Like An American Tail, it has a likable set of heroes that you want to follow and there’s a happy ending, both of which make it easier to see it through. Despite how much I’ve gone on about what scared me as a child, I’m of the mind that kids should be exposed to a bit of safe darkness through their movies or shows to challenge them and make things a little more exciting. I mean, I grew up with this,

this,

this,

and this,

– and I turned out okay. Just ask my therapist.

Brace yourselves, folks. We’re heading down the yellow brick highway to hell. This is Return To Oz.

MovieBabble: The Magical Underrated Adventures of Baron Munchausen

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80's fantasy, adaptation, adventure, anniversary, baron munchausen, catherine the great, eric idle, Fantasy, flight of fancy, flight of fantasy, giant whale, john neville, king of the moon, michael kamen, monty python, moon, moon people, munchausen, oliver reed, queen of the moon, review, robin williams, sally, terry gilliam, the adventures of baron munchausen, the munchausen waltz, underrated, venus, waltz, waltz through the sky

Happy 30th anniversary to the incredible fantasy that I’ve praised multiple times before, Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen! I was shocked to see it not come up on the movie anniversary sign-up list for MovieBabble and immediately set out to rectify that.

If you haven’t seen it before or need a reminder as to why it’s a film that deserves more recognition, click HERE to read my article on it. Also, please enjoy this fan-made trailer I made a while back. For glory, adventure, and the defiance of reality!

October Review: The Black Cauldron (1985) PART 1

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1980's, 80's fantasy, 80’s Disney, action, Action-Adventure, adventure, animated, animated feature, animated movie, animated movie review, animation, animators, battle, Black Cauldron, cauldron, cauldron born, Chronicles of Prydain, computer animation, Creeper, dark age, dark ages, Disney, disney animated, disney animated feature, disney animated movie, disney animation, disney review, Doli, editing, Eisner, Fantasy, Fflewder Flam, Frank Wells, greedy businessman, Gurgi, hero, Hollywood, Horned King, jeffrey katzenberg, Katzenberg, Lloyd Alexander, magic, making of, Michael Eisner, movie review, nine old men, original, Princess Eilonwy, prydain, quest, Romance, screen adaptation, Taran, The Black Cauldron, Waking Sleeping Beauty, witches

Of all the animated Disney films out there, few have had a history as troubled or as fascinating as The Black Cauldron. Shaped less by the average process of transforming a novel to film and more by the decade, regime, mindset towards animation and internal struggle of power of the studio that made it, The Black Cauldron is considered the black sheep of the canon; those who worked on it have few fond memories of the experience, and the result of all that blood, sweat, tears, and voodoo curses hurled in Jeffrey Katzenberg’s direction is an odd creature Disney is content to let wallow in relative obscurity. To this day it’s looked down upon by all but a few loyal fans who’ve elevated it to semi-cult status. The story of how and why this is is worth a documentary of its own.

As for my thoughts on the film itself…well…

“It’s complicated.”

I honestly can’t talk about my feelings towards The Black Cauldron without putting it into some context first. And there’s a LOT of context that needs to be explained. Hence why I’ve decided to split this review into two parts. This first half will go over the history of the movie and behind the scenes shenanigans, while Part 2, which is the review I know you’ve been anticipating, will be released next week. So if you want to avoid an engaging history lesson that discusses the climate in which The Black Cauldron was created in depth and go right to the film itself, I suggest you return at a later date. Or go watch Waking Sleeping Beauty. It’s a fascinating, personal look into the struggle that shaped Disney’s Renaissance era and they devote a good chunk of the beginning into what went down during the making of The Black Cauldron.