Disney Era Analysis – The Black Cauldron
As mentioned in the first blog post in this series, I’ll be writing analysis content on all 60+ Disney animated feature films and their film making eras.
The fourth era is the Bronze Age, which ran from 1970 to 1988 and started with The Aristocats. As mentioned in a previous blog post, the Bronze Age is also known as the “Dark Age,” as the films during this era were the first ones made after Walt Disney’s death.
Without Walt Disney’s creative direction, the animators tried new things with the animation style during this era, which ended up being criticised as cheap and lazy, due to their use of xerography and recycling animation. As well as the heavy use of xerography and recycling animation, this era is also known for its darker and edgier films, which were the brainchild of the then-new generation of animators from Cal Arts.
So how well did The Black Cauldron measure up to these famous features?
Use of xerography and recycling animation:
Interestingly, this film is the first full-length Disney animated feature film to incorporate CGI into its animation. The CGI was utilised for most of the special effects. According to IMDb, the dimensions and volume of the animated objects were fed into a computer, and then their shapes were manipulated through computer programming, before they were transferred as physical outlines the animators could work on.
Another technological breakthrough came in the form of the development of the APT (Animation Photo Transfer) process, which was the first major change in Disney’s method of transferring artists’ drawings to a cel since the development and establishment of xerography, and greatly improved Disney’s animation art. I believe these technological breakthroughs and changes are why I couldn’t notice any recycled animation (if there was any). However, according to IMDb, when Dallben uses Hen Wen’s magic to find the Horned King, the first image that appears in the water was a recycled section from the segment, ‘The Night on Bald Mountain’ from Fantasia.
Being a darker and edgier film:
This film is easily the darkest and edgiest film that Disney has made (at least up until that point in time), especially as it was notorious for having to have several minutes cut, due to scaring children in test screenings. Its dark nature was easily seen through its art, animation, and themes of dark magic, death, and resurrection.
According to IMDb, this film was Disney’s attempt to reach out to teenage fans of fantasy novels. The film itself was based on a novel series by Lloyd Alexander, The Chronicles of Prydain, which are based on Welsh mythology. The film’s critical and commercial failure would reignite debate about whether or not animated feature films could attract more mature audiences.
Interestingly, the art and animation became brighter and more colourful at the film’s end when the Horned King was defeated and Gurgi was resurrected.
My overall thoughts:
Overall, I can see why this film is regarded as Disney’s darkest film, with its dark nature and themes, and accompanying animation and art. I personally didn’t enjoy the film because of its dark nature and found myself tuning out at times, however I felt this film’s narrative was more cohesive than its predecessor.
Unfortunately, between its dark and edgy nature, as well as its omission of several scenes and minutes, it’s not surprising that it was a critical and commercial failure.
The next part of the Disney Era Analysis series will focus on The Great Mouse Detective.
Fun Facts and Trivia (according to the film’s IMDb page):
- This film is the first Disney animated feature film that’s not a musical, does not contain any songs neither performed by characters, nor in the background. The film only contained a score.
- This is the first Disney animated feature film to feature the “classic” Walt Disney Pictures logo: the white castle and text over a blue background.
- Fans of the fantasy genre and this film have tried many times to get the famously deleted footage restored.
- At the time of recording, Grant Bardsley (Taran) was 14 years old, when the film was released, he was around 18/19 years old, demonstrating how long the film’s production and release took, due to the film’s dark nature and conflicts between old and new animators.
References:
Loveday Writing 