Hell Yeah, Prydain!

This will be about the books and the movie with some occasional detours about who was involved from Lloyd Alexander himself to the animators who worked in the Disney version and I may even do some Katzenberg if I'm ever feeling nice enough to talk about how much I blame him for everything that's wrong with the movie. Assistant Pig-Keeper(s) The Chronicles of Prydain (sometimes given as The Prydain Chronicles) is a five-volume series of children's fantasy novels by author Lloyd Alexander. First published from 1964–1968, the stories detail the adventures of a young man named Taran, who is awarded the honor of Assistant Pig-Keeper but dreams of being a grand hero, and his companions Princess Eilonwy, Fflewddur Fflam the wandering bard and king, a feral yet gentle creature called Gurgi, and a dwarf named Doli. The Black Cauldron (movie) is a 1985 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and originally released to theatres on July 24, 1985. The twenty-fifth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, the film is based on Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain book series, which is in turn based on Welsh mythology.

[daekazu]

Winter Eilonwy (from the Black Cauldron)

[starrattlerofprydain]

This is literally like the video I made with Tangled… but with The Black Cauldron, because hey, why not?

…. Ya know, if anyone has any suggestions on what videos I can make next, feel free to tell meeee!

[animatedmovies-quotes]

“Without my sword, I’m nothing… just an assistant pig keeper.” - Taran

“Look, you are somebody. You must believe in yourself. I believe in you.” - Princess Eilonwy

The Black Cauldron, 1985, USA, Walt Disney Animation Studios

[disneyyandmore-blog]

[starrattlerofprydain]

[disneyprint]

The Black Cauldron: Taran’s Magic Sword

Golden Book, 1985

[wordswithkittywitch]

This will probably be the first and only time I make a post of this style.

[the-agender-kid]

The Westmark Trilogy by Lloyd Alexander.

[sensationaldisney]

Pick a Princess: Eilonwy

[hellyeahprydain]

Glen Keane on working on The Black Cauldron

So you originally worked on The Black Cauldron?

Yes, we were developing character designs and different things. We were trying to push it, to make it go and explore horizons that Disney was not willing to stretch to yet. Tim was a very frustrated guy at that point.

Can you tell me about this work on The Black Cauldron that you did?

John Musker was working on a sequence which was in the witches house. He was designing it so that all the backgrounds were optical illusions like M.C. Escher.

Now, Tim was doing these character designs, a lot like Nightmare Before Christmas type characters. At what point he designed the gwythaints. The gwythaints were like pterodactyls, which is what they look like in the film now, pterodactyls. But Tim designed them so that their heads were really hands and he put their eye right there between the thumb and the forefinger. So they looked like, you know, when you make little silhouette figures on the wall. These things would come flying at you, but then could also grab and they had a snake-like tail and wings. Wild, great ideas!

The Horned King was more of a psychotic, schizoid guy. You heard his two different personalities by puppets. He would have these two different puppets and he was a ventriloquist. One puppet would say... like if he was considering killing somebody, one puppet that was like a psycho clown would say (loud, crazy voice): "Get him! Get him! Yes! Yes! Get his head off! Get his head off!" and the other head puppet would go (soft, squeaking voice): "No! No! let him live! let him live!". The Horned King was just a completely twisted, bizarre character. Now, he is just what we call the Evil Bonehead (laughter).

What were the scenes that you worked on?

I was doing some animation of fairies. I designed a lot of different characters on the thing. I did some animation of Gurgi, Eilonwy and did some experimental animation on them. This is a scene of Eilonwy, where she is picking things out of Gurgi's hair. She is talking.

I loved the voice of this character. I came upon a whole different kind of design on her, but the director did not want something that was so cartoony. Everything I did was being thrown out. They just did not like anything I was doing. Eventually the directors asked me if I would just leave the film and go do something different.

So I did Mickey's Xmas Carol. I worked on the Giant. Ron [Clements] And John [Musker] were also being kicked out of the film and they went to work on The Great Mouse Detective.

Click for the rest of the interview.

[gaypencil]

my friend really likes Gurgi from the The Black Cauldron (she thinks he’s cute or something) so I sketched him in a Christmas bow for her.

[starrattlerofprydain]

[firstwordsofbooks]

Submitted by nocowardsoul

[englandsdreaming]

[hellyeahprydain]

Random List of Favorite Movies → The Black Cauldron (1985)

“If great lord go into evil castle, poor Gurgi will never see his friend again. Nope. Never.”

[hepburnz]

❖ my index of films of which i have watched a billion times

The Black Cauldron [1985] Centuries ago, in the land of Prydain, a young man named Taran is given the task of protecting Hen Wen, a magical oracular pig, who knows the location of the mystical black cauldron. This is not an easy task, for The Evil Horned King will stop at nothing to get the cauldron.

[teaplusmadness]

“’Girl’? ‘Girl’? If it wasn’t for this ‘girl’, you would still be in the Horned King’s dungeon.”

Alexandra Tikerpuu as Eilonwy | Disney Model Dreamcast

[ultimatedisneyblog]

ultimatedisneyblog: the black cauldron