lord of the rings gollum based on black cauldron

It doesn’t help that The Black Cauldron clocks in at just under 80 minutes of content, and yet there’s still plenty of fluff and filler. The Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings cartoon packed much more plot depth in a single hours’ time while also having more fleshed-out protagonists, and that was made almost a decade earlier. The relationships we build with each character all feel very surface level and in passing, as their personalities came second to the art direction. Many triumphant moments for the protagonists happen too quickly and lack any emotional weight. As soon as I started to feel like I knew who they were and what they valued, the film was already over. The Black Cauldron is all too sparse in its story and characters. Joking aside, the Horned King was actually voiced by actor John Hurt, who brings more personality to the role than anyone else in the cartoon. He’s so over the top evil he even sounds like Sinistar when he speaks his slow, menacing dialogue. The plot is straightforward and doesn’t require much explaining other than a kid named Taran (Grant Bardsley) goes looking for a magic cauldron to stop a villainous being called the Horned King.Ĭharacters talk about how evil the Horned King is frequently, and his presence is always so dramatic and morose that it’s almost comical. Andy Serkis actually took inspiration from a Black Cauldron character named Gurgi for his portrayal of Gollum in Fellowship, but I digress. The Black Cauldron has this Lord of the Rings type plot to it, but with a pig and teenager instead of a ring and a hobbit. The Black Cauldron is now nicknamed “the film that almost killed Disney.” My question today is, does it show? The movie garnered Disney’s first PG rating, lacked any whimsical songs, and contained major differences from its literary source material.

Nobody went to see this movie when it was released, and most who did were highly disappointed.

This fantasy flick was a box-office bomb that almost bankrupt the company, in part because of its record-breaking budget of 44 million.

Today I’ve decided to take a retrospective look at Disney’s 1985 redheaded stepchild The Black Cauldron.

Lord of the rings gollum based on black cauldron