i remember seeing the trailer of the black cauldron on the pinocchio video . 
it really scared me , and i didn't want to go see it . 
however , after i heard about how wonderful it was , i wanted to see it . 
i didn't get a chance to do so , until now . 
the film , disney's 25th animated feature , opens with a menacing shot of a great black cauldron unshrouded by mist as a narrator begins to tell the tale : a long time ago in the land of prydain , there was a king so evil , that his spirit was captured in the cauldron . 
it has been hidden for centuries , and whoever possesses it will have the power to conjure up an army of deathless warriors , and with them rule the world ? and destroy it . 
then , we meet a farmer-wizard , dallben , and his young apprentice , taran . 
taran dreams of being a warrior instead of being a `pig-keeper' ( they have a pig named hen-wen ) . 
one day , as he gives hen wen a nice warm bath , the pig goes crazy , and dallben then realizes , after watching hen wen's thoughts through a bucket of water , that taran must hide hen wen in the forest . 
an evil ruler known as the horned king is searching for the black cauldron , and only hen wen has the power to show its location . 
taran leads hen wen into the forest , but of course , he loses her , and tries to go find her . 
along the way , he meets up with a mischievous little creature named gurgi , who desires `munchings and crunchings' , much to his dismay ( besides , he stole an apple that taran was trying to use to bring back hen wen ) . 
when he hears hen wen's squeal from far away , though , he races to her rescue ? only to see her get kidnapped by dragonlike gwythants . 
taran chases after the gwythants and finds himself staring at the horned king's castle from far away . 
taran climbs the castle walls , and brings himself into the castle , where he attempts to rescue hen wen . 
he manages to do so , but he is himself captured and thrown into the dungeon . 
there , he meets princess eilonwy ( and her magic bauble , another thing which the horned king was hoping to use to find the cauldron ) , and the two escape through the deep castle walls . 
along the way , taran finds a sword in a burial chamber , and they rescue a comic bard named fflewdurr flamm , who has a harp whose strings break whenever he tells a lie . 
the three manage to escape the horned king's castle , but not before taran realizes that his sword is magic . 
as they rest in the forest , gurgi reappears , claiming to have found hen wen's trail . 
he leads taran , eilonwy and fflewdurr , by way of `pig tracks' , to a whirlpool . 
suddenly , they all get sucked under , and they meet the fairy-like fairfolk . 
taran is reunited with hen wen , and informed that the black cauldron is hidden in the land of morva . 
he then devises a crazy idea that if they can destroy the cauldron , it would prevent the horned king from destroying their world . 
with the help of a grumpy fairy named doli , the four travelers manage to find themselves at a mysterious cottage . 
it turns out to be no ordinary cottage ; three comically strange witches inhabit the place . 
when taran tells them that they are searching for the black cauldron , they agree to let him have it ? in exchange for his sword . 
taran agrees , much to eilonwy's horror , but at least they get the black cauldron . 
but ? the cauldron can't be destroyed , only its evil powers can be stopped . 
the only way to do so is for a living being to climb into it of his own free will ? never to return alive . 
things take a turn for the worse when the horned king's henchmen capture taran , eilonwy , and fflewdurr , along with the black cauldron , and lead them back to the castle . 
taran , eilonwy , and fflewdurr watch in horror as the horned king unleashes the supernatural powers of the cauldron to ressurect his army of deathless warriors ( this is the most horrifying scene in the film , because here , a dead army comes alive ? ) . 
just when all seems lost , though , gurgi reappears , and rescues taran , eilonwy , and fflewdurr . 
taran is about to jump into the black cauldron , but gurgi stops him , not wanting him to throw his life away . 
gurgi then jumps into the black cauldron , and the deathless warriors decay . 
taran tries to find a way to rescue gurgi , but he is forced to do battle against the horned king . 
he kicks the horned king away , who is then magically sucked into the black cauldron , where its powers immediately destroy him completely . 
taran , eilonwy , and fflewdurr manage to escape from the horned king's castle just as it self-destructs . 
the witches then reappear and attempt to take the now useless black cauldron away , but fflewdurr stops them , saying that they `never give anything away , they bargain' . 
in response to this , the witches offer taran his sword back , but taran instead has a new trade : the cauldron for gurgi . 
the trade is made ; gurgi's seemingly lifeless body reappears before the heartbroken group . 
as taran cradles him in his arms , though , gurgi stirs-he is not dead after all ! 
the happy group then returns home , where hen wen ( brought home by the fairfolk once the dangers are past ) , dallben , and even doli , await their triumphant return . 
as spectacular as it sounds , the black cauldron really suffered a lot in its past times . 
before ron miller was fired from his position as chairman of walt disney productions , he had bought a novel by lloyd alexander called the black cauldron , a sword and sorcery tale for the studio . 
bringing this book to the screen was the studio's fondest dream . 
miller , who entitled himself as the executive producer , promised that they would do so after they had proved themselves on other projects . 
when micheal eisner and his executives arrived at the disney animation studio , the animators were struggling to complete the black cauldron . 
by this time , things had gone really rocky for the animation department . 
many of the studio's old men had retired or died . 
therefore , the animators suffered a hard time making this film . 
originally budgeted at $25 million , the costs raised to $40 million because of constant changes on everything ? and when it was finally released on june 24 , 1985 , the black cauldron was greeted by praising reviews from some critics , but somehow the film flopped . 
the film was rated pg and the film , although `disneyfied' from lloyd alexander's chronicles of prydain ( which is what this film is based on ) , was much more scarier and darker than disney's other previous efforts , such as the rescuers and the fox and the hound , which is probably why so many people considered it too scary and stayed away from it . 
in addition , other critics rejected it for having `no heart' and `unmemorable' , compared to other disney animated features . 
but whatever the real reason , the black cauldron was a financial disaster , grossing only $21 million . 
the failure of the film grounded the studio's animation department , and exiled the animation team to annex buildings in nearby glendale , and it seemed like animated features would no longer become a part of the studio's reputation . 
the next two disney animated features , the great mouse detective and oliver and company , although a little more lighthearted than the black cauldron , didn't do much better ( although oliver and company grossed much more than the black cauldron and the great mouse detective ) . 
only with the little mermaid did the studio regain its reputation for successful animated features . 
as for the black cauldron , it was rereleased in some cities for a temporary time under the title taran and the magic cauldron . 
finally , the studio locked the film in the film vault and denied that it ever even was released . 
because of all this , you might ask yourself , was the black cauldron really such a bad movie ? 
the people who had seen the film didn't think so . 
in fact , many people had calls to buena vista home video requesting for the film , but of course , they denied it . 
for a while , it seemed like the black cauldron would never be released to video ? until september 1997 , disney released the black cauldron to video in the united kingdom . 
few people imported the video from england and converted to ntsc ( including me ) and for those who hadn't seen the film yet ( i am included here ) , they got quite a treat . 
but people who had bootleg copies of the black cauldron noticed that in the scene where the horned king raises his army of deathless warriors , about 12 seconds of ghoulish looking skeletons were slightly trimmed so that the film would get a u rating ( in the uk , the u rating means universal : suitable for all ages , kinda like their own version of g ) . 
somewhere online , a team of diehard the black cauldron fans signed a petition that said , `bring back the black cauldron ! ' , and because of that , disney finally decided to release the video to the united states . 
before that time , rumors online had been made that the video would be trimmed , like the uk video , so that it would get a g rating , and that they would add in songs . 
those rumors were put to rest when the walt disney company announced that the black cauldron * would * be released in its pg rated version . 
even still , when it was finally released to the us , some reaction was mixed . 
some felt that it was indeed cut , but some felt that it wasn't . 
but these where only minor criticisms which seemed laughable , since a film that was absent for thirteen years was finally available . 
as for myself , when i saw the movie for the first time ( on converted ntsc video ) , i didn't expect much at all . 
in fact , i had heard so many mediocre things about it , that i didn't think the film would ever be such a good film . 
much to my surprise , when i saw the first few minutes of the film , i was asking myself , " this is the same film everyone saw ? 
the one that flopped at the box office ? 
the one that critics and filmgoers alike called " a bad movie " ? 
this doesn't seem like all of the above . 
instead , it's a classic in its own right . 
the film has a wonderful cast of characters . 
there's taran ( grant bardsley ) , an assistant pig keeper who would rather be a warrior than a pig-keeper , the story's hero . 
the critics have said that taran is not likeable at all , but the opposite is true . 
he is brave , loyal , and eventually learns a lesson about friendship later on . 
there's a likeable character here ! 
not that he's the only likeable character in the film . 
there's gurgi ( john biner ) , a lovable little , uh , thing who remains loyal to taran , even though they don't quite hit it off at first . 
but another likeable character is the bad guy comic henchman , a dwarf named creeper ( phil fondacairo ) , who is loyal to the film's imaginative and sinister villain , the horned king ( voiced gruesomely by john hurt ) , yet he also fears his neck . 
the other characters , including the sidekicks , a spunky , but sweet princess named eilonwy and the comic bard fflewdurr flamm , and three comically wicked witches who hide a dark secret , although pleasant and likeable , aren't quite as well rounded as they should be . 
the story itself is an adventurous one , a quest involving the mystical pig , hen wen , the black cauldron itself , and an army of deathless ones with everything : a hooking opening to a spectacular finale . 
elmer bernstein's music also tells the story perfectly , in a dark , yet calming manner . 
the animation itself is surprisingly good considering that this film was created in the darkest time of the studios . 
even though there are some occasional effects that are not quite good , like the ground opening when the black cauldron rises out of the earth , the animation overall is top notch . 
overall ? this film is an entertaining endeavor . 
fans unfamiliar to the lloyd alexander chronicles of prydain will get a kick out of this one , except young kids . 
there are some extremely scary scenes which are more darker than disney's other films ( although some consider the stampede sequence from the lion king and frollo observing esmeralda in the fires of hell in the hunchback of notre dame are just as scary ) , which is the main reason why this film is rated pg . 
fans familiar to the lloyd alexander series will recognize the differences between the novel and the movie . 
even though it doesn't have all of the ingredients of a true disney film , this film is a classic in its own right , and deserves a far better chance than what it has been given . 
that better chance has finally come . 
whatever reason about why the black cauldron was such a big failure seems to have disappeared , and the film has finally achieved its place among disney's most proudest achievements . 
i can't help but think though , whatever would have happened if the black cauldron * was * a box office success ? 
