Okay, friends and neighbors! It's time for Drunk Disney! I am two shots in and about to take a third, and then I'll start up Black Cauldron.

Doing this for grocery and household expenses during the Quarantimes. Enjoy? Throw something in the jar.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=RR84V5CDS9UP4

I will be going until I make it halfway through the movie or 6:30 PM, whichever comes first. I have to cook dinner tonight so I'm giving myself some time to recover.

Here's my background: we had the Chronicles of Prydain (from which this is loosely adapted) in the house but I, for whatever reason, didn't read them. I am vaguely aware of the Welsh mythology from which aforementioned series was also loosely adapted. That's about it.

I was five when this came out and within a few years it seemed like it was already a sort of playground urban legend of a Disney movie. I was a little surprised to find out it was a mid-80s release. In my mind it belonged to the era of The Hobbit, now available on VHS or Beta.

So the movie opens with opening narration of a sort I don't remember seeing in the Disney animated canon. The closest equivalent is Alan-a-Dale's folksy introduction to Robin Hood.

The fact that this movie depends on ~Lore~ might have been one of its problems at the box office.

The short version is that there was an unspecified evil king whom even the gods feared, so they threw him into molten iron and he turned into a cauldron.

When they started talking about him I figured he was the Big Bad but seems he's actually the MacGuffin.

One thing I do know about the production here is that Disney had bought the rights to the entire franchise (this movie encompasses elements of at least two of the books) - every other Disney adaptation did a pragmatic job of streamlining the story and then adding unique elements.

The fact that we have to be straight out told backstory that probably extends beyond the series's beginnings does not speak well of the editorial vision here. I have a suspicion that they kept the importance of the unseen events while ditching much of the significance.

First proper scene is a slow zoom in on like the McMansion version of a thatched-roof cottage. (THATCHED ROOF COTTAGES!)

So we got a scholarly type guy inside the McThatchion about what the Horned King is up to and what he's waiting for, "that devil". I presume the Horned King is not the same evil king who is trapped because this guy has a lot of books and would probably have heard about that.

The old guy has a cat who is named Cat (the subtitles capitalize it) and Cat wants breakfast but the old guy tells him "Thinking is more important now." Rookie mistake, old guy! Doing a mindlessly simple physical task when you're stuck on something helps you think!

But Cat's interruption helps old guy notice that the pot is boiling over, and he tells a young man named Taran this, which answers a question from my childhood of how it's pronounced (more like "Tauren" than "Tehran", to my younger self's surprise)

Taran answers and reveals that old guy's name is Dallben, apparently. Taran was apparently distracted by his fear that the war will be over before he's old enough to fight in it. Don't super like him! Dallben chides him that it would be a good thing. My opinion of him improves.

Taran protests that he's not afraid and then tries to remove the cast iron cookpot from the fire with his bare hands. He would 100% have a Reddit account.

There's some comedic business where Cat rejects the slop from the cauldron (which is not the eponymous one, I don't think) only to be told it's for "Hen Wen", whom Taran goes out to feed. Hen Wen, an unseen presence inside a smaller thatched roof animal pen, rejects it, too.

Hen Wen (or Hen, for short) is a female pig. (Note mascara.)

Taran informs the picky pig that Dallben made the mush especially for her. So Taran didn't even cook it, just served it. He rues that his lot in life is pampering a pig, when he's a warrior, not a pig-keeper. Boy, you're not really either?

He unwisely picks a fight with a goat whom he pretends is the Horned King, who is confused enough to let Taran rattle his skull, then predictably retaliates.

Taran takes the opportunity of being defeated by a barnyard animal to act out his epic death scene. Even in his fantasy, he doesn't actually defeat the Horned King, just dies heroically.

He then asks Dalban if he'll ever be more than an "assistant pig-keeper". So that's one illusion he doesn't have, at least.

Hen Wen starts to freak out in the middle of a bath, which prompts a concerned Dallben to have Taran bring her inside. He sets up a half a gourd or something full of water and explains "I never use her powers unless I must."

The pig has powers, yo.

Dallben says to Taran "What you are about to see, you must never reveal to anyone."

FYI: If your boss ever says this about the mascara-wearing pig he pays you to pamper and just had you bring inside where closed the blinds and lit a bunch of candles, run.

I didn't catch all of it because I was writing a joke about pig sex but Dallben just recited a rhyming spell and apparently the Hen Wen is a divination focus because now they're watching the Horned King in the water.

So Dallben divines from the water (the animation in the water is semi-abstract and shaky, the animation on the scene in general is STELLAR, amazing use of lighting and color) that the Horned King is searching for The Black Cauldron, "an awesome weapon, lost for centuries"...

...and then the images in the water turn to a figure we're told is Hen Wen (I couldn't have guessed it, personally) which equates to the Horned King knowing about her. "He knows!" Kind of a Palantir-gazes-back vibe, I guess?

Dallben gives Taran instructions to take Hen Wen to the "hidden cottage on the edge of the forbidden forest" and hide there with her until he comes for them. While there, he prepares a bindle, sweeping up a loaf of bread and an apple that were in the scene from before...

...and then carefully cutting off the end of the bread and wrapping that up with the apple. I'm not sure that was supposed to be funny but it got a surprised laugh from me? Seems kind of stingy. You're all "not a second to lose" but take a second to cut the bread?

Dallben explains that Hen Wen's power can be used to find the Black Cauldron so she must be kept away from the Horned King. Taran says he's not afraid of the Horned King, but he's also not afraid of actual fire, so.

Dallben sends Taran off with exactly one (1) day's lunch to hide indefinitely. Taran says, "I won't fail you." This would be a good time to quiz him about what exactly he's not going to fail doing because I feel like he's probably not fully internalized the important part.

Cut to: spooky castle (ext). Fade to: spooky castle (int). I see horns. Is this the Horned King?

Okay, so we're only getting glimpses of him, but the Horned King is apparently a lich with big Fantasia energy. Animation... less fluid than the rest of the film so far? A little uneven. He's addressing/caressing a foggy bone-strewn chamber of his dead soldiers...

...and the ART is brilliant but the animation is less so. There's a bit where he's kind of cupping a skull with his hand and it's got that "foreground cel moving across background cel" thing, you know?

He promises to make the very dead soldiers "Cauldron Born" then has an evilgasm and proclaims "Then, you will worship ME!" with heavy emphasis on me, which raises questions about how and why the soldiers died.

Hornéd King living up to his name.

He explicitly states his motivation is "to be a god among mortal men". I know they let Maleficent say "hell" but this feels like a bold step into blasphemy for a Disney movie, even one based in explicitly un-Christian stories. Genuinely surprised they didn't leave it at "worship"

Cut to a pastoral scene of Hen Wen leading Taran through a beautifully painted countryside. Taran is telling Hen Wen he always thought she was just an ordinary pig.

I don't want to keep harping on one string, but I'm pretty sure Dallben told him point blank she isn't.

If Taran had been in charge of mucking out Wilbur's pen in Charlotte's Web, that pig would have been pork chops.

spiderweb: "Some Pig".

Taran: "Yep, that's right. He's just some pig. I'll go get teh axe."

Immediately after saying that he had no idea the pig he was told was special (even before the oracular power was revealed, and presumably on a regular basis) was special, Taran proclaims his own supreme fitness for the job he probably only got because of a vision or something.

DEMONS ARE PROWLING EV'RYWHERE, NOWADAYS

Taran gets distracted by a vision in the water (not magical-pig-oracle, just regular type) of himself in golden armor being attested the greatest hero in Prydain and doesn't notice he let go of the lead and Hen Wen has run off.

I feel like possibly some of the sequence of Taran wandering deeper into the forbidden forest in search of the pig might have been re-layered from The Sword in the Stone, but it's been a while since I've seen that one.

He tries to lure Hen out with the apple, which attracts the attention of some kind of monkey dog goblin.

And the name of that monkey dog goblin?

Albert Einstein.

Now you know... the rest of the story.

We're about an hour in, so I'm going to go ahead and drop the tip jar again. If you're getting something out of this, please give something back!

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=RR84V5CDS9UP4

....the monkey dog's voice is *not* what I expected. I don't know what I expected and I don't know how to describe what it is, but he thanks the "great prince" (he thinks Taran is Bambi's dad?) for "great munchings and crunchings", bites him, and runs off with the apple.

His name is Gurgi, and after some admonitions from Taran to return the apple, he takes an irrevocable bite of it and hands it back, then responds to Taran's chiding by saying he deserves "smackings and whackings on his poor tender head".

I think if you were to cross Abu the monkey from Aladdin with Caliban, this is what you'd get? And also he's a bratty sub.

Taran asks Gurgi if he's seen his pig, which Gurgi responds to by describing *a* pig (big snout, curly tail), which causes Taran to reply "That's her!", and Gurgi admits he hasn't seen one. But he then decides he's willing to fake it if it gives him another bite at the apple.

At the sound of Hen Wen in genuine distress, deeper int he forest, though, Jar Jar Smeagol decides he doesn't want another bit of apple that much.