Excerpt from:
"The Black Cauldron: Disney steps back into darkness with a robust Sword & Sorcery tale" - Dan Scapperotti
from "Cinefantastique" Vol. 13 No. 5 pg. 26-27
1983
https://www.dvdizzy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23758
"Joe Hale gives a quick run through of the plot: the cauldron of the title is in the possession of the evil Horned King who immerses his dead enemies in it. Later, they emerge as the invincible, soulless Cauldron Born Warriors. With his army of the dead, the Horned King plans to conquer the peaceful land of Pyrdain. The wicked wizard, however, must perform a human sacrifice before each full moon in order to maintain the life of his army and the cauldron.
The Horned King captures Dallben, a wise and good enchanter, as his next victim, and Taran, the enchanter's assistant, sets out to rescue him. Taran is then seized by the evil King and taken back to his castle. Upon their arrival, however, the Horned King discovers that the cauldron has vanished; Taran realizes that if he can find and destroy the cauldron, he can save Pyrdain. Through the aid of Eilonwy, a young princess and enchantress in her own right, Taran escapes and begins his search for the lost cauldron.
On his mission, Taran meets an array of unusual and offbeat characters: Flewddur Fflam, a king who would prefer traveling the countryside, strumming a tune; Doli, an elfin character, who manages to harness the power of invisibility; and Gurgi, part man, part animal, who desires "crunchings and munchings," but fears "smackings and whackings on my poor tender head."
Another strange creature is Hen Wen, an oracular pig who tells Taran that the cauldron is in the clutches of three witches. Taran searches for and eventually finds the hags, who trade the cauldron for Taran's sword, his most prized possession. The Horned King learns of the cauldron's new location, and taking the captive Dallben along, leads his ghoulish army into attack against Taran and his band.
Alterations had to be made in adapting the large scale epic of the Chronicles to the screen. Much of Disney's BLACK CAULDRON is based on the introductory novel, The Book of Three, but several of the movie's sequences are lifted from the second book. Also, The Horned King becomes the chief villain of the film, although he doesn't even survive the first of five books.
Joe Hale, who previously directed animation special effects on Disney's science fiction epic, THE BLACK HOLE, wants to make THE BLACK CAULDRON something truly spectacular, and began looking into the possibilities of using holography.
"We're talking to designers over at WED, who design rides at Disneyland and Disney World," Hale said. "Now that they're winding up at EPCOT, we're going to have them work on an effect for the next to the last sequence. We want an effect where the Cauldron-Born Warriors float right out over the audience and into the back of the theater. Our engineers already have the capability to use holograms better than anybody around. Right now, they can give us a hologram of a cauldron in the theater lobby with an endless stream of Cauldron Born coming out and going right up to the top of the theater. There is a lot of experimental work being done on this. WED is sending over a creative team to see what they can do for us. We're going to have some kind of spectacular effect, something out of the oridinary.
Voices being used for the characters include Freddie Jones (Dallben), Grant Bardsley (Taran), Susan Sheridan (Eilonwy), Nigel Hawthorne (Flewdur), John Hurt (Horned King), John Byner (Gurgi), Jonathan Winters (King Eidellig) and Phil Fondacar (Creeper, the dwarf). An agent in England sent the studio tapes of dozens of voices from which to select the characters. It turned out that the voice chosen for Taran belonged to a 14 year old and that for Princess Eilonwy came from a 34-year-old actress, yet the two characters in the film are the same age. "
