Just forget the words and sing along

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Various Animation Ramblings

I can't believe that I didn't notice that my favourite Disney animated film, The Black Cauldron, just got a brand-new, 25th anniversary special edition DVD!  And it came out on Tuesday! 

Reading the tech specs, it doesn't sound like too much of an improvement over the original "Gold Collection" DVD.  It's finally in anamorphic widescreen, and for new bonus features, they added a deleted scene and an interactive game. 

Sadly, the deleted scene isn't the most famous deleted scene.

Here's the most famous deleted scene from The Black Cauldron:  the evil Horned King unleashed his Army of Cauldron-Born...you know, your basic unstoppable army of the undead.  There's this eerie green mist that surrounds them.  The Cauldron-Born encounter one of the Horned King's, you know, living warriors.  The Cauldron-Born leap on the warrior and



The green mist strips the flesh from the warrior's bones, turning him into one of the Cauldron-Born



Now a Cauldron-Born, the warrior leaps out of the green mist and joins the ranks of the Cauldron-Born.

According to legend, the scene was deleted because Jeffrey Katzenburg just became head of the Disney Studios, and when he saw the scene, he was mortified that such a graphic image was in a Disney animated film.  So he ordered it cut. 

It does exist.  I've seen screen grabs online.  It's shocking that such a thing exists, but The Black Cauldron  was Disney's infamous attempt to create an animated film for adults. 

Actually, there's a similar scene in my favourite DC Comics direct-to-DVD animated film, Wonder Woman.  In the film's climax, Ares has gained all the powers of the gods.  The Amazons unleash an attack on him.  Using his powers, Ares raises from the dead ever Amazon that's ever fallen in battle.  So, we have Amazons vs. undead Amazons. 

In the battle, one of the undead Amazons slays an Amazon.  The Amazon falls to the ground, dead.  Her skin shrivels up to the dull, grey skin tone of the undead.  Her eyes snap back open, the dead, soulless eyes of the undead, and she starts fighting alongside the undead Amazon that killed her.  A very chilling scene.

Have I mentioned that Wonder Woman is my favourite of the DC animated films?  It's so good!

Switching gears to Star Wars now, I read an interview the other day that made me laugh.

I'm not a big fan of the Clone Wars cartoon.  I saw the movie, and the movie was just so bad, that it killed all desire to see the series.  Well, I just read an interview Dave Filoni, the supervising producer on the Clone Wars cartoon, and what I read made me laugh. 

The interviewer asked that, now that the series has grown and evolved and is so drastically different from the film, if he could go back and change the film, would he?  Filoni said he loved to, and has even asked George Lucas about doing it.  Lucas said, "Sorry, dude, the film is done.  You have to let it go."

"C'mon man, let me do a special edition!" said Filoni, and George Lucas just gave him an icy glare. 

So, there you go.  Apparently, George Lucas doesn't like anyone changing Star Wars...unless it's him. 

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