9. 12 "Alienating" Minutes Of The Movie - The Black Cauldron
The Black Cauldron is an animated Disney film loosely based on the first two books in The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, a series of five novels which in turn are based on Welsh mythology. In the film, a couple of kids, a bard, and a wild thing team up to prevent the evil Horned King from obtaining the Black Cauldron, which he plans on using to rule the world. It was the first Disney animation to ever receive a PG rating. It was slated to be released in theatres shortly after Jeff Katzenberg was appointed as Disney's new studio chairman. Katzenberg would immediately demand a number of scenes be cut from the film, because he felt it was too long and featured graphic content that would "alienate children and family audiences." It is noted on Wikipedia, that "since animated films were typically edited in storyboard form using Leica reels (later known as animatics - storyboards shot sequentially and set to temporary audio tracks), the film's producer Joe Hale objected to Katzenberg's demands." But Katzenberg took the film and edited the thing himself (prior to Michael Eisner intervening, at least) and removed 12 minutes. If you watch the film as it is today, having seen hat was removed/changed (by virtue of the extra features), it's easy to see why Hale was upset. Almost the entire scene in the land of the Fairfolk was cut, re-organised and re-animated without much consideration for the storyline. Two major explanatory elements were completely eliminated from the film in the process, and a shot of a melting zombie-like creature (pictured above) was removed, too. Amongst the cuts were various scenes that were thought to be too inappropriate for kids. Unfortunately, The Black Cauldron was meant to be a children's film and nobody would give it the chance to transcend the boundaries. This considered, it's unlikely that these scenes will make it onto any future discs - though perhaps one day they'll wind up online somewhere.