The Black Cauldron and Dream Studio
The next book in the Chronicles of Prydain, The Black Cauldron, is a bit of a misfit. AS of 1985, there were two separate versions of the story - that of the novel by Lloyd Alexander, and Disney’s retelling in the animated feature of the same name.
In the book, The Black Cauldron brings back the entire cast of main protagonists from The Book of Three, and adds a few more heroes and anti-heroes to act as foils for Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper, Princess Eilonwy, and Lord Gwydion. A more important event in the book, however, is the introduction of Arawn Death-Lord as the central villain, albeit one that operated behind the scenes (you know he was up to no good, but you don’t see him anywhere within the series, except for the last book).
The titular black cauldron is a magical item with the ability to create the Cauldron-Born, a race of magical undead that just can’t be killed. Now here’s the problem: Arawn has possession of the artifact. He’s also created a sizable army of the deathless.
Now, the good guys have to get the cauldron from him and destroy it. But how?
Disney’s take, on the other hand, takes elements from the first book, introducing Taran and his companions, and setting the Horned King as the main antagonist. The black cauldron is still the instrument to create the cauldron-born, but this time, the cauldron is missing.
The biggest difference between the two stories - aside from the format - is that the novel was well-received, while the animated treatment, not so much. Which is funny, considering how much Disney spent for the film. All that effort to introduce the characters went to nothing. If they’d started with the first book, however, they would have had more than just a good story on their hands - they would have had the start of a good series.
Seeing as to how this is the month of love, Sanriotown’s very own DreamStudio Director’s club has a challenge for all you aspiring directors out there. Entitled “What Is Love?” the challenge is to come up with a DreamStudio video of at least five slides exploring the theme. The grand prize is a limited-edition Hello Kitty USB Memory Stick, a collector’s item in its own right. This little critter is almost as small as your fingernail, and has a storage space of one gigabytes, and comes with a nifty little keychain hook for easy storage (pardon the pun).Details of the competition (as well as photos of the prize) can be found here and here.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
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