Toon Talk: King Arthur - Jul 7, 2004

Toon Talk: King Arthur
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(c) Disney

Joining them in their task are Merlin (The Hours’ Stephen Dillane), here recast as a ‘master of the black arts’, which apparently entails wearing blue Braveheart make-up and standing around in the fog a lot, and one of his tribe, Guinevere (Pirates of the Caribbean’s Keira Knightley), who has received the most radical make-over of all: gone are the flowing gowns and ladylike trills of a Julie Andrews or Vanessa Redgrave. In their place is a primitive wild woman, running around with her bosoms tied down with leather straps and sporting tribal make-up right out of Quest for Fire; even more inexplicably, she joins the men in their fight, picking off Saxons left and right with a bow and arrow while the menfolk hardly bat an eye in protest of having a female in battle.

It’s all a rather trite exercise in hackneyed revisionism, with an unjustified, self-satisfied air of superiority over the ‘fairy tales’ that we’re all familiar with (and have enjoyed) over the years; but the fact of the matter, at least as far as this King Arthur goes, is blatantly clear: so-called ‘truth’ is not necessarily better then fiction.

Toon Talk Rating: C-


(c) Disney

The Toon Talk Top 10 - Classics Re-Illustrated:

In addition to the denizens of Camelot, several classic characters of literature have been revisited in varied Disney productions, including:

  1. Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio: The 1940 animated classic Pinocchio; the 2000 TV musical Geppetto starring Drew Carey; Roberto Benigni’s Italian-language Pinocchio, released by Miramax.
  2. Various Tall Tales: Pecos Bill (in 1948’s Melody Time), Paul Bunyon (the 1958 short Paul Bunyon) and John Henry (the 2000 short John Henry) teamed-up in 1995’s live action Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill.
  3. Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows: The 1949 animated feature The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad; 1996’s The Wind in the Willows, directed by Terry Jones and starring several of his Monty Python pals.
  4. Charles Perrault’s Cinderella: The 1950 animated classic Cinderella; the 1997 Wonderful World of Disney production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella; the 2002 Wonderful World of Disney production of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.
  5. Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island: The 1950 live action classic Treasure Island; 1996’s musical/comedy Muppet Treasure Island; 2002’s animated science fiction take, Treasure Planet.
  6. Robin Hood: 1952’s live action The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men, directed by Ken Annakin and starring Richard Todd as the prince of thieves; the 1974 animated feature Robin Hood.
  7. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book: The 1967 animated classic The Jungle Book; the live action adventure Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book starring Jason Scott Lee as Mowgli.
  8. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: The 1983 animated short Mickey’s Christmas Carol, featuring Uncle Scrooge as, well, Uncle Scrooge; 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol, with Michael Caine as Scrooge.
  9. Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist: 1988’s animated, contemporary update (with cats and dogs!) Oliver and Company; the 1997 Wonderful World of Disney production of Oliver Twist, starring Elijah Wood as the Artful Dodger and Richard Dreyfuss as Fagin, see below.
  10. Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers: 1993’s live action adventure The Three Musketeers, starring Charlie Sheen, Keifer Sutherland and Oliver Platt as the titular trio; and coming soon in 2004, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy star in their own version of The Three Musketeers, see below.

Coming Soon in Toon Talk:

  • Julie Andrews, Anne Hathaway and Hector Elizondo add another chapter to the diary in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, opening August 11th.
  • Mickey, Donald and Goofy are reunited for the video premiere of The Three Musketeers, an all-new animated feature coming to DVD August 17th.
  • Completing the Lion King trilogy on Special Edition DVD is The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, available August 31st.

And Coming Soon from Buena Vista Home Video:

July 13:

  • The Barbarian Invasions, this year’s Oscar-winning Best Foreign Language Film.
  • After Image, a crime thriller starring John Mellencamp and Louise Fletcher.
  • The complete second season of Project: Greenlight, starring Holes’ Shia LaBeouf.

July 20:

  • The two-disc Special Edition DVD of Lindsay Lohan’s Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.
  • People I Know, a political drama starring Al Pacino, Kim Basinger and Ryan O’Neal.

August 3:

  • Hidalgo, the true-life adventure starring Viggo Mortensen and Omar Sharif.
  • Just in time for the sequel, a two-disc Special Edition DVD of The Princess Diaries.
  • Disney’s first foray into big budge science fiction, The Black Hole, is re-released, as are two literary thrillers, Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and Florence Engal Randall’s The Watcher in the Woods.
  • A young Sean Connery co-stars (and sings!), with Janet Munro and Albert Sharpe, in the classic Disney fantasy Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
  • Robin Williams stars in Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the “adult-in-a-kid’s-body�? genre Jack, also starring Diane Lane, Jennifer Lopez and Bill Cosby.
  • Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson co-star, along with Elijah Wood and Thora Birch, in the bittersweet drama Paradise.
  • Wood also stars in the 1997 Wonderful World of Disney production of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.
  • Another screen Fagin, Ron Moody, co-stars as Merlin in the space-age take on Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Unidentified Flying Oddball, also starring Jim Dale and Dennis Dugan.
  • The coming-of-age drama Map of the Human Heart, starring Jason Scott Lee and Anne Parillaud.

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-- Kirby C. Holt
-- Logo by William C Searcy, Magic Bear Graphics

Kirby is a lifelong Disney fan and film buff. He is also an avid list maker and chronic ellipsis user ...

Took Talk: Disney Film & Video Reviews by Kirby C. Holt is posted whenever there's something new to review.

The opinions expressed by our Kirby C. Holt, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future plans of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.

-- Posted July 7, 2004

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