The Sword in the Stone 1963
The Sword in the Stone is often overlooked among Disney’s animated feature canon, but I remember going to see it as a kid during a rerelease (it was originally released before I was born) and liking it, but at that age, I liked most cartoons and movies. In my senior year of high school we read T.H. White’s The Once and Future King and Part I of that book is The Sword in the Stone covering Merlin’s training of an orphan named Arthur who was destined to become king. It has been quite a while since I had seen the movie or read the book, so details are fuzzy. I had postponed buying a blu-ray of the movie because the scan for the movie was famous for going overboard with digital cleanup, washing out a lot of detail from the animation and simplifying the colors. However, when Disney+ started up this week, they were offering new 4k scans of movies and The Sword in the Stone rendering met with a lot of acclaim.
It is a good movie. Parts are very cartoonish, like with the wolf being Disney’s answer to Wile E. Coyote, but the essentials of the story are there and having the medieval setting and magic from the hands of Merlin, is right up Disney’s alley. But I think that somehow in making the movie family friendly and giving enough action to keep kids entertained, they forgot to really drive home what exactly Wart was supposed to be learning. They emphasize brains over brawn, but nothing about the political problem of might makes right. You don’t want to get into the weeds of politics, but the whole movie is about teaching lessons, so you would think there would be something deeper than “use your head.” So what you end up with is a handful of magical adventures where Wart is transformed into animals and learns that animals are constantly hunted by larger animals. Not sure how that is supposed to help him rule England. Then the end seems kind of rushed as he is crowned king, but would rather run away. The End. There are a couple of songs, but not real strong ones. The animation is good, but not great, kind of cartoonish for the most part for both the people and animals, with some cheap repeat scenes, like the one of Wart falling down with all of the dishes. So not the high point of Disney, but still enjoyable and almost entirely light, with a lot of action.
Written: 17 Nov 2019
Owned on: Digital