"A great deal of the books' power comes from the development of Assistant Pig-Keeper Taran from callow youth to reluctant hero to lost soul to, in the end of th

"A great deal of the books' power comes from the development of Assistant Pig-Keeper Taran from callow youth to reluctant hero to lost soul to, in the end of the series, wise leader of men. But at the time Disney opposed sequels, so the full, five-volume epic was merely grist for the Disney mill: Joe Hale plucked story elements from the first two books and discarded the rest. Even before it flopped, The Black Cauldron would always be the only Prydain movie; that it fumbled such terrific material just made it worse." I've always felt, since watching the movie after I finished the novels, that they would work much better with live actors; filming five movies over the course of five years could benefit from the natural aging of young actors. It strikes me as a shame that so much effort in Hollywood goes into creating shallow imitations of classic tales, rather than retelling the classics for a new generation.