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Description
!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Hailing from the distant land of Hungary and forged in the far-off country of Wales comes an animation oddity some of you might know and the rest of you probably dread. "The Princess and the Goblin" is an animated film based off George MacDonald's 1872 children's novel of the same name. From the look and appearance of this film, you would be well in your rights to assume it was a movie from either the 60's or 70's, an animated feature from before the start of the Animation Silver Age. This is what I thought myself at first, but you can imagine my surprise to learn that this flick was actually released in the 90's! The movie was first released in Hungary in 1991, then in the UK the following year, and finally was released in the US in 1994. As you can imagine, the film was not a commercial success. It especially didn't help that its American release was rivaled by Disney's Lion King.

Now once again, I have never actually read the book that this movie is based off of, but given my experience with film adaptations and after doing a brief bit of research I think it is fair to say that like most movie adaptations of books this flick hardly does justice to Mr. MacDonald's original work. Right from the get-go we're just kind of tossed into the thick of things with little to no lead-in or decent exposition. The titular princess of this story is just out for a romp in the woods with her pet cat (who is named Turnip for some reason) under the watch of her incompetent nanny when all of a sudden goblins inexplicably attack from underground with no provocation or warning. The moment feels so forced until it's barely believable. Seems more like a dream sequence than anything that's legitimately supposed to be happening. A good reason for why this pacing comes off as poor is because it is out of order from what happened in the book.

The book gives us more of a gradually lead-in before the first goblin attack. Irene is first visited by the ghost of her great, great grandmother who warns her that she will soon be grave danger. Then the following day, Irene convinces her nursemaid to take her outside where they stay out past dark, AND THEN they are attacked by the goblins! This is just one of the many changes they made from the story in the book which ultimately hurt the film. Additionally, they underplayed the relationship between Irene and her nanny, Lootie. In the book, Lootie is described as being Irene's only friend and company before meeting Curdie, but in the movie they rewrite Lootie to be an incompetent half-ass lazy nitwit who can't keep track of the princess to save her life. The damn dog from Disney's "Peter Pan" was a better nanny! And incidentally somebody on the production team must've of taken notes from Disney's handbook, because Lootie's relationship with the princess is completely replaced by a damn cat who was only added into the film to make it more appealing for the kids.

Also, I'm not sure why but in the movie they gave the goblin prince the name Froglip when in the book he was called Harelip. Don't ask me why they changed his name 'cause it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. They also fail to mention that the goblin queen is actually the prince's stepmother leading to some very awkward Freudian innuendos when you listen to how she shamelessly praises her perverted heir...although to be fair, interjecting this knowledge about their surrogate relationship wouldn't change the awkwardness much, because it only alters it from Freudian incest to scandalous infidelity and potential pedophilia.

Lastly, they re-wrote the ending to make it more dramatic, but in doing so glossed over a crucial detail of the goblin physiology. In the book, the goblins flood the mines in an attempt to kill the miners, but only succeed in drowning themselves. In the movie, the miners build a counter-dam to re-divert the water back to the goblin kingdom which floods the goblins' home, but also washes them back up through the tunnel they dug to the king's castle. The water fills the castle and spills over the side of the mountain washing all the goblins (and presumably a few guards and servants) down the mountainside. We're led to believe this killed all the goblins, but this seems to contradict the point which was constantly driven home throughout the movie that the goblins' bodies (minus their feet) were as hard as stone. I might be over-analyzing, but if their flesh and bones were really the density of stone it doesn't seem to make sense that falling off a mountain would be enough to kill them. I don't know. I just think the book's ending where they all drown makes more sense than having them fall off a mountain...but then a lot of kids' movies love to kill off the bad guys with an epic fall. It's a time-honored family-friendly tradition.

Here we have another children's fantasy movie which employs that tired cliche about terrible creatures of darkness having a major allergy to something commonplace and unassuming, in this case it's singing. The horrible frightening goblins in this story apparently cannot stand to hear people sing. I guess you could say they can't stand to face the music. Don't ever let these guys listen Soulja Boy. Their heads just might explode! Of course to a rational mind, this automatically renders any conflict during the progression the story totally impotent, because the human characters all possess a monumentous advantage that the goblins have no real way of combating. Unlike, say, being afraid of sunlight which would at least give them the upperhand after dusk, being afraid of music and song gives them no fighting chance whatsoever because all anyone would have to do to defeat them is just start singing any of the millions of songs which have been written over the centuries. An entire army of goblins could totally get their asses kicked by a single little girl singing "Mary Had A Little Lamb". This weakness makes the heroes of the story more OP than freakin' Superman!

Perhaps the weirdest thing about this story is the way the goblins are portrayed. Listening to the story be told, they seem to allude to the idea that the goblins were once human or at least more humanlike before they were driven underground and forced to live beneath the earth away from the sun. This is an interesting take on the cliche fairytale trope of goblins. Makes them seem less fanciful and slightly more realistic. I'm reminded vaguely of the sewer mutants from Futurama. Further weirdness continues as the film attempts to interject a little Shakespeare by having the protagonist be aided by a deceased ghostly relative. In this case, it is Irene's great, great grandmother who also happens to be called Irene. In addition to be a ghost, I'm convinced that she's also a witch...or at least she was. If for no other reason then because she talks in freakin' riddles! I can't explain that whole magic thread thing either. In both the movie and the book it really just doesn't make any sense. The grandmother tells her to follow the thread to find her strength and the thread leads her to a boy...what you trying to say grandmama? Are you saying a woman needs a man to be strong? So much for female empowerment! Also wasn't the ball of that thread locked up somewhere in the castle? How the fuck did it lead her to Curdie?! One end was attached to the ring her grandmother gave her, and the other end was stuffed inside a drawer in the grandmother's tower. It doesn't make sense that it would lead her to Curdie after he was captured? Unless you're telling me the grandmother was using the thread to guide her...but if that's the case then why bother with the damn thread at all? Only Irene can see her. And although they state that the thread is invisible they don't say anything about it being intangible. How is that thread not getting caught on every little thing, or tripping people up? The whole bullshit with the magic thread just seems overly elaborate and unnecessary.

I don't know why, but the way Rik Mayall portrayed Froglip in this movie reminds me very vaguely of Daffy Duck...if he were evil and batshit crazy (well more batshit). The reason may be that his voice sounds a little like David Jason's portrayal of Count Duckula; another batshit crazy duck, but it could also just be my whacked-out imagination. Of course while on the topic of voice actors, I personally consider it a terrible pity to see such an intriguing story with such a talented vocal cast marred by such awful writing. Going back to what I said about the pacing, so much of this film's dialogue feels forced and loaded; like they were attempting to interject crucial elements from the book into the film via character lines, but they did it so poorly until it feels like the characters are literally telling you the story at the same time that they're acting it out. Even if each line of dialogue was taken from the book, verbatim, the characters shouldn't be telling you everything. There should be moments of sudden revelation or observational discovery. It's poor story-telling to have the characters dictate and narrate all the important details.

My harsh asinine criticism aside, I can't be too hard on this film. It was after all, the very first animated production from Wales and Hungary's 25th full-length animated feature, so obvious graces must be given in light of their apparent inexperience. I mean for being the absolute first animated film that Wales ever made and Hungary's 25th it's not too shabby. We can hardly hold them to the same standard of American animation which had been producing animated films since before 1920, and of course I'd be lying if I said I didn't thoroughly enjoy this film. It's campy and dumb, but it's a fun sort of campy and dumb. Besides it sure beats the hell out of the crap that's in the theaters nowadays!

Description
!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Hailing from the distant land of Hungary and forged in the far-off country of Wales comes an animation oddity some of you might know and the rest of you probably dread. "The Princess and the Goblin" is an animated film based off George MacDonald's 1872 children's novel of the same name. From the look and appearance of this film, you would be well in your rights to assume it was a movie from either the 60's or 70's, an animated feature from before the start of the Animation Silver Age. This is what I thought myself at first, but you can imagine my surprise to learn that this flick was actually released in the 90's! The movie was first released in Hungary in 1991, then in the UK the following year, and finally was released in the US in 1994. As you can imagine, the film was not a commercial success. It especially didn't help that its American release was rivaled by Disney's Lion King.

Now once again, I have never actually read the book that this movie is based off of, but given my experience with film adaptations and after doing a brief bit of research I think it is fair to say that like most movie adaptations of books this flick hardly does justice to Mr. MacDonald's original work. Right from the get-go we're just kind of tossed into the thick of things with little to no lead-in or decent exposition. The titular princess of this story is just out for a romp in the woods with her pet cat (who is named Turnip for some reason) under the watch of her incompetent nanny when all of a sudden goblins inexplicably attack from underground with no provocation or warning. The moment feels so forced until it's barely believable. Seems more like a dream sequence than anything that's legitimately supposed to be happening. A good reason for why this pacing comes off as poor is because it is out of order from what happened in the book.

The book gives us more of a gradually lead-in before the first goblin attack. Irene is first visited by the ghost of her great, great grandmother who warns her that she will soon be grave danger. Then the following day, Irene convinces her nursemaid to take her outside where they stay out past dark, AND THEN they are attacked by the goblins! This is just one of the many changes they made from the story in the book which ultimately hurt the film. Additionally, they underplayed the relationship between Irene and her nanny, Lootie. In the book, Lootie is described as being Irene's only friend and company before meeting Curdie, but in the movie they rewrite Lootie to be an incompetent half-ass lazy nitwit who can't keep track of the princess to save her life. The damn dog from Disney's "Peter Pan" was a better nanny! And incidentally somebody on the production team must've of taken notes from Disney's handbook, because Lootie's relationship with the princess is completely replaced by a damn cat who was only added into the film to make it more appealing for the kids.

Also, I'm not sure why but in the movie they gave the goblin prince the name Froglip when in the book he was called Harelip. Don't ask me why they changed his name 'cause it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. They also fail to mention that the goblin queen is actually the prince's stepmother leading to some very awkward Freudian innuendos when you listen to how she shamelessly praises her perverted heir...although to be fair, interjecting this knowledge about their surrogate relationship wouldn't change the awkwardness much, because it only alters it from Freudian incest to scandalous infidelity and potential pedophilia.

Lastly, they re-wrote the ending to make it more dramatic, but in doing so glossed over a crucial detail of the goblin physiology. In the book, the goblins flood the mines in an attempt to kill the miners, but only succeed in drowning themselves. In the movie, the miners build a counter-dam to re-divert the water back to the goblin kingdom which floods the goblins' home, but also washes them back up through the tunnel they dug to the king's castle. The water fills the castle and spills over the side of the mountain washing all the goblins (and presumably a few guards and servants) down the mountainside. We're led to believe this killed all the goblins, but this seems to contradict the point which was constantly driven home throughout the movie that the goblins' bodies (minus their feet) were as hard as stone. I might be over-analyzing, but if their flesh and bones were really the density of stone it doesn't seem to make sense that falling off a mountain would be enough to kill them. I don't know. I just think the book's ending where they all drown makes more sense than having them fall off a mountain...but then a lot of kids' movies love to kill off the bad guys with an epic fall. It's a time-honored family-friendly tradition.

Here we have another children's fantasy movie which employs that tired cliche about terrible creatures of darkness having a major allergy to something commonplace and unassuming, in this case it's singing. The horrible frightening goblins in this story apparently cannot stand to hear people sing. I guess you could say they can't stand to face the music. Don't ever let these guys listen Soulja Boy. Their heads just might explode! Of course to a rational mind, this automatically renders any conflict during the progression the story totally impotent, because the human characters all possess a monumentous advantage that the goblins have no real way of combating. Unlike, say, being afraid of sunlight which would at least give them the upperhand after dusk, being afraid of music and song gives them no fighting chance whatsoever because all anyone would have to do to defeat them is just start singing any of the millions of songs which have been written over the centuries. An entire army of goblins could totally get their asses kicked by a single little girl singing "Mary Had A Little Lamb". This weakness makes the heroes of the story more OP than freakin' Superman!

Perhaps the weirdest thing about this story is the way the goblins are portrayed. Listening to the story be told, they seem to allude to the idea that the goblins were once human or at least more humanlike before they were driven underground and forced to live beneath the earth away from the sun. This is an interesting take on the cliche fairytale trope of goblins. Makes them seem less fanciful and slightly more realistic. I'm reminded vaguely of the sewer mutants from Futurama. Further weirdness continues as the film attempts to interject a little Shakespeare by having the protagonist be aided by a deceased ghostly relative. In this case, it is Irene's great, great grandmother who also happens to be called Irene. In addition to be a ghost, I'm convinced that she's also a witch...or at least she was. If for no other reason then because she talks in freakin' riddles! I can't explain that whole magic thread thing either. In both the movie and the book it really just doesn't make any sense. The grandmother tells her to follow the thread to find her strength and the thread leads her to a boy...what you trying to say grandmama? Are you saying a woman needs a man to be strong? So much for female empowerment! Also wasn't the ball of that thread locked up somewhere in the castle? How the fuck did it lead her to Curdie?! One end was attached to the ring her grandmother gave her, and the other end was stuffed inside a drawer in the grandmother's tower. It doesn't make sense that it would lead her to Curdie after he was captured? Unless you're telling me the grandmother was using the thread to guide her...but if that's the case then why bother with the damn thread at all? Only Irene can see her. And although they state that the thread is invisible they don't say anything about it being intangible. How is that thread not getting caught on every little thing, or tripping people up? The whole bullshit with the magic thread just seems overly elaborate and unnecessary.

I don't know why, but the way Rik Mayall portrayed Froglip in this movie reminds me very vaguely of Daffy Duck...if he were evil and batshit crazy (well more batshit). The reason may be that his voice sounds a little like David Jason's portrayal of Count Duckula; another batshit crazy duck, but it could also just be my whacked-out imagination. Of course while on the topic of voice actors, I personally consider it a terrible pity to see such an intriguing story with such a talented vocal cast marred by such awful writing. Going back to what I said about the pacing, so much of this film's dialogue feels forced and loaded; like they were attempting to interject crucial elements from the book into the film via character lines, but they did it so poorly until it feels like the characters are literally telling you the story at the same time that they're acting it out. Even if each line of dialogue was taken from the book, verbatim, the characters shouldn't be telling you everything. There should be moments of sudden revelation or observational discovery. It's poor story-telling to have the characters dictate and narrate all the important details.

My harsh asinine criticism aside, I can't be too hard on this film. It was after all, the very first animated production from Wales and Hungary's 25th full-length animated feature, so obvious graces must be given in light of their apparent inexperience. I mean for being the absolute first animated film that Wales ever made and Hungary's 25th it's not too shabby. We can hardly hold them to the same standard of American animation which had been producing animated films since before 1920, and of course I'd be lying if I said I didn't thoroughly enjoy this film. It's campy and dumb, but it's a fun sort of campy and dumb. Besides it sure beats the hell out of the crap that's in the theaters nowadays!