The Chronicles of Prydain: The next big movie series!

My daughter and I recently attended one of our library’s free movie days and she saw The Black Cauldron for the first time. I couldn’t remember why I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie or why we hadn’t seen it before—but it all came back to me within the first 20 minutes of the movie. With a watered down princess (who was brave and smart in the book) reduced to gasping, “Oh, Taryn!” every five seconds, several adventures skewered into mindless goofiness and the complete omission of several key characters, it really was kind of horrid.

I pretty much told Wood Sprite, “That’s it, we are checking out The Book of Three today and reading this story properly!” She didn’t mind the movie; she loved Gurgi, of course, and thought Taryn was cool. “He’s even cooler in the books!” I hurrumphed like the old fuddy duddy I can be.

This made me wonder why on earth we don’t have a Chronicles of Prydain live action movie series. It would certainly rival Lord of the Rings if it were made, and it’s definitely of stronger substance than most teen movies these days. I talked to the librarian about it and she sadly shook her head and said that the series just isn’t that popular. “I try to get people on those books but they just don’t take,” she told me. I can hardly believe it—they are spectacular, full of magic and adventure! Perhaps they need new covers? Books are often unfortunately and stereotypically judged by them.

Plus, it looks like Disney owns the rights to any other movies, which is too bad. How cool would it be if Don Bluth got his hands on the series for animation purposes—or, better yet, it was made into a complete live action series? I’m thinking a Guillermo del Toro Gurgi would be quite cool…

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia