And then there’s Disney’s one attempt at Arthurian legend, 1963’s The Sword in the Stone, which did less for Arthurian movies than it did for Walt Disney Animation. King Arthur adaptations have come as musicals, spoofs, low-budget trash, cult classics of debatable quality, and a string of recent efforts that just haven’t caught the public’s eye in a big enough way (best of luck to The Green Knight in that regard). But the Matter of Britain has yet to have a movie that defines the legend for the medium of cinema in the way that, say, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) did. The studio’s takes on Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, and Mary Poppins are so ubiquitous they’ve overtaken the British source material in pop culture, the studio’s earliest forays into pure live-action filmmaking were made up of adaptations of British novels and legends, and Arthurian lore’s collection of kings, castles, magic, and romance seems an ideal fit for Disney at first glance. Merlyn agrees to stay with Arthur, as his advisor for the foreseeable future.You would think Disney might have cornered the market on King Arthur films. Arthur is crowned as King of England, and the people are happy because they are tired of the unrest and violence they’ve endured under Uther Pendragon. At first, Kay tries to take credit for removing the sword when Ector asks him, but then gives in and admits Arthur did it.Įctor and Kay kneel before Arthur. It turns out that whoever could solve the challenge of pulling the sword from the stone would be the next King of England. He pulls the sword from the stone with ease and brings it to Kay. His animal friends swarm his consciousness, reminding him of all of the lessons he’s learned. He wanders over to a nearby churchyard and sees a sword stuck upright in a large stone.
The Wart, anxious to please Kay, goes back to their inn to retrieve the sword, but it’s closed. Kay gets to the tournament, but realizes he’s forgotten his sword. Meanwhile, King Uther Pendragon has died without an heir. He follows Kay as his squire, to a tournament in London where Kay will debut as a knight.
As a badger, he has to make a decision whether to eat a hedgehog out of anger he decides to leave him. Merlyn tries to break him of his traditional ideas about the positives of knighthood and war.Īrthur is placed into the bodies of different animals, including a perch, a merlin, an ant, an owl, a goose, and a badger. Arthur finds a tutor, Merlyn, who begins to teach him the importance of education and being a good leader by turning him into various animals and sending him on quests.Īrthur’s naivete leads him to believe that becoming a knight is a wonderful and honorable thing, but because he is not Ector’s proper son, he is destined to be Kay’s squire. Arthur (The Wart) is a young boy who has been taken in and raised by Ector.
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