Why is The Sword in the Stone overlooked?

[Cordynharm]

Maybe they meant that the novelty and "newness" of TV in homes at the time meant less people were paying to Go to the cinema anymore which led to budget cuts on animated features and a loss of quality as they weren't making as much money. But that's just a guess that may be wrong as I haven't looked into box office figures at the time to prove that. So forgive me if that's not the case.

Also. My two cents on the matter, and these are not my thoughts as I love the movie but this is why I think it is underrated in others eyes:

SWORD is a well known legend but not very well known literary novel, the music was lacklustre compared to other "Walt" movies, it was a "boys movie" which is harder to sell as an idea and merchandise-wise as little girls pester parents more for merchandise etc whereas boys not so much - hence the princess line. What in it was marketed to girls? There are no girlie characters save for squirrel and at a stretch madam mim. Lol. The film suffers from being episodic and doesn't have a strong protagonist, just a second rate villain that shows up for 15 minutes. It also lacks a rousing climactic ending and just sort of fizzles out.

The only things it has going for it is the "Disney magic" - the sugar pot, transmogrification stories, the wizard duel etc. some good animation and some great comedy.

[Goliath]

I think he/she meant TV in general brought down theatrical animation because in the 50's-60's a lot of attention shifted to this relatively new medium.

I don't think that makes much sense. In fact, studio's began making more expensive, more spectacular, more 'epic' films to try to lure the audience back into the theatre. That's why so many lavish productions like 'Spartacus', 'Cleopatra', 'Lawrence of Arabia' etc. were made: to offer something to the audience that television couldn't offer. The big sets, the mass scenes, the impressive landscapes filmed in widescreen, the costumes, all the grandeur was used to convince the people come into the theatre again. If anything, studios worked harder to put quality material on the big screen.

What happened to Disney animation was that after the overly lavish production of Sleeping Beauty, which was ridiculously detailed to animate and kept overrunning its budget, failed to make back its costs and proved to be a financial letdown for Disney, they had to made cuts in budgets on their next features and come up with less expensive ways to make movies. One of them was the Xerox-method in animating; another was recycling old animation. So the drop in quality of the animation stems from those factors; not the popularity of tv.

[justcuttinhair]

Really? I was under the impression that the reviews were mostly mixed, regarding the film when it was first released. It was made for a budget of around 4 million, and made about 20 million( correct me if I am wrong). Not a really bad intake for 1963. Personally, I find the film quite charming. As a kid it was one of my favorite Disney films...in fact, I think I like a lot more of these "disregarded" films, than many of the actual "classics". I can only imagine, the kind of film, this would have been, had the tapestry film aspect from "Sleeping Beauty" really been such a hit. This is a poor man's version of that concept. Walt Peregoy(sp?) does many of the medieval backgrounds, and while, they are reminiscent of his work on "Beauty"; they fail in comparison. As I look at the film, from a older/mature/wiser(LOL) perspective...I can understand the mixed feelings that many have concerning the film. The story is quite episodic, and this could be both a good thing, and a bad thing. Character wise, I love Merlin, Mim and Arthur. Arcemedes, is also a good secondary character...the battle with the pike, still cracks me up!! For the Blu-Ray, it would have been nice to have had some sort of "making of feature", or storyboards, early character designs...because, I am always fascinated about the behind the scenes details, that the Nine Old Men, Sherman Bros. and Disney himself, put into the studio's films.

[Semaj]

For the Blu-Ray, it would have been nice to have had some sort of "making of feature", or storyboards, early character designs...because, I am always fascinated about the behind the scenes details, that the Nine Old Men, Sherman Bros. and Disney himself, put into the studio's films.

Compared to most Disney films, Sword in the Stone had a bare staff, following the cutbacks made after Sleeping Beauty and other artists leaving Disney/being reassigned after 101 Dalmatians.

In this case, Bill Peet wrote and storyboarded the entire film, and he did some character designs along with Milt Kahl.