"Back from Bermuda and the twentieth century. And believe me, you can have it! One big modern mess! Alakazam!" - Merlin (you got that right, Merlin)
Initial thoughts before viewing: Everyone has a photo trying to pull the sword out of the stone, right? 😉 I really wasn't familiar with this one, but I assumed I had seen it at some point. Fast forward to about 10 minutes into watching, and I realized NOPE I had never actually seen The Sword in the Stone. Womp womp.
If you're like me and have never seen the The Sword in the Stone or need a refresher, here is a link to the movie's Disney Wiki page where you can read the plot summary.
Highlights:
-Arthur is a Hufflepuff and I love it 💗: Okay, first of all, I know he's called WART in the movie, but that's such a sad nickname. I'm not going to call him that. ARTHUR right away comes across as a kind, good-hearted, hard working boy (a true Hufflepuff if I've ever seen one). You immediately feel sympathy for his situation: an orphan who is treated like crap and forced to work to the bone for this adopted father Sir Ector and bully foster brother, Kay. He's basically a male, 12 year-old version of Cinderella.
Arthur also comes dangerously close to suffering from Pinocchio-itis, which is my not so clever term for when you feel SO BAD for a character it gives you anxiety to watch them suffer through the plot of the movie. Whereas Pinocchio never moved beyond his naivete, Arthur shows his wisdom AND loyalty by sticking up for Merlin against his adopted father: "Just because you can't understand something, it doesn't mean it's wrong," Arthur says tearfully. Whoa. What a modern, tolerant, and relevant message. I may have underestimated you, Arthur.
-Merlin explains it all (or tries to) 🧙♂️: Merlin can see and has been to the future, so he knows about things like locomotives, airplanes, and even television. This makes it a little hard for him to tutor Arthur, an illiterate 12 year-old from the dark ages. As Archimedes the owl explains, "You can't learn history in reverse, it's confusing enough." Still, the modern audience is on on Merlin's offhand comments that no one else in the movie understands, like when he complains "A dark age, indeed! Age of inconvenience. No plumbing! No electricity! No nothing!" Merlin's best zinger though, is actually the closing exchange he has with Arthur:
Merlin: Boy, boy, boy.... You'll become a great legend. They'll be writing books about you for centuries to come. Why, they might even make a motion picture about you.
King Arthur: Motion picture?
Merlin: Well, uh.... that's something like television. Without commercials.
Disliked:
-Frisky lady squirrels 🐿️ When Merlin transforms Arthur and himself into squirrels for a lesson on gravity, their afternoon is disrupted by some aggressively frisky female squirrels who could use their own lesson on CONSENT. I'm annoyed FOR Arthur, who apparently hasn't hit puberty and cannot understand what is happening. Good luck explaining that one, Merlin.
-"Sir" Kay sucks 😤 The clear favorite child, Kay seems to relish making his foster brother Arthur's life miserable. He abandons Arthur in a wolf infested forest and later eggs his father on to "box [Arthur's] ears." He also (probably) gave him the nickname "Wart", the jerk. Kay shows zero redeemable qualities - he's the antithesis of Arthur. One can only hope that once Arthur became king, he paid Kay back for all his "kindnesses" growing up. Ugh, knowing how kind and just Arthur is though, that's unlikely. He probably bought him a castle because HE'S TOO DANG GOOD.
-Recycled animation 🎞️ From Bambi's mother to Sleeping Beauty, there's a lot of recycled bits from older films in this movie. I mean, I guess it's fine to reuse animation...but when you watch a lot of Disney like me, you def notice!
Random Thoughts I Had While Watching:
-Why does no one believe Arthur's stories? 🐟 Sir Ector and Kay punish Arthur for telling them "crazy" stories about Merlin's lessons (like when Merlin changed them both into fishes, for example), BUT THEY'VE BOTH SEEN MERLIN DO MAGIC. THEY KNOW HE IS A WIZARD. Why is this so shocking and unbelievable to them?
-Merlin gives Madam Mim COVID-19 😷 Okay, hear me out. Merlin uses his brain to outwit his rival, the mad Madam Mim who uses black magic for nefarious purposes. He turns into "a germ, a rare disease" which disables Mim almost immediately. Merlin has been to the future, HE KNOWS THE EVILS OF 2020. Is this a stretch? Okay, yes. Still, Imma hold on to this theory.
-More Mim, please 🧙♀️ She's only in the movie briefly, but I would have loved to see her as a main character. The Wizard's Duel scene is super engaging and fun to watch, imagine more Mim antics! Sure, she's kind of nuts and arrogant, but her powers rival Merlin's, and you know there must be a wild story about how they became bitter rivals. This is one character that I wish Disney actually would do a standalone feature about.
-Apparently the "Sword in the stone" is NOT Excalibur? ⚔️ King Arthur's sword is supposed to be called Excalibur, right? They never use this name in the movie...they just refer to it as the titular sword in the stone. After doing a handy Google search, apparently these are TWO DIFFERENT SWORDS? I guess I need to brush up on my Arthurian legends.
Closing Thoughts:
-The Sword in the Stone is surprisingly touching, but not for the reason you may think
I didn't know what to expect with this movie, but I found young Arthur's story to be moving and full of hope. The theme of the film is obvious (as Merlin himself says it more or less several times): education is the way to succeed, brains beats brawn. But this message feels somewhat contrived as Arthur doesn't use his wisdom or brains to pull out the sword in the stone: it's more or less done by accident or chance. The theme I found much more resonant was the one of rising above your station, overcoming your circumstances to reach greatness. Young Arthur himself does not ever grasp that he is destined to be something greater than he can even imagine. "What do you want me to be? I'm nobody," he cries tearfully to Merlin after it's clear that the wizard is disappointed that he has become Kay's squire. For Arthur, acutely aware that he is an orphan of low birth, becoming a squire is the most he can ever hope to achieve. Merlin knows that Arthur is special, but even the great wizard does not know the details of his future. Yet he believes Arthur can achieve more, and is not afraid to tell him so. The scene is hard to watch, but touching just the same: sometimes we need others to believe in us more than we believe in ourselves.
-Where The Sword in the Stone falls short
Merlin is not a very good teacher, and so the story becomes somewhat tedious and thin as the movie progresses. And once we finally get to the climax (sword is pulled, yadda yadda, Arthur becomes king, yadda yadda), the movie wraps up surprisingly quickly. It feels like an abrupt ending after a lot of other rather pointless parts of the story made it in (like what was that random wolf that stalked Arthur the entire time, btw?) It sort of feels like now that the story has gotten really interesting and the stakes are high (he is the leader of a country now, after all) we have to leave the story where it is and assume that Merlin does his job mentoring the young king.
The Arthurian legend is a rich story with a lot of layers - to start with Arthur's youth before he is king is the choice they made here, granted, but I would have liked to see more of his growth as both a character and leader. My biggest disappointment is that I as a viewer was left with a lot of questions, like why was Arthur able to pull the sword? Is it like Thor's hammer Mjolnir, and he was just worthy? Or was Arthur actually the illegitimate child of the previous king (hello Gendry Baratheon)? Bottom line: It was unsatisfying to see the film wrap up when it did, and I need more answers.
Despite all of this, I liked the movie okay (I loved simple, good-hearted Hufflepuff Arthur) and it's a solid addition to this Silver Age of films.
My Rating: 4.5/10
Side note: Sword in the Stone was the last movie that Walt Disney saw released. Next up is The Jungle Book, the last movie Walt Disney himself personally worked on before his passing in December of 1966.
My Rating Scale/System:
10 - Masterpiece / Award Worthy 🤩
9 - Almost perfect / Exceptional 🥰
8 - Great / Well-crafted 😁
7 - Good / Noteworthy 😊
6 - Above average / Memorable 🙂
5 - Solidly average 😐
4 - Mixed feelings / Mediocre 😕
3 - Uninteresting / Struggle bus 🥱
2 - Barely watchable 😡
1 - Failure / Why is this a thing? 💩
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