A notorious relic from Disney's back catalog that was censored and shunned internally for years due to its "distressing" content. In a modern light, it's tough to see what all the fuss was about. A few marching skeletons? A bit of swordplay? It all seems so quaint now, with the benefit of hindsight on our side.

Not that the film should be mentioned in the same breath as the studio's calling cards, of course. It's short, shallow and more than a little murky, with a distinct lack of Disney charm, but it still has a lot going for it. The animation, for instance, is superb - a great blend of photo-reference and vivid exaggeration that looks and feels like a Don Bluth classic (though Bluth himself, having departed six years prior, was uninvolved with the production). It also enjoys a much more loyal fantasy tone than many of Disney's efforts, sharing many themes (and maybe a few characters) with the then-neglected Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Fascinating for many reasons, most of which occur behind the scenes, it's too narrow-sighted and streamlined to be taken all that seriously.