Quest for Camelot

Sir Lionel, a knight of the Round Table, is killed foiling an assassination attempt on King Arthur by the evil Sir Ruber, who is then driven off by Excalibur, Arthur's sword. During Lionel's funeral, Arthur informs Lionel's widow Lady Juliana and his daughter Kayley that Camelot is always open to them. Kayley dreams of becoming a knight, like her father, and she trains herself while working on the farm. A decade later, Ruber's griffin attacks Camelot and steals Excalibur, leaving Arthur injured. Merlin the wizard's pet falcon Ayden attacks the griffin, causing it to drop the sword into the Forbidden Forest. When Kayley learns what has occurred, she plans to search for Excalibur, but gets into an argument with her mother, who fears for her life. Ruber attacks the farm and abducts Kayley and Juliana with intent of using them to gain access to Camelot. He uses a potion he acquired from witches to fuse his henchmen and a henpecked rooster named Bladebeak with their weapons. Ruber becomes angry when he learns Excalibur is lost in the Forbidden Forest. Overhearing this, Kayley escapes into the forest, pursued by the steel men and Bladebeak. She is saved by a blind hermit Garrett and Ayden. After learning of the theft, Garrett plans to find Excalibur with Ayden and Kayley persuades Garrett to let her join the quest. Meanwhile, Ruber learns of this from Bladebeak and decides to follow them to obtain Excalibur. Kayley and Garrett encounter a wisecracking two-headed dragon Devon and Cornwall. The two dislike each other and dream of being separated; due to their disagreement, they cannot fly or breathe fire. After helping them evade from a group of attacking dragons, who are taken out by Ruber and his henchmen, Devon and Cornwall join their quest. During a night of rest, much to Kayley's reluctance, Garrett reveals he was once a stable boy in Camelot who dreamt of becoming a knight. While saving horses from a fire, he was kicked in the head which caused his blindness. Following the accident, Lionel still believed in Garrett and trained him personally. Garrett teaches Kayley more about the forest, including the existence of magical healing plants. The next day, after only finding Excalibur's belt in a giant footprint, Kayley's frustrated ranting unintentionally distracts Garrett from hearing Ayden's warning, causing him to get injured by Ruber's men. Kayley saves him by using the sentient trees to trap Ruber and his men. She escorts Garrett to a remote cave where she uses a healing plant to heal his wounds. They reconcile and profess their love for each other. Discovering the scabbard, the group enter a giant cave where a rock-like ogre holds Excalibur, using it as a toothpick. They recover Excalibur and manage to evade Ruber. After reaching the end of the forest, Garrett gives Excalibur to Kayley and returns to the forest, claiming he does not belong in Camelot. However, Ruber captures Kayley and takes Excalibur. He melds it to his right arm with his potion before imprisoning Kayley in the wagon with Juliana. Devon and Cornwall witness this and inform Garrett, who decides to go and rescue Kayley. By collaborating for the first time, Devon and Cornwall are able to fly and breathe fire, and they fly Garrett to Camelot. Meanwhile, Bladebeak reconciles with his constantly henpecking hen and frees Kayley from her ropes. She warns the guards of Ruber's trap, exposing him and his steel men. Garrett, Devon and Cornwall arrive shortly to assist. While Devon and Cornwall save Ayden by breathing fire at the griffin, Kayley and Garrett find Ruber attempting to kill Arthur inside the castle. They intervene and trick Ruber into returning Excalibur back into its stone. Ruber is vaporized by the stone's magic, which reverts his henchmen, Bladebeak, and Excalibur to their original forms, heals Arthur, and temporarily separates Devon and Cornwall, who decide to be reunited. Later, with Excalibur returned to Arthur, Kayley and Garrett become knights of the Round Table and they ride off into the distance on their horse. ==Voice cast==

• Jessalyn Gilsig as Kayley, a young woman who aspires to be a knight. • Andrea Corr as Kayley's singing voice. • Sarah Rayne (Also known as Sarah Freeman) as young Kayley. • Cary Elwes as Garrett, a blind hermit who joins Kayley's quest. • Bryan White as Garrett's singing voice. • Gary Oldman as Lord Ruber, a former knight plotting to steal Excalibur in order to become king of Camelot and is loosely based on the Red Knight. • Eric Idle and Don Rickles as Devon and Cornwall, a comic relief two-headed dragon whom Kayley and Garrett meet. Devon is long-necked, intellectual and polite while Cornwall is short-necked, lowbrow and wisecracking. • Jane Seymour as Juliana, Kayley's widowed mother, who has reservations over Kayley becoming a knight. • Celine Dion as Juliana's singing voice. • Pierce Brosnan as King Arthur, the legendary King of England who resides in Camelot. • Steve Perry as King Arthur's singing voice. • Bronson Pinchot as Griffin, Ruber's pet and enforcer. • Jaleel White as Bladebeak, a rooster who is fused with an axe by Ruber. • Gabriel Byrne as Sir Lionel, Kayley's father who is killed by Ruber when defending King Arthur. • John Gielgud as Merlin, a wizard and Arthur's advisor. This was the last film of Gielgud's career. • Frank Welker as Ayden, Merlin's pet falcon that guides Garrett. ==Production==

In May 1995, The Quest for the Grail was Warner Bros. Feature Animation's first announced project. Bill Kroyer and Frederik Du Chau were announced as the directors, with Sue Kroyer serving as co-producer. The initial story centered around a young female character named Susannah, who embarks on a dangerous quest for the Holy Grail to save her sister from a ruthless and powerful knight. Elizabeth Chandler, who had co-written the screenplay for A Little Princess (1995), was enlisted to write the script. According to Lauren Faust, who was an animator for the film, it was initially envisioned with a PG-13 rating and was meant to draw homage to Ralph Bakshi's Wizards (1977), but it was changed to be more family-friendly to compete with the Disney Renaissance films. The film was put into production before the story was finalized. However, during the fall of 1995, the animators were reassigned to finish Space Jam (1996). Meanwhile, in April 1996, Christopher Reeve was cast as King Arthur. During the interim, several story changes were made that resulted in creative differences between the Kroyers and the studio management. In particular, Excalibur replaced the Holy Grail, which Warner Bros. Feature Animation president Max Howard felt better reflected the film's setting: "The symbol of Camelot is the power of Excalibur, and that became a more interesting theme: Whoever held the sword, held the power." who later moved on to developing another project at Warner Bros. Feature Animation. The film's initial producer, Frank Gladstone, left the project in February 1997 and was replaced with Dalisa Cohen. Animation The film was mainly animated at the main Warner Bros. Feature Animation facility located in Glendale, California and London, England. Additional studios that worked on the film included Yowza! Animation in Toronto, Ontario, where they assisted in clean-up animation, Heart of Texas Productions in Austin, and A. Film A/S in Copenhagen where, along with London, about a quarter of the film was animated overseas. The supervising animators were Athanassios Vakalis for Kayley, Chrystal Klabunde for Garrett, Cynthia Overman for Juliana, Alexander Williams for Ruber, Dan Wagner for Devon and Cornwall, Stephan Franck for the Griffin and Bladebeak, and Mike Nguyen for Ayden. To create the rock-like ogre and other computer-generated effects, the production team used Silicon Graphics' Alias Research software. According to Katherine Percy, the head of CGI effects, the software was originally designed for special effects used in live-action films. ==Music==

}} On January 31, 1996, David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager were attached to compose several songs for the film. The album peaked at #117 on the Billboard 200, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Prayer". The song was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but lost to "When You Believe" from DreamWorks' The Prince of Egypt. On the soundtrack, "The Prayer" was performed separately by Celine Dion in English, and by Andrea Bocelli in Italian. The now better-known Dion-Bocelli duet in both languages first appeared in October 1998 on Dion's Christmas album These Are Special Times; it was also released as a single in March 1999 and on Bocelli's album Sogno in April 1999. "Looking Through Your Eyes" was the lead single for the soundtrack. Andrea Corr of The Corrs and Bryan White performed the song as a duet in the film, while LeAnn Rimes performed the song during the end credits as the pop version. The second single off the soundtrack, "I Stand Alone", performed by White in the film, and Steve Perry for the end credits. Other original songs composed for the film include "United We Stand", "On My Father's Wings", "Ruber", and "If I Didn't Have You". Track listing ==Release==

The film was originally slated for November 14, 1997, but was pushed to May 15, 1998, to give the production team more time to finish the film. Marketing The film was accompanied with a marketing campaign with promotional licensees including Tyson Foods, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo via Frito-Lay, Kodak, ConAgra Foods via Act II Popcorn, and Hasbro via Kenner Products. The fast food restaurant chain Wendy's had toys based on the characters included in a kid's meal, while Kodak had print advertisements on over 200 million photo processing envelopes. Warner Bros. also partnered with Scholastic to produce children's books based on the film. Home media Quest for Camelot was released on VHS and DVD by Warner Home Video in the United States and Canada on October 13, 1998. The VHS edition includes a teaser trailer for Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek Productions' The King and I (1999), while the DVD included several making-of documentaries with interviews of the filmmakers and cast and a music video of "I Stand Alone". To help promote the home video release of the film, Warner partnered with Act II Popcorn, Smucker's, American Express, Continental Airlines, Best Western Hotels, CoinStar and UNICEF, which advertised its trick-or-treat donation boxes before Halloween arrived. Other promotions with the purchase of every video included a free "Devon & Cornwall" pendant, a mail-in offer for a free 14-inch "Devon & Cornwall" stuffed toy, and a Warner Bros. 75th Anniversary savings booklet worth over $150 in special offers and valuable savings. ==Reception==

Critical response On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 43% based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Diminished by uneven animation and treacly songs, Quest for Camelot is an adventure that ought to be tossed back to the Lady in the Lake." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 50 based on 22 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a B+ on a grade scale from A to F. Owen Gleiberman, reviewing for Entertainment Weekly, wrote, "The images are playful and serviceably lush, but the story and characters might have come out of a screenwriting software program, and the songs (sung by Celine Dion and Steve Perry, among others) are Vegas-pop wallpaper." David Kronke of the Los Angeles Times described the film as "formulaic" and wrote that it was "a nearly perfect reflection of troubling trends in animated features". He called Kayley "a standard-issue spunky female heroine" and said that "Garrett's blindness is the one adventurous element to the film, but even it seems calculated; his lack of sight is hardly debilitating, yet still provides kids a lesson in acceptance." Critical of the story, animation, characters, and music, James Berardinelli of ReelViews wrote that the film was "dull, uninspired, and, worst of all, characterized by artwork that could charitably be called 'unimpressive' ". Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote, "Coming on the heels of 20th Century Fox's lush but silly Anastasia (a much better film than this one), Quest for Camelot suggests that Disney still owns the artistic franchise on animated features." Kevin J. Harty, an editor of a collection of essays titled Cinema Arthuriana, says that the film is "slightly indebted to, rather than, as Warner publicity claims, actually based on" Chapman's novel. Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle said that the film is "a spirited adventure with generous romantic and comic charms" that "aims to please a range of ages, with loopy gags, corny romance, an oversized villain and catchy tunes performed by Celine Dion and LeAnn Rimes, among others." Joe Leydon of Variety considered the film as a "lightweight but likable fantasy that offers a playfully feminist twist to Arthurian legends" and noted that the "animation, though not quite up to Disney standards, is impressive enough on its own terms to dazzle the eye and serve the story." Box office Quest for Camelot grossed $6 million on its opening weekend, ranking third behind The Horse Whisperer and Deep Impact. The film ultimately grossed $22.5 million during its theatrical run in North America. Cumulatively, the film grossed $38.1 million worldwide. Accolades The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: • 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: • "The Prayer" – Nominated ==Adaptations==

Stage adaptation Prior to the release of the film, Warner Bros. had plans to make a stage adaptation of the film that would tour around to different renaissance fairs throughout the United States, as well as a nightly fireworks show for Six Flags Great Adventure. Both shows were designed by SLG Design & Creative Talent and Steve Gilliam. The touring aspect of the project was cancelled soon after the film's release due to poor box office performance and the tour's anticipated cost, but the nightly firework show did end up coming to fruition. Quest for Camelot Nights debuted at Six Flags Great Adventure in 1998, and ran through 2001. The show told the story of the film, with much of the film's main characters appearing as live characters in the show. The film's musical numbers were acted out with scenes from the film displayed with projections onto the show's "water curtains". Audiobook The Quest for Camelot Audio Action-Adventure was a follow along audiobook based on the film. Released April 7, 1998, the interactive story features two new songs that were not included in the movie, Camelot and To Be a Knight. Initially announced in 1996, the audiobook was scheduled to be released October 1997, but was delayed until April 1998. The story was narrated by Val Bettin. Video games The first video game was titled Quest for Camelot and is an action-adventure video game developed by Titus Interactive and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Color in 1998, and later was added to the Nintendo Switch Online service on September 5, 2023. A Nintendo 64 version of the game was planned, but was scrapped due to the film's performance at the box office. The second video game was titled Quest for Camelot: Dragon Games is a computer game developed by Knowledge Adventure, it gives the player the ability to explore Camelot after the events of the film. In addition to exploring the world, the player gets to raise a dragon egg and watch it grow. ==See also==