History Trivia / QuestForCamelot

* BoxOfficeBomb: Despite the schedule change to open away from any other animated film, the film still failed due to negative reviews and comparisons to ''Anastasia'', ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'' (which was reissued in theaters that November), and ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'', and was devoured by ''Film/{{Godzilla 1998}}'', losing Warner Bros. about $40,000,000 (which was exactly the film's budget - it only made $22,510,798 domestically and contributed to Warner Animation shuttering its doors until ''WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie'' brought it BackFromTheDead 16 years later).

* DuelingMovies: With Disney's ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'', which also has a heroine trying to get out of a traditionally female role and join the battlefield, fighting against her country's sexist traditions, along with a dragon sidekick. Disney prevailed yet again, and this did not help Warner's business at all.

* GodNeverSaidThat: Lauren Faust has refuted a quote that made the rounds on [=DeviantArt=] back in 2011 where she gave producers a ReasonYouSuckSpeech and also a TakeThat to Creator/DonBluth. [[https://www.deviantart.com/clxcool/art/Quest-for-camelot-ORIGINALLY-A-PG13-FILM-307002829 This is the alleged quote]]. She shot it down, saying she only worked on the film for six months, producers were unlikely to ask a 22-year-old animator for her opinion, and she doesn't know if it was originally PG-13.

* CreatorBacklash:

* FakeBrit: Canadian-born Creator/JessalynGilsig as Kayley. Her attempt at a British accent slips a couple of times.

%%* NamesTheSame: Not the only Forbidden Forest out there. %%(What other Forbidden Forest is there? Please elaborate.)%%

* ActorAllusion:
** Possibly unintentional, but Creator/GaryOldman's character Ruber (an [[ObviouslyEvil obvious villain]]) is very similar to [[Film/LostInSpace Dr. Smith]], another obvious villain played by Oldman. It helps that both films came out in the same year.
** The song "If I Didn't Have You" has got the line "[[Creator/MontyPython You'd be extinct, you'd cease to be]]", sung by Devon, voiced by Creator/EricIdle.
** Creator/CaryElwes' voice work as Garret definitely evokes his performance as Westley in ''The Princess Bride'', right down to a shot between him and Kayley that resembles that film's poster.

* BoxOfficeBomb: Despite the schedule change to open away from any other animated film, ''Quest For Camelot'' still failed due to negative reviews and comparisons to ''Anastasia'', ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'' (which was reissued in theaters that November), and ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'', and was devoured by ''Film/{{Godzilla 1998}}'', losing Warner Bros. about $40,000,000 (which was exactly the film's budget - it only made $22,510,798 domestically and contributed to Warner Animation shuttering its doors until ''WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie'' brought it BackFromTheDead 16 years later).

** ''Quest for Camelot'' was originally going to be directed by Bill and Susan Kroyer, the [[CreatorCouple husband-and-wife]] team behind ''WesternAnimation/FernGullyTheLastRainforest'', and the film was originally meant to be a much darker, more faithful adaptation of Vera Chapman's novel ''The King's Damosel.'' However, when Frederik Du Chau replaced the Kroyers as the director, he overhauled the storyline and turned it from a dark and faithful story into an very loose Disney-esque musical just to compete with Disney. It didn't work out so well and was a [[BoxOfficeBomb complete box-office failure]]. The move banished his career to the B and C lists in the end for it.

* ScheduleSlip: The film was meant to open for Christmas 1997, but was pushed back to May 1998 to avoid serious competition with Creator/DonBluth's ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'', Creator/JamesCameron's ''Film/{{Titanic 1997}}'', and a reissue of ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''. Ultimately, it didn't help much.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** The film was originally conceived as a darker, edgier and generally more serious PG-13 adventure as it was based on a very dark and serious book, ''The King's Damsel'', before being retooled into a more family-friendly Disney-style production just to compete with Disney.
** Plans for sequels that were based on the other books ''The Green Knight'' and ''King Arthur's Daughter'' were in the works, but due to the film's commercial and critical failure, the sequels were immediately scrapped.

** Animator Derek Lee Thompson [[https://www.facebook.com/groups/traditionalanimation/permalink/2288115524776522/?comment_id=2288395141415227&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D doesnt look back on the film with fondness either.]]
-->"The first movie I animated on. Bad movie. The sound track was good and the one song won an Oscar but the movie was a bunch of miss steps and they switched everyone around after I signed on. I was on the Kayley team, they changed directors designers animators writers and on and on. Kayley was first Suzanna...Then Lynett and finally Kayley. Garrett was originally a blind swordsman. Creator/ChristopherReeve was brought on to be Merlin but couldn't get any inflection because he was on a breather after being paralyzed. They put the songs in the worst places. Putting the award winning song over a chase sequence. Kayleys first song where we are supposed to really care for her was farmed out and then crapped out. She floated from rock to rock..I just have post dramatic stress all these years later..."
** Animator Jerome K. Moore doesnt look back on the project with fondness either.
-->"WB's first mistake (of which there were many) was in trying to emulate the Disney style. I mean, we're talking about a studio that was and still is at the top of the animation game, and WB tries to copy their expertise??? Better to have done what they did in the old days, with Looney Tunes' Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Termite Terrace being the antithesis of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the Nine Old Men. Then they lost the Croyers, the couple that started out designing the whole [=Q4C=] production. They couldn't pick a consistent direction with Kayley, originally making her more heroic and tomboy-ish, then switching to make her more girlish. It was indeed an absolute mess. As I sat up there on the 19th Floor of the building in Glendale, I mostly heard complaints from all the animators and production assistants."

** Animator Derek Lee Thompson [[https://www.facebook.com/groups/traditionalanimation/permalink/2288115524776522/?comment_id=2288395141415227&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R%22%7D doesnt look back on the film]] with fondness either.

** Animator Derek Lee Thompson doesnt look back on the film with fondness either.

-->"The first movie I animated on. Bad movie. The sound track was good and the one song won an Oscar but the movie was a bunch of miss steps and they switched everyone around after I signed on. I was on the Kayley team, they changed directors designers animators writers and on and on. Kayley was first Suzanna...Then Lynett and finally Kayley. Garrett was originally a blind swordsman. Creator/ChristopherReeve was brought on to be Merlin but couldnt get any inflection because he was on a breather after being paralyzed. They put the songs in the worst places. Putting the award winning song over a chase sequence. Kayleys first song where we are supposed to really care for her was farmed out and then crapped out. She floated from rock to rock..I just have post dramatic stress all these years later..."

-->"WB's first mistake (of which there were many) was in trying to emulate the Disney style. I mean, we're talking about a studio that was and still is at the top of the animation game, and WB tries to copy their expertise??? Better to have done what they did in the old days, with Looney Tunes' Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Termite Terrace being the antithesis of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and the Nine Old Men. Then they lost the Croyers, the couple that started out designing the whole Q4C production. They couldn't pick a consistent direction with Kayley, originally making her more heroic and tomboy-ish, then switching to make her more girlish. It was indeed an absolute mess. As I sat up there on the 19th Floor of the building in Glendale, I mostly heard complaints from all the animators and production assistants."

-->"The first movie I animated on. Bad movie. The sound track was good and the one song won an Oscar but the movie was a bunch of miss steps and they switched everyone around after I signed on. I was on the Kayley team, they changed directors designers animators writers and on and on. Kayley was first Suzanna...Then Lynett and finally Kayley. Garrett was originally a blind swordsman. Creator/ChristopherReeves was brought on to be Merlin but couldnt get any inflection because he was on a breather after being paralyzed. They put the songs in the worst places. Putting the award winning song over a chase sequence. Kayleys first song where we are supposed to really care for her was farmed out and then crapped out. She floated from rock to rock..I just have post dramatic stress all these years later..."

* CreatorBacklash: Animator Creator/LaurenFaust has spoken at length on how she hated making this film. She admitted that Creator/WarnerBros only wanted profits. Faust also hated how the animators were rushed to finish the film on time. Along with the other animators, she knew that the film was going to bomb and they were right. In the end, she agreed that the original PG-13 version would be better.

->"The first movie I animated on. Bad movie. The sound track was good and the one song won an Oscar but the movie was a bunch of miss steps and they switched everyone around after I signed on. I was on the Kayley team, they changed directors designers animators writers and on and on. Kayley was first Suzanna...Then Lynett and finally Kayley. Garrett was originally a blind swordsman. Creator/ChristopherReeves was brought on to be Merlin but couldnt get any inflection because he was on a breather after being paralyzed. They put the songs in the worst places. Putting the award winning song over a chase sequence. Kayleys first song where we are supposed to really care for her was farmed out and then crapped out. She floated from rock to rock..I just have post dramatic stress all these years later..."

** Frederik Du Chau, who turned the film into a Disney-clone musical, did not direct another film for 7 years, and one of the writers, Kirk De Micco, had that exact same hiatus; both worked on ''Racing Stripes'', but De Micco went to Creator/DreamWorksAnimation and did ''WesternAnimation/TheCroods'', while Du Chau is in the C-list of animators.

* OldShame: None of the animators who worked on this movie like it. Creator/LaurenFaust, whose staunch feminist philosophies are a complete 180 from [[FauxActionGirl this film's standards of a strong female character]], has been particularly brutal to it in the years since.[[note]]She later admitted that she had no idea what the movie was actually about when she was animating for it and was furious once she saw it.[[/note]]

* NonSingingVoice: Most of the cast, possibly because this wasn't initially written as a musical, so whether a given performer could sing would not have been a concern at the time he/she was cast. In addition, some of the original actors ''can'' sing, but it's possible that the songs were added in so late that either the contracts were already completed or the actors were no longer available.
** The vocal differences between speaking and singing voice actors are especially noticeable. For example, Kayley gains a very clear Irish lilt (provided by Andrea Corr) when she starts singing.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The film was originally conceived as a darker, edgier and generally more serious PG-13 adventure as it was based on a very dark and serious book, ''The King's Damsel'', before being retooled into a more family-friendly Disney-style production just to compete with Disney.

* NamesTheSame: Not the only Forbidden Forest out there.

** Plans for sequels that were based on the other books The Green Knight and King Arthur's Daughter were in the works but due to the films commercial and critical failure, the sequels' were immediately scrapped.

** Plans for sequels that were based on the other books The Green Knight and King Arthur's Daughter by Vera Chapman were in the works but due to the films commercial and critical failure, the sequels' productions were immediately scrapped.

** The film was originally going to be directed by Bill and Susan Kroyer, the [[CreatorCouple husband-and-wife]] team behind ''WesternAnimation/FernGullyTheLastRainforest'', and the film was originally meant to be a much darker, more faithful adaptation of Vera Chapman's novel ''The King's Damosel.'' However, when Frederik Du Chau replaced the Kroyers as the director, he overhauled the storyline and turned it from a dark and faithful story into an very loose Disney-esque musical just to compete with Disney. It didn't work out so well and was a [[BoxOfficeBomb complete box-office failure]]. The move banished his career to the B and C lists in the end for it.

** Possibly unintentional, but Gary Oldman's character Ruber (an [[ObviouslyEvil obvious villain]]) is very similar to [[Film/LostInSpace Dr. Smith]], another obvious villain played by Oldman. It helps that both films came out in the same year.
** The song "If I Didn't Have You" has got the line "[[Creator/MontyPython You'd be extinct, you'd cease to be]]", sung by Devon, voiced by Eric Idle.
** Cary Elwes' voice work as Garret definitely evokes his performance as Westley in ''The Princess Bride'', right down to a shot between him and Kayley that resembles that film's poster.

* FakeBrit: Canadian-born Jessalyn Gilsig as Kayley. Her attempt at a British accent slips a couple of times.

** This film, one of countless Disney-copycats at the time, is sometimes seen as one of the signs that TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation was coming to an end, and is an especially easy target for the downfall of traditionally animated features in America towards the end of this era.

* OldShame: None of the animators who worked on this movie like it. Creator/LaurenFaust, whose staunch feminist philosophies are a complete 180 from [[FauxActionGirl this film's standards of a strong female character]], has been particularly brutal to it in recent years.[[note]]She later admitted that she had no idea what the movie was actually about when she was animating for it and was furious once she saw it.[[/note]]

** Warner Bros. was banking entirely on the success of this film to ensure that they would have a future in animated features. The film's failure set the bar especially low for them and the studio heads completely lost interest in the animation market afterwards, deciding not to spend any money on the [[WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant other]] [[WesternAnimation/OsmosisJones three]] [[Film/LooneyTunesBackInAction films]] in it's roster until the feature animation division quietly died in 2003. They would eventually return as Warner Animation Group in TheNewTens.
** Frederik Du Chau, who is the one responsible for turning the film into a Disney-clone musical, did not direct another film for 7 years, and one of the writers, Kirk De Micco, had that exact same hiatus; both worked on ''Racing Stripes'', but De Micco went to Creator/DreamWorksAnimation and did ''WesternAnimation/TheCroods'', while Du Chau is in the C-list of animators.

** Heck, it wasn't even going to be a ''musical''! All of the songs were written in the later stages of the film's production.

* NonSingingVoice: Most of the cast, possibly because this wasn't initially written as a musical, so whether a given performer could sing would not have been a concern at the time he/she was cast. In addition, some of the original actors ''can'' sing, but it's possible that the songs were added in so late that either the contracts were already set in stone or the actors were no longer available.

* TroubledProduction: See ExecutiveMeddling above. The film went through numerous changes that led to its Disneyfication, not helped at all but a tense work environment dominated by micromanaging on the part of Warner Bros., which fellow animator Brad Bird saw as a huge detriment to the team's efforts. Most of the animators have spoken very negatively of their experience with the project, with many voicing disapproval of both the script and the finished product.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The film was originally intended to be darker, edgier and generally a more serious adventure as it was based on a very dark and serious book, ''The King's Damsel'', before being retooled into a more family-friendly Disney-style production just to compete with Disney.