Here's a question for anyone knowledgeable about animated film/anime... I was just remembering a sequence from an anime movie I watched (on American television) when I was a kid, so it could have been made anytime between the mid 80's and late 90's. It was a fantasy that involved a young boy and girl as the hero and heroine, and the girl may have been a princess of the fantasy land... I think their enemy was a witch, and I think she had a son. Anyway, the two scenes I remember are:
The girl is hypnotized by the bad guys and is forced to marry the witch's son/bad prince. They are in a church, but all the people in the pews and the priest are actually just paper cut-outs. When the boy hero comes rushing in, all the paper people suddenly get blown over and crumple. When the boy reaches the girl, he cannot shake her out of her trance, or at least it takes a long time to wake her.
Also, there was a scene near the end where the boy hero faces the main villain on a floating chessboard in the sky that tilts back and forth.
I'd be grateful for any help with this!
Sounds a lot like Unico in the Island of Magic.
It had a wizard who turned people into paper cutouts and then, if memory serves, they had a mock wedding. I also think the end battle involved something that looked like a chess board.
But, it's about a unicorn so . . .
Take a look at some photos:http://www.fujikoma.com/unico/
Hmm, checked it out on YouTube and while it is pretty nifty... the puppets in the Unico film are blocky statues rather than paper, there is no wedding (not that I noticed, anyway), and the palace thing in the sky at the end isn't a chessboard. I think I would have remembered a unicorn and all the other animals, since I've always been an animal fanatic... but thank you for introducing me to a classic! That evil wizard is childhood nightmare-fuel, and the clockwork dragon is hilarious!
The movie I remember definitely had a young human male as the protagonist. And the big face-off with the villain took place on a floating chessboard, complete with black-and-white squares, tilting up and down in the sky. I remember the tone of the movie, or at least the bit of it that I can remember, was pretty somber and dark. I'm trying to think of any style elements that could date it... it wasn't quite as "cartoony" as the Unico film, and it may have been made a little later, but I can't come up with anything solid. This is driving me nuts!
I recall the anime from when I was a kid, too. I think it was "Jack and the Beanstalk" 1974.
OH MY GOD that is exactly it! Jack and the Beanstalk 1974! Wow, the rest of the film looks so much goofier than I remember, but the wedding scene is there and it is still pretty creepy. Thank you so much, jaeas365!