La dernière licorne

I only saw this movie recently and I wondered why I had never seen it before. I haven't read the book, and I only vaguely remembered some of my friends mentioning this movie.

I'm not usually a big fan of classic medieval fantasy, even though I love fantasy in general, but I enjoyed this movie so much. Even though it's a family movie, it doesn't get too cutesy and doesn't sweeten the story and the universe that the characters evolve in. And the characters do evolve, which is another of the good points in it. Even though it's a fairy tale, it's easy to apply some themes of the movie to our world. By example, we can suppose that this is a movie about staying true to yourself. This is no Disney movie. The ending can be seen in a positive as well as in a negative light. You can have many opinions about it, which is one thing I liked so much.

The art and character design is beautiful. You can tell it was made in the 70's or early 80's and it just adds more appeal to it. The style is a mix between anime and occidental cartoon style, but it works very well, specially since this type of collaboration cartoon was so frequent at that time. The atmosphere of the movie is helped by the gentle colors and the music. Yes, the music.. The music wasn't so great, I have to admit, but it really worked well for one reason. They didn't take instrumental music, they didn't try to compose fantasy-themed music for it. They used modern music, and even though it wasn't the best, it added a different and pleasant feeling to it..

In my opinion this is a beautiful movie that deserves a really high mark..

I saw this movie in theaters when I was a kid. I didn't see it again for the longest time until I found it on video recently. I rented it and was instantly reminded of what a wonderful movie this is. I bought my own copy a week later. It's one of the few book-to-movie translations that actually stays true to the spirit of the book. Probably due to the fact that Peter S. Beagle wrote the screenplay. A must-see. Gotta love that theme song!

The Last Unicorn stands out as that rarest of beasts: a film far better than the book. This can be attributed to the fact that the book's author, Peter S. Beagle, was forced by the constraints of film to pare his work down to the bare essentials. The Last Unicorn is marketed as a children's film, but it's far more than that -- a tale of redemption, of the search for identity, truth, and lost innocence. Molly Grue's meeting with the Unicorn stands as one of the most poignant moments in cinema.

I saw this film so many times when I was younger, and loved it. The songs are actually really lovely, but I do think that Jeff Bridges singing lacked support. The animation is actually very nice. Yes it does fall flat sometimes, but it is the 80s after all, besides overall it was quite stylish, beautiful and whimsical. The screenplay is very good also, and if I am not mistaken, it was written by the author, so there was a hint of faithfulness. Apparently Haggard's lines were literally adapted from the book. The voice talents are top notch. Alan Arkin was more than adequate as Schmendrick, and Tammy Grimes was poignant as Molly Grue. Jeff Bridges and Christopher Lee added a huge amount to the film, as did Angela Lansbury as Mommy Fortuna. Topping them all, was Mia Farrow as the brooding and sensitive Amalfia/Unicorn. The red Bull was also really sinister, and Rene Auberjoinis made me laugh as the Skull. All in all, an imaginative movie. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This movie is of unexpectedly high quality, mixed up in melancholy and nostalgia, though I don't think I actually saw it in the 1980s. It begins with a power 80s ballad, which the kiddos made fun of, but still very catchy. Schmendrick, the bumbling magician, reminds me of Cedric the magician in Sophia. And the Red Bull looks like the Balrog, not the energy drink. The tale is all a little random and confused, but has some interesting twists like the _adopted_ prince who pushes the unicorn to stay true to her original identity rather than marry him (take note Ariel). Fighting the inevitability of old age and death is another theme of interest, especially through the witch who runs a zoo with magical creatures and the crazy king who hoards the unicorns because they make him happy. Both the witch and the prince (if not the king) achieve a kind of immortality by leaving their mark on the deathless creatures: the Harpy will always remember that she was captured in the circus, and the unicorn will always remember that she loved the prince.

It's also fascinating to me that Hayao Miyazaki worked at the studio which made The Last Unicorn, Topcraft, which made Nausicaa soon thereafter. I don't see that many connections in terms of the animation aesthetics; but I haven't yet seen the Hobbit animated films also made by Rankin and Bass/Topcraft, so I can't comment there.

On a personal note, we watched this in NYC the day we went to Princeton, but didn't pay much attention to it; Seb got the blu ray for his 6th birthday and chose to watch it that night.