The Last Unicorn, Lost in Adaptation ~ The Dom

hello my beautiful Watchers and welcome back to lost in adaptation the internet review show dedicated to discussing the differences between films and the novels that came before them today's subject somehow completely eluded me until recently I must confess to a complete ignorance of its very existence until the quest for it started cropping up in the comment section of every video I put online yes it seems the nostalgia is strong with this one but I'm afraid I can't allow the potential ruination of childhoods to affect my judgment so prepare yourself for an honest opinion of the adaptation of The Last Unicorn [Music] the last unicorn was written by American author Peter s beagle and published in 1968 the adaptation came quite a few years later in 1982 impressively beagle wrote the book while he was still in his 20s he folded up with a bunch of other fantasy books though from what I can see nothing gained quite the same sort of following as the last unicorn the film was a product of a company called rankin/bass it was co-directed and produced by Arthur Rankin jr. and Jules bass the founders and owners of the company and the screenplay was written by beagle himself so if there was going to be any film production in the universe devoid of internal creative power struggles it has to be this one however before we discussed said film his my thoughts in the book this book really reminds me of Tolkien and his works and while that's mostly a compliment it's not entirely much like the Lord of the Rings there's a really good story in this book but to get to it you have to wade through a lot of well for want of a better word I'd say heavy writing there's a lot of very detailed descriptions of completely inconsequential stuff a ton of tangents that add nothing to the plot aside from just being there and a boatload of written songs that you're sure as [ __ ] gonna skip over without a second glance and that said there's a very good reason that Tolkien is held in such high regard he and beagle both have a flair of genius in everything they write in all the worlds they create other things in this book kind of reminded me of so Terry Pratchett and that is and always will be definitely a compliment a good example is the people in the story seem to be aware that they're in a fairy tale and that there's certain tropes that they're going to have to follow and they just sort of accept this as a tiresome inevitability when someone sees an abandoned baby in the cold winter being kept alive by wild animals they don't think oh no it's gonna die I better do something they think oh great well he's gonna grow up with a mysterious past and probably find a magic sword somewhere we'd better go tell the evil Duke who killed his brother for his title he's only got about 18 years left to enjoy it so to being a hero and being able to do amazing things like dragon slaying and wrong writing is considered almost a genetic trait something that's useful but not anything to be really proud of and the heroes themselves can often start to see saving the world as just an average Thursday there's also things like the people whose perspective the novel is written form are kind of aware that they are not the main characters of this tale and will ultimately not be responsible for saving the day I came very close to not making the unicorn character and this but I suspect that might have been intentional on beagles part she sometimes comes off as just a little too superior and borderline condescending to the mere mortals around her who are just so desperate to win her favor I did try to let that go though because she's not aware that she's doing it the nature of unicorns isn't the same as humans in this book they just think and feel differently to us I guess my mixed feelings towards her might be influenced by the fact that no one ever shuts up in this book about how insanely awesome unicorns are they're just so magical all the way through the book one of the big question marks that hung over this book for me is where and when the bloody hell is it set my first assumption was it was a purely fictional fantasy setting of the author's creation but then everyone started making references to real world countries like France Arabia and Greece and stuff like that so I think it had to be set on earth but presumably and alternative earth on which magical and mythical creatures actually existed Schmendrick confirms that the language that everyone is speaking is English so one has to assume that it must be taking place in England around the 15th century sort of time judging by the emotionally medieval technology level and the references to Robin Hood is a legendary figure however that's all speculation and I have a feeling the author's answer would be it's wherever you want it to be which would explain the mix and accents in the film and finally some admittedly very minor nitpicks as all the unicorns came back at the end and they weren't really gone in the first place they were just imprisoned the title of this book is a tad misleading speaking of misleading if anyone tells you that the main character of this book is a unicorn and they are being so yes the story revolves around her but out of the 14 chapters this book only the first four are told from her point of view the rest being divided up between symmetric Molly and Leah and she barely even features in some of them except by reference okay now let's talk about that film while this film is not exactly aimed at my science fiction obsessed self and my try scenario age range I can see why so many people hold it in such high regard it's got an almost studio ghibli level ability to hit people right in the fields that's not a random comparison by the way a lot of people who worked for rankin/bass went on to work for Ghibli after it went under the cast is reasonably star-studded mia farrow as the unicorn Jeff Bridges as the hero Prince and Christopher Lee as the evil King to name just a few according to bagel Lee came to the early production for the movie armed with his own copy of the book in which he'd highlighted sections he wouldn't let them cut out that guy was so [ __ ] awesome this is a very blue movie apparently certain colors including black were really hard to animate back in the day so everything is just blue instead especially if it's taking place at night and I mean everything that grass is blue the trees are blue the mountains are blue the caves are blue the castles are blue the beaches are blue even the [ __ ] potatoes are blue why are the potatoes blue slightly pedantic I know but the DVD box covers and posters first movie really bother me they seem to be doing the best to convince everyone that it's a much more childish and cartoony movie than it actually is it seems an odd choice that's what I'm saying I don't think the color scheme ever got anywhere near that garish in the actual film this film is apparently a musical but none of the characters sing until over an hour until the movie it's so jarring when films do that either be a musical or don't dammit the other problem of this is Mia Farrow is not the best singer the only thing I can really save for her is she's a lot better than Jeff Bridges other than that the music in this is pretty good the opening song was so popular Kenny Loggins did a cover version of it in 1994 I'm poking fun of this film because that's what I do but I will say in the highly unlikely event that I ever procreate I'm sure this will be on my list of movies to show it anyway let's talk adaptation probably not surprisingly considering the identity of the screenwriter this film follows the plot of The Last Unicorn very very closely so closely in fact that in order to list all the things that were also in the book one must simply described the entire plot of the film so no time to waste a very very old but still young because immortal unicorn is living peacefully in a secluded forest and has done so for countless centuries she over his two Hunter's talking about her and is distressed to learn that she might be the last of her kind she eventually decides that she's going to have to leave the familiar comfort of her forest and tried to find them or at least some evidence that they're not all gone a rather unusual talking butterfly hints that the disappearance of her people might be connected to a creature called the red bull and despite him seeming less than the liable as a saw she decides to seek out said scarlet bovine pretty much as soon as she starts travelling through human lands she's madly offended to discover that they can't tell the difference between her and a nice-looking horse she makes it quite a way but eventually makes the mistake of sleeping by the roadside and has the incredibly bad luck of being found by a traveling carnival that specializes in mythical creatures it's led by a witch who calls herself mummy Fortuna who recognises her as a unicorn so cast a sleeping spell on her and has her lackeys lock her up in an iron cage one of said lackeys introduces himself as smen Drake and claims to be a magician he explains to her that even though she can see that the cages around her are full of nothing but regular animals mummy Fortuna is placed a weak spell on them so the common folk see them as legendary terrors however in the cage right next to her is a genuine harpy a creature of pure evil pot hag part bird and whoa hey now what is uh what is going on with that um okay I'm sorry no I'm gonna need to come back to that later Schmendrick tells her that he's on her side and will set her free as soon as he can he returns to her later that night and tries to magic the cage away however it turns out is a pretty shite wizard and only succeeds in shrinking it he gives up and just uses the keys he stole instead one of the other carnies a rather disagreeable gentleman named Brook interrupts them tries to stop the jailbreak while he in smen jerk of fighting the unicorn uses her magic horn to unlock the other cages and free the animals including the harpy she's a bit of an ungrateful sort of monster it seems and tries to kill her but finds the unicorn too powerful of victims so settles for devouring her former cap to instead smash it requests that as a reward for saving her he'd be allowed to come with the unicorn on her quest to find her people even though he's next to useless he tells her that the red bull is the companion of an evil king called Haggard who lives in a far-off castle no one really knows if he is the Bulls master or vice versa or what manner of creature or demon the bull is but he can lead her there they travel together for a while before semaine Drake is captured by some outlaws roaming the land and taken before their leader captain Cully who seems friendly enough if itand ineffective as a bandit leader Kali's lady friend Molly grue seems less friendly so he tries to impress everyone by performing some real magic instead of the Pala tricks he usually settles for letting raw untamed power flow through him he summons a vision of Robin Hood and his Merry Men which prompts everyone to run after them begging him to let them join his much cooler outlaw gang Cully and his lieutenant Jack jingly decide this probably makes him a worthy hostage so tie him to a tree so they can ransom him later smen Drake attempts to free himself using magic but only succeeds in enchanting the tree into falling in love with him and Kate nope nope nope I am NOT getting distracted I will come back to that later - the tree is overcome with anguish when she learns that she can't keep him and tries to kill him but smen Jack's life and chastity is saved by the timely arrival of the unicorn as they're leaving they're accosted by Molly who is at once both interrupted by the unicorn and mad at her for not having come to her when she was a young maiden like in all the stories nevertheless she too pledges herself to helping her rescue her people from the red ball ignoring spend rooks objections together they work their way towards Haggard's crappy-looking castle but before they can reach it they are set upon by the red ball in all its terrible glory he chases down the terrified unicorn and seems intent on driving her to the castle as his prisoner desperate to save her Smeg once again summons his uncontrollable magic and turns her into a human girl in the hopes that this will confuse or distract her pursuer his gambit pays off in the red ball [ __ ] off back to the castle but no one seems in a hurry to thank him in fact Molly and the unicorn are both horrified by what he's done by making her a human he's made her mortal and doomed her to die something she's not too keen on Schmendrick suggests that they try to finish their quest quickly and then he will attempt to return her to a former glory when the bull has been dealt with they approach Haggard's castle observed by two guards watching from the highest tower they meet at the gate and demand to know their purpose their butts metric insists on talking to King Haggard directly they are led to the darkest dingy is throne room ever where the guards reveal themselves to be King Haggard himself and his adopted son Leah apparently Haggard keeps his staff to a minimum to avoid extra expense and does a lot of his own work around the castle in order to buy him time while they search for the red ball symmetric Bluffs that he's there to apply for the position of court wizard along with his servant Molly and his niece the lady Amalthea a name he chose at random for his former unicorn friend Haggard informs him that he already has a royal court wizard named mabrook and summons him mabrook happens to recognize Mandrake and tells Hagrid that he's famous for being the most incompetent magician in the world in a surprise move though Haggard agrees this is probably the case he still fires mabrook and appoints Meldrick as his new royal sorcerer his reasoning being that having a competent wizard in his service had failed to make him happy for years so he might as well try employing an incompetent one for a bit mabrook is a tad miffed at this and unleashes a magic spell that the unicorn cancels out without much effort in addition to symmetric molly is brought on as the castles cook cleaner chambermaid and pretty much everything else lady Amalthea is invited to stay as well but isn't put to work skipping forward in time a few months Prince alia has fallen hopelessly in love with lady Amalthea and has taken to going out into the world to do great heroic feats like dragon slaying in a fruitless attempt to impress her he has however successfully befriended Molly who tries to give him some advice like try writing poetry or just being nice to her Cement Erick is quite frustrated after months of dancing around like an idiot for Haggard and utterly failing to discover where in the cast the king is hiding his Red Bull which they know must be there somewhere because they can often hear him thrashing about a stray cat okay well it's not tits this time but I'm still gonna have to come back to this later a stray cats only starts talking to Molly and tells her that they need to look for a skull that gunts the entrance to the castle secret rooms and they'll need to get some wine to drink itself to get by him apparently what I've always suspected is true if cats could talk they'd be unhelpful dicks Molly tries to talk about this to her former court repaired but it seems her life is an immortal unicorn is finally starting to slip away from her and she barely remembers any of it not long after it seems it's gone altogether she has no idea who she was before she was lady Amalthea now that she's almost fully human she starts to reciprocate his feelings falling in love with him as well this is nice for them for a while but eventually King Haggard being a man it's impossible to get one over on gets tired of playing games and confronts her about being a unicorn she has no idea what he's talking about but he assumes she's just plain dumb he tells her that he has all her people imprisoned in the sea nearby driven there by the Red Bull on his orders because seeing unicorns is the only Prozac he ever gets in life lady Amalthea is still genuinely non-plus but fortunately smin jerk overhears the conversation he suggests they make one last attempt to defeat the red ball before she becomes too human to ever turn back they find the skull that the cat mentioned and cementec manages to enchant it into talking he isn't helpful but is eventually bribed into revealing the way to the monster with the use of the wine that Schmendrick apparently managed to create out of water and then convinced to drink itself okay just one more of these I promise anyway the skull reveals to them that the ways through the clock in the main hall then betrays them and raises the alarm they flee through the ethereal clock and do indeed arrive in a secret corridor Leah joins them and symetric makes it through just before Haggard destroys the clock blocking their escape symmetric funny reveals lady and mafias true at quite nature to layer but he is neither surprised nor perturbed reaffirming his love for her for her part it seems she's come full circle on the idea of becoming a unicorn again and fighting the red ball horrifies her as much as becoming a human did not wanting to [ __ ] her life up any more symmetric suggests that she doesn't have to turn back if she doesn't want to but oddly enough it's Leah who seems resigned to her telling her that they all have parts to play in this story and hers can't be avoided forever and the debate doesn't go on for long because around then the red ball arrives to share his opinion on the matter it seems he's finally figured out what the crack is with Lady Amalfi own tries to attack her Lea's attempts to defend her are ineffectual so ironically the only option becomes a reversal of before turning her back into a unicorn so she can fight him in her true form alas she's still too terrified of him to do this and runs away being driven all the way to the edge of the sea Bendrick and Molly are powerless so Lia sees no choice but to sacrifice himself by jumping in the way of the attacker enraged over his death the unicorn finally turns to do battle of the red bull has no idea how to deal with someone actually fighting back so buggers off into the sea the unicorns come flooding back into existence out of the sea and destroy Haggard's castle with him inside it the last unicorn stays only long enough to bring Lia back to life of her magic horn before leaving to Liris heartbroken that they cannot ultimately be together but commits to being the best King he can be now that his evil father is gone Bendrick and Molly leave together to travel the world the unicorn bids them a final farewell and admits that she still has some human emotions left the most prominent being regret but is going to return to her forest regardless in addition to all of that I would also like to draw attention to some nice little details they've stuck to you from the book that I really appreciated at least half of the dialogue in this film is word-for-word lifted out to the book which was a really smart move in my opinion because powerful dialogue was probably one of beagle's strongest writing attributes my favorite part of the book was the conversation between Haggard and the unicorn at the top of the tower where he reveals that he knows her secret and the fate of her people I'm very glad they stuck to it so closely in the film in both versions of the story the mysterious butterflies sing songs and makes references to things out of keeping with the time period of the rest of the book it's very strange I mean I'm sure the trans space-time insect represents something but damned if I know what is and that it was mummy Fortuna's insecurities about her pitiful magic that led her to overreach herself and try to keep a hoppy cage despite knowing it was only a matter of time before she escaped and killed everyone the unicorn doesn't know her own name and this doesn't play a part in either version the story once it's established it's not the first or last fantasy story to put power in names but I guess the author didn't want to dwell on it in both the book and the film Haggard could very easily have been a foolish or amusing character I mean he lives in a wonky castle is so cheap he only employs a standing army of four and acts as his own royal guard in rusty armor he's basically Ebenezer Scrooge if he was a king not a moneylender however the film successfully managed the same thing as the book portraying what should have been funny as genuinely menacing to me King Haggard kind of represents what would happen if a sociopathic manic-depressive were given ultimate power in the form of a magical familiar turns out that's pretty [ __ ] terrifying I really like that they stuck to the fact that he died laughing a creepy an intimidating end who are creepy an intimidating character whether this was because of loyalty to the book Christopher Lee's awesomeness or a combination of the two it's still pretty damn impressive a fine case of perfect casting for this character in my opinion as for the unicorn herself they held true to some nice touches like her not being able to feel certain things that humans do like regret and they also did a really good job of recreating me friendly enough but slightly aloof ere she gave off as I said in the book of you you could tell she wasn't doing it on purpose but it really showed that she was keenly aware that she was a much more powerful and beautiful creature than anyone and everyone around her they also remember to draw attention to stuff like the forest she lives in being forever in springtime and how you can see it in her eyes even when she's not there physical appearance wise it's a bit tricky to say whether she belongs and he changed or not changed category of the book makes it clear on multiple occasions that unicorns don't look entirely like haunt horses their legs are thin and delicate like a deers their necks are much longer than horses and their hair is soft and flowy they nailed that in the film but the problem is that's just surface stuff in the book this film faced the same issue as the poor fools who try to adapt Lovecraft novels though on the other side of the coin in the same way that Lovecraftian monsters are written to be unimaginable horrors more the embodiment of despair and insanity than a physical appearance and therefore impossible to give form to if so crude a tool as an artist pen or a computer's rendering so - in this book a unicorn when truly seen is too beautiful too indescribably perfect to ever be recreated on screen the book got around this by too driving the feelings of love and devotion she inspired in people and letting your imagination do the rest of the film however being a visual medium had no choice but to present what was physically described as her appearance in the book until such a day that magic itself can be weaved into filmmaking I think we have to give this movie some [ __ ] slack and say that they did the best we could reasonably expect from them the film's interpretation of the flaming Taurus suffers a bit for the same reason and for the same reason I'm happy enough with their choices the bull appears part physical part ethereal and part inferno oh and in regards to the infamous line where captain Cully offers symmetric attack oh all I can say is yeah that's in the book too and it's equally out of place and confusing there okay this is quite hard for me to admit but I've discovered through this film that the author being the screenplay writer isn't the wholly awesome thing adaptation wise that I used to think it was because well it turns out sometimes it's good to get a second opinion on things there's some events from the book that any other writer would probably have quietly discarded simplified or explained a little better to avoid confusion the prime example being what the [ __ ] was going on with the skull and the wine I mean can a skull only drink wine that's already drunk itself or was that a trick in the skull couldn't tell because it doesn't have taste buds the story is based on fairytales so some stuff isn't going to make complete sense but that's almost obnoxiously confusing another is the complete lack of explanation included in the story in regards to that business with the unicorns and the sea prison it can't just be a case of unicorns being amphibious because the sea is massive they could just have swum away to another Beach and gone home no they're trapped in the little bit of sea near Haggard's castle as if it was a lake or a pit and they're not exactly in the sea in a purely physical sense what the Smeg is going on here now I know what you might be thinking the Dom you British man hunk how could you be so shallow uncouth these things aren't supposed to be taken literally they're clearly allegories and yes I know this book is very allegory heavy and that can make it a bit hit and miss I mean if you get well it's an allegory for it's great it's really clever when it can really speak to you if you don't it can be confusing as hell and here's the thing this adaptation is a kids movie adults could enjoy it sure but it's intended as a kids movie kids don't tend to be all that on the ball when it comes to complex metaphors and social commentaries I know it may seem me advocating changing the original source material but sticking to all the allegories verbatim kind of shows a certain lack of awareness to one's new audience and I think a fresh writer would have picked up on that this may be it's okay to change it way of thinking is upsetting me let's move on in addition to him possibly being from the future the butterfly who incidentally she met on the road not before leaving her forest is a bit of an oddball adaptation wise - in the book he's you know a butterfly the tiny gentleman in the film seems to have been given the anthropomorphic treatment and even sports a tiny little hats and goggles I mean this is a kids movie it's not a change that confuses me it's just there in an odd deviation from the book the unicorn says that she had forgotten that men could not see a unicorn for what they really are the book makes it clear that this inability is a recent development this statement is contradicted later in the film in one of the many occasions it used of original book dialogue word-for-word and she says there has never been a world in which she was not known I suspect this was an attempt to make it clear to the young audience why humans thought that she was a horse and they just didn't think the implications through all the way some men uux magician cloak is supposed to be black birth that's been made blue like everything else in this film in the book Captain Cully and Jack decide that symetric must be Leah after he did magic for some reason and were going to ransom him back to his father Haggard in the film they just seem to think that having a wizard equals profit everyone casually touches the unicorn too much in this film physical contact with her is a big [ __ ] deal in the book The Annoying skull was just a skull in the book he appears to come with a skeleton attached now which makes it more interesting to watch I guess which is fair enough but it invalidates his original backstory from the book where he was an old henchman of Haggard's that the old bastard had decapitated for no other reason than he was trying out being evil to see if that was what was missing from his life for those of you who worked set by the fact that Prince Leo and lady Amalthea didn't end up together at the end of the film imagine how much worse it would have been if Leah didn't take it quite so well because even though he knew it was inevitable he couldn't quite fight the bitterness over how unfair it was the last time you see Leah in the book he's pretty pissed off he's resigned to a life of putting everyone else first be they the people he saves as a hero or his subjects but insisting that he himself on never be happy again the unicorn said goodbye to both smen Drake and Molly not in person but by magically appearing in their dreams in the book probably I guess it's possible but unlikely that they both just happened to dream about her at the same time Lia is understandably upset that she didn't do the same for him despite the others trying to explain to him that that's because he means more to her than them there's a more recognizable change to layer in the book where he's established as friendly but also lazy and kind of a downer before he meets lady Amalthea and becomes a hero to impress her I was momentarily perplexed by the scene from the book where Lia sings to lady Amalthea because in the film a full musical accompaniment Springs out of nowhere and then it become two duet eventually I realized the song was non-diegetic it just took a while because there was meant to be a song at that point in the story princely as death is toned down somewhat unsurprising as it's a kid's film he just sort of falls over without a mark on him the book describes how his body was crushed like a bug underneath the ball we're talking half caved in a head and leg twitching and everything okay I guess it's time to deal with some [ __ ] first of all the harpy in her three dangling Tatars [ __ ] me what are the odds I get another three boob movie right after Total Recall the thing about the harpy is the original Greek myth described her as being part woman and part bird but didn't definitively say what the ratio was or which bits were which as a result each interpretation of her has been a little different over the centuries I suppose theoretically she could look mostly like a vulture but with an unexpected amount of boobs but here's the problem with that that's not what she looked like in the book she was described as having the face of an old hag woman and sharp looking shiny bronze colored feathers that seemed almost metallic they intentionally changed her so she has a messed up bird's face and added the three boobs I don't understand why which leads me to the next brain her tour of the film the big wooden jugs on the tree that symmetric accidentally enchanted to be in love with him that actually happened in the book and it was hilarious but there's no mention of tree titties once again this was a decision by the filmmakers to add titties where there were no titties before compared to the aggressive boobage the cat with the patch on the peg leg seems almost inconsequential but I should mention he was just you know a normal cat in the book well aside from the being able to talk thing The Voice activists Meldrick delivered quite a few of his lines most noticeably the words he exchanged of lire that prompted him to sacrifice himself in a very different tone than how it was described in the book but then again I found his entire performance a bit monotone so maybe that's more of a film complaint than an adaptation one there's no hint of a romantic relationship between Molly and some and Rick in the book and I suppose technically there might not be in the film either but die on that some suggestive animated body language right there so yes some changes but so far the book loyalty section is dwarfing the rest of the episode let's see if it stays that way a lot of what I'm going to mention here is presented without judgment as I said there's quite a few things in the book that I feel could have been streamlined and this film obliges with that in the book one of the town's folk at the carnival questioned how the Midgard serpent could be both wrapped around the earth and in a cage there which prompted rooks have we lost some interesting [ __ ] about it being the medieval equivalent of interdimensional - missing exhibits from the midnight carnival where a dog made to look like Cerberus the three-headed guardian of the underworld and mummy fortuna herself pretending to be the demonic personification of old age another was Arachne a normal spider that mummy Futuna had glamour to look like a creature from an ancient Greek legend that could weave the most incredible silks in the universe a recce nice disguise was even more convincing the most because the poor spider had come to believe in it herself and was most upset when mummy fortuna died breaking the illusion apparently the sound of a spider weeping is surprisingly saddening I suspect the film didn't show her for the same reason I'm not showing any images of spiders nobody wants to see that after teaming up spender can the unicorn stop by several towns where he earns them food and shelter for the night by performing his silly card tricks and juggling acts he was slightly drunk in a rather rich in fat looking town when he was kidnapped by Jack jingles and cully's bandits they'd come to town to pay tribute to the mare for not having them all arrested and one of them at stolens Metrix hat he was trying to teach them not to mess with wizards by levitating it to the horse trough and dumping water on Jack but as usual his magic went wrong and it went on his host the mare instead he might have been an even bigger trouble if the Bandit hadn't decided to take him with them there's more to captain Cully in the book I guess they covered the important bits about him being a wannabe Robin Hood but there's a certain sad tragedy to his desperate need to be something he's not in the book that just didn't come across in the film they left out the way that he almost pleaded to spend Uruk and through him the world in general to play along with the lie that he'd wrapped himself up in on a less depressing note they also left out his shenanigans with the password to get back into the camp apparently Khali was prone to doing incredibly stupid things like changing the password while everyone was gone making entire long poems the password so the century had to keep giving people hints to remind them and making it the call of the giraffe getting around the problem of the giraffe having no call by suggesting they do it three times too long and one short Haggard's four minute arms only referenced in the film play a small part in the story in the book they were all at least over 70 and only in hagit service because they had no Al's to go they couldn't quite bring themselves to a taxmen Drakon Hagar's orders forcing him to do it himself and apparently when the unicorn Stampede the castle to the ground some side effect magic made them young again and gave them a second chance of life in the book the skill suggested that they smash him because he knew he would be unable to stop himself from yelling about her being a unicorn once they were done with the conversation also that Haggard did exactly that as punishment for telling them about the clock magicians turning unicorns into humans was foreshadowed in the book as symmetric told the tale of his powerful wizard master Niko saving a male unicorn from hunters with that fairy trick his unicorn companion was sick to her stomach at the very thought of it telling him his master would have been better off letting him die as a unicorn I mentioned that Lea was more established before his self-improvement phase in the book one of the biggest contributors to this was the party randomly coming across him and his soon-to-be ex-fiance having a picnic in the forest while they were travelling apparently it was a local tradition that if her royal couple got engaged the princess had to try to summon a unicorn to her before they Wed Lea acted bored and disinterested throughout the entire process to the point where comes off as being a total dick to his bride-to-be at the time the scene was more about the unicorn explaining why she didn't go to her when the young virgin called and about her long past about when she did use to approach all such young princesses you don't realize layer is going to become important until much later I would have to say that the only major omission that I think the film really suffered for is Hanks gaiters settle in because this one takes a bit of explaining when Haggard conquered his Little Kingdom the first place that fell under his rule was the nearby village he renamed hags gate shortly later he commissioned a witch to build him a castle using magic then to pay her in revenge the witch put a curse on the castle though that didn't seem to bother Haggard much she then appealed to Hanks gate for help getting payment out of Haggard but they decided they didn't want anything to do with it enraged by their apathy she put a very odd curse on them - they would be blessed with great fortune in their town crops that virtually grow themselves trade deals that make them rich everything they could want but she prophesized that one day someone from hags gate would destroy Haggard's castle and hags gate would share in its doom the end result was for decades the whole town got [ __ ] loads of food and money but everyone there was so painfully aware they would lose it all someday they just couldn't enjoy it weirdly though despite being made so miserable by it they couldn't help but try to cling on to the curse that was making them rich as a results they all agreed that they would have to stop having children in the town so none of them could grow up to fulfill the prophecy however someone apparently just couldn't resist getting their freak on and they found that abandoned baby in the town square at night being kept alive by stray cats that were worming him with their bodies they tried to chase the cats off so he would die of exposure but the next day Haggard announced that he had a son and heir to his throne so everyone knew that he had come across the baby and being the kind of man who likes to take things had adopted it now that it was twenty or so years later they were getting a tad nervous so they tried to Hayase men Derek as a poisoner assassin to take care of lair so he could never fulfill his destiny smen derek happily took their money and simply absconded with it when the unicorns were finally freed from the sea they trampled Hanks Gate to dust in the same way they destroyed the castle destitute the town begged Leah for forgiveness one of them even coming forward as his biological father on cement Rick's advice Leah decided to be merciful and agreed to help rebuild the town though forbid the use of magic in construction this time the hag skate part of the story showed that the author had a deep understanding of fairy tales including that people in them were often disproportionately punished or rewarded for minor acts and showed how people can often end up desperately trying to perpetuate the very thing that's making them unhappy that's why I consider it a shame it was left out however I will be the first to admit that saying that leah was responsible for bringing the castle down because he inspired the unicorn to fight back against the bull the stirring the unicorns that destroyed it is a hell of a stretch a number of other characters contributed as much or more than him especially if you count the unicorn herself I regret just one other omission though it's a lot smaller overhangs gate staff you see in the book two important things are revealed about Schmendrick the first is that he's not a shitty wizard through lack of magical ability but because he's so brimming with magical talents not even the greatest master could help him tame it and they tried his teacher Niko was considered the greatest Wizard of his generation when he found he couldn't help him he decided the only thing to do is to ensure that symetric had enough time to find his own way to greatness which leads me to the second point it turns out smen Drake is immortal Niko put a spell on him that froze him in time so he could grow no older until he'd mastered his powers now that may sound super win-win but Niko warned him that this wasn't a favor as immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be for a human cementec soon found this to be true as being a clumsy young man desperate to prove himself indefinitely is a pain in the ass when the unicorn and Molly tried to berate him for turning her mortal to save her from the ball he turned it around on them by explaining how he had loved to be mortal again he gets his wish as he can physically feel its immortality draining out of him when he finally gets a grip on his powers at the end and turns lady Amalthea back into a unicorn something even Niko himself wouldn't have been able to do now I mentioned before that the last time you see Lea he's bitter and broken but that's not to say that the end of the book is a complete downer for him shortly after they part ways of him cement Rick and Molly come across a beautiful princess who begs them for help her father had just been usurped and murdered by an evil Duke and her brothers were being held hostage in an attempt to force her to marry him and a whole bunch of other fairytale cliches Schmendrick gives her his horse then advises her to go and find lea ASAP seeing as he's become the go-to hero in these parts it's sort of a final reminder that layer maybe heartbroken now but as a handsome young prince in a world of fairy tales whether he believes it or not he's very likely to find love again someday in an interview beagle mentioned that this scene was originally in the script and even animated but eventually cut out of the final product probably because it was unnecessary what with Lea is ending already not being so sad already the doms the Dom's final thoughts there were exactly five more tits in this kids movie than I would have predicted and I have to confess I didn't see them being deployed as murder weapons coming either sorry to keep harping on about that I just had to throw in one last one the [ __ ] animated films have a big advantage you have a live-action adaptations because they can have their cake and eat it so they can make their character look just like they were described in the book and still get an amazing actor to voice them taking into account that before discussed understandable inability to describe the indescribable this film does not squander that advantage the book came perilously close to boring me a few times I don't like admitting that because I know a lot of people loved it but there it is the film didn't but ultimately it also left less of an emotional impact on me I guess what I'm trying to say is the film managed to fix a few of the books flaws accidentally created a few of its own made a few interesting adaptation choices and left out a few things I would have liked to have seen included but at the end of the day it held true to the book in all of the most important ways it felt to me like a genuine tribute to the book from everyone involved not just the screenwriter and was thankfully the rest of the usual attempts to usurp the vision of the author to suit the vision of the director I suspect that a die-hard fan of this book would love this movie and that's not always but quite often the highest praise I can give an adaptation [Music] hey beautiful watchers I just wanted to give you a quick reminder that there's a variety of rewards you can earn by becoming a patreon including early access to all videos getting to be a part of the survey about how many people saw the film and read the book or playing Minecraft with me on my 24 hours server higher level contributors can also join the DOM Skype chat room and best of all choose future episodes of lost in adaptation however if right now you are thinking my goodness the Dom I can't do that I'm trying to fund a musical loosely based on the events of Jurassic world and the giant animatronics are proving much more expensive than expected fear not if you would instead be willing to like share subscribe or a combination of all three that goes a long way towards helping my channel grow and reach new beautiful watchers have a most pleasant day and I will see you soon

Channel: Dominic Noble

Views: 408,951

Rating: 4.928236 out of 5

Keywords: The Last, The Last Unicorn, The Dom, Lost in Adaptation, Book vs film, Dominic Smith, Channel Awesome, Adaptation review, The last unicorn book, the last unicorn film

Id: vOUb-Z6yQRA

Length: 36min 56sec (2216 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 18 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/strogg950]

I really like his style of reviewing and comparing. He does a great job (in my opinion) at all eight of the Harry Potter movies and he has done two of the Hobbit movies. Both of these series I would certainly recommend as well