Producer: Rankin
& Bass
Based on the story by: Peter S. Beagle
Aired: 1982
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Peter S. Beagle’s tale about a unicorn desperate to find
others of her kind was among the last projects Arthur Rankin & Jules Bass
took on together, when their production team was at its height. Like several
other films they made, such as Flight of Dragons or The Hobbit, The
Last Unicorn took place in a mystical landscape where creatures—including
harpies or manticores—were true threats to its inhabitants. They brought that
fantasy world to life, while themes like conflicts between Faith/Magic &
Reason/Science or the loss of innocence flowed beneath the surface.
Story
The Last Unicorn
opens in an unnamed forest somewhere far away from human civilization, and with
two hunters who comment on their inability to find game. The eldest declares
this to be the doing of a unicorn that must live in the woods, while the
younger discounts the belief as a superstition or absurd fancy. In either case,
they leave for other places after the former warns aloud for the unseen unicorn
to remain hidden, since she is probably the last of her species left. Needless
to say, the unicorn does hear the hunter’s words, and from then on questions if
what the man said was truth—finally resolving to journey and find other
unicorns to prove him wrong. She is further spurred on this quest by a wayward
butterfly who tells her a horrible fiery beast called “The Red Bull” has driven
them into the sea, where he holds them captive.
So the unicorn begins her travels, soon learning from her
first encounters with human beings that most cannot see her for what/who she
really is—because they expect to see things as ordinary or non-mystical, and so
can no longer see magical creatures. An old witch named “Mommy Fortuna,” who
takes advantage of this fact to weave illusions around normal animals to make
them appear as marvelous beasts to the people visiting her traveling carnival.
Mommy Fortuna knows the unicorn for who she is, but she wants to keep anything
extraordinary she finds for her own purposes. And the unicorn discovers she has
a harpy, thirsty for revenge, caged as well.
It is here she meets the
magician Schmendrick, who tells her: “It is a rare man that is taken for who he
truly is” (once more emphasizing the identity theme) and uses his magic to
release her. Together they escape into the wilderness, traveling towards a
distant castle where Schmendrick has heard the Red Bull resides. Along the way,
they run into several misadventures and meet Molly, an older woman who longed
for a unicorn to come to her since she was a young girl. As they near the
castle, though, their path becomes more dangerous, and they encounter the Red
Bull.
The Red Bull attempts to drive the unicorn into the sea as
he did the other unicorns, but Schmendrick decides to use his magic and winds
up changing her into a human girl. This causes much conflict, since while she
is safe from the Red Bull, the former unicorn must cope with emotions she never
knew before and the concept of human mortality. But there is no choice except
to continue, with the unicorn now taking on the name of the “Lady Amalthea.”
They eventually reach
the castle, which belongs to the tyrant King Haggard. And Schmendrick works to
become the new court magician, so they can stay long enough to find out how
they might free the other unicorns. Yet Lady Amalthea has become lost as a
newly born woman, and as time passes her life as a unicorn gradually begins to
disappear in her mind. It is a worry that she might soon turn human altogether,
and refuse to change back into a unicorn—because she has also attracted the eye
of King Haggard’s “adopted” son, Prince Lir.
The prince falls deeply in love with the Lady Amalthea, and
proclaims he would gladly give his life for hers.
This becomes all-to-true towards the end, as Schmendrick and
Molly learn how they might thwart the Red Bull, and King Haggards begins to
suspect the true identity of his guests. Tensions rise and the action escalates
as Schmendrick manages to change the Lady Amalthea back into a unicorn, and
Prince Lir faces the Red Bull to protect her from him—falling during their
battle.
Finding her strength from this show of courage, the unicorn
takes on the Red Bull and drives the monster into the sea. In exchange, her
fellow unicorns run to freedom and once again flow into the world. The castle
in which King Haggard lived falls into the sea, along with the cruel ruler. And
the unicorn, the first to ever feel “regret” uses her magic to bring Prince Lir
back to life.
So The Last Unicorn ends, with the unicorns freed and
Schmedrick and Molly as a couple.
Analysis
The Last Unicorn
can come across as a simple fairy tale, but it bears some very deep themes. For
one, you have an immortal creature dealing with an issue upon which anyone can
connect: isolation, and the need to find others who are similar to yourself.
Even Beagle mentions in his work that unicorns are supposed to be singular
entities, who do not often spend time in each other’s company—and this unicorn
is like her brothers or sisters in this attitude as well. But she still seeks
them out when she learns they may all be gone. So it is more the thought the
unicorn was not really lonely because she knew that if she wanted, she might
find them easily. When that option disappeared, the unicorn became frantic to
find her kind.
That happens with people too, which allows us to identify
with a character who at first seems so much different than us as viewers or
readers. But it is also because of her innate nature that the unicorn is
actually quite an innocent character despite her great age. She has never been
beyond her forest, essentially an Eden in terms of his film, and upon leaving
she encounters a wide variety of mindsets, beliefs, and people struggling with
what constitutes true power or happiness. Mommy Fortuna loves to swindle people
out of their money by casting illusions over feeble animals, yet at the same
time she also wants to prove her strength by holding onto the harpy and the
unicorn. Schmendrick is immortal but worn because he cannot use the magic art
he loves properly or change like the people and world around him. Molly bemoans
the innocence she had as a young maiden, and she keeps looking back at how she
once was. King Haggard uses the Red Bull and the terror he strikes in his
subjects’ hearts to capture the unicorn race, because he wants their beauty for
his own—but he grows withered and angry because he cannot grasp what makes them
beautiful, or feel happy even though he possesses them. Prince Lir loves and
wants a young woman he can never wed.
Then you have the unicorn losing her innocence through the
course of the story, becoming human at one point and being forever changed by
the experience. With her alteration in viewpoint, the unicorn is able to truly
love another as she could never have loved in her other form. She gains a
multitude of things that seem painful, like feeling regret or loss—but the fact
the unicorn can feel these is actually a strength. She now has the ability to
understand what it feels like to be another person, and so becomes able to
fight against the oppressive Red Bull, free her people, and bring life back to
Prince Lir.
The multiple layers The Last Unicorn presents the
question of whether it is better to remain innocent of the terrors the exist in
the world, or to travel outside that Eden (of sorts) and experience the trials
and challenges that await us there. To this the tale suggests the latter as the
best method, because there are joys mixed with that pain, and by the end we
gain valuable insights and a strength we couldn’t have had otherwise.
This is what Rankin-Bass and Peter S. Beagle have given to
us with this tale.
The Film Versus the Book
As with any movies based on books, there were various subtle
differences between the film of The Last Unicorn, and Peter S. Beagle’s
classic children’s tale. Here are two big ones:
1)
Beagle’s wizard Schmendrick is more philosophical than his
Rankin-Bass counterpart, once making the comment how anything is beautiful that
cannot last forever. He also has a darker background. Unlike other magicians,
his magic works in reverse, and this means he will never age until he becomes a
master at using his craft. By the end of the story, he has turned into an
accomplished wizard and has started to grow old.
2)
King Haggard details how he came to adopt Prince Lir, which in
the book was not so much an adoption as enslavement. He mentions stealing Lir
as a baby, after terrorizing the towns throughout the countryside. The pact
King Haggard has with the Red Bull is also akin to what similar characters have
made with demons. So the crumbling cliff that tore King Haggard’s castle down
towards the end was most likely used as retribution.
Other Notes:
·
According to the author’s notes on the 25th
anniversary DVD edition of The Last Unicorn, Beagle’s original story
involved a much different group of people—including a dragon bitter over a
driving ticket—in a contemporary setting. He had written several hundred pages
before the idea of following a unicorn on a simple foot, or “hoof” journey
occurred to him. Hundreds of pages later, The Last Unicorn was born.
·
The band that provided most of the music for the film
was America, whose song “The Last Unicorn,” gained such popularity a
number of other musicians made their own versions. Kenny Loggins, for instance,
sang this hit on his CD Return to Pooh Corner, meant for soft/nighttime
listening.