Forgotten Television: The Last Unicorn

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 25^th 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.