Just recently watched this movie again for the first time since I was a kid.
1.Were the unicorns serving any purpose for the king? Sure he says he just likes possessing them, but even for a bitter old man keeping immortal sentient beings constantly in a state of near death is pretty fucked up. AND his castle crumbles the minute they are freed, or due to the red bull getting driven into the ocean?
I’m wondering if the unicorns were keeping him and his castle “alive” past their expiration date just by their proximity.
2.WTF was the red bull exactly? It almost seems to be semi-sentient with its own agenda, or is it just some magic or monster the king has under his command?
Yes I am asking questions about logic in an animated film with a talking alcoholic skeleton. “But I REMEMBER!”
Never saw the movie, but as I recall the King in the book was pretty much just a selfish SOB. Caveat- it has been about forty years since i read the book.
I don’t recall even in the book that what you’re asking was ever really given an explanation. The bull was some kind of magic monster thing the king possessed since childhood that served him.
There is definitely never any good “hard” explanation given for the Bull, but wild speculation would indicate that it serves Haggard BECAUSE Haggard is so messed up that he’d keep a bunch of unicorns in the ocean just so he could look at them sometimes.
Further wild speculation leads me to asser that the Red Bull is FEAR given shape, and it serves Haggard because he hasn’t GOT any. It also explains why all it ever actually does is threaten and inspire fear.
As for why the castle collapsed, yeah, I’m going with “It wasn’t real structurally sound, a huge host of galloping unicorns surging up all around it was the last straw.”
I think it’s pretty much what Finagle said. Seeing a unicorn was the only thing that had ever made Haggard truly happy, even for a moment, and he kept the unicorns imprisoned so that he could watch them and recapture a bit of that happiness.
I have a speculation about the Bull. In addition to being a magic monster, I think it is a metaphor for (or avatar of) sunset. Its fiery red appearance and lair in a cave by the sea suggested the idea, and there is sun imagery associated with it in the movie–the cat even says that it goes out at sundown to hunt. It represents age and death in the dying of the day–perhaps even Haggard’s “day”, specifically. The unicorns fled before it, but it never touched them, because they were immortal. In the end, vanished beneath the waves, and Haggard’s time came to an end.
It’s been a while since I’ve either read the book or seen the movie (they’re so similar that either works, which I love).
There was no purpose. It was sheer greed. That was the point. As far as the castle crumbling, (I’d have to look it up to be sure) but it was basically as everyone said. I believe there was a curse on the country that was holding the castle together, along with making everything barren, but I might be reversing it.
It’s never said.
Did you know Peter Beagle wrote a short story set in the same universe called ‘Two Hearts’? (I haven’t read it yet)
I don’t know why plans to remake this into a live action movie fell apart. It was supposed to star Mia Farrow as Molly (and maybe Jonathan Rhys Myers). Too expensive for CGI to make a white horse into a unicorn? There are a LOT of fans who love the book and the animated film version, who are just crying out for a live action movie.
Rumor was that they’d gotten Christopher Lee to “reprise” his role as Haggard, and I thought there was some talk about Angela Lansbury as well. I confess, I was EXCITED until that project seemed to die. =/
That would’ve been an OSSIM (and yes,I’m going there using the alternative spelling because dude…I just am :D) movie.
And I agree…Peter Jackson could’ve turned into something truly spectacular the way he did with LOTR. I know some people were like “oh this movie sucks ass…why did they end FOTR that way? That’s no ending!”. I was quietly thinking, “You haven’t read the books, have you? Idjits.”
The Last Unicorn is my favorite book of all time. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it. When I listen to the audiobook, I recite long stretches of it with the narrator.
Schmendrick the Magician on all the rumors he’d heard about the Red Bull:
There was a curse on Haggard’s castle. The folk of Hagsgate give this version. They’re the ones that Haggard “holds in thrall”:
Haggard saw unicorns for the first time when he was young. He says:
The curse was fulfilled when Prince Lir (unacknowledged son of one of the merchants in Hagsgate, adopted by King Haggard) inspired the Unicorn to stand against the Red Bull, so that he gave up trying to herd her into the sea with the rest of the unicorns. When the unicorns came out of the sea, the towers and the castle melted away as the unicorns ran past them.
Sorry, I get carried away. All quotes are from my 1968 paperback edition, the one that’s older than my husband. :eek:
Questions have been pretty well answered. I just wanted to chime in that it is also my favorite book. I’ve lost count of how often I’ve read it and seen the movie. I have multiple copies of the book, including one signed to me and one signed to my daughter. I’ve also met Mr. Beagle and attended a 25th anniversary screening of the movie at a small theater in SF. He’s a very sweet man, who gives off the impression of a befuddled librarian. He did some Q&A at the screening and told us the butterfly from TLU is the closest thing to an autobiographical character he’s ever written.
I’ve read the sequel short story “Two Hearts” and it is very good, though the characters from TLU are in it very briefly. Beagle has suggested he may someday write more with the main character from the story, a young girl who encounters an aged Lir, Molly, Schmendrik and eventually the unicorn while on a quest of her own.
To the best of my knowledge the live action movie fell through because of copyright/general rights issues to the story. Beagle has had some financial and legal trouble related to that for years. I think it’s mostly resolved now (I’m on his newsletter) but no word on another go at a live action movie. Peter Jackson directing one would be. . . wow. Words can’t describe the awesome.
Maybe I’ll go fire up the old DVD again, see if my daughter’s finally interested in it.
Honestly? PJ wouldn’t be my first choice. I’m not enough of a Hollywood scholar to know who WOULD be, but he made a lot of really questionable decisions with LotR (A lot of which, mercifully, ended up on the cutting room floor or only in the Extended Editions). His background in goofy slashery films peeks through on a number of occasions, and I’m not really a huge fan of the script that he collaborated on.
Did he do a lot of things right? Absolutely. Though he was working with a lot of very talented people who can take at least partial credit for a lot of them.
It’s not that I think he’s a BAD director, or that he trod all over his source material or something, I just don’t know that he’s worthy of the veneration he gets - his biggest accomplishment, I suppose, is that he got LotR made at all.
Ah, anyway, I’m wandering needlessly far afield here, but I think there are probably lesser known directors who could do an equally good or better job with the much more managable project that is The Last Unicorn. Actually, the weird, somewhat surreal feel of it all might work well for Mr. Del Toro, so I guess I should put him at the front of my extremely ill-informed list.
The biggest theme of The Last Unicorn is the search for happiness. The Red Bull seems to me to represent drowning out purpose with action- being busy for the sake of being busy, all search and no happiness.
I confess, I was EXCITED until that project seemed to die. =/