Das Letzte Einhorn

That’s right, I finally obtained my very own copy of The Last Unicorn soundtrack. Only released in Europe. Used on Amazon. In perfect condition. In like, 3 days. Brilliant!

Fact – if you are on Jeopardy, and the category has anything to do with folk music or the 70s, America will be one of the “questions”. I personally have witnessed three separate instances – “Ventura Highway” “Sister Golden Hair” and “Horse with no Name”. You can’t turn around without running into America.

So after the whole Bee Gees as the Beatles fiasco, for a band to attach themselves musically to a film must’ve been a pretty big thing. They had a reputation to uphold – their sensitive rockin’ was practically patented. They choose a children’s book.

But they had a Grammy award-winning composer on board. And the adapted book was a children’s classic. The music and lyrics were on point. All that was left was the look of it, they had the sound. They needed an animator.

I get the feeling that animation houses were like directors of the genre – scripts could be brought in and completely styled and conceptualized by the animators. It wasn’t the “this is what Homer looks like, make him do this” animation of our day. The character design was done in-house. And the company that animated the movie had close ties to The Hobbit and Return of the King animated films of the time.

The style was both extravagant and realistic; the characters (with the exception of Amalthea) were cragged and angular, like harsh human faces can be. To the untrained eye, I think the film appears “ugly”. It’s like Willem Dafoe or Lance Henriksen – fascinating yet hard to look at.

Amalthea, the humanized unicorn, on the other hand, is a babe. Sailor Moon can eat her dust (gently shaken from her dainty hoof). And I love Sailor Moon, so that’s saying a lot. Amalthea has limpid violet eyes, and a silvery-purple aura. Sigh. My first girl crush.

Anyway, I think the look of it has something to do with the blank stares I get when I mention The Last Unicorn. That, or the disturbing and frightening scenes with Momma Fortuna (Angela Lansbury). In either case, I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t love this movie, in it’s entirety. Especially the soundtrack.

Long story short, I'm cruising through LA bellowing "I'm alive" at the top of my lungs.