Legend (1985)

This film is about a dark lord who wants to destroy all that is good in the world and take over it, so sends his minions to kill the only thing that could stand in his way, the personification of light and purity, which happens to be unicorns. At the same time, a princess named Lily and a feral child named Jack meet up in the forest. They’re in love and Jack decides to show Lily the unicorns as a present of sorts, and the dark lord’s minions follow them in the shadows. When they meet the unicorns the goblins shoot a dart into one of the unicorns, scaring them away, and then steals the male’s horn. The female unicorn and princess Lily are also eventually captured and taken to the dark lord’s lair, and at this point it is up to Jack and the forest faeries to save the unicorns and the princess.

I only heard about this movie a couple of months ago and after I watched it, I wondered why. It’s on the same level as The Princess Bride and The Neverending Story, but I suppose it wasn’t a book first. I was kind of skeptical when I first picked it up because Tom cruise is Jack. He was never one of my favourite actors, and he I wouldn’t peg him as being able to pull off a fantasy film… but he’s actually pretty good. Also, Tim Curry is the Dark Lord. Enough said.

I suppose the thing that would turn most people off about the movie would be the fact that there are unicorns in the movie, and I guess I can understand why that may put some people off. It’s very rare that you’ll find a serious, adult movie with a unicorn in it. Unicorns are almost synonymous with little girls and tea parties, and any attempts at showing their heroism or prowess are often side-lined, if at all existent, at least in pop culture. I promise you though, you will not think that this is a movie for children and may even find that you have a soft spot for our horned friends, not that they have a lot of screen time. In addition to a non-childish representation of unicorns, I also enjoyed the other faeries in the movie. As is so often stressed in faerie lore, the use of riddles and a battle of wits saves Jack many a time when he’s dealing with these inhuman friends and foes. I think you have to watch the Director’s cut (or the Goldman version) though, because the other version cuts out some of that banter.

One of the things I didn’t like so much was how the fall of the unicorn was sort of blamed on Lily. She went to go touch the unicorn despite Jack telling her not to, and when she touched it the goblin shot his dart. After that she was more or less blamed for goblins taking the horn. This doesn’t really sit well with me. I don’t know a lot of unicorn lore, but I know that girls are supposedly the only humans unicorns can really stand, so why would a girl touching a unicorn be a bad thing? It wasn’t her touch that cursed humanity, it was the goblins. Unless she was somehow meant to personify the dark lord and his evil, but that might be getting a little too biblical in its blame.

Something interesting about this movie is that, according to my Legend of Zelda friend, this film is the basis for the video game ‘The Legend of Zelda’. Wikipedia says that the inspiration for the game came from the creator’s “explorations as a young boy in the hillsides surrounding his childhood home in Sonobe, Japan where he ventured into forests with secluded lakes, caves, and rural villages.” I don’t know whether or not Wikipedia is right (you never do) but I do know for a fact that this exact explanation is how Miyamoto (the creator) came up with the idea for Super Mario Bros. … so maybe they’re just copy and pasting. Plus, Zelda was released in 1986 while Legend came out in ’85. You do the math.  Knowing this you’ll be able to pick out the similarities very easily, if you know anything about Zelda that is.

Tithe by Holly Black

Like many tales that take place in the realm of the fae, Tithe (as the name would suggest) is a story about a girl in the human world who finds out that she has been chosen as a sort of sacrifice for the faeries. This is a pretty common story, a good one is Hunter's Moon by Melling if you're unfamiliar with the genre, but Black takes this story and gives it a nice little twist.

Here's a quick intro. The story begins with a teenage girl named Kaye who travels around with her rock star mother. She should be in high school but because of all of the moving around her mother has to do, what with being a starving artist, Kaye finds her time better spent working. She has no father to speak of, as she is the product of a one night stand her mother had with a popular Japanese rock star and her mother h been jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend since. After an inexplicable attack on Kaye's mother by her current boyfriend, she and Kaye return to Kaye's grandmother's house, where Kaye lived when she was young. Kaye used to have what people around her would call imaginary friends whom she would talk about all the time, but no one else have ever or could ever see. She also had a school friend when she was a child, Janet, and goes out with her and her friends after she and her mother have settled in. After an odd incident involving an old carnival horse, Kaye runs away from the gathering into the woods, and to add to her current state, she stumbles upon a knight bleeding to death because of an arrow in his side. The knight takes a leaf and smears it with his blood and asks Kaye to put it in the water nearby. She does this in exchange for the night's name. When she puts the leaf in the water it summons a kelpie who takes the knight away. After some soul-searching and some conversations with some old friends, Kaye discovers that she is not as human as she seems. That she is in fact a changeling, and there are those who would like to put that information to use.

I enjoyed this novel. I've seen it around for some time but avoided picking it up because I thought it would be like the new syrupy, poorly written, weak-willed heroine in love with two guys at once, who can't stand up for herself or think for herself trend that seems to be popular with teen books right now in regards to the paranormal genre. I am however happy to report that it is more like The Blue Girl by De Lint than Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. It's an urban faerie tale with echoes of stories past, but changed enough to make it new again. I don't know that I agree with all of the changes or slants given to how the faerie world works... in fact I would have preferred that she make the faerie realm more dangerous. This is a teen novel. It doesn't have to be full of gore or indecency or anything (I mean it is still a teen novel), but I personally would have enjoyed it if there was a little more of the danger I usually associate with the fae. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty suggested evil doings in the unseelie court, but the faerie food, for example, wasn't as bad as older tales describe it. There is none of the pining away until you die or other bad side effects the food may have on mortals, it just knocks you out or gets you drunk for a while. Kind of softening the blow of the danger of faerie. Overall though it's a pretty good book.