[ SECRET POST #2798 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2798 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 071 secrets from Secret Submission Post #400.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[silverr]

I was wondering as well ... as it doesn't LOOK like somethimg that would need to be censored.

[(Anonymous)]

There was some fairly dark stuff in Last Unicorn. I wouldn't have thought most of it was explicit enough to be censored, but it's not really as cute and wholesome as I think a lot of people expect going into it. The movie is in some ways primarily about the loss of innocence, and there are a very startlingly dark/adult moments:

- The triple-breasted harpy, shown full frontal
- "She'll string you on barbed wire to make a necklace for a harpy!"
- Mommy Fortuna being killed by the harpy, and the discussion of how it was actually in the way of suicide-by-immortal to live forever in that immortal's memory
- The implication of Molly no longer being an innocent when the unicorn comes to her, having run off to live in the forest with an outlaw she's grown to hate. Implication only, but given unicorn mythology ...
- Cully planning to sell Schmendrick for money and retire a rich man
- The tree waking up and smooshing Schmendrick (who's currently tied to her and can't move) in her gigantic bosom and calling the unicorn a hussy when she rescues him
- Unicorn-as-Amalthea slowly losing her memory and her sense of self
- Haggard's constant petty mockery of Schmendrick and his absent callousness towards his adopted son once it becomes apparent that having a child can't cure his malaise
- Haggard's fairly comprehensive attempt to slice Schmendrick to bits with a sword. Only one blow actually made contact ("Don't worry, it's not deep."), but the murderous intent was pretty obvious
- Schmendrick pretty much manipulating Lir to his death. "What's the use of wizardry if it can't even save a unicorn!?" "That's what heroes are for." Cue Lir running at the bull and being instantly smashed. Which works, in that the unicorn instantly stops running and starts fighting back, but wow.
- Molly instinctively throwing herself across Lir's body to protect it when the unicorns stampede to freedom, and her being surprised and grateful that their unicorn stayed
- Lir being resurrected and the first word out of his mouth is "Father?". As in, the father who just watched him die with nary a care before falling to his own death while roaring about knowing Amalthea was the last unicorn. Followed by Lir's realisation that: "No. I was dead."
- Lir saying he'll miss Schmendrick and Molly because he never had friends before
- The film ending with the unicorn having to sacrifice her love for Lir, and the legacy that she'll be the only unicorn who knows what regret is, and her acceptance and even gratitude for that fact, because unicorns are in the world again and because having known love is worth the cost of regret

It's one of my favourite movies in the world, but it honestly is a lot darker than most people expect of a gorgeous movie about unicorns.

[silverr]

... wow.

Crikes, I had no idea.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

It's a truly gorgeous movie, though. It's melancholy in places and bittersweet, but it's also really warm towards flawed people and grants them a lot of sympathy and opportunity to grow and learn. It costs them, every time, but most of them come out at the end with something warmer and stronger inside them.

[(Anonymous)]

Read the book, it goes deeper than that. (The movie was written by the book author!) It delves into types fantasy, and what that means to man and its place in our world. The book is a bit darker, especially the Cully bits, and the origin of Lir. It's really an amazing book.

[(Anonymous)]

I need to find a copy of that book again - I found it once in my college's library but barely had time to read with classes being insane

[starzki]

Very good summary of some of the dark themes.

I watched this when I was very young. I was a sensitive child, but still loved everything about this movie.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I adore it. I saw it pretty young too, and I missed some things (Molly's "How dare you come to me now, when I am this!" went right over my head initially), but I loved it so much, and only grew to love it more as I got older and I came to understand the rest. It's just so warm towards damaged people, and shows that there's strength in having been knocked down, and stood back up, and not let it change you for the worse.

Also, Molly is one of my favourite characters ever. She's so battered and compassionate and stubborn and strong. I love her.

[silvereriena]

Oh wow, some of these things I've just remembered now that you mentioned them. I guess I've only seen the uncensored version.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Yeah. There were other things too, the first encounter with the bull, Amalthea being tempted to live and love as a woman and leaving the other unicorns in captivity (and Molly being tempted to let her), the frikking talking skull, that thing scared me to death as a kid when it saw Amalthea and went off the deep end and started howling for Haggard to come and kill people ...

You couldn't really censor most of it, though. An awful lot of it is implication, the deaths aren't particularly graphic even though they're somewhat horrifying, and the moral struggles are too much a part of it to elide. I mean, you could censor a word or two, and possibly the harpy and the tree, but the rest of it there's no point.

[silvereriena]

Aagghhh that skull stuck in my mind for years, it was nightmarish. And I agree that a lot of its bleakness comes from implication which totally flew over my head as a kid, but I recently re-watched the movie and picked up on a lot more things this time around.

[(Anonymous)]

The skull doesn't even do anything, it just howls, but I think it was honestly the scariest moment in the movie for me, especially since it directly results in Haggard doing his damnedest to murder Schmendrick and them all being trapped with the bull. Jesus, that thing terrified me.

I missed so much the first few times around, I was really young, but I think that only made the movie better as I got older. It gained so much poignancy when I went back and I actually understood things like what had happened to Molly, and why Mommy Fortuna did what she did, and how weirdly tragic Haggard was. It's a movie that's really better as an adult, although it's magical (and terrifying) as a child.

[(Anonymous)]

It's funny, because there was a wizard who turned a male unicorn into a prince and he stayed mortal and married...I /think/ it was Schmendrick's tutor, but it's been a long time since I read the book.