The Last Unicorn

Author: Bass, Jules.; Rankin, Arthur, and others
Publication: [United States] : Family Home Entertainment ; Santa Monica, Calif. : Distributed by Artisan Home Entertainment, 2004
Document: English : Visual Material : Videorecording : Animation : DVD video
Description: 1 videodisc (ca. 93 min.); sound, color; 4 3/4 in.
Language: English; Closed-captioned.
Standard No: Publisher: 11903; Family Home Entertainment; Other: 012236119036

Originally released as a motion picture in 1982. Based on the novel by Peter Beagle.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating for this movie is G - General audiences.


The Last Unicorn, based on the book by Peter Beagle, tells the story of a unicorn who believes herself to be the last of her kind. She leaves the safety of her forest on a search to discover if she is truly the last unicorn. Along the way she is befriended by a magician named Schmendrick and a woman named Molly Grue. Their journey brings them to the Kingdom of King Haggard, and the home of the Red Bull. With the help of Molly, Schmendrick, and the King’s son Prince Lir, the unicorn finds the strength to confront the Red Bull and free the rest of her kind.

The movie remains true to the Peter Beagle novel. The DVD version of The Last Unicorn does not stand up in quality however, to previous VHS releases. The DVD is full screen, not wide screen, the picture is often grainy and even blurry in spots, and the soundtrack has a tinny quality. For this reason VHS copies of the movie are still in demand among its fans. If you are an avid fan of The Last Unicorn and other Rankin/Bass productions, you may want to hold off on purchasing the DVD, at least until your VHS tape wears out.


The reviewer has a Bachelor of Arts in Medieval Studies from the State University of New York at Binghamton as well as a Masters in Library Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has a background in children’s programming with more than 15 years experience working with children.

poetry...

This is a small poem written for a friend by a friend. I have been given permission to share some of their work now and then. On these cold, windy days it is thoughts like these that tend to warm me.

Caressing ripples of sensation
As your fingers brush my side

Like ripples on a pond
As the wind blows across its surface

Spreading warm chills
That wash to the shore

Some days it is all about the numbers

4 basic impulses of man

to feed
to flee
to fornicate
to fight

The 4 humors [click on special terms on the left side of the page, then choose humors from the list] or food and the humors

black bile (melancholic)
yellow bile (choleric)
phlegm (phlegmatic)
blood (sanguine)

Dante's Divine Comedy is written in three parts:

Inferno
Purgatorio
Paradiso

and he places the 7 capital (deadly sins) each on their own level of Hell:

Pride
Avarice
Envy
Wrath
Lust
Gluttony
Sloth

For the complete texts of Dante's original Italian and the translations of Longfellow and Mandelbaum, arranged for comparison, you can go here.

Dante also considered each of the sins as offenses against love (take a moment to think that through, if you actually let your mind work on that idea for a while you can understand what he means by that, even if you have never read any of the Divine Comedy. Dante groups the sins accordingly:

Perverted Love: Pride, Envy, Wrath
Insufficient Love: Sloth
Excessive Love of Earthly Goods: Avarice, Gluttony, Lust

I may be off on a tangent at the moment...but I'm not sure this post was ever a coherent thought in my mind, that is I am not sure it ever had a theme to follow, so I will just go where my thoughts are taking me. I read an article by Don W. King, written about the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. The article noted a correlation between the seven deadly sins and the overall themes of each book in the Chronicles of Narnia.

Book 1: The Magician's Nephew [wrath]
Book 2: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe [gluttony]
Book 3: The Horse and His Boy [pride]
Book 4: Prince Caspian [lust] (note that Lewis refers not to the more modern sense of this sin as sexual, but more to a lust for all things in general)
Book 5: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader [avarice]
Book 6: The Silver Chair [sloth]
Book 7: The Last Battle [envy]

For those of you who may not have read the series I do not want to be the one with all the spoilers. Though I will say that though this is a wonderful fantasy series, and I do remember reading it as such as a child...I found it much more interesting reading it as an adult (which I did for an undergrad course). At the point I was aware that C.S. Lewis, who had abandoned his faith (Christianity) at a young age (in his teens I believe), returned to Christianity in his 30's . (I think, pulling this from my mind for the most part...and though I am obviously sitting at a computer with an internet connection...I do not feel like looking any of this up...if you happen to look it up and I am wrong, feel welcome to let me know).

As another link to the deadly sins as well as the Divine Comedy, pay special attention to what happens near the end of the series...you'll notice that Dante was not the only one to use the ideas of levels of existence. I found Lewis' writing in this part of the book of enough interest to use it as a basis for a short story I wrote.

I feel that after that digression, I must add one more list and then I will be done (for now at least).

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Trilogy:

Book 1 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Book 2 - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Book 3 - Life, the Universe and Everything
Book 4 - So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Book 5 - Mostly Harmless

Ah yes, the five-part trilogy. I miss reading new works by this man.

Alas, Douglas died unexpectedly in May 2001 of a sudden heart attack.
He will be missed. He was an amazing writer and from what I have read, he was a fairly decent human being as well, which is not always an easy thing to be these days.

And so we go from the basic impulses of man to the death of one. Not sure what deeper meaning applies here. I am however, amazed at where my mind takes me when I allow it time to roam and play. I should let it out more often...though I have to be careful that is doesn't get too rambunctious.

My muse

Cicely Mary Barker's Willow Fairy

I decided that my profile needed a picture, so here is my muse.


tags: cicely mary barker, flower fairies

Tagged (lists of 4)

I have been tagged by jennimi - an honor. I sometimes decide not to do these types of posts, but this one was fun to do.

four jobs i have had

1. camp counselor
2. sold costumes
3. daycare (toddler room, mainly)
4. pizzaria (owned by friends)

four movies i could watch over and over

1. Stealing Beauty
2. Labyrinth
3. Ever After
4. Harold and Maude

four places i have lived

1. Virginia Beach
2. Binghamton, NY
3. Buffalo, NY
4. East Bloomfield, NY

four tv shows

1. Stargate
2. Firefly
3. Crossing Jordan
4. Time Trax (had to put one way back show)

four websites

1. Flower Fairies
2. Taughannock Falls
3. Oxford English Dictionary
4. The Official Peanuts web site

four favorite foods

1. Pan seared fish
2. Mushroom and onion pizza
3. Mom's brownies
4. Bloomfield Creamery Chocolate Chip ice cream (may be State Street Creamery now)

four places i'd rather be

1. Camping
2. Italy
3. England
4. On a quest

four bloggers i'd tag

1. I don't
2. know
3. four
4. bloggers!

Follow your bliss

I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Mutts comics, by Patrick McDonnell, but they were the inspiration for the name of this blog. I have a Mutts comic I keep on my desk that reads, "Lets see...I ate breakfast, went for a walk, played with my chewy toy, found a sunny spot on the rug, kissed 'my Ozzie,' had dinner, went for another walk. Yup...follow your bliss."

I forget sometimes that life can be that simple if you let it. I need to focus on that idea more. Just enjoying the moments that are...not worrying about those that were or are yet to come.

tags: Patrick McDonnell, follow your bliss