Leo Kerr
Screenwriter
- Joined
- May 10, 1999
- Messages
- 1,698
[SIZE= 22px]The Last Unicorn[/SIZE]
Lionsgate releases the 1982 classic Rankin/Bass animated feature. Written and screen-written by Peter S. Beagle, produced and directed by Rankin and Bass, it features the vocal talents of Alan Arkin, Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, Robert Klein, Angela Lansbury, Tammy Grimes, Christopher Lee, Keenan Wynn, Paul Frees, and Rene Auberjonois.
According to the Internet Movie Database, there are two principle versions of this film; the Theatrical/HBO version, and the version altered for VHS and the 2004 DVD release. This version is the Theatrical version.
The Bluray disc is a letterboxed to a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and runs about 92 minutes. The disc features two DTS HD 5.1 Master Audio tracks in English, as well as Dolby Digital track with commentary by Peter Beagle and Conner Cochran. Subtitles are available for English, English-SDH, and Spanish. From inserting the disc, without interruption, the disc will play a Lionsgate trailer, a disclaimer, and three previews: Thor, an animated film based on the Marvel comic; Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door; and the animated Battle for Terra, which seems similar to Avatar. While you can not skip directly to the menu, individually, the previews can be chapter-skipped. The disc operates under a slow-loading Java-based menu structure. And on some players, the disc navigation is painfully slow. On selecting the film from the menu, it will start with the DTS HD Master Audio trailer, and then start the film with no other delay. There are other special features (detailed later,) included on the disc.
The disc is a dual-disc set, including a standard-definition DVD release of the same. The discs and inserts are in a fairly standard two-disc Bluray case, with a cardboard slip-cover. The feature is rated G. Suggested retail for this set is $19.99, and will be released in North America on Tuesday, February 22, 2011.
The Feature — ••••
Before receiving the review copy of this disc, I had seen the film twice; once back in the early 1980’s or so in elementary school, in the early days of VHS. Then a couple of years ago, I saw it again, likely the 2007 DVD version. Somewhere in the middle, I am fairly certain I read the Beagle book. Which made for a strange situation as I watched the disc play out; widely disparate parts I remembered; huge portions were as if completely new to me. And, of course, there are bits that I may have fabricated out of thin air that I was surprised not to see. It was a very odd sensation. That said...
Deep in the forest, we see the shadow of a Unicorn watching a pair of hunters riding through. The older hunter explains to the younger the difficulty of hunting in a Unicorn’s forest, and then, as they ride off, the older hunter offers the benediction to the Forest, offering that the Unicorn should stay where she is, safe in her wood, for she is the last of her kind. The Unicorn [Farrow], finds that fact unlikely and yet disconcerting; Unicorns are, after all, immortal; why would she be the last? Where did they all go? Are they waiting for her? And thus, she begins her path to find the rest of her kind. A passing butterfly [Klein] offers her a tale of the Red Bull, a ferocious monster of King Haggard [Lee], who herded the Unicorns, and ‘covered their footprints.’ And so she sets off to find this King and his Bull. On the way, she encounters many, including a witch [Lansbury] who operates a circus of horrors, a not-terribly-effective wizard Schmendrick [Arkin], who becomes her guide, and Molly Grue [Grimes,] who assists in a much more practical fashion. And filling in the dual-role of ‘love interest’ and hero is Prince Lir (Bridges.)
For many people, this is ‘the’ classic unicorn story. It is a story of love, regret, hope, and trust. About dreams, joy, greed, and bitterness.
The Picture — ••••
This disc is something of a challenge.
While the disc reproduces the cels and their faults to remarkable acuity, it also has a perilously wide dynamic range. According to the waveform monitor built into my projector, some of the title lettering and the Unicorn herself are sufficiently bright white as to be ‘whiter than white.’ My good player and projector handled this with aplomb; my ‘low end’ system showed its own limits and was definitely beyond clipping the highlights.
[COLOR= rgb(255, 255, 255)]That my waveform monitor was showing some areas briefly rising to about the 105% level, I find this... surprising, and perhaps unforgivable. After all, the procedures for making video content ‘legal’ are not new or unusual. [/COLOR]
[COLOR= rgb(255, 255, 255)][Technical aside: carrying over from the days of NTSC and other analog television signals, the HDTV specification allows for both ‘blacker than black’ and ‘whiter than white.’ Many will be familiar with the ‘blacker than black’ from the SMPTE color-bars and the PLUGE patches. Classically, these super-black areas were reserved for things like sync pulses and some other assorted technical uses. In 8-bit color-space, 0-255, the actual luminance range it is ‘legal’ for a picture to be is from 16 to 235. Thus, if the monitor receives a signal that is, say, 246 [105%], one of a couple of things can happen. If you are fortunate, it will treat it more like a PC signal (which can go from 0-255,) and just display it without problems. Option two is to just “crush” it, which people may or may not notice. Option 3 is where the “math engine” goes wonky, and if you’re lucky, it wraps in a negative fashion (say, 223) rather than a more gruesome, clip off the bottom, and start over again (246-235=11. Even if it’s 11+16=27, that is still a really dark spot in an otherwise bright area.) In my case, my ‘good’ display did either option 1 or 2, and was close enough to invisible. My less-good display was more like 3a, with some really weird artifacts in the picture. [/COLOR]
[COLOR= rgb(255, 255, 255)]To say a picture is ‘legal’ is, rather simply, ensuring that the encoded signal does not exceed any of the boundaries established for brightness, color saturation, or, in some cases, not trying to define a color that can not actually be presented by the encoding scheme. With the last aspect, the most common places for ‘illegal color’ come from either computer generated graphics, or video cameras pointed at (generally) purple targets. End of Technical aside.][/COLOR]
On the other hand, the picture has not been abusively processed, and may reveal more of the original film’s imperfections than many people might expect. Dust and flaws on the original animation artwork is plainly visible, but then so too are all of those fine details that were added to the artwork; the textures and patterns of the stylized imagery.
In addition to some lush and delicate use of color and tone, this film also features a number of multiplane camera animation shots.
The Sound — •••½
The feature is accompanied by two 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks. The first is the ‘original’ soundtrack, which was only credited as a Dolby Stereo track, and the second is the 25th Anniversary Edition Audio track. I suspect that the Original track is made from the Dolby Stereo track, and decoded in advance for 5.1 playback, while the 25th Anniversary edition may have been remade from the stems. The differences are not great, and may be primarily in the ‘localization’ of the voices; the Original has a faint hint of instability before dialog lands in the center.
In either case, the dialog is clear and understandable, if thin sounding. The sound-effects are odd, and also suffer from some of the dialog’s thinness. The music is much deeper, richer, and expansively fills the soundstage much as anyone might wish a modern film to be recorded.
The Extras
In addition to the numerous special features and bonus materials on the Bluray disc itself, there is, of course, the conventional DVD copy that one may consider as a bonus material.
The Bluray disc includes numerous features detailed below:
• A commentary track recorded by Peter S. Beagle and his publisher, Conner Cochran. This is fairly extensive, and includes recollections about their lives, the impact that the book or film had on them and their families, as well as material about the film and its production.
• Immortal Characters — a 13-minute feature produced in HD in 2010, discussing the various characters, their archetypes, the animation, and the voice-acting. Interviews are from film historians, Peter Beagle, Christopher Lee, Jules Bass, and others.
• 2010 Last Unicorn Art Contest Gallery. The publisher sponsored a contest, and this highlights some of the over 200 entries received.
• Beagle and His Work — a collection of still materials, mostly book covers, with a narrated biography of the author.
• The Tail of the Last Unicorn — an eight and a half minute, 16x9 standard definition program, of the author summarizing the story and the major themes of the film.
• Schmendrick’s Magical Gallery — a still supplement gallery of film and story-related materials, occasionally narrated.
• the original trailer, in 4x3 standard definition.
The DVD advertises itself as the 25th Anniversary Edition. It includes a Dolby Stereo and a Dolby Digital track. Subtitles for English, English SDH, and Spanish. Other features include Escape the Red Bull, Schmendrick’s Magical Gallery, The Tail of the Last Unicorn, About Peter Beagle, and the trailer. On a very brief survey of the DVD, directly after watching the Bluray version, the DVD is... soft. I guess people should not compare one to the other up-close-and-personal!
In The End — ••••
I suppose, in the end, I have
But in the grand scheme of things, unless you are one of the fortunate few to have seen a film print of this twenty-nine years ago, it has never looked better.
EDIT: I have just gotten off of the phone with my video-geek, who was at a technical/professional conference this week. One of the issues discussed was, in fact, the coming migration away from the 16-235 "legal limits" on Bluray discs and ATSC and other digital transmissions. The above section now either white (the large block, and can be viewed by click-n-drag over it,) or struck-out. --LFK
