August 13, 2025 • 42 mins
This 1982 animated film - and a fave of Anney's as a kid - was often labeled an 'Anti-Disney' cartoon, and rightly so. The plot follows a unicorn searching for answers, a bumbling magician, and a woman struggling with her age. We delve into themes of love, regret and loneliness.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
I never told you a production of iHeartRadio, and today
for our feminist movie Friday, which potentially could be a Wednesday.
We've got a lot of things moving around, but I
(00:25):
think it'll be a Friday. We are continuing with our
month of revisiting some childhood favorites of ours. And if
you don't know this, typically how this works is we
alternate Samantha and I choosing the book in the movie.
This month, the movie was mine. Samantha got the book,
which you could already hear. So this is oh I
(00:49):
loved this movie. We are bringing back the animated nineteen
eighty two film The Last Unicorn, directed and produced by
Arthur Rankin Junior and Jules Bath.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is where I was like, Oh, I realized the
names are the animators for all the Christmas classics.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yes, all the claymation things. Yeah, yes, that they did
the same.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I don't know. The others didn't give me as much
nightmare as this one.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So it's a very different vibe, this one, which we're
going to get into. When I suggested this, I was like, Samantha,
I think this might say something about me but anyway.
It was based on a book from nineteen sixty eight
written by Peter S. Beagle, who also did the screenplay
for the movie, and was animated by the early version
of Studio Ghibli. The cast includes Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin,
(01:36):
Christopher Lee, Jeff Bridges, Tammy Grimes, and Angela Lansberry, so
a lot of big names. It also includes a Bangan
soundtrack from the band America.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
A Bangin soundtrack.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh I tell you, I would sing it right now
if I didn't think everybody would turn it off. I
loved it. I burnt it on the seat.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yes, yes, yes yes. When it came out, while the
reviews were generally positive, it wasn't a commercial success. Since
its released, though, it's become a cult favorite, and in
two thousand and three it was named as the ninety
sixth greatest animated film of all time by the Online
Film Critics Society. And the animation is really beautiful. It's
really striking as a couple of different styles throughout that
(02:25):
kind of evoke flipping through a fairy tale book and
something popping off the page. This is also known as
the anti Disney movie, which we're going to talk about
more two. But yeah, yes, I loved it. I would
watch it over and over. I had the songs, I'd
(02:46):
belt them out. Me and my friends would watch it
and argue about whether or not the unicorn should have
made the choice that she did. I'm sure going to
talk about I was terrified of the red bull, and
I would watch the red of the tail lights of
cars and be scared, like, that's how much scared me? Yes,
(03:11):
And to this day I find myself quoting this movie
most often Molly's speech, how dare you come to me now?
When I am this?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It did? That was poignant.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
That was a good speech.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
It was she had been waiting all her life. Yeah,
she's in the worst place in her moments.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Nor shows up. Yes, yes, Now this is interesting to
me because after you watched it, you were like, this
is dropped?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
What the hell? How you know when you watch things
as a child, Because Ray our listener who agreed with
me about Zubali Zoo being like, we loved it as
kids and then growing up are like, what what were
we thinking? Oh yeah, that someone was on something.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I was so exc for you to watch it because
I knew I am well aware of what this is.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
And this is one of those many classic blunders of
ours because every time you say the last Unicorn, I'm
thinking a legend, which is also a horrifying scape of
like what the hell were you thinking?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Type of movie.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
The first for Tom Cruise pantsless, by the way, would
Tim Curry being the most terrifying devil ever. But I
would always get that to who confused. I was always like,
wait what, wait what? And every time you talk about
the last Unicorn, I'm like, I don't remember that part
which I had never seen.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Last Unicorn I've never seen.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, I think this was I had made an outline
years ago. Yeah, five years ago. That's how long I've
been waiting for this, waiting. But I have a list
of traumatizing children's movies, and I if we could find
a way to work in the Dark Crystal or Watership Down, Oh,
(04:54):
I'd be talking about them. You best believe some of
them I've revisited and I'm like, as an adult, this
is not scary. I see you aren't scared me as
a child, those two are still kind of frightening.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah. Yeah, the one similar to Dark Crystal, what is it?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Oh? With David Bowie.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
David Bowie, which that would that's scared of me.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. I can see that.
I didn't see that until I was much older.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
See, I never watched and I've never seen Dark Crystal.
It feels like we're definitely divided. We were also different timelines.
But I watched the Labymorth that loved it, never seen
Dark Crystal.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I love Dark Crystal. Maybe we should have just a
if we're ever really busy, we should just have an
episode where we talk about the childhood. Yeah, yeah, and
why and why? However, I do think The Last Unicorn
has a lot of feminist thoughts to it. Oh, let's
go okay. So the plot focuses on a female unicorn
(05:59):
who has noticed that something is off about her forest, and,
through some hunters in a cryptic butterfly, she learns that
she may be the last of her kind, and that
the rest of the unicorns have been captured and perhaps
killed by a monstrous entity known as the Red Bull,
who herds them towards the ends of the earth. Though
she is warned it is dangerous not just for her,
(06:21):
but for the animals of her woods, because basically she
protects them just by being there. She leaves her forest
in search of others like her. On her journey, she
is captured by an old woman named Mommy Fortuna, who
cages her and puts her in a traveling circus called
the Midnight Carnival. Most of the creatures on display are
(06:43):
regular animals, but Mommy Fortuna has spelled them to look
magical or different. She even puts a She spells a
horn on the unicorns, since most people have lost their
ability to see the truth of a unicorn's nature, so
they see a white mare. So even though she has
a horn, Fortuna puts another one on her. She has
(07:04):
also caged an immortal and dangerous harpy Seleno, and is
very very proud of this fact. Oh She's so proud.
The unicorn meets and befriends a fledging magician named Schmendrick,
who promises to help release her, which he does, but
in the process he also releases the harpy, who kills
Mommy Fortuna, and basically like Mommy Fortuna, the unicorn says,
(07:27):
your death waits in that cage. She's going to kill you,
and Mommy Fortuna is like, yes, so my immortality is
that I will live forever because I caged her and
she will never be able to forget it. This scene
real evil. Oh yeah, ooh. It stuck with me so
much because Mommy Fortuna is so gleeful at having captured
(07:47):
this heart harpy, even knowing she's gonna die and have
this violent death by this harpy. The music that's playing
when it happens, Oh my gosh, and the harpy like
kind of eats at her. Oh the unicorn Schmindrick have
to slowly walk away so as not to draw her attention.
This was also a cool moment in terms of, like,
(08:08):
you have the unicorn, let the harpye go because they're
both immortals and they understand each other. But it was
a cool moment in terms of, like, this is a
very dangerous world. I feel like a lot of the
fantasies around unicorns are like, oh, it's all nice and
nothing violent happens, and this was like oh no, no, no no.
(08:28):
And she was very aware that the Harpie was going
to do this when she released her. So they then
run into a roving band of brigands that are they're
kind of painted as the sad robin Hood crew. They're
like eating water soup and Schmindric uses his magic to
(08:48):
startle them by kind of summoning of the real robin
Hood and crew. And this is when Schmindrick and another
very traumatizing scene, is tied to Uh and then uses
his magic to try. He just is like magic to
as you will, and it turns the tree into a big,
bosomest sentient tree that is smothering him with her breast.
(09:14):
He's very voluptuous breast.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Lopsided, voluptuous breast. But you already see there's indidentations in
the tree before she becomes the tree, which makes me laugh.
And then also like the vibe that she's like, no,
I love you, I love you.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
All will kill you, we will die together.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Oh, like, my god, what is happening?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yep? Yep, this was the scene in a movie that
I loved Uh. And the unicorn comes and rescues him
and turns the tree back into a tree. All is
all as well. But this is also when they are
joined by Captain Collie's lover. So Captain Colley was the
leader of the sad robin Hood troop, Mollie Grew, who
(09:54):
immediately wants to aid the unicorn in her journey, and
this is when she gives her speech which I'm going
to talk about mo. As they get closer to King
Haggard's Castle, which is where the unicorns are rumored to be,
they run into the Red Bull and all of his fiery,
angry glory. In a panic, Schmindrick uses his magic to
transform her into a human woman. The Red Bull loses
(10:18):
interest and retreats. He only cares about unicorns, but the
Unicorn is in total shock in this new body and
with her new family mortality, having never experienced mortality before.
Both she and Molly are angry at Schmindrick, but he
promises to turn her back. At the end of their journey,
they arrive at Haggard's castle, which is on this really
(10:40):
craggy cliff on sea. He is not a very welcoming host,
but they are able to convince him that Schmindrick should
be his court magician and maybe bring him a smile.
That he's made clear nothing gives him joy anymore, so
that's how they're like, maybe this guy can. And he
(11:01):
also takes an interest in the unicorn introduced in human
form as Lady in Mauthea, Mollie grew. Meanwhile, is tasked
with working in the kitchen. It's also really revealed that
other than the adopted prince Lear, pretty much no one
lives in this castle. On top of that, the magician
that Haggard kicked out for Schmndrick recognizes the truth of
(11:24):
Amalthea and warrens Haggard he has invited in his own
doom and then disappears, literally disappears. Oh how could I
forget the pirate cat that has an I patch?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And he says, up a cat.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
I have to talk in riddles, but I'll like, but
you're also talking a pirate This doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yes, it's so good, all right. So, now experiencing human
emotions for the first time, Malthia finds herself confused and
forgetting her existence as a unicorn and falling in love
with prince Lear. She even starts pondering the possibility of
throwing her whole question the side in favor of immortal
(12:02):
wife with him. Haggard confronts her and admits he's disappointed,
and Leir is depressed, and then he keeps trying to
find happiness in the waves in the sea. He also
threatens her and he knows that there's more to her
than she is letting on, more than meets the eye,
perhaps because when he first looked in her eye, all
he could see was far as she was from. And
(12:23):
then he looks into her eyes and he sees his reflection,
so he knows something's up. Mollie discovers the location of
the Red Bull from the castle's talking pirate cat. Yes,
they have to go to a skeleton, get the skeleton drunk,
and wait for a certain time on the clock. The
(12:46):
skeleton talks too, by the way, and the skeleton recognizes
that Amalthia is a unicorn, but Molly Spindrik, Amalthia, and
Leir make their way through the cock into some kind
of magical realm and then into the Red Bull's lair,
and Schmindrick reveals to Lear the truth of a Malthea's identity,
(13:08):
and Lear proclaims he loves who he loves. Hearing this,
a Mathia expresses her desire to forget about the unicorns
and marry Lear, but he persuades her otherwise. Now trapped
in the bull's lair by Haggard, the Bull appears and
is able to see through a Maltheu's disguise, Schmendrick transforms
(13:28):
her back into the unicorn. The bull starts hurting her
to the ocean, as it has with all the other unicorns,
but Lear attacks it, dying in the process. Yeah. The
unicorn turns on the bowl and forces him into the
ocean just as he is done with the unicorns. The
trapped unicorns, which were the whites of the tides, escape
(13:49):
the water and the red bull is pushed under the surface.
Haggard watches this unfold as his castle collapses and he
is swallowed into the sea. As he shouts the last
I knew you were the last. The unicorn uses her
magic to bring Leir back to life, but leaves him.
Lee wants to fight for her, but Schmendrick tells him
(14:12):
that he is perhaps the only human who can say
he has won unicorns love. Schmendrick also apologizes to the
unicorn for exposing her to regret and the feelings of mortality,
but she argues the importance of her experiencing regret and
love and how their actions help free the unicorns. She doesn't,
and she's basically like, you know, is it better to
(14:33):
have loved and lost or never to have loved? At all,
and she's like, it's better to have loved and lost.
I know, regret, and I'm glad that I do. She
disappears into the forest a Shmindrick and Molly watch, and
that's how it is.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Mollie doesn't get to say goodbye. She's asleep. I was
very disappointed by that. Why couldn't Molly say goodbye?
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Molly needed to say goodbye.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
She should have been able to say goodbye.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, I mean the unicorn just leaves the unicorns by homies.
He said, yes, yes, yes, yes, Well, I have a
(15:19):
lot of thoughts about this whole thing, and I'm gonna
condense them. You can't find a lot of articles about
it online, though I am not the only one who's
thought about this. And recently it came back into theaters
and I was reading that people would do side by side,
So somebody who's seen it before and someone who hasn't.
It was really funny because the person who hasn't it
(15:40):
was like, well, I cannot believe this is a child movie.
Like most of the time, they loved it, but it
was like, so.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
That would have been using what the hell am I watching? Yes?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Oh, I love it. It does exist, though if you would
like to check it out. So I think a side
probably we saw this when I was like eight or
nine the first time, and even then there were some
things that just stood out to me because it was
so different than a Disney movie. It's it's very melancholy,
(16:17):
like the whole vibe of it is very lonely, and
you can pick up on that pretty quickly. These are
very flawed characters, all of them have I would say,
a pretty big flaw, or at least like something that
stands out as they need to work on that. And
(16:40):
the ending is very bittersweet. It's a very very bittersweet ending,
and for some reason I loved it as a kid,
which I'm going to talk about more in a minute,
but I really loved it. And one of the things,
especially with Molly grew and that speech that meant so
much to me, where she's essentially saying like, how dare
(17:04):
you come to me now? And I am this when
I'm old, because in most things we see, you're you're
young when you meet the unicorn, like you're in the
prime of your youth when that happens, and she's angry,
Like I remember that she was so angry at it,
and the Unicorn says, you know, I'm here now, and
(17:25):
it's just a very sweet, very real scene. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I feel like a part of that was also because
when you first meet her, she's also a villain, the
way she's like, gut s Mindrick, just gut them, just
gut just kill them, just gut them.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
He's magical.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Get him out of here, because she's already bitter. She's
very much having to have taken care of these people.
She's like obviously very I felt like the worn and everything.
And then she sees the Unicorn, which is supposed to
bring hope in life. It's just like, what the hell,
why can't you do this in my prime before I
lost all hope?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, exactly exactly. She's just been having this kind of
miserable life and she sees the unicorn and it makes
her angry and I liked that take. But she does
she kind of has a good angry cry within her
and the unicorn or like they worked it out and
they're on good terms.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
They worn't it out, they did.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Her attitude changes because then she also has a really
big encouragement for Schmindric.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
She is like the force of reason among the group.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
It seems Yeah. Yeah, she's very supportive because at first
she was really mad at Schmindrick when he turned Mauthia
into Malthia, and then when we have to change her
back to a unicorn, and Mollie was like, well what
she wants.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I don't know, free will, but it does seem with
because she is also the one that said, Spindric, help
your magician.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You're supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Why don't you protect her when she was being like
hurted by the red bull and we just watched them watching, which,
by the way, I was like, y'all did nothing. It's
just like, Okay, the bull's gonna do the thing.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Keep doing the bull thing.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I guess, keep on, keep it on. That's what the
bull does. Yeah, and so Smendrick his original his whole
thing is he can do magic, but it usually doesn't
do the thing he wants it to do. So he
didn't mean to turn the unicorn into a human woman.
(19:29):
He was just trying to turn her into another animal
so that the bull would lose interest, and that was
part of the anger. I mean, I don't know if
I can that the unicorn was distraught, like she was crying.
She said, I can feel his body dying all around me,
(19:49):
Like she was devastated by this, and so I think
it went from you know, he accidentally did this too.
Now she's just dealing with all of these really heavy
emotions and is she's confused, like she forget where she
(20:10):
is and who she is. And so I think Mollie
was really angry at first because of that she saw
this pain. But then when it seemed like she was
adjusting to being human and happy, and she's like, well,
maybe we should let her that's what she wants. Oh,
(20:32):
but yeah, there are a lot of themes around age
and beauty and lost youth and a valuing of the
young and innocent that you can see in Mollie's monologue. Also,
there's so many themes of power that I was talking
about earlier, what you see in the kind of immortal realm.
(20:55):
And so you have the power of the Harpy and
then Mommy fortuna that power and wanting to control that power.
To reiterate, I was terrified of the Harpy. She is terrifying.
The music is scary, It plays like every time like
lightning goes off behind her. The design for the Harpy
is very, very terrifying. Okay, here's a quote I found
(21:20):
from AV Club. There's no way to get around it.
For children, The Last Unicorn is terrifying. The Rank and
Bass animated feature released in nineteen eighty two, features a
tremendous voice cast, but it's not the voices that stick
in the mind, nor is it the story. Though it
certainly possesses many classical elements that contribute to its staying power,
it isn't the music, the animation, or the message. No,
(21:43):
the reason for The Last unicorns longevity is much simpler
than any of that. It was scary as hell. Yes,
I also found some articles when I was looking into
you got of the feminism of this movie that they
made the point that, you know, the Harpy has three
pendulous breasts. The tree that almost killed Sminjic has these
(22:08):
two big boobs, but they're not sexy, they're not sexualized.
They're scary, a sexual nightmare. I feel like I heard
someone describe it and again, Schmendrick. He's the one that
transformed the tree into that with his magic, and I
(22:29):
think you could maybe read some things in there.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I mean, he's portrayed seemingly as younger in my mind
for some odd reason, but maybe not because I was like, wait,
do he and Molly live happily ever after?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I'm confused. Yeah, they just platonic friends.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
It kind of was like insinuating like they were going
to be together each other.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Yeah, for sure. I mean it ends with them together
and presumably going to stay together if it's friends or otherwise.
But I always got I picked up on a kind
of romantic thing. But I don't know. I don't know.
There's also a lot of stuff in the movie about
fake magic and truth. So again going back to Spindrick's abilities,
(23:16):
and it's played as a joke at first because when
he's trying to get the unicorn out of her cage,
he tries to do all these spells and just make
things worse, and then he's finally is like, well, I
pickpocket at the key, so we'll just do that. But
over time he gets better, and it's kind of that's
one of his failings, is that he's more concerned about
(23:39):
his ability to do magic than he is about helping sometimes,
you know. And he also transforms the unicorn both times
against her will. Really he doesn't ask her. He is
trying to help her, but that's not really what she
would have wanted. And then when you were talking about
(24:01):
the traveling circus, where not only do you have these
like a regular lion spelled to look like a manicore,
you have a real unicorn spelled to look like a
unicorn because people can't see it, so sort of the truth.
People can't see the truth, they need the fake magic.
(24:22):
And I we're going to talk about this a little
bit more at the end, but there's been a lot
of conversation about that and about people not being able
to see her for what she truly is, Like that's
what she is, and they can't see her for that.
She even has the line in there where she says
men only see what they want to see. But just
all the of these illusions that are placed over this world,
(24:45):
this lack of respect for magic.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Right, and she does talk about like the fact when
the men are talking about that horse, it's just a horse,
is like.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
How dare you? How dare you call me a mere mayor? Yeah?
Do you not see who?
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Like?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
She she's hep you offend it?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, no, she is very offended. And I
do kind of like it's so hard to describe how
strange this movie is at points, but I love how
the strangeness is embraced as like, oh, butterflies are just
strange that way. But she has like all this old
world immortal knowledge and we don't as humans were like,
(25:24):
what are you're talking about? I love it? And then
you have I would say. There's also lear posturing and
trying to win a Malthia over. So he keeps like
fighting dragons and skinning them and presenting the skin to
her and she could care less. She is so unimpressed.
But that's sort of the hero's journey, and I like
(25:45):
that it's flipped here where she's like, leave me be man,
and he's so angry about it. He's like, I've done
everything right. I'm the hero.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I also love Molly is a sounding board for him. Yes,
she's like, well, you know, maybe you should just talk
to her, Maybe you should get.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
To know her.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Do you think she wants this thing?
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Maybe we should use our words that she says like
maybe the lady and Mathia is not impressed by these
heroic deeds. Yeah, she really is the voice of reason
in a lot of ways. Oh, this brings us to
one of the biggest themes in my opinion, regret, depression,
and loneliness. Like I said, it is, it hangs over
(26:31):
this movie from the minute it starts, and it because
of the way the animation is, which if you haven't
seen this, but you happen to have seen the animated
Lord of the Rings, this is the same studio.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
It's like quiet, like they there's no music you can
hear like the birds and but it's very quiet.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
But the opening scenes happened because I have like little
speakers around sound.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Then I was like what those words?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, I mean essentially you're just listening to the forest.
And then the two hunters come in and they have
this pretty heavy conversation about like, yeah, there are no
more unicorns. If you're here, unicorn, you're the last. And
it's just then she's like, what how could I be
the last? And then it does break into an America song,
(27:19):
But it's just got this immediate loneliness, quiet melancholy feeling
about it. It's very apparent, and her whole journey starts
with her questioning, oh am I the last? I can't be.
It's a very lonely movie, like everybody in it is lonely.
(27:43):
And I mean there are lines that when I was
rewatching it for this I just thought, Wow, me as
a kid, I did not understand that. But one of
them is there are no happy endings because nothing ever ends.
What kind of Oh my gosh, but that's kind of
(28:03):
Schmindrick says that to Molly. Oh yeah, r.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Wit and nonshysical abilities.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yes, yes, but it's just it's got plenty of lines
like that. It has that emotional Molly Greo speech, it
has these really raw clearly saying this is not the
fairy tale that you get from Disney pretty much, and
that whole idea of her being the only unicorn to
(28:31):
ever have known love and regret and what she had
to give up to save all of the other unicorns.
There's another Linemindric has, don't cry. If you become human
enough to cry, then all the magic in the world
cannot change you back. Woof. But this is where me
and my my friends kind of disagreed is I thought
(28:54):
I thought she should have turned back into a unicorn.
I liked that they didn't get together her and Lear
not because I didn't. I just thought it was different,
and I kind of appreciated that it ended on, not
an angry note, but just sort of like death. Well,
he got brought back, he got he does, Yes, he does.
(29:19):
She brings him back with her magic.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I thought she just touched him and he remained there
the whole time.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
He laid there.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
No, he comes back.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I was waiting for him to come back and he didn't.
Did I miss that part?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yow? Yes, he comes back and he's talking to That's
when Schmindrick tells him, you're the only one to have
ever won over a unicorn. Okay, but that's why I
love the line too, not that whole bit he's dead
and dead good next.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I think I really was like, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, I mean he comes back and he asked to
meet the unicorn again, and Schmindrick is kind of like,
you gotta go live your life, and so he does.
He rides off.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Man, I really forgot that part. And to the left,
she saved.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Him, and that's that was the thing. That was the
how she was able to fight off the red Bull
because she was being hurted into the water. But then
she was so upset that the red Bull had killed
him that she forced the red Bull into the water
and saved him.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
That's funny. Ending was like, he died, okay, but he
can't taste her moving on.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
No, no, but he I mean, that's what I liked
about he he respected, you know, we had that time
he said I love whom I love and then he
went to go build his own community. And I like
how she the unicorn was like, I'm glad, I'm no regret.
(30:54):
I have known regret, and I don't feel worse for it.
I feel better for it. I thought that was very
unique and I liked it. But my friends were like,
they should have gotten together left definitely ever after all
of this, and then we got into a fight about
attractiveness and yeah, oh I remember all did too much.
(31:21):
We had a lot of thoughts about this movie. And
then obviously I remember the first time I watched this
as like an adult, and I just it was so
clear to me. This is about depression, especially with King Haggard.
They don't even try to hide it. He is depressed.
(31:42):
He is miserable. Nothing makes him happy. He cages the
unicorns because he hopes that's the only thing that brings
him a little bit of hope, a little bit of
happiness when he sees them. But he is still so unhappy.
He adopted his son and hopes that the son would
make him happy in it. He didn't and he doesn't
care for him, and it's very mean.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Well he says like he says an interest that including
the magician when he had the original magicians like they
did for a minute and then.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
For a minute.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah, yeah, but also it could be a lot to say,
and I know you're going to probably jump into it
in a minute, and you order to say it. For me,
it felt like not necessarily a depression, but about men's dissatisfaction,
and so they're going to do they will destroy everything
to get what they think will satisfy them.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yes, yes, And that segues into what I think the
red Bull kind of represents, which is male rage or
just like a determination to make yourself feel better. And
it doesn't matter anything else, anything else, because he is
(32:51):
not satisfied he has I mean, it's got to be
hundreds of unicorns in the water, but he writes every single.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Like that's the greed, like corporation greed and millionaire billionaire greed.
Is like yeah, I could, but why would I It's
for me and I I'll step on everything right and
everyone in order to keep it for myself.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, and I mean kind of the environmentalist angle would
also be they protect their woods, and once they're gone,
their woods are fair game up for grabs, yeah, for hunters.
So if he has all of these hundreds of unicorns,
then that's hundreds of woods that have been left unprotected.
(33:37):
But yeah, I mean he's and he's very he's very cold,
and he's very angry and just volatile, and he is
trying to find a way to expose him Offia and
she doesn't. She's honestly not even trying to hide anything
(33:58):
from him at this point. She's so can fused by
being immortal. She doesn't know, and he's just.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yelling at her, and she was like, calm down, sir.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then in the end, I think
is I think this is interesting about the two main
villains in the movie, Mommy Fortuna and King Haggard, is
that their final words are so telling because his are
like I knew it, I knew you.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Were like, they are willing to die, destroy everything just
to get what they want.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes, yes, yeah, he was almost ecstatic. He was like
I knew it, and she was too. Mommy Fortuna was too.
She was like, really, yeah, you will never forget I
caged you.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
And like its content warning here, but like it kind
of reminds me of like a rapist.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
That power they just know.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
They don't care if they die, they don't give their
punish They just want you to know they have the power.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah. Yeah, and and he was that's he was determined
to have it. And you know, the other interesting thing
about that is, as I said, he wasn't happy. He
wasn't happy at all. Even the unicorns they would give
him like a little bit. So all of that destruction
(35:21):
and all of that power, he couldn't stop doing it.
But he also was just not happy. He wasn't gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Which, by the way, there may be at a point
where I saw pieces of this movie because I remember
the horses in the water, and I thought him meant
he drowned them and died killed them. Oh, and that
was like that's how he kept them so keeping their
bodies in the water.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
I feel like I had that memory.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
M Yeah, it's possible, it's possible.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
That's a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, it is a I mean when you realize they're alive,
it is a cool scene when you see them coming
up in the waves.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
The entire time and drowning the entire time and can't die.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Just this is when they comes. Another thing about this
is no one really truly achieves their dreams. I guess
you could argue that the unicorn doesn't freeing the unicorns,
(36:24):
but now she's got this other, she's got this regret.
The Magician starts as a pretty bad magician. He gets better,
but he's still like, can't control it necessarily. Mollie is
just a drift because she gave up her life for
this and now it's, you know, the unicorns going her
(36:45):
own way. Lear's going his own way, and she's got
the magician. But her dream of like meeting unicorn kind
of comes and goes, and then Lear's dream of being
a hero because he does. He goes to fight the
red Bull to save the unicorn, but then pretty much
immediately dies and she yeah, exactly exactly. So that brings
(37:13):
us to another theme, love and change. Uh so I
I this is something I also really adore about this
movie is that you do see change in the characters.
You see change and even if it doesn't result in
like the kind of fairy tale. The disnified fairytale ending
(37:35):
because we all know that like the original fairy tales
are pretty grim.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Well also like we also have tragedies like Bambi or
they have to kill off the parents, so they're not
all great.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
But they start, they start bad and get happy.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
So I think although the hound in the oh, no,
I don't think that's a good ending.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
That's a rough one.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
That's a rough one away you're going sorry, traumatized childhood, trauma.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Child strava. But you know she there are these moments
where the unicorn who seemingly has never really met other
unicorns there it's been a long long time since she's
connected with one, having that loneliness, and then meeting these
(38:25):
friends but still kind of feeling disconnected from them because
she's not she's immortal, she's not human, and then getting
turned into a human and that experience changing her. There's
even a song in there, Now that I'm a woman,
everything has changed. There's also a song called Walking Man's Road.
That song gets stick in my head all the time,
(38:47):
just randomly out of nowhere. But through her experience knowing
humans becoming a human, she does experience love, experience instagrette,
and changes and for that, and I really like that,
and she chooses to stay at unicorn in face of it.
(39:10):
She after experiencing that, she still is like, no, I'm
a unicorn, but I'm glad. I'm glad I had that
experience and a part I think, she says, like a
part of her will always love lear. So it's like
it didn't go away. She had this thing that really
changed her. Another big piece is being true to yourself.
(39:32):
So she fights the red Bull when it was supposed
to be impossible for her to do so because of
what she learned being human, but also because of her
being a unicorn and understanding who she is and what
she's capable of, and no surprise at all to me.
There are a lot of queer takes on the unicorns
transformation to a woman and coming back to her true self.
(39:56):
There's that kind of none of you exist narrative, like
there's no other unicorns, You're the only one. You should
blend into the world. But then she was like, no,
I'm a unicorn. If people wouldn't see me as a unicorn,
because that is what I am. Here's a quote from
transgen X Girl. But like trans folks who feel the
need to apply various accouterments early in their transitions, Binder's wigs,
(40:20):
shape wear, excessive makeup, hyperfeminine or hypermaculine clothing, and accessories.
The unicorn knows she is still not her true self.
She even admits at one point that our human body
is dying all around her. Yeah, she had to come
back to who she really was. The Unicorn has also
been read as being ace. Yeah, and I was like,
(40:44):
that does make sense now that you mentioned it, mm,
because she's not the unicorn. She's like, she doesn't need that.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
No, yeah, she didn't need unicorn mates. She didn't know that. Well,
you didn't know they weren't there, So that's the thing,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, yeah, Well, I I clearly love this movie. I
think that just the animation and the feeling of it
of it's not sadness, it's just melancholy. It's just I
don't know, but it is hopeful. I would love if
(41:26):
anybody wrote in if you have seen it, or if
you watch it after this and it's your first time.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
The boobies they come out of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah they do, they do. But thank you Samantha for
going on this traumatizing journey with amazing, amazing. I had
I had a joy. I was singing at the TV.
It was great. Uh well, listeners, you can send us
any of your thoughts. You can email us at Hello
at Steffanenever Told You dot com. You can find us
(41:57):
on Blue Sky I'm on the podcast or on Instagram
and tick docket stuff I've Never Told You. We're also
on YouTube and we have a book if you can
get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to
our super producer Christine, our expective producer My and your
controoper Joey. Thank you, and thanks to you for listening.
Stuff and Never Told You is production by Heart Radio.
For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the iHeart Radio Appple podcast wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
I never told you a production of iHeartRadio, and today
for our feminist movie Friday, which potentially could be a Wednesday.
We've got a lot of things moving around, but I
(00:25):
think it'll be a Friday. We are continuing with our
month of revisiting some childhood favorites of ours. And if
you don't know this, typically how this works is we
alternate Samantha and I choosing the book in the movie.
This month, the movie was mine. Samantha got the book,
which you could already hear. So this is oh I
(00:49):
loved this movie. We are bringing back the animated nineteen
eighty two film The Last Unicorn, directed and produced by
Arthur Rankin Junior and Jules Bath.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
This is where I was like, Oh, I realized the
names are the animators for all the Christmas classics.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yes, all the claymation things. Yeah, yes, that they did
the same.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
I don't know. The others didn't give me as much
nightmare as this one.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So it's a very different vibe, this one, which we're
going to get into. When I suggested this, I was like, Samantha,
I think this might say something about me but anyway.
It was based on a book from nineteen sixty eight
written by Peter S. Beagle, who also did the screenplay
for the movie, and was animated by the early version
of Studio Ghibli. The cast includes Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin,
(01:36):
Christopher Lee, Jeff Bridges, Tammy Grimes, and Angela Lansberry, so
a lot of big names. It also includes a Bangan
soundtrack from the band America.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
A Bangin soundtrack.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh I tell you, I would sing it right now
if I didn't think everybody would turn it off. I
loved it. I burnt it on the seat.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yes, yes, yes yes. When it came out, while the
reviews were generally positive, it wasn't a commercial success. Since
its released, though, it's become a cult favorite, and in
two thousand and three it was named as the ninety
sixth greatest animated film of all time by the Online
Film Critics Society. And the animation is really beautiful. It's
really striking as a couple of different styles throughout that
(02:25):
kind of evoke flipping through a fairy tale book and
something popping off the page. This is also known as
the anti Disney movie, which we're going to talk about
more two. But yeah, yes, I loved it. I would
watch it over and over. I had the songs, I'd
(02:46):
belt them out. Me and my friends would watch it
and argue about whether or not the unicorn should have
made the choice that she did. I'm sure going to
talk about I was terrified of the red bull, and
I would watch the red of the tail lights of
cars and be scared, like, that's how much scared me? Yes,
(03:11):
And to this day I find myself quoting this movie
most often Molly's speech, how dare you come to me now?
When I am this?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
It did? That was poignant.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
That was a good speech.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
It was she had been waiting all her life. Yeah,
she's in the worst place in her moments.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Nor shows up. Yes, yes, Now this is interesting to
me because after you watched it, you were like, this
is dropped?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
What the hell? How you know when you watch things
as a child, Because Ray our listener who agreed with
me about Zubali Zoo being like, we loved it as
kids and then growing up are like, what what were
we thinking? Oh yeah, that someone was on something.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I was so exc for you to watch it because
I knew I am well aware of what this is.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
And this is one of those many classic blunders of
ours because every time you say the last Unicorn, I'm
thinking a legend, which is also a horrifying scape of
like what the hell were you thinking?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Type of movie.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
The first for Tom Cruise pantsless, by the way, would
Tim Curry being the most terrifying devil ever. But I
would always get that to who confused. I was always like,
wait what, wait what? And every time you talk about
the last Unicorn, I'm like, I don't remember that part
which I had never seen.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Last Unicorn I've never seen.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, I think this was I had made an outline
years ago. Yeah, five years ago. That's how long I've
been waiting for this, waiting. But I have a list
of traumatizing children's movies, and I if we could find
a way to work in the Dark Crystal or Watership Down, Oh,
(04:54):
I'd be talking about them. You best believe some of
them I've revisited and I'm like, as an adult, this
is not scary. I see you aren't scared me as
a child, those two are still kind of frightening.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah. Yeah, the one similar to Dark Crystal, what is it?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Oh? With David Bowie.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
David Bowie, which that would that's scared of me.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. I can see that.
I didn't see that until I was much older.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
See, I never watched and I've never seen Dark Crystal.
It feels like we're definitely divided. We were also different timelines.
But I watched the Labymorth that loved it, never seen
Dark Crystal.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I love Dark Crystal. Maybe we should have just a
if we're ever really busy, we should just have an
episode where we talk about the childhood. Yeah, yeah, and
why and why? However, I do think The Last Unicorn
has a lot of feminist thoughts to it. Oh, let's
go okay. So the plot focuses on a female unicorn
(05:59):
who has noticed that something is off about her forest, and,
through some hunters in a cryptic butterfly, she learns that
she may be the last of her kind, and that
the rest of the unicorns have been captured and perhaps
killed by a monstrous entity known as the Red Bull,
who herds them towards the ends of the earth. Though
she is warned it is dangerous not just for her,
(06:21):
but for the animals of her woods, because basically she
protects them just by being there. She leaves her forest
in search of others like her. On her journey, she
is captured by an old woman named Mommy Fortuna, who
cages her and puts her in a traveling circus called
the Midnight Carnival. Most of the creatures on display are
(06:43):
regular animals, but Mommy Fortuna has spelled them to look
magical or different. She even puts a She spells a
horn on the unicorns, since most people have lost their
ability to see the truth of a unicorn's nature, so
they see a white mare. So even though she has
a horn, Fortuna puts another one on her. She has
(07:04):
also caged an immortal and dangerous harpy Seleno, and is
very very proud of this fact. Oh She's so proud.
The unicorn meets and befriends a fledging magician named Schmendrick,
who promises to help release her, which he does, but
in the process he also releases the harpy, who kills
Mommy Fortuna, and basically like Mommy Fortuna, the unicorn says,
(07:27):
your death waits in that cage. She's going to kill you,
and Mommy Fortuna is like, yes, so my immortality is
that I will live forever because I caged her and
she will never be able to forget it. This scene
real evil. Oh yeah, ooh. It stuck with me so
much because Mommy Fortuna is so gleeful at having captured
(07:47):
this heart harpy, even knowing she's gonna die and have
this violent death by this harpy. The music that's playing
when it happens, Oh my gosh, and the harpy like
kind of eats at her. Oh the unicorn Schmindrick have
to slowly walk away so as not to draw her attention.
This was also a cool moment in terms of, like,
(08:08):
you have the unicorn, let the harpye go because they're
both immortals and they understand each other. But it was
a cool moment in terms of, like, this is a
very dangerous world. I feel like a lot of the
fantasies around unicorns are like, oh, it's all nice and
nothing violent happens, and this was like oh no, no, no no.
(08:28):
And she was very aware that the Harpie was going
to do this when she released her. So they then
run into a roving band of brigands that are they're
kind of painted as the sad robin Hood crew. They're
like eating water soup and Schmindric uses his magic to
(08:48):
startle them by kind of summoning of the real robin
Hood and crew. And this is when Schmindrick and another
very traumatizing scene, is tied to Uh and then uses
his magic to try. He just is like magic to
as you will, and it turns the tree into a big,
bosomest sentient tree that is smothering him with her breast.
(09:14):
He's very voluptuous breast.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Lopsided, voluptuous breast. But you already see there's indidentations in
the tree before she becomes the tree, which makes me laugh.
And then also like the vibe that she's like, no,
I love you, I love you.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
All will kill you, we will die together.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Oh, like, my god, what is happening?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yep? Yep, this was the scene in a movie that
I loved Uh. And the unicorn comes and rescues him
and turns the tree back into a tree. All is
all as well. But this is also when they are
joined by Captain Collie's lover. So Captain Colley was the
leader of the sad robin Hood troop, Mollie Grew, who
(09:54):
immediately wants to aid the unicorn in her journey, and
this is when she gives her speech which I'm going
to talk about mo. As they get closer to King
Haggard's Castle, which is where the unicorns are rumored to be,
they run into the Red Bull and all of his fiery,
angry glory. In a panic, Schmindrick uses his magic to
transform her into a human woman. The Red Bull loses
(10:18):
interest and retreats. He only cares about unicorns, but the
Unicorn is in total shock in this new body and
with her new family mortality, having never experienced mortality before.
Both she and Molly are angry at Schmindrick, but he
promises to turn her back. At the end of their journey,
they arrive at Haggard's castle, which is on this really
(10:40):
craggy cliff on sea. He is not a very welcoming host,
but they are able to convince him that Schmindrick should
be his court magician and maybe bring him a smile.
That he's made clear nothing gives him joy anymore, so
that's how they're like, maybe this guy can. And he
(11:01):
also takes an interest in the unicorn introduced in human
form as Lady in Mauthea, Mollie grew. Meanwhile, is tasked
with working in the kitchen. It's also really revealed that
other than the adopted prince Lear, pretty much no one
lives in this castle. On top of that, the magician
that Haggard kicked out for Schmndrick recognizes the truth of
(11:24):
Amalthea and warrens Haggard he has invited in his own
doom and then disappears, literally disappears. Oh how could I
forget the pirate cat that has an I patch?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And he says, up a cat.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
I have to talk in riddles, but I'll like, but
you're also talking a pirate This doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yes, it's so good, all right. So, now experiencing human
emotions for the first time, Malthia finds herself confused and
forgetting her existence as a unicorn and falling in love
with prince Lear. She even starts pondering the possibility of
throwing her whole question the side in favor of immortal
(12:02):
wife with him. Haggard confronts her and admits he's disappointed,
and Leir is depressed, and then he keeps trying to
find happiness in the waves in the sea. He also
threatens her and he knows that there's more to her
than she is letting on, more than meets the eye,
perhaps because when he first looked in her eye, all
he could see was far as she was from. And
(12:23):
then he looks into her eyes and he sees his reflection,
so he knows something's up. Mollie discovers the location of
the Red Bull from the castle's talking pirate cat. Yes,
they have to go to a skeleton, get the skeleton drunk,
and wait for a certain time on the clock. The
(12:46):
skeleton talks too, by the way, and the skeleton recognizes
that Amalthia is a unicorn, but Molly Spindrik, Amalthia, and
Leir make their way through the cock into some kind
of magical realm and then into the Red Bull's lair,
and Schmindrick reveals to Lear the truth of a Malthea's identity,
(13:08):
and Lear proclaims he loves who he loves. Hearing this,
a Mathia expresses her desire to forget about the unicorns
and marry Lear, but he persuades her otherwise. Now trapped
in the bull's lair by Haggard, the Bull appears and
is able to see through a Maltheu's disguise, Schmendrick transforms
(13:28):
her back into the unicorn. The bull starts hurting her
to the ocean, as it has with all the other unicorns,
but Lear attacks it, dying in the process. Yeah. The
unicorn turns on the bowl and forces him into the
ocean just as he is done with the unicorns. The
trapped unicorns, which were the whites of the tides, escape
(13:49):
the water and the red bull is pushed under the surface.
Haggard watches this unfold as his castle collapses and he
is swallowed into the sea. As he shouts the last
I knew you were the last. The unicorn uses her
magic to bring Leir back to life, but leaves him.
Lee wants to fight for her, but Schmendrick tells him
(14:12):
that he is perhaps the only human who can say
he has won unicorns love. Schmendrick also apologizes to the
unicorn for exposing her to regret and the feelings of mortality,
but she argues the importance of her experiencing regret and
love and how their actions help free the unicorns. She doesn't,
and she's basically like, you know, is it better to
(14:33):
have loved and lost or never to have loved? At all,
and she's like, it's better to have loved and lost.
I know, regret, and I'm glad that I do. She
disappears into the forest a Shmindrick and Molly watch, and
that's how it is.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Mollie doesn't get to say goodbye. She's asleep. I was
very disappointed by that. Why couldn't Molly say goodbye?
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Molly needed to say goodbye.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
She should have been able to say goodbye.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, I mean the unicorn just leaves the unicorns by homies.
He said, yes, yes, yes, yes, Well, I have a
(15:19):
lot of thoughts about this whole thing, and I'm gonna
condense them. You can't find a lot of articles about
it online, though I am not the only one who's
thought about this. And recently it came back into theaters
and I was reading that people would do side by side,
So somebody who's seen it before and someone who hasn't.
It was really funny because the person who hasn't it
(15:40):
was like, well, I cannot believe this is a child movie.
Like most of the time, they loved it, but it
was like, so.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
That would have been using what the hell am I watching? Yes?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Oh, I love it. It does exist, though if you would
like to check it out. So I think a side
probably we saw this when I was like eight or
nine the first time, and even then there were some
things that just stood out to me because it was
so different than a Disney movie. It's it's very melancholy,
(16:17):
like the whole vibe of it is very lonely, and
you can pick up on that pretty quickly. These are
very flawed characters, all of them have I would say,
a pretty big flaw, or at least like something that
stands out as they need to work on that. And
(16:40):
the ending is very bittersweet. It's a very very bittersweet ending,
and for some reason I loved it as a kid,
which I'm going to talk about more in a minute,
but I really loved it. And one of the things,
especially with Molly grew and that speech that meant so
much to me, where she's essentially saying like, how dare
(17:04):
you come to me now? And I am this when
I'm old, because in most things we see, you're you're
young when you meet the unicorn, like you're in the
prime of your youth when that happens, and she's angry,
Like I remember that she was so angry at it,
and the Unicorn says, you know, I'm here now, and
(17:25):
it's just a very sweet, very real scene. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
I feel like a part of that was also because
when you first meet her, she's also a villain, the
way she's like, gut s Mindrick, just gut them, just
gut just kill them, just gut them.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
He's magical.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Get him out of here, because she's already bitter. She's
very much having to have taken care of these people.
She's like obviously very I felt like the worn and everything.
And then she sees the Unicorn, which is supposed to
bring hope in life. It's just like, what the hell,
why can't you do this in my prime before I
lost all hope?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, exactly exactly. She's just been having this kind of
miserable life and she sees the unicorn and it makes
her angry and I liked that take. But she does
she kind of has a good angry cry within her
and the unicorn or like they worked it out and
they're on good terms.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
They worn't it out, they did.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Her attitude changes because then she also has a really
big encouragement for Schmindric.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
She is like the force of reason among the group.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
It seems Yeah. Yeah, she's very supportive because at first
she was really mad at Schmindrick when he turned Mauthia
into Malthia, and then when we have to change her
back to a unicorn, and Mollie was like, well what
she wants.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I don't know, free will, but it does seem with
because she is also the one that said, Spindric, help
your magician.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
You're supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Why don't you protect her when she was being like
hurted by the red bull and we just watched them watching, which,
by the way, I was like, y'all did nothing. It's
just like, Okay, the bull's gonna do the thing.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Keep doing the bull thing.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I guess, keep on, keep it on. That's what the
bull does. Yeah, and so Smendrick his original his whole
thing is he can do magic, but it usually doesn't
do the thing he wants it to do. So he
didn't mean to turn the unicorn into a human woman.
(19:29):
He was just trying to turn her into another animal
so that the bull would lose interest, and that was
part of the anger. I mean, I don't know if
I can that the unicorn was distraught, like she was crying.
She said, I can feel his body dying all around me,
(19:49):
Like she was devastated by this, and so I think
it went from you know, he accidentally did this too.
Now she's just dealing with all of these really heavy
emotions and is she's confused, like she forget where she
(20:10):
is and who she is. And so I think Mollie
was really angry at first because of that she saw
this pain. But then when it seemed like she was
adjusting to being human and happy, and she's like, well,
maybe we should let her that's what she wants. Oh,
(20:32):
but yeah, there are a lot of themes around age
and beauty and lost youth and a valuing of the
young and innocent that you can see in Mollie's monologue. Also,
there's so many themes of power that I was talking
about earlier, what you see in the kind of immortal realm.
(20:55):
And so you have the power of the Harpy and
then Mommy fortuna that power and wanting to control that power.
To reiterate, I was terrified of the Harpy. She is terrifying.
The music is scary, It plays like every time like
lightning goes off behind her. The design for the Harpy
is very, very terrifying. Okay, here's a quote I found
(21:20):
from AV Club. There's no way to get around it.
For children, The Last Unicorn is terrifying. The Rank and
Bass animated feature released in nineteen eighty two, features a
tremendous voice cast, but it's not the voices that stick
in the mind, nor is it the story. Though it
certainly possesses many classical elements that contribute to its staying power,
it isn't the music, the animation, or the message. No,
(21:43):
the reason for The Last unicorns longevity is much simpler
than any of that. It was scary as hell. Yes,
I also found some articles when I was looking into
you got of the feminism of this movie that they
made the point that, you know, the Harpy has three
pendulous breasts. The tree that almost killed Sminjic has these
(22:08):
two big boobs, but they're not sexy, they're not sexualized.
They're scary, a sexual nightmare. I feel like I heard
someone describe it and again, Schmendrick. He's the one that
transformed the tree into that with his magic, and I
(22:29):
think you could maybe read some things in there.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I mean, he's portrayed seemingly as younger in my mind
for some odd reason, but maybe not because I was like, wait,
do he and Molly live happily ever after?
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I'm confused. Yeah, they just platonic friends.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
It kind of was like insinuating like they were going
to be together each other.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Yeah, for sure. I mean it ends with them together
and presumably going to stay together if it's friends or otherwise.
But I always got I picked up on a kind
of romantic thing. But I don't know. I don't know.
There's also a lot of stuff in the movie about
fake magic and truth. So again going back to Spindrick's abilities,
(23:16):
and it's played as a joke at first because when
he's trying to get the unicorn out of her cage,
he tries to do all these spells and just make
things worse, and then he's finally is like, well, I
pickpocket at the key, so we'll just do that. But
over time he gets better, and it's kind of that's
one of his failings, is that he's more concerned about
(23:39):
his ability to do magic than he is about helping sometimes,
you know. And he also transforms the unicorn both times
against her will. Really he doesn't ask her. He is
trying to help her, but that's not really what she
would have wanted. And then when you were talking about
(24:01):
the traveling circus, where not only do you have these
like a regular lion spelled to look like a manicore,
you have a real unicorn spelled to look like a
unicorn because people can't see it, so sort of the truth.
People can't see the truth, they need the fake magic.
(24:22):
And I we're going to talk about this a little
bit more at the end, but there's been a lot
of conversation about that and about people not being able
to see her for what she truly is, Like that's
what she is, and they can't see her for that.
She even has the line in there where she says
men only see what they want to see. But just
all the of these illusions that are placed over this world,
(24:45):
this lack of respect for magic.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Right, and she does talk about like the fact when
the men are talking about that horse, it's just a horse,
is like.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
How dare you? How dare you call me a mere mayor? Yeah?
Do you not see who?
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Like?
Speaker 2 (24:59):
She she's hep you offend it?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, no, she is very offended. And I
do kind of like it's so hard to describe how
strange this movie is at points, but I love how
the strangeness is embraced as like, oh, butterflies are just
strange that way. But she has like all this old
world immortal knowledge and we don't as humans were like,
(25:24):
what are you're talking about? I love it? And then
you have I would say. There's also lear posturing and
trying to win a Malthia over. So he keeps like
fighting dragons and skinning them and presenting the skin to
her and she could care less. She is so unimpressed.
But that's sort of the hero's journey, and I like
(25:45):
that it's flipped here where she's like, leave me be man,
and he's so angry about it. He's like, I've done
everything right. I'm the hero.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I also love Molly is a sounding board for him. Yes,
she's like, well, you know, maybe you should just talk
to her, Maybe you should get.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
To know her.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Do you think she wants this thing?
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Maybe we should use our words that she says like
maybe the lady and Mathia is not impressed by these
heroic deeds. Yeah, she really is the voice of reason
in a lot of ways. Oh, this brings us to
one of the biggest themes in my opinion, regret, depression,
and loneliness. Like I said, it is, it hangs over
(26:31):
this movie from the minute it starts, and it because
of the way the animation is, which if you haven't
seen this, but you happen to have seen the animated
Lord of the Rings, this is the same studio.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
It's like quiet, like they there's no music you can
hear like the birds and but it's very quiet.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
But the opening scenes happened because I have like little
speakers around sound.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Then I was like what those words?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, I mean essentially you're just listening to the forest.
And then the two hunters come in and they have
this pretty heavy conversation about like, yeah, there are no
more unicorns. If you're here, unicorn, you're the last. And
it's just then she's like, what how could I be
the last? And then it does break into an America song,
(27:19):
But it's just got this immediate loneliness, quiet melancholy feeling
about it. It's very apparent, and her whole journey starts
with her questioning, oh am I the last? I can't be.
It's a very lonely movie, like everybody in it is lonely.
(27:43):
And I mean there are lines that when I was
rewatching it for this I just thought, Wow, me as
a kid, I did not understand that. But one of
them is there are no happy endings because nothing ever ends.
What kind of Oh my gosh, but that's kind of
(28:03):
Schmindrick says that to Molly. Oh yeah, r.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Wit and nonshysical abilities.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yes, yes, but it's just it's got plenty of lines
like that. It has that emotional Molly Greo speech, it
has these really raw clearly saying this is not the
fairy tale that you get from Disney pretty much, and
that whole idea of her being the only unicorn to
(28:31):
ever have known love and regret and what she had
to give up to save all of the other unicorns.
There's another Linemindric has, don't cry. If you become human
enough to cry, then all the magic in the world
cannot change you back. Woof. But this is where me
and my my friends kind of disagreed is I thought
(28:54):
I thought she should have turned back into a unicorn.
I liked that they didn't get together her and Lear
not because I didn't. I just thought it was different,
and I kind of appreciated that it ended on, not
an angry note, but just sort of like death. Well,
he got brought back, he got he does, Yes, he does.
(29:19):
She brings him back with her magic.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I thought she just touched him and he remained there
the whole time.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
He laid there.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
No, he comes back.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I was waiting for him to come back and he didn't.
Did I miss that part?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yow? Yes, he comes back and he's talking to That's
when Schmindrick tells him, you're the only one to have
ever won over a unicorn. Okay, but that's why I
love the line too, not that whole bit he's dead
and dead good next.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I think I really was like, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, I mean he comes back and he asked to
meet the unicorn again, and Schmindrick is kind of like,
you gotta go live your life, and so he does.
He rides off.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Man, I really forgot that part. And to the left,
she saved.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Him, and that's that was the thing. That was the
how she was able to fight off the red Bull
because she was being hurted into the water. But then
she was so upset that the red Bull had killed
him that she forced the red Bull into the water
and saved him.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
That's funny. Ending was like, he died, okay, but he
can't taste her moving on.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
No, no, but he I mean, that's what I liked
about he he respected, you know, we had that time
he said I love whom I love and then he
went to go build his own community. And I like
how she the unicorn was like, I'm glad, I'm no regret.
(30:54):
I have known regret, and I don't feel worse for it.
I feel better for it. I thought that was very
unique and I liked it. But my friends were like,
they should have gotten together left definitely ever after all
of this, and then we got into a fight about
attractiveness and yeah, oh I remember all did too much.
(31:21):
We had a lot of thoughts about this movie. And
then obviously I remember the first time I watched this
as like an adult, and I just it was so
clear to me. This is about depression, especially with King Haggard.
They don't even try to hide it. He is depressed.
(31:42):
He is miserable. Nothing makes him happy. He cages the
unicorns because he hopes that's the only thing that brings
him a little bit of hope, a little bit of
happiness when he sees them. But he is still so unhappy.
He adopted his son and hopes that the son would
make him happy in it. He didn't and he doesn't
care for him, and it's very mean.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Well he says like he says an interest that including
the magician when he had the original magicians like they
did for a minute and then.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
For a minute.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah, yeah, but also it could be a lot to say,
and I know you're going to probably jump into it
in a minute, and you order to say it. For me,
it felt like not necessarily a depression, but about men's dissatisfaction,
and so they're going to do they will destroy everything
to get what they think will satisfy them.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yes, yes, And that segues into what I think the
red Bull kind of represents, which is male rage or
just like a determination to make yourself feel better. And
it doesn't matter anything else, anything else, because he is
(32:51):
not satisfied he has I mean, it's got to be
hundreds of unicorns in the water, but he writes every single.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Like that's the greed, like corporation greed and millionaire billionaire greed.
Is like yeah, I could, but why would I It's
for me and I I'll step on everything right and
everyone in order to keep it for myself.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Yeah, and I mean kind of the environmentalist angle would
also be they protect their woods, and once they're gone,
their woods are fair game up for grabs, yeah, for hunters.
So if he has all of these hundreds of unicorns,
then that's hundreds of woods that have been left unprotected.
(33:37):
But yeah, I mean he's and he's very he's very cold,
and he's very angry and just volatile, and he is
trying to find a way to expose him Offia and
she doesn't. She's honestly not even trying to hide anything
(33:58):
from him at this point. She's so can fused by
being immortal. She doesn't know, and he's just.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yelling at her, and she was like, calm down, sir.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then in the end, I think
is I think this is interesting about the two main
villains in the movie, Mommy Fortuna and King Haggard, is
that their final words are so telling because his are
like I knew it, I knew you.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
Were like, they are willing to die, destroy everything just
to get what they want.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yes, yes, yeah, he was almost ecstatic. He was like
I knew it, and she was too. Mommy Fortuna was too.
She was like, really, yeah, you will never forget I
caged you.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
And like its content warning here, but like it kind
of reminds me of like a rapist.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
That power they just know.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
They don't care if they die, they don't give their
punish They just want you to know they have the power.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah. Yeah, and and he was that's he was determined
to have it. And you know, the other interesting thing
about that is, as I said, he wasn't happy. He
wasn't happy at all. Even the unicorns they would give
him like a little bit. So all of that destruction
(35:21):
and all of that power, he couldn't stop doing it.
But he also was just not happy. He wasn't gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Which, by the way, there may be at a point
where I saw pieces of this movie because I remember
the horses in the water, and I thought him meant
he drowned them and died killed them. Oh, and that
was like that's how he kept them so keeping their
bodies in the water.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
I feel like I had that memory.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
M Yeah, it's possible, it's possible.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
That's a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Yeah, it is a I mean when you realize they're alive,
it is a cool scene when you see them coming
up in the waves.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
The entire time and drowning the entire time and can't die.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Just this is when they comes. Another thing about this
is no one really truly achieves their dreams. I guess
you could argue that the unicorn doesn't freeing the unicorns,
(36:24):
but now she's got this other, she's got this regret.
The Magician starts as a pretty bad magician. He gets better,
but he's still like, can't control it necessarily. Mollie is
just a drift because she gave up her life for
this and now it's, you know, the unicorns going her
(36:45):
own way. Lear's going his own way, and she's got
the magician. But her dream of like meeting unicorn kind
of comes and goes, and then Lear's dream of being
a hero because he does. He goes to fight the
red Bull to save the unicorn, but then pretty much
immediately dies and she yeah, exactly exactly. So that brings
(37:13):
us to another theme, love and change. Uh so I
I this is something I also really adore about this
movie is that you do see change in the characters.
You see change and even if it doesn't result in
like the kind of fairy tale. The disnified fairytale ending
(37:35):
because we all know that like the original fairy tales
are pretty grim.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Well also like we also have tragedies like Bambi or
they have to kill off the parents, so they're not
all great.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
But they start, they start bad and get happy.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
So I think although the hound in the oh, no,
I don't think that's a good ending.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
That's a rough one.
Speaker 3 (37:55):
That's a rough one away you're going sorry, traumatized childhood, trauma.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Child strava. But you know she there are these moments
where the unicorn who seemingly has never really met other
unicorns there it's been a long long time since she's
connected with one, having that loneliness, and then meeting these
(38:25):
friends but still kind of feeling disconnected from them because
she's not she's immortal, she's not human, and then getting
turned into a human and that experience changing her. There's
even a song in there, Now that I'm a woman,
everything has changed. There's also a song called Walking Man's Road.
That song gets stick in my head all the time,
(38:47):
just randomly out of nowhere. But through her experience knowing
humans becoming a human, she does experience love, experience instagrette,
and changes and for that, and I really like that,
and she chooses to stay at unicorn in face of it.
(39:10):
She after experiencing that, she still is like, no, I'm
a unicorn, but I'm glad. I'm glad I had that
experience and a part I think, she says, like a
part of her will always love lear. So it's like
it didn't go away. She had this thing that really
changed her. Another big piece is being true to yourself.
(39:32):
So she fights the red Bull when it was supposed
to be impossible for her to do so because of
what she learned being human, but also because of her
being a unicorn and understanding who she is and what
she's capable of, and no surprise at all to me.
There are a lot of queer takes on the unicorns
transformation to a woman and coming back to her true self.
(39:56):
There's that kind of none of you exist narrative, like
there's no other unicorns, You're the only one. You should
blend into the world. But then she was like, no,
I'm a unicorn. If people wouldn't see me as a unicorn,
because that is what I am. Here's a quote from
transgen X Girl. But like trans folks who feel the
need to apply various accouterments early in their transitions, Binder's wigs,
(40:20):
shape wear, excessive makeup, hyperfeminine or hypermaculine clothing, and accessories.
The unicorn knows she is still not her true self.
She even admits at one point that our human body
is dying all around her. Yeah, she had to come
back to who she really was. The Unicorn has also
been read as being ace. Yeah, and I was like,
(40:44):
that does make sense now that you mentioned it, mm,
because she's not the unicorn. She's like, she doesn't need that.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
No, yeah, she didn't need unicorn mates. She didn't know that. Well,
you didn't know they weren't there, So that's the thing,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, yeah, Well, I I clearly love this movie. I
think that just the animation and the feeling of it
of it's not sadness, it's just melancholy. It's just I
don't know, but it is hopeful. I would love if
(41:26):
anybody wrote in if you have seen it, or if
you watch it after this and it's your first time.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
The boobies they come out of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Yeah they do, they do. But thank you Samantha for
going on this traumatizing journey with amazing, amazing. I had
I had a joy. I was singing at the TV.
It was great. Uh well, listeners, you can send us
any of your thoughts. You can email us at Hello
at Steffanenever Told You dot com. You can find us
(41:57):
on Blue Sky I'm on the podcast or on Instagram
and tick docket stuff I've Never Told You. We're also
on YouTube and we have a book if you can
get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always to
our super producer Christine, our expective producer My and your
controoper Joey. Thank you, and thanks to you for listening.
Stuff and Never Told You is production by Heart Radio.
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