The Last Unicorn Essay Example

butterfly and a gang of outlaws. Eventually she is aided by a clumsy and unskilled magician, a haggard cold woman, and a love crazed prince. Through the support of her new found friends; the unicorn is able to learn what has happened to her kind and how to save them.

In both the book and the movie the characters speak in an almost odd poetic way where they speak in almost riddles. This seems to be apparent in the characters throughout both the movie and the book. The language of the book appears all through the story beginning with the narrative at the start and from the characters from then on. For example when the which spoke to the captured harpy she said, “Fool! Be still! I can turn her into wind if she escapes, or into snow, or into seven notes of music.

But I choose to keep her. The way the witch says this is kind of a riddle, what does she mean by turn her into seven notes of music, or how is something turned into seven notes of music. This may draw question but the point still gets across quite clearly. Another example of this comes from when Schmendrick the magician is trying to escape from the tree that tries to unnatural relations with him, and tells him, “I will keep the color of your eyes when no other in the world remembers your name.

” This line seems come straight from a love poem, and every character in the novel and the movie seem to speak with such poetic dialogue.This is one of the main attributes that lures you into this

fantasy world created by Beagle. This is one quality that was not altered or lost from the novel to the movie. There was one thing that appeared in both the novel and the movie that takes you from of the story. Although I found it less apparent in the novel because of Beagles wonderful writing ability it was however especially apparent in the movie.

There were too many inconsistencies with the medieval setting, such as characters reading magazines, Cully offering Schmendrick a taco.All the modern attitudes not found in most fairy tales seemed to distract from the mysticism and setting of the story; making it less enjoyable. For example Cully and his men, "And we don't steal from the rich and give to the poor," Dick Fancy hurried on. "We steal from the poor because they can't fight back — most of them — and the rich take from us because they could wipe us out in a day. We don't rob the fat, greedy Mayor on the highway; we pay him tribute every month to leave us alone. Beagle was trying to be humorous, and in some cases it is comical but it still takes from the story more than it gives.

Another thing is that there didn’t seem to be a lot going on in the world. The world created by Beagle seems to be populated by very little and only have a few hundred people tops. It seems that the characters and people are only created when they have a purpose or role. The writing of Beagle grabs the reader and keeps them interested, which is why these things are not easily

noticeable in his novel but in the movie they became apparent quite easily.

There are also some minor changes in the script of the movie that are different than the novel. Such thing include some scene like when Schmendrick was invited to dinner by the mayor of the town he was visiting; where Cullys’ outlaws came in and took him. This was different in the movie; the whole scene was cut out and shortened. In the movie the outlaws were traveling through the forest and saw Schmendrick and grabbed him up to bring to Cully. This was probably cut because it had no real significance to the lot of the story. However it does take away the chance for the reader to build and find that relationship with Schmendricks character.

There are small changes like this through the movie; for example the dialogue in the movie is different than that of the novel. The movie removed some of the words that appear in the novel, such as the word damn. In the Novel it appears three times, the first was spoken by the character Ruk when he says, “I don’t care how many damn spells you put on her! Get rid of that harpy! It was also removed from Molly Grue and from Prince Lir cry’s out in anger when he is descending the steps to meet lady Amalthea. This wouldn’t be a problem or even noticeable; to those who have not read the novel first, but for those that have it ruins the mood and show of emotion from the characters.

There are other things that are obviously going to be different such as a

musical sound track, voices done by stars; things that are apparently going to change from transition from novel to movie. Other than that the movie stayed close to the original plot of the novel.The key to staying faithful to the novels origins was the fact that Peter Beagle wrote the screen play to the movie. Beagle tried to keep as close as possible to his original work in the novel, only changing very minor details. Although Beagle attempted to keep the movie and the novel “The Last Unicorn” as closely together as possible, his transition from novel to movie failed to capture the magic of the novel. Without the beauty and descriptive words of Peter Beagle the movie seems to be nothing more than a entertaining cartoon; but never capturing the true magic of “The Last Unicorn.

”