Anybody remember this one? It's a superb, underrated animated fantasy from 1982 that still holds up marvelously. True, the animation isn't as polished as Disney or even Don Bluth (though it's still quite nice, and many animators who worked on it would later help form Studio Ghibli), and the songs are pure 80s cheese, but the story and voice acting easily push it into my favorites list.
The story is an unusual one for animation, adapted by Peter Beagle from his own novel; most of the heroes are deeply flawed, if goodhearted people, the villain is not malicious or deliberately harmful, but merely selfish, and the magic elements of the world are dying out. As a result, it's a rather delicate, thought-provoking film that has more in common with the aforementioned Ghibli or Pixar; even in its own time, it was decidedly more intriguing than most of the slop offered up to kids in the 80s.
The voice cast is full of celebrities, true, but they're all well-cast and perform excellently, especially Mia Farrow as the titular unicorn, Christopher fucking Lee as King Haggard, Angela Lansbury as the cackling Mommy Fortuna, and Jeff Bridges as the valiant Prince Lir. Even Alan Arkin's more modern-sounding voice works well for the bumbling-but-heroic wizard Schmendrick. Interestingly, Lee was also a big fan of the book, and brought a copy full of highlighted passages he felt could not be cut under any circumstances to his recording sessions. He even dubbed his own voice for the German version!
Any thoughts?
