Legend Through a Kid's Eyes

It's time for another complaint ridden trip through a bonus fantasy film!

Unfortunately, I didn't take notes for a full running commentary, because I foolishly believed my daughter would like this foray into Eighties fairy tale films.

There were multiple easily remember-able reactions, however. 

When she said, "This is boring" during the opening crawl I should have taken the hint and started writing down her reactions.

The problems we would have surfaced pretty quickly.

"Oh... Anabelle likes unicorns, I'll show her this movie, 

WHERE THE UNICORN DIES IN THE BEGINNING!"

Therefore she didn't like Princess Lilli, because it's her fault the unicorn was killed. 

She also didn't like her because the really nice old lady who took care of her froze to death (also her fault) and her reaction was, "oh well."

She didn't like the Goblins, because they were creepy, nasty, and ugly, 

and killed the unicorn.

She didn't like Jack because he brought Princess Lilli to where the unicorns were...

And he was Tom Cruise...

And he had a bizarre refusal to wear pants throughout the entire film,

including when he was in the snow and after he donned armor.

She tends to complain when Tim Curry shows up in general, which is odd since Clue is one of her favorite films. Having him be absolutely enormous, demonic, horrifying, and behind the killing of unicorns didn't help. 

Then he starting attempting to "woo" the princess and she hated everything even more.

When Darkness would talk to his unseen father she asked,

"Who's his father? 

Have we seen him? 

Does he suck less than everyone else in this movie?"

Another quote paralleling a previous one arose later, 

"Oh... Anabelle likes fairies, I'll show her this movie where the fairy is a HUGE JERK!"

Yes, she was also not a fan of Oona and her shenanigans. 

She found the dwarfs annoying and 

"the random, half naked in the snow, elf with the dubbed voice" too weird.

During one of one of her many rants about the pace of the story being incredibly slow, Robert Picardo in his amazing Rob (The Thing, Robocop) Bottin makeup job as Meg Mucklebones (the swamp witch) burst out of the bog.

Anabelle simultaneously tried to jump on while pummeling me, and hide behind me at the same time screaming in fright, demanding to know why I didn't warn her, swearing at me, and yelling:

"THAT'S THE MOST TERRIFYING THING I'VE EVER SEEN!!!"

I am extremely glad we didn't choose the longer, director's cut with an orchestral score for three reasons.

A) The "wooing" is extended with more "woo" in it.

B) Anabelle constantly pointed how how slow and boring the 89 minute theatrical cut was.

C) The only compliment she had for the entire film was "The music was good."

Gotta love Tangerine Dream.

Therefore I shall drop some "Dad Lore." Jesse introduced me to Tangerine Dream albums when we were in high school. I had heard some of their stuff in multiple films including this and Risky Business. (I own both soundtracks now.) Jesse had several albums and pointed out how the German group's electronic sounds worked great for relaxing in the dark with stereo speakers or headphones. The problem was, I could never remember the name of the band. This led Jesse to predict I would enter a record store and request,

"Hey, you got anything by that group, "Orange Nightmare?"

Click for Harryhausen and bonus fantasy index