LEGEND: ULTIMATE EDITION
After watching the enchanting fairy tale Stardust the other night, my sister and I compared it with a well-loved fantasy, The Princess Bride. After debating which of the two was a better fairy tale, I told her "My favorite fairy tale movie will always be Legend." Though Stardust and Princess Bride are happier fare, they lack the dark fantasy of Ridley Scott's mid-80s story of demons and unicorns.
Legend's premise is simple: a teenage woodsman falls in love with a princess. In order to impress her, he shows her the secret dwelling place of the last two unicorns. Refusing to heed his advice, she touches one of the unicorns. This allows the demons of the world to submerge the forest into a wintry nightmare. The hero then must band together with a motley assortment of misfits and save the planet from eternal darkness.
Okay, I know you're supposed to root for the hero to save the princess and the planet. But every time I watch this movie, I cheer for the bad guys to win. And not without reason. The heroes are a bunch of fey wimps; their attempts at comedy are atrocious, and their mere appearances make them hard for me to back. Tom Cruise is totally miscast as the young woodsman. He's too short, and doesn't come across as macho at all. Instead, he seems like he lucks his way to victory at every turn. Matched up against Cruise and company are an impressive gang of monsters. Their appearances are loathsome, their personalities even uglier. These minions stop at nothing to corrupt and destroy. And then there's the matter of Lord Darkness.
The first time I ever saw Legend, I was enthralled with Darkness; to this day, he's still my favorite monster. Rob Bottin's special makeup effects took average guy Tim Curry and transformed him into the most devilish creature ever to hit the screen. 13 feet tall at the horns, with a low, booming voice, Darkness personifies evil better than anyone this side of Damien. As this is a fairy tale, I expected him to lose the first time I saw the movie. But every time I watch it, I still hope at the end that he'll win out and cast the world into eternal shadow.
Aside from its heroes, Legend has some serious flaws. It plods along at times; all the really good action takes place in the last half hour or so. Also, some of the dialogue is really hokey, and it veers too much toward comedy at times; given the film's darker tone, the jokes are out of place. And then there's the whole matter of the U.S. version... Read on.
Universal did not mince words when they named this the Ultimate Edition. First and foremost, this edition offers both the U.S. theatrical cut, the version I grew up with on television, and also the "Never Before Seen" Director's cut. Apparently, Ridley Scott went to a test screening of the film and was swayed by some pot smoking viewers. This test run convinced him to make massive changes on the film. The first alteration, and arguably most drastic, was tossing out a score by Jerry Goldsmith, one of the most revered movie composers of the last 40 years. In its place, he inserted a synth-driven track by Tangerine Dream. To say this was a bad move is like saying that Frankenstein's monster is a little ugly. The new score was heinous, and has received derision from fans of the film for more than 20 years. Perhaps worse, Scott cut the film from 113 minutes to 90, and with it made some changes that he thought would jazz it up. Having watched the Director's cut, I can't help but wonder if he was the one smoking pot when he decided to alter it. Take the audience's first look at Darkness. In the American version, he's seated in a chair, green lit, within the first 10 minutes of the film. Because he's inert, his devilish appearance has no real shock. In the Director's cut, the audience only sees him from the back in this earlier shot. So when he makes his first full-faced appearance stepping out of a mirror, the audience sees him for the first time just as Mia Sara's princess does. The shock value is well worth the wait. Between the music and the additional scenes, the Director's cut is far superior to the truncated U.S. version.
As a bonus on Disc One, Scott gives an excellent audio commentary on the Director's cut. Though he makes some of the same comments later on Disc Two's documentary, here he's able to flesh them out as the movie plays. He covers just about everything a fan of the film could hope for, including how Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast provided the initial spark for the film's conception. This was a troubled film to make, and Scott directly addresses the issues that made it so. I may not always like Scott's movies (in truth, I think he's a more than a little overrated), but I thoroughly enjoyed his intellectual discussion of Legend.
Disc Two is further proof that Universal pulled out all the stops with this Ultimate Edition. The best feature is the 51 minute documentary "Creating a Myth: The Making of Legend." I don't think I've ever seen a DVD documentary include more people involved with the film, and this is definitely a case of "more is better." Just about everyone from the screenwriter to Scott to various actors in the film to Bottin are represented. There's only one major player missing: Tom Cruise. I was a Cruise hater long before anybody else hopped on the train, but I can see why fans of the movie would be upset, even if I'm not. The people that are interviewed deliver a picture that is fully fraught and well rounded. I think the only way I could've gotten a more complete picture of the film's creation would be if I had been on set for it.
It doesn't end there, folks. For those who are into punishment, you can watch the U.S. version with the isolated Tangerine Dream score. There are two lost scenes: an alternate opening, and a recreation of a woods dance pieced together with dialogue over stills. Though I'm glad these scenes never made it to the film, they're interesting to look at. There are also three sets of storyboards, the last of which includes an alternate ending. I dig these; it's always interesting to see how they differ from the final product. There are photo galleries which include publicity stills and continuity shots (the latter are more interesting, if only for the film geek's entertainment). There's also a DVD Rom script to screen feature, but I generally don't bother with those. Four TV commercials, two trailers, production notes and bios for the cast and crew round out the package nicely. And don't forget to take a peek at the Brian Ferry video for "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" The song ran over the end credits of the U.S. version; the video acts as a time capsule of just how cheesy the 1980s were.
Upon a little further pondering, I realized that both Princess Bride and Stardust are better made movies than Legend. But Scott's film houses my all-time favorite monster, and surrounds him with some sinister underlings. For this reason solely, I will always hold Lord Darkness' story as the most triumphant fairy tale ever put to film.
--Phil Fasso