The Last Unicorn - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray SteelBook

It's a blast from the past to watch an animated movie from 1982 that is hand-drawn and feels raw and gritty against the current pristine digital world of animation. The Last Unicorn still holds a lot of stock in nostalgic value with its simple animation and its ability to tell a fantastic story from talented writers and animators. Based on the novel by Peter S. Beagle of the same name back in 1968, The Last Unicorn follows a similar tone to Lord of the Rings, however, it adds an element of romance, love, and being the sole survivor to its story. With those key ingredients in the pot, The Last Unicorn still feels relevant and original today in an ocean of spectacle nonsense that feels redundant and formulaic. 

With The Last Unicorn, a beautiful Unicorn is told that she is the last of her kind due to a fiery red-hot evil bull forcing all of the other unicorns to the end of the Earth. This unicorn journeys to seek out her species and comes across some unlikely new friends and foes along the way. At one point, to save her own life, a bumbling magician transforms her into a human woman where she begins to fall in love with a human man and soon stumbles upon those humanistic emotions of love, loss, revenge, and more. These are great examples of messages set within this beautiful story that all ages can relate to, and it's crafted beautifully by the animation artists and directors of the film who have created a world of wonderful characters and beautiful backgrounds. 

Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass are no strangers to the animation world. They worked together bringing The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit animated films to the big screen where The Last Unicron is very much in the same visual world. It's simple, raw, visceral without any polish to it. The animation still can immerse anyone into its depth of field of wonderful art. A lot of the animators and artists on The Last Unicorn went on to start work on the iconic company Studio Ghibli, where a ton of inspiration was drawn from this very Unicorn-centric film. But this is one of the great instances of where an older film has both its visual and story-telling state intact some 40 years later, making it still, one of the best-animated movies of all time. 

Read Our Previous Review Below...

I worship animated movies. Growing up, I was influenced by so many films, both mature (Watership Down, Wizards, Heavy Metal, Fire and Ice) and family-friendly ones (Peanuts, Rankin/Bass, Disney, Charlotte's Web, and Looney Tunes). I also went crazy for the anime style. As a kid, I would run home and try to catch any episode of Star Blazers, Shogun Warriors, or Speed Racer I could. I went into reviewing this disc with all of these favorites in mind, and curious as to how The Last Unicorn compares.

The Last Unicorn, based on the popular Peter S. Beagle book of the same name, tells the story of a female unicorn on a quest to save other unicorns, which have been driven to a distant land by the fearsome Red Bull. If she doesn't, she'll truly be the last of her kind. Along the way, she encounters a witch (Mommy Fortuna, played by Angela Lansbury) who cages her, making her an exhibit in Fortuna's traveling circus. With some help from a rookie spell-caster in the circus, Schmendrick (excellently voiced by Alan Arkin), the Unicorn escapes, also freeing a monstrous Harpy named Celaeno (Keenan Wynn), who disposes of the evil witch. The Unicorn and Schmendrick continue the journey to confront the Red Bull and find out what happened to all the other unicorns. Along the way, they befriend Molly Grue (Tammy Grimes), paramour to the bandit leader, Captain Cully (also played by Keenan Wynn). 

The Unicorn finally comes horn to face with the fearsome, gigantic, fiery Red Bull. She's simply overmatched in this moment, and thanks to Schmendrick's random magic spell, she's turned into a human woman. The Red Bull, no longer spotting the Unicorn, gives up the fight and heads back to a castle by the sea. The woman awakes from the spell, devastated at her transformation, even having a hard time with her new two legs, but continues her journey nonetheless.

The trio shows up at the castle, ruled by King Haggard (featuring Christopher Lee's booming, classic voice). The "newly born" woman is introduced to the king as Schmendrick's niece, "Amalthea". King Haggard's adopted son, Prince Lír (played somewhat flatly by Jeff Bridges) falls madly in love with Amalthea, and though she fights her feelings at first, she grows to love the prince. But she's here to find and save the unicorns! This sets up a showdown between the Red Bull, Amalthea, and Prince Lír. Turns out, Schmendrick has one more trick up his sleeve and restores Amalthea to her original self, the Unicorn. The final seaside battle is set, in a spectacular final fight sequence. I appreciated the bittersweet ending to the film, which adds a great final touch of melancholy.

This was my first time seeing this movie. As a big fan of animation, I was blown away by the art. I've loved Rankin and Bass ever since I was a child, and it's clear nearly all the characters were in their style. The drawings of the unicorn, which looked anime-influenced, are top-notch. The backgrounds are stunning. There's simply no cheating of animation, no shortcuts, it's like one long-moving painting. The voiceover work by the cast is mostly excellent, and, amazingly, they landed as many big names as they did for the film. They mention in the special features that Disney considered 20 million dollars to be the starting point for their "budget" feature film releases. This film's budget was a little over 3 million. Folks, this rivals almost any Disney movie I've ever seen. With beautiful art and a great story for kids and adults alike, this can and should easily be termed a classic.

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
The Last Unicorn searches its way to 4K + Blu-ray via Shout Factory in the form of a glorious Steelbook. The two discs are housed inside a hard steel case with beautiful artwork. The artwork features the white unicorn on her hind legs looking out on a beautiful purple and yellow countryside. The back side features the evil Red Bull in its metallic texture. There is an insert for Shout Factor promos but no Digital Code.

The Last Unicorn comes with a brand new 2160p UHD 4K transfer in its original 1982 aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Shout Factory also scanned the original 35mm interpositive into 4K which makes this the best it ever looked, especially with Dolby Vision-enabled. Nobody has to worry though, there is not a Pixar digital look to the film. The Last Unicorn still has a wonderful layer of grain that keeps its animation filmic and nostalgic. The color palette looks darker than any Dreamworks or Pixar film but that's the point of this visual style. The beautiful green and blue pastures look wonderful with the white levels of the unicorn.

The shades of red of the bull look bolder and richer this time around too. The varying colors of purple and green look better than ever as the unicorn travels to her destination. Black levels are inky as well without any crush. There isn't much detail to this old-school animation, however, the textures in the hand animation backgrounds and simple animation lines look wonderful here so many years later. The film still has some various dirt specs and debris pop up, however, this feels very true in nature to the grittiness of the hand-drawn animation where a computer didn't animate it but rather a human hand did - and that goes a long way.

This release comes with a DTS-HD 5.1 audio mix along with a DTS-HD 2.0 option. The 5.1 track is certainly the way to listen. Sound effects are robust and the ambient noises of other animals and humans sound wonderful. The ocean noises of waves crashing are also a joy to listen to. Dialogue is clean, clear, and easy to follow along with the English subtitles. One of the best elements of this audio presentation is its soundtrack. The score from Jimmy Webb and songs by the rock band America are truly outstanding and add a ton of emotion to the story. It's just a shame America didn't add their song "A Horse With No Name" to the tracklist. The 5.1 audio track is the best this movie has sounded since the '80s.

There are about 63 minutes of bonus materials on this new Steelbook set. One of the extras is brand new while the others have been imported over from previous releases. Also, make a note that NOT all of the previous bonus features have been imported over from the past few releases over the years, so those who want to keep those extras will have to keep the previous discs. None of the supplements here are included on the 4K Disc, but rather the included Blu-ray. 

• Profile of Peter S. Beagle (HD, 15 Mins.) - A brand NEW interview with the writer of the film as he looks back on the movie and his work. 
• True Magic Redux (HD, 28 Mins.) - This is a condensed version of a previous extra that focuses on making the film and the reaction audiences had upon its release.
• Q & A With Peter S. Beagle (HD, 9 Mins.) - Here is some footage from the Q & A session with the writer. 
• Animated Storyboards (HD, 8 Mins.) - Some early animated storyboards from the film. 
• Trailer (HD, 3 Mins.) - Original trailer for the film. 

The Last Unicorn remains one of the best-animated films 40 years after its release. Its beautiful animation is second to none and its story is a joy for all ages to take in. This new 4K image is stunning and the DTS-HD 5.1 audio track sounds wonderful. The extras are worth watching, however, not importing every extra from previous releases is rather annoying for collectors having to keep other past editions and gaining more shelf space. Still, this gorgeous Steelbook set is Highly Recommended!