Christmas movies from my childhood

[mothwing]

None of these have a Christmas theme, but they're movies which tended to turn up on TV around Christmas while I was growing up, so they've become Christmas movies for me. They're all Fantasy movies, most of them don't only border on but have invaded and taken over cheesy territories, they're WASP-targeted to a fault and none of them apart from The Last Unicorn passes the Bechdel-Wallace test.

5. Dragonslayer (1981)
A dragon terrorizing a village has caused the villagers to set up a barbaric lottery for choosing one virgin as the annual human sacrifice to the dragon. Magician Galen sets out to fight the dragon. I like this mostly because it's set in a post-Roman country just prior to the rise of Christianity, the idea that Fantasy world come with an expiry date, and of course because of the Smith's daughter Valerian, who was dressed up as a boy by her father to escape the lottery.


4. Labyrinth (1986)
After making an ill-advised wish, Sarah has to steal her baby brother back from the goblin king. David Bowie, glass balls, this movie has it all, though I still suffer third -degree pangs of secondary embarrassment at the clumsily excecuted scenes in which the character comes to terms with her ending adolescence through the loss of her beloved bear. Even at nine I doubted that at her age, the teenaged main character would still care that much for her bear, and as an owner of a stuffed zoo myself the anti-consumerism made me feel guilty.


3. The Princess Bride (1987)
Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.  This is cheating because for most of my childhood I wasn't aware that this movie was this movie. I once saw that when I was seven and spent the next ten years searching for this movie. I only dimly remembered this story about someone called Buttercup and a great swordsman (I wanted to be him ever after), but no one could help me out, and, in times Before Google, I had no one to ask, because all the people I did ask drew a blank. Once I had rediscovered it I fell in love with its tongue-in-cheek hyporbole.


2. Ladyhawke (1985)
Follows the story of thief The Mouse, who, fleeing from Aquila's prison, stumbles into the lovestory of Isabeau and Navarre, who, cursed by a jealous bishop, transform into animals during the day and the night respectively, so that they can never be close and are now trying to find  way around the curse. It has magic, adventure, Michelle Pfeiffer (who was, at the time, absolutely the most beautiful woman I had ever seen), a pretty black wolf, a beautiful Friesian, no depth, a terrible soundtrack  and contains a "Should I fail to break the curse, kill her quickly - it's what she would want."-dialogue.


1. The Last Unicorn (1982)
After being told that she is the last of her kind, the last unicorn goes to find out what became of the others and frees them. I usually don't prefer dubbed versions to originals, but this is one of the rare exceptions where I think the German translation rather exceeds the original ('Sie verschwanden von allen Straßen vor langer Zeit, und der rote Stier rannte dicht hinter ihnen und verwischte ihre Spuren' has just more onomatopoetic force than 'They passed down all the roads long ago, and the Red Bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints," quite apart from the awkward energy drink associations today). Molly Grue is one of my favourite female characters ever, though my favourite character from that story is still Schmendrick.

Comments

[lordhellebore]

Haha! We used to watch The Last Unicorn every Christmas Eve in my parents' bed! ^^ And I LOVE Schmendrick *wonders where her Schmendrick icon has disappeard to* I agree, too, that the German version is better, not only because the words seem more powerful, but also because of the voices. The unicorn's voice in German is much gentler - the English voice is really shrill in comparison - and wow, Schmendrick is just weird with such a deep voice ^^

Also, Labyrinth ♥ My tenage self was madly in love with Jareth... (I still think he's awesome.)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yeees, I remember that icon, it was awesome. :D I also didn't like the English voice of the unicorn due to the shrillness, though that might also be due to the quality of the audio in general.

And I fell for Jareth, too. I Doubt there's anyone who didn't. He's Jareth. ♥

[lordhellebore]

He's Jareth. ♥

That says it all. David Bowie was perfect for the role.

[cranky--crocus.livejournal.com]

Aaaah! Labyrinth, The Princess Bride and The Last Unicorn! I love those films! I watched TPB recently but haven't seen the others since high school. I should watch them again!

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

I like Dragonslayer's pseudo-realistic atmosphere which I think makes good use of medieval clichés in a more believable way than many other fantasy movies of that time. Pity today I have trouble seeing something in Peter MacNicol besides a weird little museum curator or a weird little New York lawyer.
Labyrinth I've loved since they showed us that movie at school during a later afternoon activity get-together. Jennifer Connelly's sometimes horribly over-acted part to me is the weakest part of the entire thing, though. I love it for the Jim Henson puppets, Brian Froud's designs and Terry Jones' humour. That's why one of my favourite Brian Froud books is The Goblin Companion which basically consists of Froud's sketches for the puppets' final designs and a lot of hilarious character background stories by Terry Jones. If they had shot a movie just about the Labyrinth and simply forgotten about the girl - would have been fine with me.

All in all, glorious 80s fantasy which I love much more than today's fantasy movies (including HP) because of their charming imperfections and obviousness of actual handicraft instead of CG that hasn't quite made its way through Uncanny Valley.
Speaking of 80s fantasy movies for the Christmas season which aren't Christmas-themed, couldn't Ronia the Robbersdaughter be included in that list? (Or Three Gifts for Cinderella, although I'm no outspoken proponent for that movie. Although I can understand the appeal it holds for some people ...)

The Last Unicorn I find interesting because it's technically anime, the kind that came out of Rankin/Bass during the 80s and before it became really known as anime. Especially the creatures have weirdly appealing designs, I love how twisted and gnarly they are. Unfortunately, they don't really lend themselves to animation because they're so detailed but The Last Unicorn managed them better than Rankin/Bass' The Hobbit, for example, which also has oddly fantastic designs but doesn't really work on an animated level. Still, The Last Unicorn has Christopher Lee in both the German and the English version which I think is hard to beat.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Seeing Peter MacNicol in that role is pretty strange, it's true, even though he changed quite a bit, so the first time I saw that movie after watching Ally McBeal I never realised it was him.

Labyrinth I've liked more in spite of than because of the puppets, and I doubt I'd like it quite as much, had I seen it later - the acting is really not that stellar - Connelly's not the only one who doesn't really excell in it, I'd say - and it's SO eighties in many respects, and the painfully forced campness of it all makes it hard to take serious (it suffers from Legend syndrome, too). Speaking of the decade, I completely forgot Ronja, I hadn't realised that was also an 80ies movie, even.

Is Three Gifts for Cinderella the Czech adaptation of the fairy tale? I always thought that was from the Seventies, though I might be mistaken. I always rather liked it, but only having the Disney version to compare it to I was likely to prefer it.

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that Czech thing. My sister likes it very much and Libuše Šafránková definitely was cute in it. I'm no big fan of Disney's Cinderella myself. In fact, I think I saw it for the first time only last year so there's no nostalgia in it for me. Why I don't like it is partly because of the weak "heroine" and especially because hordes of high-pitched critters wearing human clothes and repeating their catch phrase ad nauseam drive me nuts.
But yeah, the Czech version is from the 70s so feel free to not count it.

Well, I love Henson's work so it's all about the puppets for me. Hand-crafted effects in general. Gremlins 2 has some stellar creature effects by Rick Baker who is also an unbelievable artist.
I just finished watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the umpteenth time and the opening of the Ark sequence at the finale is just stunning FX work. It couldn't have been done better using computer-generated imagery. The wafting mists (which were partly hand-animated when they interacted with the soldiers), the fire beams, the diffuse angels of death - fantastic! The make-up work wasn't bad, either. I remember I completely lost my sh*t when I first saw the two Nazis next to Belloq just melting, totally didn't see that coming. Those effects - yeah, today it's a little obvious that they shot wax models at high speed but just the horror of the moment had a big impact on me.

[bronnyelsp.livejournal.com]

Oh I have loved the Princess Bride since forever. Through my teens it was amazing to me how many additional layers of meaning (and humour!) it picked up each time I watched it. :)

Don't Molly and the unicorn converse at any time in The Last Unicorn?

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but it's about Molly's disappointment in the Unicorn never showing up for her when she was a maiden so she never got married. Something along those lines. I don't really remember, it's been a long time. So, man-talk.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Nah, I overlooked things. There's also Mommy Fortuna and the Unicorn and the brief discussion of the Harpy and the Unicorn.

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Ah, so a movie passes the test even if there's man-related talk between women? Cool. That doesn't narrow it down as much as I had thought, then.
Hee, I liked Mommy Fortuna. I admire villains who make their exit with some grandeur. Especially if the grandeur is voluntary.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

But see, merely mentioning that you're no longer a maiden doesn't automatically make it man-talk, does it? They're not talking about a particular man or even men in general, the discussion is very specifically about their relationship. Molly asks the unicorn (thanks, Wikiquote): "And what good is that to me that you're here now? Where were you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you come to me now, when I am this?".

And no, things don't pass the test if the female characters in it ONLY discussing men or a man in general, but (pardon the link, but this is really relevant here) it's not only about passing (http://thehathorlegacy.com/the-bechdel-test-its-not-about-passing/). If they discuss men, too, but also other things, that's a pass. Though if a movie doesn't pass, the question shouoldn't be, "Why didn't they put in at least one "pass the salt"-scene between two female characters?!", but rather: why don't female characters get to participate in this plot and are so peripheral to it in this movie/book that all they get to discuss is the male characters who do advance the plot? Why aren't they central enough that they can do that themselves?

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Sure, it's better that way. If it wasn't it could be argued a movie bent on passing couldn't have any female-male interaction at all. Just like having a pointless scene between two women exchanging inanities would 'technically' make it a pass. Which in reality it doesn't.

I'm no stickler for such details and political correctness tends to get broken down to the letters of the law too much for my taste. I don't see PC as inherently restrictive but people get carried away with it.
My favourite, non-gender related example is the Oddworld issue where a game's main character had to go from having four fingers to having three just so Japanese interest groups wouldn't fine the creators for 'culturally offensive' imagery. Apparently in Japan, a low social caste is recognisable by missing digits so if you want to market your characters there you either placate human rights groups by paying fines - or you cut even more digits from your characters. Now there's a kind of logic I don't get.

As for Molly, I guess it comes down to her romantic views and how her life failed to live up to her expectations. To me it appears as if she sees herself as a spinster crone, a state which to her isn't desirable. As I said, it's been too long since I last saw the movie but didn't she join the bandits to give her life at least some adventurous twist after her wishes for a traditional relationship didn't come true?
Sure, the talk isn't about a specific man she meant to devote herself to and it's not 'bad' to want a traditional life as long as it's not forced on someone. So it passes. I'm good with it.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

If it wasn't it could be argued a movie bent on passing couldn't have any female-male interaction at all.
Oh, come on. Who'd seriously understand the test that way? I mean, that requires both unwillingness to read up on shit AND missing the point on an epic scale, and people having both qualities are probably not even aware this thing exists in the first place.

Now there's a kind of logic I don't get.
What I don't get is why the character had only four fingers to begin with. o.O What's wrong with five? It's a good number.

I don't remember that much detail about Molly's background from the book, but even if this is correct, I still fail to see how that could be subsumed under "about a man", since this is not about one man or men in particular, but about her life plans and choices.

Sure, the talk isn't about a specific man she meant to devote herself to
But that's the point. If it was, this'd be different. If it was about men in general, that'd also be different. It's the difference between, "Bob wants to marry me and me to have his babies. - Oh noez, Bob didn't marry me and now I'm stuck with Cpt. Cuddy and his merry men and cook for them!" and "I want to get married and be a housewife - oh noez, that didn't work out, and now I'm no longer a maiden and have joined a group of bandits!" You see?

[krakelwok.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on. Who'd seriously understand the test that way?

You'd be surprised, those in charge of entertainment content sometimes mince words to no end. My boss is currently struggling with an editor from ZDF who blew most of the budget for an eight-minute short on script rewrites. We're talking about a cute little story from the creator of Laura's Star. The most inoffensive thing imaginable but from the beginning it was all, 'this isn't relatable', 'children won't understand this', 'we need a completely new element here to get this and that across' - a nightmare! One, I might add, which will lead to none of us in the Cologne studio being able to animate on it because the money just isn't there anymore. All wasted on pandering to the obsessively nit-picky taste of a network representative.

What I don't get is why the character had only four fingers to begin with. o.O What's wrong with five? It's a good number.

The character is an alien. Also, from a strictly technical standpoint, the less extremities a character has the easier it is to handle in animation. That's besides the point, though - it's a relatively harmless design choice but you can be sure there will be people belly-aching about it. Which would be OK if it all didn't just boil down to money. Japan will happily accept four-fingered Disney characters as long as the Walt Disney Company pays to make up for its involuntary insult.

But that's the point. If it was, this'd be different. If it was about men in general, that'd also be different. It's the difference between, "Bob wants to marry me and me to have his babies. - Oh noez, Bob didn't marry me and now I'm stuck with Cpt. Cuddy and his merry men and cook for them!"

That's what I said, wasn't it?

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've had similar experiences with that one. :D

Whoops, yeah, they do, and there's tons of other stuff, too, like the conversations with Mommy Fortuna and the Harpy.