History Film / Legend

[[redirect:{{Legend}}]]

[[quoteright:278:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Legend_poster_1_6205.jpg]]

''Legend'' is a 1985 film directed by Creator/RidleyScott, starring Creator/TomCruise, Mia Sara, Creator/TimCurry, and Tim Curry's ''massive'' pair of horns. It is part of TheEighties fantasy boom in film, [[ClicheStorm sharing many of the same elements as its contemporaries]].

[[BigBad The Lord of Darkness]] plots to cover the world in eternal night. He sends his servant, the goblin Blix, to kill the light-bringing unicorns and take their horns. The unicorns only appear before the pure of heart, so a lure must be used. Enter Jack and Princess Lily, pure denizens of the forest. When the stallion is killed, Jack and Lily are separated as snowstorms envelop the world. She and the mare are captured by the forces of Darkness, and he must band together with the woodland fairies to rescue her.

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!!''Legend'' provides examples of the following tropes:

* AllJustADream: At least, Lily ''thinks'' so when she wakes up at the end of the DirectorsCut, and Jack doesn't confirm or deny it. She doesn't get to see Jack waving goodbye to the elves and unicorns after she's left. The theatrical edition changes the ending completely, and she sees them together with Jack.
* AsLongAsThereIsEvil: "Big D" tries to invoke this, presumably to convince Jack not to kill him. This is likely true, however, see TheEndOrIsIt below.
* AbsoluteCleavage: Lily's "Bride of Darkness" outfit.
* AndNowYouMustMarryMe: The Lord of Darkness' goblins capture the beautiful Princess Lily and take her to the dark castle, where Darkness falls in love with her and plans to marry her.
* AnnoyingArrows: Darkness takes a few from Gump and Jack and he doesn't even slow down.
* TheAntiChrist: Darkness is effectively this, as he is ultimately in service to his unseen and unnamed father.
* BadIsGoodAndGoodIsBad: The goblins feel this way. Blix compares Lily unfavorably to rotting meat (he'd prefer the latter), and the goblins also refer to the unicorns as "ugly one-horned mules."
* BallOfLightTransformation: The fairy Oona can change into a small ball of light and fly around. She does so in Darkness's dungeon to escape a prison cell and obtain the key to the cell.
* BigBad: Darkness himself.
* BigThinShortTrio: Blix, Pox and Blunder.
* BigOlUnibrow: The BigBad Darkness has one.
* BigRedDevil: Darkness, aka TimCurry.
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: The heroes are an innocent PrincessClassic with VirginPower and a group of forest inhabitants trying to protect the [[UnicornsAreSacred sacred unicorns]] [[CosmicKeystone who make life possible]]. The villain Darkness is a demonic EvilOverlord who rules over an army of evil goblins and cannibalistic pig-men executioners and wants to create an eternal night to bring about the end of the world.
* BlowGun: Blix uses one to fire a poisoned dart into a unicorn and kill it so he can cut off its horn.
* BreakoutPopHit: "Is Your Love Strong Enough" in the US version was high on the Billboard charts.
* CardCarryingVillain: All of them, though Darkness comprehends he's just one side of the coin. The others, tho...
-->'''Blix:''' May be innocent, may be sweet... ain't half as nice as rotting meat.
* CharacterTic: Jack crouching on his heels, which emphasizes his wildness.
* CorruptTheCutie: Darkness is advised to "woo" Lily.
* DamselInDistress: Lily.
* DancingPants: The dark dress.
* DangerouslyShortSkirt: Worn by ''Jack''. His costume consists of a short tunic and no pants. Even after he's given armor when he begins the quest to rescue Lily and the last unicorn, there's still ''no pants''.
** Oona wears one too.
* DarkIsEvil: The demonic villain Darkness is a personification of the concept and wants to extinguish all life so he can subsist in the dead icebound world..
* DisneyVillainDeath: Subverted with [[spoiler:Blunder]], who appears to fall to his death but later appears unharmed.
* DistractedByTheLuxury: Whilst running around Darkness's lair in a complete panic, Lily is briefly lulled into calm by the sight of a giant diamond necklace.
* EatsBabies: Blunder contemplates eating a human baby in its crib. This oddly horrifies his fellow goblin, Pox.
-->'''Blunder''': I simply adore milk-fed meat!\\
'''Pox''': What are ya, some kind of animal?
* TheEndOrIsIt: At the end of the U.S. version, Darkness (who was apparently destroyed earlier) is shown laughing.
* EngagementChallenge: At first not particularly difficult--dive into a small pond and find the ring the princess threw there. Becomes much harder after the death of one unicorn freezes everything over in eternal winter. Later linked, [[RuleOfSymbolism somehow]], to TrueLovesKiss after the horn is restored and the pond thaws.
* EvilCostumeSwitch: Lily in the Bride of Darkness outfit, black lipstick and stylized tear stains included.
* EvilIsHammy: It's Tim Curry as the big red devil himself, what else can be expected?
* EvilLaugh: Both Darkness and Meg Mucklebones.
* EvilOverlord: Darkness.
* EvilSoundsDeep: Darkness, courtesy of TimCurry.
* ExactEavesdropping
* ExploringTheEvilLair: Jack and his friends enter Darkness's lair to rescue Lilly and the unicorn.
* ExpositionOfImmortality: Darkness, during the ending fight with Jack, boasts about how he's been here since the beginning, because there's no Light without Darkness.
* TheFairFolk: Even when the world is in peril, Gump tests Jack with a riddle before deciding to help him, when he finds out that he took Lily to see the unicorns. In a deleted scene he even forces Jack to dance with his magic fiddle before asking the riddle.
* FairyCompanion: Oona.
* {{Foreshadowing}}
** Darkness twice says "Sunshine is my destroyer." Guess how the good guys defeat him at the climax?
** Lily seeing Nell's clock frost over, a warning of the winter that occurs when a unicorn is killed and its horn is cut off.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: Jack.
* GluttonousPig: The [[PigMan pig-like goblin]] Pox wants to use the unicorn's magical horn to "turn everything into garbage, a great towering mountain of slop" for him to eat.
* GreaterScopeVillain: We never get any details, but Darkness calls out for his father for advice about Lily and calls out to him in desperation at the moment of his defeat.
* HiddenDepths: Lily. And yes, they are hidden pretty deep.
* HollywoodTorches: Both the goblins and Jack have one at some point.
* HornAttack: Subverted when Darkness charges Jack with his horns foremost as though he's planning on piercing him with them, but ends up with the horns touching a wall with Jack trapped between them.
* HornsOfVillainy: Darkness sports what is still probably the largest pair of horns in the history of costume design. They were so heavy had to be detached so Tim Curry could rest between shoots.
* ImAHumanitarian: Not only do prisoners in Darkness's lair get cooked and eaten, we also have Meg Mucklebones who thinks Jack is a "juicy boy." Then there's the goblins. Blunder contemplates eating a baby, and then he and Pox discuss how they want to eat Lily's brains and bones.
* ImNotHungry
* KarmaHoudini: Blix and Pox, due to the troubled production resulting in them being cut halfway through filming. [[spoiler:One can only hope that they both died horribly off camera.]]
* LargeHam
** Large Deviled Ham: the Lord of Darkness.
** Small Elven-Ham: Gump. "Do you think you can upset the order of the universe, ''and not pay the PRICE?!?''" In the DirectorsCut Gump throws a ''massive'' hissy fit after Jack solves his riddle.
* [[LastOfHisKind Last of Her Kind]]: The female unicorn according to Gump, for a little while.
* LarynxDissonance: Gump's voice is notably more restrained than his acting. See LargeHam.
* LightAndMirrorsPuzzle: The heroes must reflect a beam of sunshine all the way down to the bottom of hell.
** [[{{Foreshadowing}} Foreshadowed]] early on when Lily uses the heart charm on her necklace like a laser pointer to shine a tiny beam of light in Jack's eyes.
* MadeOfEvil: Darkness is literally made of darkness, portrayed as the equivalent of evil. He's quite literaly the devil and wants to bring about an eternal night (even though it means the end of the world) because he needs it to thrive. Before his ultimate defeat he also taunts the hero that [[AsLongAsThereIsEvil darkness can't exist without him]].
* MeaningfulEcho: "I trust you, Lily."
* MilkingTheGiantCow: Gump.
* TheMole: Blunder ([[spoiler:who was a disguised elf all along]]).
* MsFanservice: Lily's black dress has a plunging neckline and shows her bare legs.
* MustMakeAmends: Lily touches one of the unicorns, making it vulnerable to attack and leading to its death. She tracks down the other unicorn and finds Brown Tom guarding it.
-->'''Brown Tom:''' You! You're the cause of all our sorrow.\\
'''Lily:''' I'm -- I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Please, please forgive me.\\
'''Brown Tom:''' I'm not the one you should be askin'.\\
'''Lily:''' Try and understand. I'm only trying to make things right. Darkness has sent the goblins back for the mare. It's not safe to stay here. You'll have to hurry! Leave now! Go!
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: When Lily realizes her actions have caused a unicorn to die. [[spoiler:It gets better.]]
* NatureHero[=/=]WildChild: Jack. He's not given a lot of context.
* NostalgiaFilter: While there was nothing inherently wrong with the Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack, many of the fans who saw the American cut first found nothing wholly remarkable about it either. Most fans seem to appear attached to the American cut due to the Tangerine Dream soundtrack which they felt made the film memorable.
* NeckLift: Done by Darkness to Jack, but by grabbing his ''face''.
* TheNightThatNeverEnds: The BigBad Lord of Darkness is attempting to bring this trope about by killing the world's unicorns (the source of the world's light.)
* PeekABangs: Jack.
* PigMan: Pox. One is also seen in the dungeons.
* PlayingWithFire: Darkness has fire-based powers, and the unicorn horn can cause and throw fire.
* PrincessClassic: Princess Lily starts out as a quintessential princess classic, only to go through a BreakTheCutie process, accumulating in an intense case of CorruptTheCutie, only for [[spoiler:this to be revealed as a ruse she put on in order to trick Darkness into letting her get close enough to free a captured unicorn]].
* QuirkyMinibossSquad: Blix, Blunder and Pox.
* RebelliousPrincess: Lily is this to a certain extent. It's implied that she frequently sneaks off into the woods to visit friends, one of whom even comments that she should be back at the palace and not hanging out with poor folks like them.
* ReCut: The American version released in 1986 was about 25 minutes shorter than the Director's Cut and five minutes shorter than the European version. Many scenes and shots were dropped, reordered, and added; in addition it had an entirely new music score by Tangerine Dream (plus two pop songs) substituting for Jerry Goldsmith's original score, which was retained for European release ([[Film/{{Alien}} not the first time his music was meddled with in a Creator/RidleyScott film]], but the last - they never worked together again). The Director's Cut became legally available with the 2002 [=DVD=] release. Details are [[http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0089469/alternateversions here.]] According to Scott's introductory note on the Blu-Ray edition, it was believed lost until an answer print was found in 2000.
* {{Redubbing}}
** In English, the voice of Gump was done by the same actress who played Blix; in German, he voiced both.
** In fact, all of the forest scenes had to be dubbed over in post-production because the noise on the set was so loud, according to Mia Sara on the Ultimate Edition DVD.
* RedRightHand: Blunder has a chicken foot for a left hand (explained in a deleted scene).
* RhymesOnADime: Blix. It seems that all of the goblins' dialogue (and possibly Darkness's) was originally intended to be in rhyme, but this was toned down in the finished movie.
* RiddleMeThis: "What is a bell that never rings, yet its knell makes the angels sing?" The answer is [[spoiler: silver bells, the flower]].
* RidingIntoTheSunset: Jack and Lily walk off together into the sunset in one version of the film. In the director's cut, Jack walks off by himself while Lily goes to her castle.
* RumpRoast: Blix uses the unicorn horn to set Blunder's butt on fire.
* ShapeshiftingSeducer: While the protagonists are trapped in Darkness's jail, the fairy Oona tries to get Jack to kiss her by creating an illusion that she's Jack's girlfriend Lily.
* SicEm: When Darkness first summons Blix he tells him to find and destroy the unicorns.
* TableSpace
* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: In this case a unicorn horn, but the same principle.
* TheTimeOfMyths
* TrueLovesKiss: Jack does this to wake Lily.
* UltimateEvil: The disembodied voice that helps Darkness seduce Lily, presumably the being he calls [[GreaterScopeVillain Father]].
* {{Unicorn}}
* UnicornsAreSacred: Killing the last two unicorns that guard the power of light would allow the demon lord to roam the world free in darkness. Also, Darkness shows just how evil he is by ordering a unicorn's horn to be cut off, which causes the world to freeze over.
* VillainousCrush: The Lord of Darkness has one on Lily, attempting to seduce her and intending to make her his bride.
* VirginityMakesYouStupid
* VirginPower: Lily's "innocence" allows her to approach the unicorns.
* WeakenedByTheLight: "The sunshine is my destroyer!"
* WhatTheHellHero: The forest creatures are understandably upset by Lily's actions. Gump is even more upset by Oona's "secret".
* WhatIsThisThingYouCallLove: The Lord of Darkness is "distracted" by the captured princess's {{beauty|EqualsGoodness}} and innocence and advised by his mysterious 'father' to woo her into temptation. There follows probably the best (and most eloquently written) scene in the film, where the devil's seduction rather backfires when the newly-darkened Princess plays His Lovesick Evilness like a two string harp. [[note]] The first draft of the screenplay was very different: his pursuit of princessly love leads him to turning her into a bestial cat-woman and the two of them having lots and lots of sweaty monster sex.[[/note]]
* [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse/{{Film}} What Happened To The Mouse]]
** Nell and her family. Last seen flash-frozen in their house, they're completely forgotten about at the end of the story (even in the script!).
** Blix and Pox just disappear about halfway through the movie, despite having had an important role until then. Reportedly they were cut half way through filming due to budget problems following the loss of most of the sets due to a studio fire. More scenes with Nell and her family may have been cut for the same reason.
* WomanScorned: Oona, although she shows her quality by not allowing it to dissuade her from doing her part to stop Darkness.
* WorldLimitedToThePlot: This film is set entirely in the magic forest and Darkness's castle with no references to the world outside. Nor has there been, interestingly enough, any serious fan attempts at WorldBuilding probably due to observing the "if it aint broke.." rule.
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* MookFaceTurn: Blunder ([[spoiler:who was a disguised elf all along, anyway]]).

* UltimateEvil: The disembodied voice that helps Darkness seduce Lily, presumably the being he calls [[BiggerBad Father]].