Reading

I started reading The Last Unicorn for the first time this week. I know, I know, I should've read it as a child. I've loved the movie since it first came to video when I was just a little speck, but for some reason never thought to read the book until just recently.

Even though I know very well that movies usually leave a huge amount of content from the books they're based on out, I'm surprised as how much was left out of the cartoon. So many important things! Shouldn't the movie have mentioned that the reason why Haggard's castle fell apart when the unicorns were released was that the castle was cursed to fall when the sea overflowed with Haggard's greed? That seems pretty damn important to me. I always wondered as a kid why the castle just fell over when the unicorns came out of the sea.

And there's so much to Schmendrick that was left out of the movie. I always found him rather silly and dumb, but he's actually so much more! Silly and dumb sometimes, yes, but also funny, clever, kind, and wise. What about the fact that he's immortal for the majority of the book? Doesn't that seem rather important and worth noting in the movie?

I'm just hoping that the new film slated to be released around Christmas 2006 addresses these things better. Peter S. Beagle himself is writing the screenplay, so I would think it would be better... Well, even if it's not, at least the actor cast for Schmendrick is pretty hot. ;)