05 March 2023

On Ridley Scott's Legend

I once defended Warcraft, the movie, to Vin Diesel when we ended up watching it in the same theater as him and his family/entourage. I told him what he already knew, we fantasy fans had to take what we could get because, with the exception of The Lord of the Rings, there had been so few quality fantasy films released.

A movie that I wouldn't have to defend, from a period when we got some of the greatest fantasy movies of all time, is Legend. I first saw this when I was a young teenager, in the years after I discovered Dungeons & Dragons and became obsessed with finding all of the fantasy movies I could. I wasn't sure what I was going to see when I was able to acquire a copy, but what I experienced was surprisingly outstanding.
Like many things fantasy back then, I wanted it to be either like Tolkien's work or similar to my experiences with D&D. Legend was more of a dark fairy tale, though, but I'm glad it defied my expectations. I loved it. It had goblins, a hag, and an incredible demonic figure in Tim Curry's Darkness.
I'm revisiting the movie tonight and being reminded of the first time I saw it. Thankfully now I have the director's cut, which is better edited and fills in scenes which were sort of confusing in the theatrical cut. I still love this movie. It's all craft, style, beauty, and imagination. Hollywood does not, and apparently cannot, make movies like this anymore.



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