Legend DVD... for real this time?

[KR~!]

from DVD review :

Universal brings the Legend to life


March 11, 2002



After a year of delays, the Ridley Scott fairy tale Legend will be coming as a two disc special edition from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.br> In this classic fantasy/adventure, pure good and foulest evil will soon battle to the death. Set amid a timeless mythical forest inhabited by fairies, goblins and other magical folk is the story of Jack, a forest dweller who lives in solitude and harmony with the animals of the wood...including Unicorns, who are key to keeping light alive and evil at bay. Chosen by fate to undertake a heroic quest, Jack must brave a host of terrors to not only save his true love — a beautiful princess named Lili — from the clutches of the demonic Lord of Darkness, but also rescue a captive unicorn...or the world will be plunged into a never-ending ice age where the dawn never comes and evil reigns supreme.
Like nearly all Ridley Scott films, there are more versions of "Legend" than you can shake a stick at, the 94 minute European cut, an 89 minute American cut, and the brand new two hour directors cut The new DVD release will feature both the directors cut with the original Jerry Goldsmith score as well as the American release with a Tangerine Dream soundtrack. Both versions of the film is presented in anamorphic widescreen and the longer cut will feature a newly mixed Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS audio tracks while the American cut will feature a Dolby Surround 2.0 track. Disc one will contain the longer cut accompanied by an audio commentary with director Ridley Scott. Disc two carries the shorter version with an isolated musical score. Also on disc two are a documentary titled "Creating a Myth: The Making of Legend", two deleted scenes; "Four Goblins" and "The Faerie Dance", storyboards, photo galleries, the Bryan Ferry "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" music video, trailers and TV spots and DVD-ROM content, including the original screenplay.
This pretty impressive package was a long time coming, but looks like a great deal, coming on May 21st, "Legend" will have a $24.98 suggested retail price. You can now preorder this DVD at Shop In Digital for only $17.49!

sources and related links :

http://www.shopindigital.com/exec/item.asp?item_id=19546

http://www.dvdreview.com/html/news.html

[Joel Groce]

Yeah, I've been really waiting for this release - "Legend" really captured an ungodly gorgeous fantasy landscape - almost like it was painstakingly painted on the screen with shimmering snow and frost and crystalline ponds and many dream-like sequences and imagery. And Tim Curry was fantastically perfect as the Dark Lord. The only other fantasy movie that I can think of that got the "look and feel" right on the screen was the recent "Lord Of The Rings".

[KR~!]

well, with the new Darkness action figure being release this year, I think that they will use that release to promote the DVD and vice versa, Amazon now also has it for preorder for about a buck more.

I really love this flim, and I can't wait to see the new version (cut) with the Goldsmith score, it will be like watching it for the 1st time again.

[KillerCannabis]

I am SO amped up for this release. Aside from Lord of the Rings, Legend is the greatest fantasy epic I have ever seen on film. This disc is going to rock. My only potential problem with this disc is that it is a Universal Ultimate Edition, which means it could be coming in that lame packaging they use for the UE discs. You know, plastic, rectangular, with the booklet held in limbo between the 2 discs. It remains to be seen what they use, but goddamn me if I'm not at Best Buy when it opens on the 21st.

[KR~!]

For Immediate Release

FIRST TIME EVER ON DVD!

LEGEND ULTIMATE EDITION

FEATURING THE NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN DIRECTOR’S CUT!

Universal City, California, March 8, 2002 -- On May 21, Universal Studios Home Video will release director Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Legend, in all its stunning, visionary glory, as a dual-disc DVD release. Priced at $24.98 SRP, the Legend Ultimate Edition stars Tom Cruise and includes both the never-before-released, 113-minute Director’s Cut - with its extraordinary original soundtrack by Oscar-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith- and the version that was released theatrically in the United States. Legend is also available on VHS (feature only) for $9.98. Order close for both VHS and DVD is April 16.


Legend Ultimate Edition DVD is a feast for the eyes, ears and imagination and boasts an impressive array of bonus features, most never available to the public:

Feature commentary with director Ridley Scott
Documentary, "Creating a Myth: The Making of Legend"
Isolated music score by Tangerine Dream
Lost scenes:
Alternate opening: "Four Goblins"
"The Faerie Dance"
Storyboards
Lily and the Unicorns
Jack’s Challenge
Downfall of Darkness
Photo Galleries
Publicity Photographs
Production Photographs
Continuity Polaroids
Bryan Ferry "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" music video
Trailers and TV spots
DVD-Rom features including the original screenplay
A classic fantasy-adventure about the eternal struggle between good and evil, Legend features a stellar cast. Box-office idol Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible I and II, Vanilla Sky, Eyes Wide Shut) stars as Jack, a mortal with a pure heart who lives in solitude and harmony with the magical folk and animals of the forest. Mia Sara (Timecop, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) is Lili, a beautiful princess who loves Jack with all her heart. Lending his unique brand of menace and magnetism is Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Charlie’s Angels) as the Lord of Darkness, who seeks to seduce the princess, kill the last unicorn and plunge the world into eternal night.

Resurrecting a ‘Legend’

Like so many of Ridley Scott’s films, Legend has attained the level of cult status enjoyed by only a select group of motion pictures. With the advent of the Internet, it has spun a whole new "web" of enchantment among fans. But along with devotion, there has also been a terrific sense of "what might have been." What these fans want most is to see Legend the way Ridley Scott originally envisioned it. "Producer Arnon Milchan says, "If I knew about movies what I know today, I probably would have convinced Ridley to fight for his original cut, which I felt was more true to his vision."


Because the picture was originally produced with two companies being involved, one having the foreign rights, and the other the domestic, there was a decision made to go in two different directions. The result was two radically different versions: a European cut with the Jerry Goldsmith score and a reported running time of 94 minutes and a "less complex" U.S. cut, aimed at a more youthful, rock ‘n’ roll-oriented audience, which ran 89 minutes and replaced the original Goldsmith score with an alternate score by Tangerine Dream.


The initial cut of the film ran over two hours long. In retrospect, Scott himself accepts much of the blame for altering the film, particularly with regard to the score: "I got totally paranoid," he reveals. "I started to hack away at the movie. A gentleman at Universal literally tried to physically stop me. As opposed to him saying, ‘We’ve got to cut this film,’ it was me....I figured that maybe we’d been too adventurous with our expectations of a full-blown fairy story, and therefore, maybe the combination of the score and the visual was actually too sweet. So, with only three weeks to redo a score, I went to Berlin and did the score with Tangerine Dream. In three weeks they did an incredible job, but it was completely different. It was a driving, more modern way to go, and given what they did in the time, I thought they did a fantastic job. On reflection, it was the wrong thing to do, and the first score [by Jerry Goldsmith] was what it should be, which is what we’ve got on this disc."


One of the world’s finest composers, Goldsmith was honored with an Academy Award™ for his scoring of The Omen. Some of his other masterworks include scores for The Mummy, L.A. Confidential, Malice, Alien, Planet of the Apes, Patton and over a hundred more. And now, at last, one of his finest scores ever will finally be heard on the Legend Ultimate Edition.

The Ultimate Fairy Tale

Appropriately, Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Thelma and Louise), the director of Legend, has himself achieved no less than legendary status. Prior to Legend, his fourth film, Scott had already directed The Duellists, Bladerunner and Alien, each of which is very stylized. Before moving on to what he refers to as "modern" films with normal people in modern, normal situations, he says, "I wanted to get off my chest this notion of a fairy story."


Legend was the culmination of almost four years of research and preparation. Early on, Scott contacted novelist William Hjortsberg to discuss the possibility of his writing a screenplay: "I want to do a classic fairy tale, and I want to have unicorns in it - fastest steed on earth - and I want the villain to be called ‘Darkness.’" Together they discussed the basic story elements involving a young hermit who becomes a hero when he battles the evil Lord of Darkness, rescues a beautiful princess and frees the world from an icy winter curse. Scott recalls that Hjortsberg "went away and came back with a first draft which I thought was generally magnificent."


"One of the things that I think is extraordinary about Legend," notes Tim Curry (who plays "Darkness"), "is that it’s much closer to Grimm’s Fairy Tales, to the kind of primal, psychological things that disturb children, which fairy tales were clearly intended to address...there’s some really gritty, dark, bad stuff in there, the same way that there is in life. And fairy tales were invented to prepare children for the horrors that they might encounter."

The script was "so beautiful," reflects actress Mia Sara ("Lili"). "Never before nor since have I ever read anything that had that kind of impact on me." But it was almost too good. Editor Terry Rawlings remembers: "The Hjortsberg screenplay I thought was absolutely incredible, but I thought, ‘I don’t know how they’re going to film it because it would be costing a fortune. We had this room with storyboards, so you’d wander the room looking at the script as well as reading it, and you’d think, well, that’s a million dollars, that’s a million, that’s another million..." The final screenplay took three years and 15 script revisions before it was completed. Principal shooting began on March 26th, 1984.

Forest of Enchantment

The centerpiece of Legend is its remarkable forest. Ridley Scott had originally intended to shoot on location and scouted out Yosemite as a potential site. But the canopy formed by the immense trees blotted out much of the sunlight. "I would have had to put a scaffolding rig in the trees the size of a football field to light the picture," he says. So, at Pinewood Studios in London, production designer Assheton Gorton set about creating a forest whose beauty would rival any natural work of art.


Gorton's sets, all of which started life as original sketches and models, are among the most elaborate ever built for a motion picture and were constructed on six of Pinewood's huge soundstages. Inside the world's largest soundstage - originally built to house a submarine set for the James Bond picture The Spy Who Loved Me - the vast, mystical forest came to life with giant trees, gnarled and sinister; an undulating mossy floor with hills and dells, meandering wooded paths, delightful forest glades and babbling streams; a sun-gilded amphitheater and a cliff-edged pond with bluebells and blossoms. It took 50 craftsmen 14 weeks to build. For the winter scenes, 1,500 icicles were added. Varying in length from one foot to eight feet, they were made of resin and hot wax to achieve the proper texture. The special effects team, under supervisor Nick Allder, also supplied tons of artificial snow in the process of "winterizing" the forest set.


The forest was but one of several major sets designed by Gorton. Another is the gigantic kitchen at the bottom of the Dark Lord's subterranean castle. Constructed on a mammoth scale and populated with giant demon cooks, it appears even bigger against the tiny bodies of elves, pixies and leprechauns who appear throughout the film. The castle's great hall is another spectacular set, which includes the huge and menacing Throne of Darkness. Among its other features: ominous jet-black columns, 25 feet high and nine feet in diameter; a gigantic black marble banquet table, and a massive fireplace adorned with fantastic sculptures.

[KR~!]

Synopsis

There can be no good without evil...
No love without hate...
No heaven without hell...
No light without darkness.

Once, long ago, before there was such a thing as time, the world was shrouded in darkness. Then came the splendor of light, bringing life and love into the Universe, and the Lord of Darkness retreated deep into the shadows of the earth, plotting his return to power...by banishing light forever.


In this classic fantasy/adventure, pure good and foulest evil will soon battle to the death. Set amid a timeless mythical forest inhabited by fairies, goblins and other magical folk is the story of Jack, a forest dweller who lives in solitude and harmony with the animals of the wood...including Unicorns, who are key to keeping light alive and evil at bay. Chosen by fate to undertake a heroic quest, Jack must brave a host of terrors to not only save his true love - a beautiful princess named Lili - from the clutches of the demonic Lord of Darkness, but also rescue a captive unicorn...or the world will be plunged into a never-ending ice age where the dawn never comes and evil reigns supreme.

CAST & FILMMAKERS

Producer: Arnon Milchan
Co-Producer: Tim Hampton
Screenwriter: William Hjortsberg
Director of Photography: Alex Thomson
Special Make-Up Effects: Rob Bottin
Editor: Terry Rawlings
Original Music by: Jerry Goldsmith (Director’s Cut); Tangerine Dream (US version)
Production Designer: Assheton Gorton
Cast: Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent, Alice Playten, Billy Barty,Cork Hubbert, Robert Picardo

DVD

Street Date: May 21, 2002
Order Close: April 16, 2002
Selection Number: #21775
Copyright: © 2002 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Running Time:
Disc 1 (Director’s Cut): 1 hour, 54 minutes
Disc 2 (US Theatrical Version): 1 hour, 30 minutes
Suggested Retail Price: $24.98
Rating: PG (Director’s Cut not rated)
Number of Layers: 2
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35
Language / Audio:
Disc 1 (Director’s Cut): English 5.1 Surround, English DTS, Spanish & French Subtitles, English Captions
Disc 2 (US Theatrical Version): English Dolby Surround, Spanish & French Subtitles, English Captions
Bonus Material:
Disc 1 (Director’s Cut): Feature commentary with Director Ridley Scott
Disc 2 (US Theatrical Version): "Creating a Myth: The Making of Legend," Isolated Music Score by Tangerine Dream, Lost Scenes, Storyboards, Trailers and TV Spots, Photo Galleries, Publicity Photos, Production Photos, Continuity Polaroids, Brian Ferry "Is your Love Strong Enough?" Music Video, Production Notes, Cast & Filmmaker Bios, DVD-ROM

[DVD Connoisseur]

...underated film tends to pop up from time to time on BBC television in the UK.

It's a great film - I'm really looking forward to (finally!) adding it to my collection.

[KR~!]

No, what you are seeing is the UK version, that will not be part of this set. The longer version here is a totally new cut made just for this DVD and is the longest one of them all.

[DVD Connoisseur]

Originally posted by KR~!
No, what you are seeing is the UK version, that will not be part of this set. The longer version here is a totally new cut made just for this DVD and is the longest one of them all.

Without wanting to start a debate, the version that the Beeb screened was not the UK theatrical version but Scott's original cut....this version was not available on VHS (or LD) at the time of its screening. The BBC were also the first to secure the original DC (what's left of it, anyway) of the Wicker Man, with the help of a certain Mr. Mark Kermode.