There are two children's films which peaked my interest in fantasy at a young age. My father read me portions of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and decided too, to show me the animated 1977 film, also and aptly titled The Hobbit. Today I can only recall fragments of the movie. But one scene is particularly vivid to me, at least visually -- when the party of hobbit and dwarves were imprisoned by the elves. I remember that the artists/ writers chose to portray the elves as blue-skinned xenophobes. Or at least this is the impression I am left with all these years later. I don't think I ever saw the film twice.
Certainly Tolkien's elves are inhuman, they are such exemplary beings that others marvel at their aura's of splendor. Throughout The Lord of The Rings, Legolas' supernal perception aided the fellowship again and again. LoTR elves are the most superior of Middle Earth's races, or at least were before the age of men. But the film's elves were cruel, malevolent, and their scowls set them as unsightly. Perhaps the film writers or artists sought to adapt the elves to a more abrasive portrayal, one more fully represented by an almost fully dwarven party.
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The other film I can only recall fragments of, but has bound me to fantasy nonetheless is The Last Unicorn, animated in 1982. All I can really remember from this film is a scene that I found fully haunting at the time. Before the climax, in a decrepit castle the film's protagonist's are confronted by a sentient skeleton who spoke eloquently but craved wine with absolute depravity. One of the characters remarked something to the effect of, *"but a skeleton doesn't have a tongue to taste." To which the skeleton mentioned something to the effect of, "Just to know that wine runs down my bones brings comfort in memory."* I just remember feeling that this was just such an odd and somehow macabre interaction. I don't want to see these films again because I don't want my perceptions of them to change. I remember them fondly, and hope always to do so.
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* Paraphrased.
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