The Last Unicorn
Monday, June 15th 2009 by Pat
Thanks to Tara Greenwood who inspired the unicorn comic with her contribution to the office quote bucket.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen The Last Unicorn and I forgot how much I liked the backgrounds and illustrations from the film. I wanted to learn more about the animation and fell down an interesting rabbit hole.
The animation for The Last Unicorn was done by Topcraft, the same studio which animated The Hobbit. After completing The Last Unicorn they animated Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind for Hayao Miyazaki. With the success of Nausicaä, several Topcraft crew members went on to form the core of Studio Ghibli, the studio responsible for Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and many of the best animated films of our time.
Other members of the Topcraft crew went on to work for Pacific Animation Corporation, the studio behind the Thundercats, a connection I think Aaron will appreciate.
I thought that was all terribly interesting, maybe I’ll be inspired to make an animated film for the summer JUMP Festival.
MMmmm Unicorn.
Amazing! I had no idea that the same people were responsible for The Last Unicorn and The Hobbit (although a moment’s pondering shows the logic…). I also didn’t know that the same artists formed Studio Ghibli (Nausicaä is my all time favorite), and the connection to Thunder Cats makes this post a little too much to handle.
/Convert Lazy Sunday to Nostalgic Animation Sunday