"Жасыраулы түнгі әлем"

1985 American film by Ridley Scott

Legend is a 1985 American epic dark fantasy adventure film directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent, Alice Playten, Billy Barty, Cork Hubbert and Annabelle Lanyon. The film revolves around Jack, a pure being who must stop the Lord of Darkness who plots to cover the world with eternal night. Although not a commercial success, and poorly received by critics, it won the British Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography in 1985 for cinematographer Alex Thomson, as well as being nominated for multiple awards: Oscar for Best Makeup; Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award for Best Makeup; BAFTA Awards for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup Artist, Best Special Visual Effects; DVD Exclusive Awards; and Young Artist Awards. Since its premiere, reinforced by the 2002 release of the unrated Director's Cut, the film has been called a cult classic.

In order to cast the world into eternal night, the Lord of Darkness sends the goblin Blix to kill the unicorns in the forest near his castle and bring him their horns. Told by Darkness that the best bait is Innocence, Blix and his colleagues Pox and Blunder follow Princess Lili as she visits her forest dwelling paramour, Jack in the Green. Jack teaches Lili to speak to animals, then takes her blindfolded to a forest stream where the unicorns frolic. When Lili holds out her hand to touch the stallion, Blix shoots him with a poison dart from his blowpipe and the unicorns flee. Jack is angry, but Lili laughs off his concern and issues a challenge by throwing her ring into a pond, declaring she will marry whoever finds it. While Jack dives in after the ring, the goblins track down the poisoned stallion and sever his alicorn, causing winter to descend. Lili runs off in terror, and Jack is barely able to break through the surface of the now frozen pond. Lili takes refuge in a peasant cottage. While there, she sees the goblins test the alicorn's magic powers and overhears how she was the bait in their slaying of the stallion. She follows the goblins to a rendezvous with Darkness, who tells them the world cannot be cast into eternal night as long as the surviving mare still lives. Blunder unsuccessfully tries using the alicorn to overthrow Darkness and is sent into the castle's dungeon. Meanwhile Jack, accompanied by forest elf Honeythorn Gump, will o' the wisp Oona, and dwarves Brown Tom and Screwball, finds the mare mourning the lifeless stallion. Jack begs forgiveness from the mare, who communicates to him that the alicorn must be recovered and returned to the stallion by a great hero. Deciding Jack is that hero, the group leaves Brown Tom to guard the unicorns while they retrieve a hidden cache of ancient weapons and armor. In their absence, Lili warns Brown Tom of the goblins coming back to kill the mare. He is then incapacitated by the goblins, who capture both Lili and the mare. Upon returning, Jack and his group make their way to Darkness' castle. On the way, they are attacked by a swamp hag named Meg Mucklebones, but Jack defeats her by flattering her appearance and then decapitating her. At the castle, Jack's group falls into an underground prison cell, where they encounter Blunder, who is revealed to be a dwarf gone astray, before he is dragged off by an ogre to be baked into a pie. Oona, who is secretly a fairy, retrieves the keys to free the others. Darkness realizes that even he is touched by Lili's innocence and releases her to wander the castle. He leaves lavish gifts for her, including an enchanted, dancing dress that hypnotizes her. Revealing himself, he asks her to marry him. She resists, but then agrees on the condition that she will be the one to kill the mare in the upcoming ritual. Overhearing their conversation, Jack and Gump learn Darkness can be destroyed by daylight. After saving Blunder, the group takes the ogres' giant metal platters as makeshift mirrors to reflect sunlight into the chamber where the mare is to be sacrificed. As the ritual begins, Lili tries to free the mare and Darkness strikes her unconscious. Jack's group redirects the setting sun with the platters as he fights Darkness, finally wounding him with the stallion's alicorn right before the redirected sunlight shines into the room, blasting Darkness to the edge of the void. Darkness warns them that because evil lurks in all beings, he will never truly be vanquished. Wavering in doubt, Jack finally severs the hands of Darkness, expelling him into the void. Gump then returns the stallion to life by magically reattaching its alicorn. With the stallion reunited with the mare, winter suddenly ends. Jack retrieves Lili's ring from the pond and places it on her finger, wakening her from Darkness's spell.

Playten, in an additional uncredited contribution, provides the voice of Gump, because an executive thought that Bennent's voice sounded too German.

While filming The Duellists in France, Ridley Scott conceived Legend after another planned project, Tristan and Isolde, fell through temporarily. However, he believed that it would be an art film with limited audience appeal and went on to make Alien and did pre production work on Dune, another halted project, which was eventually finished by director David Lynch. Frustrated, he came back to the idea of filming a fairy tale or mythological story. For inspiration, Scott read classic fairy tales, including ones by the Brothers Grimm.

Scott wanted Legend to have an original screenplay because he believed that "it was far easier to design a story to fit the medium of cinema than bend the medium for an established story". The two men bonded over Jean Cocteau's 1946 film of Beauty and the Beast. In January 1981, just before beginning principal photography on Blade Runner, Scott spent five weeks with Hjortsberg working out a rough storyline for what was then called Legend of Darkness. Originally, Scott "only had the vague notion of something in pursuit of the swiftest steed alive which, of course, was the unicorn". Scott wanted to show the outside world as little as possible and they settled on the clockmaker's cottage. Initially, the quest was longer, but it was eventually substantially reduced. Scott wanted to avoid too many subplots that departed from the main story and go for a "more contemporary movement rather than get bogged down in too classical a format".

The look Scott envisioned for Legend was influenced by the style of Disney animation. He had even offered the project to Disney, but they were intimidated by the film's dark tone at a time when Disney still focused on family friendly material. Scott had initially sought the services of conceptual designer Brian Froud, but was turned down. He then hired Alan Lee as a visual consultant, who drew some characters and sketched environments. However, Scott eventually replaced Lee with Assheton Gorton, a production designer whom he had wanted for both Alien and Blade Runner. Scott hired Gorton because he knew "all the pitfalls of shooting exteriors on a soundstage. We both knew that whatever we did would never look absolutely real, but would very quickly gain its own reality and dispense with any feeling of theatricality". In order to achieve the look of Legend that he wanted, Scott scouted locations in the Sequoias of Yosemite National Park to see the grand scale of trees there. "The whole environment is so stunning It was so impressive, but I didn't know how you would control it".

Scott contacted Rob Bottin, who designed the special makeup effects for The Howling, about working on Blade Runner, but Bottin was already committed to John Carpenter's The Thing. Scott told him about Legend, and toward the end of production on The Thing, Bottin read a script for the film and saw an excellent opportunity to create characters in starring roles. After wrapping his work with Carpenter, Bottin met with Scott to reduce the thousands of creatures suggested by the script to a manageable quantity. The process would involve complicated prosthetic makeup that would be worn for up to 60 days with some full body prosthetics. With the exception of Cruise and Sara, all the principal actors spent hours every morning having extensive makeup applied. His makeup as Darkness is considered to be one of the most iconic images in all of fantasy cinema. Curry had to wear a large, bull like structure atop his head with three foot fiberglass horns supported by a harness underneath the makeup. The initial design of the horns placed a strain on the back of the actor's neck because they extended forward and not straight up but Bottin and his crew eventually reduced the weight of the horns. The underwater scenes were filmed in Silver Springs, Florida for the "purity" of the water. Cruise did all his own diving and swimming in waters that, according to Scott, had real alligators 25 feet from where they were filming.

Scott's first cut of Legend ran 125 minutes long. He then believed there were minor plot points that could be trimmed and cut the film down to 113 minutes, so he tested this version for an audience in Orange County. However, it was decided that the audience had to work too much to be entertained, and another 20 minutes was cut. Normally, Goldsmith would spend 6–10 weeks on a film score, but for Legend, he spent six months writing songs and dance sequences ahead of time.

Positive reviews included Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique, who highlighted the makeup design by Rob Bottin and Tim Curry's performance as Darkness, saying that "[b]ecause of the visuals (and Curry's performance, which is mostly limited to the last 20 minutes), the film is worth seeing". Widgett Walls of needcoffee. com also praised the film, once again highlighting Bottin's makeup, focusing on the character of Darkness, saying simply that "Tim Curry's Darkness is absolutely incredible." Less favorable reviews included Neil Gaiman's in Imagine magazine, stating that "Glimmers of intelligence show here and there in the script, suggesting that William Hjortsberg [understood] that fairies are wilful, capricious creatures but if you go and see the film don't say I didn't warn you." Vincent Canby of The New York Times felt it was "a slap dash amalgam of Old Testament, King Arthur, "The Lord of the Rings" and any number of comic books", and that the real star was actually production designer Assheton Gorton, who compensated by creating sets "that keep the eye busier than the mind or the heart." Negative reviews include Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, who gave the film half of one star out of four and stated that writing the review was "akin to recalling a bad dream", concluding that "I don't want to remember any more about Legend than to make sure I include it in my 'worst films of 1986' list and never rent it when it comes out as a video cassette." In 2015, the film was described in The Daily Telegraph as the "extinction event" that discouraged Hollywood from making fantasy films. In his original review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times said that the movie was composed of all of the right ingredients to be successful, but that the film simply "doesn't work". He went on to say that "[a]ll of the special effects in the world, and all of the great makeup, and all of the great Muppet creatures can't save a movie that has no clear idea of its own mission and no joy in its own accomplishment". However, with the release of the 2002 Director's Cut, he agreed with many fans on how it was intended to question the balance between good and evil, and gives the main characters moral flaws to display the imperfections of humans.

Legend grossed $15.5million in the United States and Canada, and $8.0million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $23.5million, against a budget of $25million. In the United States and Canada, it spent its first two weeks at No. 1, of three weeks overall in the Top 10 at the box office.

In 2002, Universal released the 113 minute Director's Cut on Region 1 DVD, restoring previously cut scenes and the original Goldsmith score. quote=The Director's Cut was a nightmare to track down. In doing research on this, I had been in contact with a certifiable Legend fanatic named Sean Murphy, who runs the Legend FAQ along with Geoff Wright, and based in part on his info, and a lot of background from Legend editor, Terry Rawlings, I realized that we were looking for one of three cuts. Credit really needs to be given to Garth Thomas for breaking the case. And I should also thank Sean Murphy, Geoff Wright, and Paul MacLean for all of their support.|source=Charles de Lauzirika, Producer

Universal released a Blu ray version of the "Ultimate Edition" on May 31, 2011. With the exception of the 2002 DVD ROM features, this disc carries over all the content from the DVD, including the Jerry Goldsmith scored "Director's Cut" and the Tangerine Dream scored theatrical version. In the 1980s, Warner Home Video released Legend on VHS in the United Kingdom. 20th Century Studios—the international rights holder via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures—has released a Blu ray issue for Region 2 of both the 94 minute European version and the 113 minute Director's Cut, both with Jerry Goldsmith's music. In September, 2021, the film was reissued yet again by Arrow Films (under license from Universal) as a 2 disc "Limited Edition" including the two major cuts of the movie (theatrical and Director's Cuts with their respective corresponding scores), with nearly all the bonus content from the previous Universal releases, plus new documentaries on the film. The International Version was not included on this new set as the rights to that edition are held by The Walt Disney Company (via the library of 20th Century Studios).