Legend is a 1985 American epic dark fantasy adventure film directed by Ridley Scott, written by William Hjortsberg, and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent, Alice Playten, Billy Barty, Cork Hubbert and Annabelle Lanyon.

[5][6] 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 her colleagues Pox and Blunder follow Princess Lili as she visits her forest-dwelling paramour, Jack in the Green.

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.

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.

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.

After saving Blunder, the group takes the ogres' giant metal platters as makeshift mirrors to reflect sunlight into the sacrificial chamber.

[9] While filming The Duellists in France, Ridley Scott conceived Legend after another planned project, Tristan and Isolde, fell through temporarily.

[10] 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.

[10] From that, he conceived a story about a young hermit who is transformed into a hero when he battles the Darkness in order to rescue a beautiful princess and release the world from a wintery curse.

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.

[10] By the time Scott had finished Blade Runner, he and Hjortsberg had a script that was "lengthy, hugely expensive, and impractical in its size and scope".

[17] Scott also consulted with effects expert Richard Edlund because the director did not want to limit major character roles to the number of smaller people who could act.

[19] 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.

[12] However, it would cost too much to shoot on location and he decided to build a forest set on the 007 Stage, named after and used for many James Bond films, at Pinewood Studios.

[21] 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.

Actor Tim Curry took five and a half hours because his entire body was encased in makeup,[17] the film's most challenging character design.

[24][25] Curry had to wear a large, bull-like structure atop his head with three-foot fiberglass horns supported by a harness underneath the makeup.

[11] Due to the fire, the scenes of Lili meeting the unicorns for the first time and finding the cottages in the snow were filmed in the garden of the main house behind Shepperton Studios.

[28] 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.

"[28] He and Universal delayed the North American theatrical release until 1986 so that they could replace Jerry Goldsmith's score with music by Tangerine Dream, Yes lead singer Jon Anderson, and Bryan Ferry.

[29] 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.

The website's consensus reads: "Not even Ridley Scott's gorgeously realized set pieces can save Legend from its own tawdry tale -- though it may be serviceable for those simply looking for fantasy eye candy.

"[35] 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.

[38] 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".

[39] 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.

The second soundtrack features music by German electronic artists Tangerine Dream and was used for the initial theatrical and home video releases in the United States.

The video, which incorporates Ferry and guitarist David Gilmour into footage from the film, is included as a bonus on disc 2 of the 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release.

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.

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.