Voyage of the Unicorn
Made for TV Movie about a family consisting of a single father (Professor Alan Aisling) with two daughters, ages 9 (Cassie) and 15 (Miranda), who, after escaping an attack by Trolls in the real world, end up going on a journey in a fantasy world. They find out they are involved in a prophecy involving Trolls taking over a fantasy world. Naturally, this family are the chosen ones.
The family ends up traveling around to different islands on their ship, the Unicorn, and go on a series of largely unrelated adventures in the pursuit of their main goal: fulfilling the prophecy and finding the dragon skull that will end the trolls' reign of terror. Clocking in at over 2 hours and 40 minutes, the film is almost a Doorstopper in movie form, as it was originally delivered as a 2-part film.
An adaptation of the richly illustrated children's book Voyage of the Basset. Some things have changed in the adaptation, such as Aisling being less of a jerk who's obsessed with proving his journey to people at any cost, and the removal of the gremlins and harpies, but at the same time, much was added to the plot and the characters were fleshed out a lot more, making this both an Adaptation Distillation and Adaptation Expansion.
- Adaptation Distillation - Removed from the book are gremlins and harpies who rode aboard the ship, making it very crowded. They played no actual role in the plot anyway. Alan Aisling's character was cleaned up a bit, by removing a major character flaw. The time period was changed from the 19th century to modern times.
- Adaptation Expansion - The plot and characters (the ones who remained) have more depth in the movie. Brief scenes were heavily expanded upon. Plus, the prophecy aspect of the plot was added.
- All Just a Dream - See Or Was It a Dream? below.
- All Myths Are True - Say hello to the minotaur, Medusa and a sphinx!
- All Trolls Are Different - These guys are a war-hungry military race.
- Avoid the Dreaded G Rating - Subtle. There's no swearing, but just barely enough violence to get a PG. While a good deal of the actual fighting is slapstick, there's some surprising cuts on Miranda's face with some blood later on (ironically; it's not from fighting).
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished - Handled in a "tarnished in an aeshetically pleasing way". Miranda later gets bruised and cut, and looks visibly damaged and hurt, but it still looks attractive on her.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe - Credendo Vides. And how!
- Chosen One - The prophecy says... "a man of learning and two beautiful maidens" will free the land. That must mean Alan Aisling (a college professor) and his daughters.
- Damsel in Distress - Cassie.
- For the Evulz - After a scene in which Cassie tells the trolls that they could live in peace and be accepted by the other races, the troll leader makes it clear he doesn't care about turning good.
- Kid Hero - and Parent Hero too!
- MacGuffin - The dragon skull.
- Made for TV Movie
- Or Was It a Dream? - After the family returns home, they see some of the characters they met in the real world
- Paper-Thin Disguise - Okay, so they may be distracted and not notice right away, but that is one fake troll "disguise".
- Science Destroys Magic - The titular vessel's motto is "Credendo vides", translated in - universe as "by believing, one sees". In other words, you have to ignore science and believe in the fantastic without evidence before you can see behind The Masquerade.
- Swiss Army Tears
- Taken for Granite - Which ends up causing another sub-quest: undoing the effect.