Five friends take a vacation in an abandoned, isolated cabin in the woods, only to find themselves at the mercy of the supernatural. A simple premise, but loaded with potential. Sam Raimi’s 1981 film, The Evil Dead, began there, then grew with two sequels, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, plus comics and video games, and kicked off careers for not just him but Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert.
The Evil Dead has five Michigan State students, Ash Williams, his girlfriend Linda, his sister Cheryl, their friend Scotty, and Scotty’s girlfriend Shelly, on spring break. They decide on an isolated cabin in the hills of Tennessee*, but the journey there isn’t uneventful. After a near-collision with another motorist in the downpour, the group barely gets across a bridge before it collapses.
At the cabin, things keep getting odd. Cheryl, while trying to draw a clock, draws a demonic face, her hand and arm possessed at the time. She dismisses what she did as just her imagination playing tricks after the long drive and near death encounters on the road. In the main room, though, a trapdoor flies open. Ash and Scotty go down to investigate and find a book, the Book of the Dead, with unusual bindings and a tape recording. The recording is gibberish to them, but is an incantation to summon evil spirits. Upstairs, a tree crashes through a window, causing Cheryl to become hysterical and leave to her room.
Cheryl, though, hears voices from outside. She goes out to look, only to be attacked, held, and assaulted by trees. Cheryl escapes, but no one believes her story. Trees don’t move like that. Ash, though, does agree to take her back to town. The only bridge connecting the cabin to the rest of the world is gone, trapping everyone.
The demons go to work. They first possess Cheryl, making her warn the others that they’re doomed, then having her stab Linda with a pencil. Cheryl gets locked up, but Shelly is the next to be possessed. Shelly attacks Scotty, who defends himself with an axe. He buries Shelly’s dismembered body, then, still shaken, goes out to find another way to escape the cabin.
When Scotty returns, Linda has been possessed, though she never tried to attack Ash. Scotty has found another way out, but falls unconscious before he could say what it is. Linda and Cheryl convince Ash they’re not posessed, but he doesn’t fall for the trick. Cheryl remains locked up in the cellar and Ash locks Linda out of the cabin. As he tends to Scotty’s injuries, Linda gets back in the cabin and attacks with a ceremonial dagger. Ash turns the tables and stabs Linda. He buries Linda, but isn’t able to dismember her as Scotty did to Shelly. The demon possessing Linda takes advantage and bursts out of the grave. Ash decapitates the possessed Linda with a shovel.
Back at the cabin, Cheryl has escaped the cellar and Scotty is now possessed. Ash finds a shotgun and wounds Cheryl, but needs to reload afterwards. He locks himself in the cellar to look for more shotgun shells. The walls seep blood and voices call to Ash. Cheryl and Scotty break through the door. Ash spies the Book of the Dead and throws it into the flames. Cheryl and Scotty fall apart. Ash returns upstairs as dawn breaks. The final shot is a from the view of an unseen evil being rushing through the woods and leaping at Ash.
The Evil Dead was a low budget horror movie by a first-time feature film director. Raimi kept the production at the isolated cabin, adding more problems as shooting went on. All the effects are practical, with workarounds made to make up for the lack of expensive equipment. Dolly zooms**, the shots where the focus pulls in on an actor while pulling the camera away, were done using a long piece of wood covered with Vaseline because proper dolly cameras weren’t available. The movie became a cult hit despite getting an initial X rating from the amount of violence and gore and, as mentioned above, spawned sequels and a musical.
Raimi and Campbell had wanted to remake the movie over the years, but the idea was on hold in 2009. In 2011, though, Campbell revealed during a Reddit AskMeAnything that there was a script for a remake, one that blew him away. While not directed by Raimi, he chose Fede Alvarez to direct the 2013 Evil Dead, making the movie his feature film debut. Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues co-wrote the script, which was then cleaned up by Diablo Cody to fix the dialogue.
Evil Dead starts with a young woman being kidnapped by two men in the woods and taken to a cabin. She recovers to find herself chained to a post and held in place by barbed wire. Along with the men who kidnapped her is her father, who is trying to tell her its for her own good, and an old witch who is ordering the father to pour gasoline on the woman. The woman pleads to be let go, but as her begging falls on deaf ears, the demon possessing her starts berating her father. He sets his daughter on fire, then shoots her.
Years later, five college-aged friends arrive at the cabin. David and his girlfriend Natalie, along with their friends Eric and Olivia, who is a nurse, have gathered to make sure that David’s sister Mia kicks her heroin habit cold turkey. The isolated nature of the cabin should ensure that Mia isn’t able to obtain more drugs or run off. As the group settles in, Mia smells something off, like something died. Olivia dismisses it as withdrawal symptoms, but Grandpa, David and Mia’s dog, also smells something coming from under a throw rug. The group removes the rug to find a trapdoor and bloodstains leading to it.
The group investigates, finding corpses of animals, a shotgun, and a book wrapped in plastic and bound with barbed wire. They take the book and shotgun back upstairs. Eric, either through curiosity or because the book called to him, removes the barbed wire to start reading. The book, Naturom Demonto or Book of the Dead, is filled with writing and illustrations, along with warnings to not read further. The illustrations are of either demons or their human victims. One page has been heavily scribbled out, but Eric makes an impression to get the original words, which he reads aloud.
Mia senses the awakening of an ancient evil. She tries to get the group to leave, but, again, Olivia dismisses it all as withdrawal symptoms. Mia grabs her car keys and leaves anyway. On the road, she sees a girl in ragged clothes too late to brake. Mia swerves instead, sending her car off the road and into the swamp. The girl reappears, following Mia. Mia runs off into the woods, but is caught on a thorn bush. While it first appears that Mia was just unlucky, the vines grab on to her, holding her in place for the girl. The girl shoots black ooze from her mouth. The ooze writhes along the ground and up Mia’s legs.
David and Olivia have followed Mia, finding her car off the road. They search for her and do find her in shock with a number scratches and thorns. Back at the cabin, Mia tries to warn the group, who, once again, passes off her babblings as withdrawal symptoms. Mia withdraws. David, working outside, finds a trail of blood that leads to his now mortally wounded dog. He storms back in, looking for his sister, who is off taking a shower. In the shower, Mia is fully clothed and turns up the heat. David breaks through the door as second degree burns appear on Mia. Eric recognizes the scene from the Book and finally speaks up about it. David takes Mia with him in his Jeep to get his sister medical attention, but the only way in and out has been washed away, forcing him to return to the cabin.
Back with the others, Mia’s possession goes full-demon as she picks up the shotgun and shoots her brother. David dodges enough so that only his arm is hit. Mia then tells the group, in a voice that isn’t hers, that all five will die, then passes out. Olivia tries to retrieve the shotgun, but Mia recovers and overpowers the nurse, covering her in a vomit of blood. The group manages to push Mia into the cellar and lock her away. Olivia heads to the bathroom to clean up. She sees a distorted view of herself in the mirror just before it explodes. Outside the bathroom, Eric hears an unsettling sound. He heads into the room to see Olivia, now also possessed, cutting her cheek with one of the mirror shards. She sees him and attacks with everything she has, mirror shard and hypodermic needle. Eric fends her off long enough to pick up a heavy piece of porcelain to bludgeon her.
As David tends to Eric’s wounds, Eric explains that everything that has happened is in the Book. The extra notes tell of how to cleanse the evil from the possessed, including dismemberment, live burial, or burning. The Book also tells of how the Taker of Souls needs five souls in order to release the Abomination. Mia and Olivia were just the first two.
The possessed Mia is working on the third. Natalie hears Mia crying in the cellar, confused about what happened to her. She opens the cellar to talk, and discovers that Mia is still possessed. Mia bites Natalie’s hand, but Natalie escapes. In the kitchen, Natalie discovers that her hand is moving of its own accord. Scared that she’s getting possessed and hearing Mia’s maniacal laughter, Natalie does the one thing she can think of to stop the infection – she severs her arm with an electric knife.
David and Eric arrive as Natalie’s arm falls to the floor. They wrap up the stump, then try to work out how to stop Mia. David is unwilling to just kill his sister. During the debate, Natalie picks up the nail gun and attacks the two men. Eric takes most of the nails, and distracts Natalie long enough for David to get the shotgun. David shoots his girlfriend’s remaining arm off.
David pulls Eric outside, along with the gasoline can. The plan is to burn the cabin with Mia inside, but she begins singing a lullaby that their mother sang to them. David’s Plan B is to bury his sister alive. He returns inside and into the cellar, but is surprised by Mia. Mia is surprised by Eric, who knocks her out but is fatally wounded by her box cutter. David carries Mia out to the shallow grave. He gives her a sedative, then buries her. Mia wakes up and taunts him with every shovelful of dirt he adds. With Mia completely buried, he waits several moments, then digs her back up. Mia is dead, but David has built a makeshift defibrillator using items in the cabin. It works, and Mia is herself again.
David returns to the cabin to get the keys for his Jeep. He’s attacked by Eric, who is possessed. David realizes that he can’t survive his neck wound, so gives Mia the keys and pushes her out of the cabin. With just him and Eric inside, David grabs the shotgun and takes aim at the gas can. The fireball kills both him and and the re-animated Eric.
Outside, Mia stares in horror at what happened. As she stands watching the flames, a rain of blood starts. Five have died, and Mia’s clinical death counts. The Abomination awakens. Mia tries to run, but the Abomination keeps up, calling her name in a harsh whisper. Mia realizes she can’t keep running and looks for a way to fight back. Her eyes fall on the chainsaw. It takes a number of attempts to get it started, all while keeping away from the Abomination. It is only while hiding under the Jeep that Mia gets the chainsaw started. She cuts the Abomination’s legs out from under it. Mia can’t get away from the Jeep fast enough, though. The Abomination topples the vehicle on its side, trapping one of Mia’s arms under it.
Horror movies are difficult to remake. Fans of the original have certain expectations, but a shot-for-shot remake means all the twists and scares are known. With an cult classic like The Evil Dead, there are elements that are needed in a remake to keep the feel. Evil Dead managed to keep those elements while still being fresh. The original used camera tricks like dolly zooms and long, low, fast shots through the woods while still being in a cramped environment. Those same tricks return, adding to the oddness of the cabin. Changing the names of the victims also helps. Ash Williams would be expected to survive in a remake. No Ash, no foreknowledge of who, if anyone, survives.
Some things, though, shouldn’t be changed. The trap door, the Book, the chainsaw, the rape-trees, all were key in the original and all return in some form. For an added bonus, Sam Raimi’s 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88*** returns, as an abandoned car at the cabin. Everything that made The Evil Dead the horror classic it is returns in Evil Dead. Helping to keep that feel are the producers, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert Tapert, all resposible for the original. Raimi may not be at the helm, but he chose Fede Alvarez. Alvarez delivered a movie that uses the techniques of the original to deliver the chills of the original while still being its own film.
The end result is that Evil Dead is The Evil Dead with a better budget but a tighter film.
* Production filmed in an isolated cabin near Morrison, Tennesee, adding a touch of cinéma verité to the movie. Raimi was known to be happy when his actors bled.
** Also known as Vertigo shots, after the Alfred Hitchcock movie.
*** The Delta 88 has appeared in every movie and series that Sam Raimi has worked on, including Spider-Man as the car Peter’s uncle drove and even in an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess.
So, I sat down recently to plan my next Way With Worlds Column – and realized that I had no more to write. I had all the rewrites I wanted. I had added all the new content I was inspired to add. I had completed my goal.
That goal? Revisit what I’d written over 15 years previously to update it with all the things I learned since then. Mission accomplished – but now there’s more to do.
I’m now going to gather all these columns and do what I should have done all those years ago – edit them into a book. Once that’s done I’ll have the definitive word on my theory of world building for the next fifteen or so years. That’ll also give people something to have and read and keep – much as I found some people had printed out all my old columns.
While editing the columns into a book (and doubtless improving and updating them), I’ll probably be inspired to write other columns. You’ll see those pop up here and there as the mood strikes me – and they will be integrated right back into the book.
This is going to get the full book treatment – multiple edits, organizing the columns into appropriate categories, and so on. I will surely tweak, rewrite, and expand the work, integrating the feedback and insights I’ve had since I started this mad effort. When it’s done it’ll be worth your time.
How long will this take? Not sure because I want to have fun with it – and because I’ve got other projects going on. Right now I’d guess the release would be no earlier than late 2015, and no later than a year from now.
Will there be other non-WWW writing here from me? Probably. You know me, I can’t shut up . . .
. . . though I should also get to some more generators. That Plot Twist one is still hovering over me, and you folks keep sending ideas . . .
Respectfully,
– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
Hey all, hope you’re doing good. So what’s up with the Sanctum?
Well first, you’ll notice the badge there in the sidebar – the Sanctum was declared one of the 101 most useful sites for writers by Writer’s Digest! Glad to know the site’s so helpful – and be sure to check out the other resources in the latest issue!
Next up, generators. Though I’ve got a few ideas (because they never stop) I want to take a hard look at the idea of a Plot Twist generator this summer. However my issue right now is what form it should take. Genre based? Abstract? Wild? Bounded? What kind of options? Or in short . . . suggestions welcome.
I may do a poll once I get some kind of idea in mind.
I got back from Fanime, which of course was awesome. I did some career speaking there and hope to do more events next year.
Way With Worlds will indeed be wrapping up soon – then I start editing it into a book. That probably means I’ll get a few more column ideas, but there probably won’t be anything regular.
I may start doing other creative posts here, let’s see where my mojo takes me . . .
http://www.fanime.com/
The History of Adaptations
Twenties
Thirties
Forties
Welcome to the history of adaptations. I’ve been looking at the top movies of each decade, analysing them to see which ones were original and which ones were adaptations, and of the adaptations, what the source material was. I’m using the compiled list at Filmsite.org as a base. Last time, I looked at the early years of Hollywood, which had about two-thirds of the popular films of the era be adaptations. That ratio has held steady through to the Forties. The Fifties, though, has an astonishing twist.
The 1950s were a boom era. With the Great Depression a memory and industrial capacity expanded, people, mainly men, were working and had money to spend. The automobile became central to lives, leading to the heyday of the drive-in theatre. Television made in-roads into homes; the technology became affordable as people worked. Colour in film became the draw; the typical television was black and white, with a limited choice of what was on. Bigger cities may have as many as six channels available. However, the economic boom allowed people to own both a television and go out to the movies. In movie theatres and at drive-ins, epics had a resurgence. Without a war to pay for, money could be used to create a spectacle.
The popular movies of the era:
1950
Cinderella – an animated Disney film adapted from the folk tale.
King Solomon’s Mines – adapted from the 1885 novel of the same name by H. Rider Haggard 1885 novel. This is the second film of five to adapt the novel, featuring Allan Quatermain.
1951
Quo Vadis – adapted from the 1895 novel of the same name by Henryk Sienkiewicz.
1952
This is Cinerama – original. The film was a demo of the Cinerama widescreen process, a new way of presenting movies. Cinerama presentations required three synchronized 35mm projectors. Seeing a Cinerama film was similar to seeing a play, where the audience would need to purchase tickets in advance.
The Greatest Show on Earth – original. Cecil B. De Mille based the movie on the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus, both of which also appeared in the movie.
1953
Peter Pan – another Disney animated adaptation, based on the play by JM Barrie.
The Robe – adapted from the book of the same name by Lloyd C. Douglas.
1954
Rear Window – Alfred Hitchcock directed this adaptation of the short story, “It Had to Be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich.
Demetrius and the Gladiators – sequel to an adaptation. This movie was a sequel to The Robe, above.
1955
Lady and the Tramp – the third Disney animated adaptation from the decade, based on Happy Dan, The Whistling Dog by Ward Greene.
1956
The Ten Commandments – both an adaptation and a partial remake. Cecil B. De Mille remade his 1923 epic, The Ten Commandments.
Around the World in 80 Days – adapted from the Jules Verne novel.
Seven Wonders of the World – original. The movie was another demo of Cinerama.
1957
Bridge on the River Kwai – adapted from the novel La pont de la riviere Kwai by Pierre Boulle. The novel and the movie used the building of the Burma Railway during World War II as the backdrop. Boulle also wrote the novel La planète des singes, which would get adapted as the movie, Planet of the Apes.
1958
Hercules – adapted from the Greek myth and dubbed from the original Italian.
South Pacific – adapted from the Rodgers & Hammerstein stage musical and from James A. Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific.
1959
Ben Hur – remake of an adaptation, specifically, the 1925 film Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ which was in turn adapted from the novel of the same name by Lew Wallace.
Sleeping Beauty – adapted from multiple sources. Sleeping Beauty will be the last time Disney adapts a fairy tale until 1989’s The Little Mermaid.
Of the eighteen films listed above, fourteen are adaptations, with only three original films and one film that necessitated the creation of a new category, the sequel of an adaptation. Adding to the fun, the three original movies include both Cinerama demos. After three-plus decades of seeing a two-to-one ratio of adaptations to original, the sudden spike in adaptations was unexpected. Removing the Cinerama demos, and the Fifties start to look very much like now in terms of the adaptation glut.
The Ten Commandments is an interesting case. De Mille remade his 1923 silent film with sound, colour, and widescreen, all now available to him. The same thing happened with Ben Hur; the technology caught up to the scale needed for the film. Those are the only two remakes to make the list. The remainder of the adaptations are mostly literary, drawing from novels, short stories, and plays. Even Disney adapted from a story, with Lady and the Tramp and Peter Pan. The other two Disney animated features, though, come from folk tales.
Demetrius and the Gladiator was the first sequel of an adaptation encountered in this series. The film draws from The Robe, though did not have a work of its own to be based on. It’s not original in and of itself, but neither is it an adaptation. Sequels are tricky when it comes to deciding if it’s a continuation or a reboot; a lot of it depends on context and time. With Demetrius and the Gladiator, the decision was to call it a continuation, seeing that it came out only a year after The Robe, thus adding to the complexity and leading to the new category. The category will become useful in later decades.
Once again, the limitations of using just the popular films appears. Missing from the lists are the Westerns and the B-movies. Westerns were a staple, but no one Western breaks away from the pack. B-movies were never meant to be the draw. They appeared before the main feature, especially at drive-ins, so the movies may not appear on the popular film lists. The serial disappears during the Fifties; television series took over that role.
The Fifties give a glimpse of today. Popular films were mostly adaptations, with Disney animated features being a huge draw for audiences. The decade is acting as foreshadowing of today’s film industry output.
Because of this, Realism is both something to seek in our work. It’s also a sign of successfully making a good world and thus a good tale from it – because people live what we create. However when we ask what realism is in an attempt to achieve it, it becomes much more difficult.
It’s difficult because realism is a trickster.
When you step back from a fiction that seems “realistic,” it may suddenly seem rather unrealistic. Yes, you related to that hero fighting a dragon, felt the fire on your face and smelled the blood – but she was fighting a dragon which isn’t exactly a realistic beast. Yet there, in the experience of a good fantasy novel, it seemed real.
At the same time, just having “realistic” elements in a tale or a game doesn’t mean it seems real. A world of cars and computers and gritty real-life experiences can seem detached, empty. The elements are real but it doesn’t “feel” real.
Sometimes dragons are more believable than accountants. Realism is a trickster.
This is because, like any good trickster, realism has more than one face – two, as far as i’m concerned. Your world and the tales and games within it need to show both faces to be truly “real.”
The Face Within: Internal Realism
We can read the most outlandish science fiction or magic-drenched fantasy and be lost within it. We can follow things with little connection to our reality and live them. The unreal, the fantastic, the not-yet true can be very real in a good world and a good tale.
This is because a setting is believable if it has consistent rules and principles that are followed. It may be a realm of clockwork stars and sorcerous cats, but if people can recognize why and how, cause and effect they buy into it. We humans like rules, and when we can divine them in a work, then we can believe it.
Internal realism is this kind of realism -the realism of a setting that is consistent, if outlandish. It can be understood and comprehended and analyzed. Because there is “something” there, it can be believed. Because it can be believed, it seems real to people.
But Internal Realism has an equal partner.
The Face Without: External Realism
When wizard cats battle among clockwork stars, we may find ourselves cheering the heroine because we understand her motivations. When superheroes thunderously battle across dimensions, the blow-by-rib-cracking blow stories make us feel each unrealistic punch. When people who never existed come from cities we’ve heard of, we “get” them. When we read of the glint of sunlight on a sea that never was, we “see” it.
No matter how untrue or fantastical or made-up, a good world with good characters, a good tale, gives us ways to connect to the characters and setting. We can relate to characters, feel their pain, gasp in wonder at a description, or nod at a man who never was describing a good Philly cheesesteak.
This is the realism that we connect to – pain and emotion, location and cuisine, a visual description that is evocative. It is the realism that connects us to the fictional through experiences we can understand. Everything else may be unrealistic, but there are elements of “real” we connect to.
These places of connection could be real historical events, believable technology, relatable characters, and visceral experiences. They can be many things, but all good External Realisms bridge the gap between us and the fictional.
Someone may fight dragons, but we relate to his need to keep an armor budget.
Realism: The Two Sides Together
Both realisms are your goal as a worldbuilder and creator because they work together. Internal realism means your world is understandable and External Realism makes your world relatable. Both mean your audience connects to a setting and its characters – even if that setting is strange and alien.
If you lack Internal Realism, your world is ruleless, hard to relate to, the realistic parts floating in a sea of incomprehensibility.
If you lack External Realism, your world is one people can’t connect to. The characters aren’t relatable, the experiences lack visceral elements, the setting seems lifeless.
Together? Together you can have the most fantastical world that people can connect to. They might not consciously realize just how deep they are in a setting that is totally “unreal” because it’s so real.
Again, realism is a trickster.
Getting Both Sides Of Realism
How does one develop both kinds of realism? I’ve found these things help:
- Good world design. In short, don’t skimp on building your detailed setting. Throw yourself into it and get all those fine details. That’s good for Internal Realism.
- Worlds that work. Put your worlds to work and create with them. Can you write multiple tales n them. Can you write up a description of, say, the magic in a way that explains things understandably. Can you translate characters to RPG rules effectively? Play with your world in different forms to et a feel for it and see if you can relate to it in different ways. When you can, it shows there’s a real “there” here. Good for Internal Realism.
- Empathy for the characters. Learn to step into character’s shoes so you understand them. Understanding them as you build them and write them better – and this mean sin turn people can “get” them. Good for External Realism.
- Ask questions. Asking questions of why and how helps you flesh out a world – and you’ll often be thinking like a reader or player. Good for Internal Realism and External Realism.
- Empathy for the reader/player. Whoever peruses your media you also want to think of them. Is what you write readable and relatable, do your descriptions evoke and inspire. Thinking of how they connect to your work and you world helps you create better -and maybe find some flaws in your work. Good for Internal Realism and External Realism.
A Worthy Quest
Developing both sides of Realism is a worthy quest indeed. It means you’ll create worlds people truly connect with -and works people truly connect with. These are powerful, affecting, and memorable.
In other words, very real.
Respectfully,
– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
With a busy week, I am taking today off as a short hiatus. However, there are plans afoot in the pipeline involving Lost in Translation, plans that involve something more than mixed metaphors. Lost in Translation is working towards branching off on its own, though still part of Crossroads Alpha family. Over the coming summer, expect to see changes and announcements as the transition progresses. On the agenda, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and an appearance at a literary convention. Information will be released as it becomes known.
Lost in Translation returns next week, continuing the history of adaptations with the 1950s.
I’ve spent plenty of time here talking about how to avoid over-communicating your world. There’s a good reason for this, which any gamer or reader or viewer knows – a giant infodump is distracting and reminds one they’re experiencing fiction. You can build a great world, but when you step out from behind the curtain to overexplain it, people become disengaged.
If you’re a person who peruses media, then you’ve also experienced the reverse of the infodump; people who don’t describe their world enough. As distracting as infodumps are, at least something is there to grasp, even if there’s so much you can’t get your hands around it. When there’s not enough information on what’s going on in the world, readers or players are just lost.
You can drown in too much information, or have such a drought of knowledge your interest withers and dies.
As of this writing, I feel like I’ve seen less well-explained worldbuilding in media over the years. Less attempts to bring me into the world, less attempts to connect or engage. I start craving a good infodump because at least I know something is there before I get overwhelmed and my eyes glaze over.
Why? Well let’s explore the reasons people might not explain their world enough.
Here’s what I’ve found. (more…)
- Dragons built civilization (kind of by accident)
Pretend for a moment that you’re a dragon. You have a hoard. You want to keep it protected, but you would like to grow it too and you can’t be over there, getting loot, if you’re over here, protecting the loot that you’ve got.
Lucky for you, there’s no need to choose. Those half-hairless bipeds you’ve noshed on now and again might try to sneak into your hoard every now and then, but maybe they could be trained.
Dragons have their own civilization (of a sort; we wouldn’t easily recognize it as such) but they didn’t intentionally replicate that in humans in the organization of their “hoard-keeps.” It simply grew around them. Writing and mathematics developed in order to keep better records of a hoard’s contents. A technological arms race was the product of struggles between tribes and clans, all trying to protect their patron’s hoard and seize the hoards of others.
The system became so successful that small bureaucracies began to emerge in order to manage all of the various tasks required by the hoard-keep. Having a dragon around is a good deterrent against raiders, too, so there’s another incentive to align yourself with a dragon.
Even today, dragon-run empires are effectively vast hoard-keeps. The national treasury and the dragon’s hoard are one and the same, and when the empire extends its holdings and establishes colonies it does so in order to add greater glory to the name of its dragon.
There are a few ways that this can go, none of them contradictory with any others:
- Dragons may be cooperative in this and age, and nations are ruled or run by multiple dragons at one or more levels.
- Dragons may be capable of breeding with humans, and their children are likewise fertile. Perhaps dragons simply fill the middle ranks with their descendants but are still active forces themselves. Perhaps dragons don’t care what’s done so long as the trains run on time (are there trains in this world?) and the effective head of state is a descendant of the dragon. Indeed, that might be the difference between nobles and commoners.
- Going a little further on that idea, Dungeons and Dragons isn’t the only place where you find dragon-descended humans having magic powers thanks to their ancestry. Perhaps this is the source of all magical ability. Speaking of which, what if dragons were able to magic to great effect but only in certain ways, while their half-breed descendants are not as powerful but can turn their small amount of magic to a number of ends?
- A generational story centering on a dragon
We can run with this idea even if we assume that civilization arose more or less normally. Let’s push the date of the Bright Idea further into the future.
Imagine a story, told over generations, that starts with a few people that have been approached to protect a dragon’s hoard. Perhaps the dragon has made a cost/benefit analysis and decided that what it pays them will be a smaller loss than if there were no one to protect the hoard. Or maybe there’s something that people really like and dragons care little or nothing for. If dragons have valuable bodily substances (we’ll get to that next week) then maybe it bleeds itself or milks its venom on a regular basis for them.
Regardless of how it gets started, it goes on. The years pass and a secret society forms around the hoard. You don’t want to make this a matter of public knowledge if you can avoid it, after all. You want to help your fellow hoard-keepers in day-to-day life while you’re at it, too. And having a series of initiation levels will help you sift wheat from chaff and discover who can be trusted.
Imagine that the treasure of the Freemasons and the Knights Templar was a dragon’s hoard (and also not fake) and you might have the general idea.
Eventually, in process of time, the secret society transforms further. Perhaps it insinuates itself into society so thoroughly that it effectively takes control. Perhaps it becomes a religion, secret or otherwise.
- A generational story from the point of view of a dragon
Alternately, why don’t we forgo the humans entirely? We’ll get rid of the whole process of characters dying and being replaced by others, too. Instead, our story, still being told over a period of centuries, has a single protagonist: the dragon itself.
Start with the durg is born, or hatched, or whatever you want to call it. From youth to extreme old age we follow the dragon. History moves, the times change, and the world becomes ever more different. Once no bigger than a thumb or a hand, the story goes on until our dragon is as big as a mountain and has to retreat into the bones of the world or the depths of the sea.
And what would that be like, if the story continued for a little bit more? I want to know what civilizations exist beneath the waves. At the very least there must be dragons, great big ones that hibernate for years and have lived for millennia, and the kind of society that would develop under those circumstances.
By the way, does that proposed life cycle make dragons out to be like great big fire-breathing sea turtles?
R. Donald James Gauvreau works an assortment of odd jobs, most involving batteries. He has recently finished a guide to comparative mythology for worldbuilders, available herefor free. He also maintains a blog at White Marble Block, where he regularly posts story ideas and free fiction, and writes The Culture Column, an RPG.net column with cultures ready for you to drop into your setting.
Well it’s finished, the Magic Power Generator! I got inspired my the more “yell and use” magic of anime and video games, and this is an idea I’ve kicked around since the Magic Guild Generator and analyzed some of the Fairy Tail universe.
Beyond making appropriately magical-sounding powers, I also got to try out some new ways to organize data so it makes alliterated, artistic-sounding powers – like ‘Negative Nightmare Negation Necromancy’ or ‘Raiser Runecraft.’ It was pretty educational, and I figured out a few techniques to organize and sort data more efficiently and in ways to let me get it more poetic. I’m sure those lessons will be used in the future.
Here’s some regular ones:
- Ifrit Trance
- Gas Negation Invocation
- Forgotten Diamond Benediction
- Legendary Wind Magic
- Telekinesis Liberator Jinx
- Secret Yeti Jailer Magic
- Litch Spiritualism
- Hydra Executioner Magic
- Inescapable Undead Glamour
- Evil Wind Potions
And some ‘artistic’ ones:
- Earthquake Exorcism
- Obliteration Occultism
- Earth Executioner Exorcism
- Nightmare Negator Necromancy
- Hurricane Hermeticism
- Assistance Abjuration
- Ancestral Acid Alteration
- Purple Poltergeist Prayer
- Negative Nereid Necromancy
- Press Prayer
Beyond that writing Way With Worlds as I count down to finishing what I wanted to cover – and debating what else to write here when that’s done. If there’s anything you’d like to see me cover, let me know – I love to write so am always open to hear what directions help people!
Finally my friend Ewen has created this book of random tables that I’m sure any Sanctumite will want to see. And, yes, he’s encouraging me to do my own . . .
Oh and yes, considering the Plot Twist generator now. Might be fun to do over the summer . . .
Respectfully,
– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/
The Phantom of the Opera, or, in it’s original French, Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, originated as a serial by Gaston Leroux, appearing in Le Gaulois starting in September of 1909. Since then, it has been collected as a novel, translated, and adapted in many ways, including the 1925 silent film with Lon Chaney, the 1943 film with Claude Rains, the 1962 Hammer horror film with Herbert Lom*, the 1986 Broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the 1974 rock opera horror comedy, Phantom of the Paradise.
Sort of.
Phantom of the Paradise didn’t just adapt The Phantom of the Opera. Writer and director Brian De Palma was inspired by hearing a Muzak cover of a Beatles song in an elevator and wondered what it was like for the original artist. From there, he went to the German legend of Faust, a story that has also been adapted often since Christpher Marlowe’s The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus in the very early 1600s. Let’s sum up both stories.
Faust is the classic story about making a deal with the devil. Unhappy with his life despite being a successful scholar, Faust calls upon the Devil to make a trade. For knowledge and magic powers to let himself discover the pleasures of the world, Faust is willing to sell his soul. Mephistopheles, representing the Devil, agrees but with one condition; Faust has only so much time, the amount varying by telling of the legend, and when time’s up, his soul is forfeit. Mephistopheles performs the magic Faust wants and, time does run out. Depending on the version of the legend, Faust is sometimes saved by striving to be a better man despite the deal with the devil. Most versions, though, see the scholar damned to Hell for eternity, thus showing the lesson of what happens when one sells one’s soul.
The Phantom of the Opera is less about selling one’s soul and more about obsessive love. The Paris Opera House is home to the story about the dangers of obsession and show business. Lurking within the bowels of the Opera House is the near-urban legend Phantom. The Phantom, very much real, hears a singer, Christine Daaé, and falls in love** with her. Christine, though, loves another, Raoul. The Opera House next production is a operatic version of Faust. Christine, however, does not get the lead role. Instead, La Carlotta, a prima donna in both senses of the term, gets the part, upsetting the Phantom, who has taught Christine how to sing. The Phantom insists that Christine marry him, for no one else may have her. Christine tells Raoul about the Phantiom, but the scoundrel overhears and kidnaps Raoul and threatens to destroy the Opera House. It is only through Christine’s pity and empathy for the Phantom that she and Raoul are able to escape and prevent the explosion of the theatre.
Phantom of the Paradise takes both tales. The opening of the movie has a good summary of what it’s about; “This film is the story of that search, of that sound, of the man who made it, the girl who sang it, and the monster who stole it.” The three main characters are Swan, played by Paul Williams, Winslow Leach/the Phantom, played by William Finley, and Phoenix, played by Jessica Harper. Williams also wrote the music for the movie. Winslow is a budding young songwriter hoping for his big break by following the band, the Juicy Fruits. Swan, owner of Death Records, is looking for a new act to christen his soon-to-open cathedral to rock, the Paradise and hears Winslow’s work, “Faust”. Swan, though, wants an ingenue, someone he can guide personally, not a songwriter who does his own work.
Swan isn’t one to have terms dictated to; he does the dictating. Winslow’s “Faust” is exactly what he needs for the Paradise, so Swan acquires the song without letting Winslow know. Winslow susses out that something’s up and goes to Swan’s mansion, where there is a line up of women who want to be Swan’s next big hit. One, Phoenix, is singing “Faust”. Winslow is impressed, and is willing to allow her and just her to sing his work. Still, “Faust” is his, not Swan’s, so he tries to get in to see the elusive artist. Swan, though, arranges for Winslow to be arrested, tried, and sentenced to get him out of the way.
In prison, Winslow is volunteered for experiments, thanks to Swan, and has his teeth replaced. Winslow escapes, but in a freak record press accident, has half his face disfigured and his vocal chords destroyed. He’s reported dead, but Winslow escapes into a theatre. Unseen, he reaches the costume department and takes a costume, including a large bird mask that hides his disfigurement. When the Paradise opens, the Phantom is there to sabotage the Beach Bums, formerly the Juicy Fruits. Swan works out who the Phantom is, though, and makes an offer. In return for re-writing “Faust”, Swan will have Phoenix in the lead. Winslow agrees, and signs in blood. Swan bring Winslow to the recording room and provides a voice box. It works best when Winslow is plugged into the recording equipment at the studio, but gives him an electronic voice otherwise. Winslow works hard to rewrite “Faust”.
Swan breaks the deal soon enough. He replaces Phoenix with his newest act, Beef, played by Garrit Graham. Beef. a glam rocker, doesn’t have the range Phoenix does. The Phantom discovers the duplicity as Swan’s people brick up Winslow’s recording studio. Winslow breaks out, his desire for vengeance. Beef is the first to discover the Phantom on the loose. He hears the Phantom’s anguish. Worse, the Phantom shows up while Beef is taking a shower and threatens him, Swan, and the Paradise if Phoenix is not given “Faust”. Beeef tries to flee, but is forced to stay.
“Faust” debuts, with the Undeads, the former Beach Bums, backing up Beef. The Undeads are in make-up similar to that used by Kiss*** while Beef struts around like a glam Frankenstein****. The Phantom, though, is ready. He throws a neon lightning bolt at Beef, electrocuting the singer. Swan’s assistant, Philbin, pushes Phoenix on stage to keep the crowd from tearing the Paradise apart. Phoenix is a hit.
As Phoenix leaves the stage, the Phantom kidnaps her. He reveals himself as Winston and implores her to leave before Swan can get his hooks into her. Phoenix doesn’t believe him and runs away to Swan. Swan seduces her, where he notices Winslow watching. Winslow tries to kill himself, but, despite the deep stab, still lives. Swan later explains that while he lives, Winslow will live, but once he’s dead, the wound will bleed as it should. Winslow, seeing the loophole, tries stabbing Swan, but Swan has his own contract.
Swan announces, through the cover of Rolling Stone, his upcoming wedding to Phoenix. Winslow, trying to make use of the loophole Swan revealed, goes digging through Swan’s collection of film. One reel gets the Phantom’s interest. On playing the film, Winslow discovers the Swan once tried to commit suicide twenty years before, so that he wouldn’t age. Before he could slice his wrists open, his mirror image talks to him, promising eternal youth for as long the film is safe. On another monitor, Winslow discovers Swan is planning on becoming an early widow, with Phoenix being killed just after the ceremony is complete. The reason? As Swan puts it, “An assassination live on television coast to coast – that’s entertainment.”
The Phantom destroys Swan’s collection of film, including the one that keeps him young, in a fire, then rushes down to stop the sniper from killing Phoenix. The wedding turns into chaos. As Swan’s film succumbs to the flames, Swan ages twenty years in mere moments before dying. Winslow has his masked knocked off, and the self-inflicted wound bleeds out.
As mentioned earlier, Paul Williams wrote the music for the movie. To give an idea of the range of styles involved, the Juicy Fruits were a greaser band, the Beach Bums were in the style of the Beach Boys, and the Undeads were proto-death metal with a goth element mixed with glam. Williams has cited “Our Souls” as his favourite piece of all that he’s written.
Phantom of the Paradise opened to decent numbers in Los Angeles, but flopped everywhere else except Winnipeg, Manitoba. The film remained in theatres in Winnipeg for four months straight, then made regular returns for over a year. The soundtrack went double gold in Winnipeg alone; a gold record in Canada at the time represented 10 000 sales. Winnipeg’s population in 1976 was over 560 000. In 2005, the fan-organized Phantompalooza was held in the theatre where the movie first opened, getting Gerrit Graham (Beef) and William Finley (the Phantom) out for it. The following year, Phantompalooza had as many suriving cast members inviited as the organizers could find and had Paul Williams in for a concert.
Despite being a flop outside Winnipeg, the movie was still influential. Without Phantom, there would be no Daft Punk. The two men who would become Daft Punk met at a showing of Phantom when they were 12 and 13. Their costumes were inspired by the Phantom’s. Guillermo del Toro was also inspired by the movie and would have named a daughter Phoenix if his wife hadn’t vetoed the suggestion.
The movie was ambitious. De Palma used both Faust and The Phantom of the Opera as inspirations, and borrowed from other literary works including Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Grey. During the wedding scene, De Palma had cameras in the crowd just to capture the action happening to make the scene feel more chaotic. Swan’s office and home are filled with mirrors, all the better for him to see the one he loves most. Likewise, the voice Swan gives to Winslow through the voice box is Swan’s own, the perfect voice. The movie reached high, and even with the stumbles, succeeds more than it fails.
For what is now known as a cult film, the movie has a pedigree of award nominations. It was nominated for an Oscar, Best Music Scoring, Original Song Score and/or Adaptation for Paul Williams, who lost to Nelson Riddle and his score for The Great Gatsby. There was a Golden Globe nomination, Best Original Score, which was won that year by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner for their work on The Little Prince. The movie was nominated for Best Horror Film for the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films, losing to Young Frankenstein. Phantom and Brian De Palma lost to the same movie and its writers – Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder, and Mary Shelley – for the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation. The film also got a nomination for the Writer’s Guild of America for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen, losing to Blazing Saddles. Not bad for a film popular only in Winnipeg.
Phantom took a huge risk, adapting both the legend of Faust and The Phantom of the Opera and turning them into a rock opera. As an adaptation, it melds both well. It’s a matter of taste on whether the movie is successful. It’s biggest drawback is that it is not clearly of any one genre. At the start, I called the movie a rock opera horror comedy, the sort of movie that leads to becoming a cult hit. The result, an ambitious, very 70s film that treats its origins and inspirations with respect underneath the outrageous costumes.
Next week, the history of adaptations continues with the 50s.
* The Hammer film used Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, creating a trope for that piece of music.
** Love, lust, it’s blurry from the Phantom’s view. Not so much from Christine’s.
*** Kiss revealed their make-up first in 1973, but Phantom had been filming since 1972. It looks like parallel development happened, where both the movie crew and Kiss came up with the idea independently.
**** I’d compare Beef to Tim Curry’s Frank N. Furter or his creation in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but Phantom came out a year prior.
