Harry Potter in Technicolor, With Dolby Surround Sound

With “Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince” coming up, I am reading up on my HP lore, as I am wont to do. And as my history with fantasy series probably warns you, I started thinking how Harry Potter series is another example of how Bollywood Masala genre is much more pervasive than we give it credit for.

“How?” you ask? (OK, I asked the question for you this time. Next time around though…) The series has:

• Crazy villain, his lair, and dressed henchmen: Hey, Lord Voldermort’s got noseless face with slit eyes. His Death Eaters dress in long black robes, cover their faces with masks, and have got snake tattoos on their forearms. Can it get more masala villainish than this? (OK, it can, see below).

  Plus, I know Malfoy Manor appeared late in series, but it has live peacocks and dungeons. What more do you want in a lair?

• Comic sideplot: I dare you, show me any comedy team who can beat The Weasleys, Fred and George. And then you get other Weasley brothers throwing in their two bits (Ron, anyone?), and we can make it a family business.

• College romances: Hero’s bumbling friend falls in love with his nerdy friend. If hero’s friend has a sister and she lives till the end unmolested by the villain, the hero is bound to end up with her. Hero falls for the college beauty queen, only to realize he truly belongs with the girl next door. Have I forgotten any Masala stereotypes?

  OK, so it is more school romance than college one. But then, a. western kids and/or b. today’s kids age quicker and have girlefriends/boyfriends in school.

  Oh yeah, a moon-earth-sun kinda situation, but it is more due to magic gone wrong than intentional, so I won’t count it.

• Parental sacrifices: You can actually watch HP dubbed in Hindi, with both Harry’s parents going “Nahin, mere bete ko mat maro”, without feeling that you are watching something foreign.

But still, something is missing from this story to make it a full-fledged Bolly-masala flick.

• Lost twin brother: Any good masala film has to have a lost twin.

  Here’s how it would play out: When Lord Voldemort tried to kill Harry, his twin brother Larry (is there any other name rhyming with Harry?) was picked up by some Death Eaters. They raised him as their own, put him in Durmstrang, and raised him on the pureblood supremacy doctrine. They also named him Ambrosius or something like that, which probably didn’t help him any more than his original name.

  Years later, he came across Harry while fighting with the Death Eaters. They recognized each other by the identical scars on opposite sides of their faces. Larry then sacrifices his life in place of Harry.

  Unless he has a “good” girlfriend, in which case, he is redeemed by fighting for the good side.

• “Love” sacrifices: OK, Ginny is Ron’s sister, and The Hero does not sacrifice his love for his sidekick (not at the end, at least). So, we can have Ron and Harry fall in love with Cho Chang (or how about Fleur, if it must come to that), before realizing who their (respective) actual love is.

• Item numbers (“Weasley is our king” does not count). Malfoy Manor has rotating tortured prisoners, but no dancing vamps.

Now let me scrubs the images of Bellatrix and Narcissa dancing from my head. But till then, have I missed anything?

 

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

Dinosaurs, and time travel…

Because one thing Jurassic Park lacked, was time machines. And hence, to bridge that gap, we have the British sci-fi drama, Primeval (BBC Site).

Prof. Nick Cutter is a Professor of Palaeontology, who is more interested in the mysteries which cannot be explained by Darwin than conventional studies. His student, Connor Temple, tells him about a giant predator sighted near the Forest of Dean. What Connor is unaware of is that Cutter’s wife, Helen Cutter went missing 8 years ago in the same area, where she was investigating another creature sighting.

Cutter, followed by his lab assistant Stephan Hart and Connor, quickly establish that the animal is really unknown, really huge, and apparently, really bad-tempered, with muscles and talons to match. On the other hand, a reptile specialist Abby Metland is searching the forest for the origin of an entirely new gliding reptile species. And Claudia Brown, a Home Office agent is looking for Cutter to debunk the rumours of giant predator in the forest.

What they all chance upon is something they haven’t imagined: a temporal anomaly, which temporarily connects the modern day Forest to late Permian era. And while the impromptu team manages to send back the creature that came through this anomaly, that is just the beginning. And the things which will come through next are a whole lot worse.

The nature of the show almost begs comparison with the other BBC sci-fi shows: Torchwood and the touchstone of all sci-fi, Doctor Who. While it’s to each his/her own in most other areas, Primeval does score over both in terms of special effects. Although some creatures do seem to move jerkily, I am not sure whether it was the animation or the actual gait of the creature.

I can go on about the traditional team composition in the show, how you don’t need Doctor Who absence as excuse to see this, and so on. But the meat of this series to me is:

The time-travel nature of the show makes it much closer to the Doctor Who, and raises similar questions about the concept, e.g. what we the insiders call Grandfather paradox. Doctor Who solves this problem of meddling in a divine fashion¹. Primeval has a more mundane, or more twisted (depending on your view) solution for this.

(Kinda, sorta, maybe Spoilers Ahead)

I once read somewhere (has to be some sci-fi story), that impact of any ordinary event on the timeline is smoothed over within 400 years².

Which is why when some changes in the ancient past erase a character from timeline, the person reappears although with a different name, different personality, but same face. Although, it might be that they didn’t want two very similar characters in the team, and add more conventional diversity, but the logic behind the change goes a lot deeper than the traditional evil twin or “hit his head and got amnesia”³.

On the same lines, if you watch closely, any change or impact on timeline ends up in a. for a single possible timeline, “been there, done that” b. for those who believe in multiverse, the forks taken for the current reality. So, the attempts of a character to change the future make that future more plausible, and attempts to change the past are already part of the history.

Yes, once you figure it out, many “Big!” plot points are intuitive, which is why I put up the spoiler warning. But believe me, that doesn’t take away one bit from the enjoying the show.

(End of Spoilers)

Oh yeah, you would probably want to watch the series before you watch the upcoming movie.

Watching this show, many will once again wonder why British sci-fi series tend to be more intense and dramatic than their mainly action-oriented American counterparts (even counting occasional Eureka and Sanctuary).

But my question is, can we expect good science fiction shows on Indian television any time soon, or should we just give up and go back to our routine of soaps, comedy/reality and cricket?

 

- The Great Eagle has spoken

P.S. Previously, I wrote about "Brainiac: Science abuse", and "Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister".

Notes:

1. The Doctor, as a Time Lord, has complete knowledge of proper timeline, past and future, and only intervenes in case of any deviations.

2. Or possibly 40 generations. Forgot the exact figure. Help welcome. Of course, this doesn’t count catastrophes or events such as say, premature death of all dinosaurs, or of the first Homo Sapien. We will see what happens to our timeline re: Dodo.

3. Which is another thing I like about British serials. e.g. how wonderfully changing the main actor in Doctor Who is explained, without affecting the storyline or the show.

And the Knobale prize goes to…

Welcome my friends, to the Knobale Prize – Nostalgia Edition. Brought to you this year by “Ol’ Faithful Bicycles”.

Ol’ Faithful Bicycles… where everything except the bell jangles. Ol’ Faithful – you don’t need no bell!

Let’s get directly into it, shall we?

This Year’s Knobale prize for Physics goes to the man who made Physics relevant to the real life. He gave us gems like

He is mooning over her, but she is attracted towards an altogether different person.

No, my friends. That was a class on “Gravity”. The first “he” is the moon, “she” is the the earth… you do the physics.

 

The Knobale Prize for Chemistry is shared between three worthy winners. One winner is recognized for his dedication, as shown when he tried to suck concentrated HCl up a mouth pipette during an experiment.

The other two winners share the prize for discovering the must-have ingredient in any experiment – fun. The discovery occurred when they intentionally used their test-tubes for “cheers”. Unfortunately, they test-tubes were being heated on the burner at the time. Fortunately, the ruined tubes meant they couldn’t follow it up with “bottoms up”.

 

The Knobale Prize for Physiology is won by “Species transformation by DNA manipulation”.

Picture this: 10th standard class. We are learning about types of plants, types of flowers (and types of cows and buffalos for some reason, by that’s neither here or there). The types of plants part includes flower plants like tuberose, which we have just finished learning about.

Teacher walks in for the next class, and asks, “Where were we last time?” Comes the confident and sincere reply, from the last row, “tarbooj”.

 

The Knobale Prize for Literature goes to the masterful treatise, “Affairs are never fair”.

Scene: 8th std class (may even be 9th std). The students are learning English for 3+ years, but still haven’t successfully navigated the tricky terrain called “Antonyms”. Teacher asks, “Antonym of ‘fair’ is…”

“…Affair” pat comes the reply, from this courteous guy.

 

And, last but not the least, Knobale Peace Prize goes to… Yeah, I don’t think I have thought this through. And now I am short a winner. So let’s do what any self-respecting committee would do in such situation…

…and share the prize. I win for keeping the peace on the blog for last 2 weeks. And you, the readers, win for tolerating that peace and/or reading this crazy post in peace. Happy?

 

Till next time, then. Meanwhile, got any nominations/winners of your own?

 

- The Great Eagle has spoken

30 Second Summaries – Hollywood Edition

In today's busy world, the attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. In the world of information superhighways and consequent information overloads, people don't have time to read long pages and pages of reviews of the movies they want to watch, when they can just as well spend that time doing something else.

Now, thanks to The Aerie Institute, you don’t have to worry about losing the thread of the post you were reading just because your boss popped in for a “discussion”. Or you don’t have to choose between a long (but interesting) movie review and that floor-mate you want to talk to so much, who just walked over to the coffee machine.

Presenting 30 Second Summaries – Hollywood (Prequels) Edition:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine:

A tale of sibling rivalry: one has slight personal hygiene issues, other needs to visit his orthopaedist pronto.

And when is The Government going to realise that in any black-ops team, one is going to go rogue (no, not that Rogue), one (mostly rogue’s closest friend/brother) is going to go on “straight and narrow”, and the others are going to get killed, before the good prevails over the evil.

Star Trek:

Going boldly where no sci-fi film has gone before: 2 Spocks.

 

 

 

Angels and Demons: (full review here)

On his first visit to Vatican’s Secret Archives, Prof. Robert Langdon tears up a book. On the second visit, he damages (and possibly destroys) a lot more books. To keep something for his third visit (and probably out of professional jealousy), he helps the Church stop a secret society from destroying Vatican.

Oh, and (Spoiler Alert): The Butler did it.

Coming up:

Terminator: Salvation:

Holy cyborg, Batman!

Spolier Alert: Since the terminators now look (and act) completely human, here’s a tip how you can catch one. Grab a digital photo of the suspect with flash on. If his eyes turn red in the photograph, run and/or kill him.

 

 

Till next time… go on, she is still stirring some sugar in her coffee.

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

 

P.S. Previously on 30-second summaries: Bollywood Edition.

I want to go to there

So, it seems everybody and their uncle (*ahem* that’s my attempt to convey how old the series is) is watching “Star Trek” now. And although, I will watch the movie sometime in near future, I have my eyes fixed on this year’s treats:

First up:

Angels and Demons

In my honest opinion, this book is much better than much-hyped “Da Vinci Code”. Same genre though.

Update: I went, I saw, I reviewed. You comment.

Then, 2 months later is,

Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince

The series starts getting darker from the mid-fourth book, and the 6th instalment brings on many clues, adventures, not to mention romance and kisses. Will be worth waiting for, if OotP was any indication:

Update: Saw midnight show. Posted here.

Then comes,

G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Who hasn’t played with the “toy that protects U.S. oil interests overseas” (not my words) in their childhood? Who doesn’t know about Arashikage Ninja clan? And those costumes are just… wow. (thank god they got rid of those thick black frames of The Baroness).

And what’s up the new Doctor reincarnations and need to play bad characters?

BTW, IDW has restarted the G. I. Joe comics with new storyline (probably similar to the movie), with Joe Origins and Cobra Origins sidelines. And speaking as a fanboy, I must say: go get them.

And then comes the long wait for the movie I am not entirely sure about:

Sherlock Holmes

It sure has a great line-up. The story (or at least the characters) seems to be related to “The Sign of Four”, which has much more live action than most other novels/short stories.

Then again, it is just now that I am coming out of canonical Holmes, and into pastiche territory, so I am still a bit dubious about many “derivations”. The 1968 TV series was good, but the departures from the original story still rankled a bit.

Why can’t they just go ahead and put up a trailer (or two) already? (Thanks Vedang) Christmas is a long way away, you know…

-The Great Eagle Has Spoken