Sinbad

For my blog, I decided to refer to the stories of Sinbad. I have read the Sinbad stories before, and I have also seen the DreamWorks adaptation. In fact, I read the stories first, and was shocked when I saw the movie. The differences are staggering, and not just when you look at what the stories’ MPAA rating would be compared to the movie’s PG.

The movie is a swashbuckling adventure with some romance and comedy. According to the online Internet Movie Database (IMDb), “Sinbad, the most daring and notorious rogue ever to sail the seven seas, has spent his life asking for trouble, and trouble has finally answered in a big way. Framed for stealing one of the world's most priceless and powerful treasures--the Book of Peace--Sinbad has one chance to find and return the precious book, or his best friend Proteus will die. Sinbad decides not to take that chance and instead sets a course for the fun and sun of the Fiji Islands. However, Proteus' beautiful betrothed, Marina, has stowed away on Sinbad's ship, determined to make sure that Sinbad fulfills his mission and saves Proteus' life. Now the man who put the "bad" in Sinbad is about to find out how bad bad can be. Written by Sujit R. Varma.” It’s a fun little bit of fluff, with a few life lessons to consider. I was strongly reminded of the old Disney movies (Little Mermaid, Aladdin…).

The stories, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter. In fact, the few similarities that I saw were the existence of the same monsters (although not always in the same environments or situations). In order to clearly juxtapose the movie with the original storyline, I decided to pick just one thing for close perusal: the moving island.

First, here is the Sinbad’s account in The 1001 Nights: “So I embarked in a ship, and... We continued our voyage until we arrived at an island like one of the gardens of Paradise... But while we were thus engaged, lo, the master of the ship, standing upon its side, called out…Come up quickly in to the ship…for this apparent island, upon which ye are, is not really an island, but it is a great fish that hath become stationary in the midst of the sea, and the sand hath accumulated upon it, so that it hath become like an island, and trees have grown upon it since times of old; and when ye lighted the fire upon it, the fish felt the heat, and put itself in motion, and now it will descend with you into the sea, and ye will all be drowned.”

In the movie, there were these random ogres/cyclopes on the island, and the fight between Sinbad (and his crew) and these things is what woke the fish up. In fact, the only continuity between the two situations was that the island was a fish. For all of that, I think both are pretty enjoyable, and worth the time.