james_davis_nicoll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-07-02 11:51 pm
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-07-02 11:51 pm
My alt-Mummy film
The inspiration being the 1999 Mummy movie is not without problematic elements.
Imagine an Egyptian film company wanting to make a movie about idiots waking a horror in Canada that only the Egyptian lead can resolve.
Not something First Nations related because that will run into the same... let's call it research fail... issues the Mummy did.
Unfortunately, Canada the Settler Nation is antiquity deficient [1]. The Thing What Et the Franklin Expedition has been done and I think the Frankenstein Monster in Canada has been done as well. But as far as I know, why Norse occupation of L'Anse aux Meadows ended isn't known.
The site was occupied by other groups before the Norse arrived but there's a 150 year gap where the site was unoccupied before the Norse arrived.
The sixth century: Saint Brendan reaches L'Anse aux Meadows and leaves ... something in a barrow with unambiguous warning signs. The three or four indigenous cultures that occupy the region understand warnings, are not idiots, and do not figure into the narrative in a research fail way.
It might be funny to have several brief scenes in which people from the Groswater tradition, the Middle Dorset, the Cow Head Group and Beaches traditions all immediately reject poking the whatever as clearly a very bad idea.
But then in the 11th century the Norse (and their Egyptian pal) come along.
One of the Norse decides the only reason a barrow would have that many dire warnings is because there's treasure. So he digs it up. Cue 90 minutes of carnage, until the Egyptian who happened to be accompanying the Norse saves the day.
What's in the barrow? Saint Patrick, whose corpse was the focus of the Battle for the Body of Saint Patrick. As is well known, Saint Patrick's piety won him the right to judge the Irish during the Last Judgment. Brendan moved the body to make sure nobody disturbed it before then.
As the Norse discover, Saint Patrick can be pretty judgmental even when he is not dealing with the Irish and even when it isn't the last trump, esp if it is a pagan who dug him up.
1: When I say Canada is antiquity deficient, of course indigenous people lived here for thousands of years but stuff pertaining specifically to the settlers is all post-Columbus. So the if the whatever is European, it got here after 1492 (or 1000, if it is Norse).
Imagine an Egyptian film company wanting to make a movie about idiots waking a horror in Canada that only the Egyptian lead can resolve.
Not something First Nations related because that will run into the same... let's call it research fail... issues the Mummy did.
Unfortunately, Canada the Settler Nation is antiquity deficient [1]. The Thing What Et the Franklin Expedition has been done and I think the Frankenstein Monster in Canada has been done as well. But as far as I know, why Norse occupation of L'Anse aux Meadows ended isn't known.
The site was occupied by other groups before the Norse arrived but there's a 150 year gap where the site was unoccupied before the Norse arrived.
The sixth century: Saint Brendan reaches L'Anse aux Meadows and leaves ... something in a barrow with unambiguous warning signs. The three or four indigenous cultures that occupy the region understand warnings, are not idiots, and do not figure into the narrative in a research fail way.
It might be funny to have several brief scenes in which people from the Groswater tradition, the Middle Dorset, the Cow Head Group and Beaches traditions all immediately reject poking the whatever as clearly a very bad idea.
But then in the 11th century the Norse (and their Egyptian pal) come along.
One of the Norse decides the only reason a barrow would have that many dire warnings is because there's treasure. So he digs it up. Cue 90 minutes of carnage, until the Egyptian who happened to be accompanying the Norse saves the day.
What's in the barrow? Saint Patrick, whose corpse was the focus of the Battle for the Body of Saint Patrick. As is well known, Saint Patrick's piety won him the right to judge the Irish during the Last Judgment. Brendan moved the body to make sure nobody disturbed it before then.
As the Norse discover, Saint Patrick can be pretty judgmental even when he is not dealing with the Irish and even when it isn't the last trump, esp if it is a pagan who dug him up.
1: When I say Canada is antiquity deficient, of course indigenous people lived here for thousands of years but stuff pertaining specifically to the settlers is all post-Columbus. So the if the whatever is European, it got here after 1492 (or 1000, if it is Norse).
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(Anonymous) 2025-07-03 09:45 am (UTC)(link)(This is definitely better than my "get a time machine, swap Oded Fehr and Brendan Fraser's roles" idea, as well as being slightly more achievable)
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Mind, I'm not thrilled by the idea that CTV Sci-Fi will likely not be airing that series.
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Was going to say, a pity ibn Fadlan wasn't Egyptian enough or (by this time) alive enough to stand in.