Some Kraken thoughts…
Before that silly Pirates movie came out last year…there was Dreamland’s Kraken.
Yes…I wrote this over 5 years ago…and we had the designs and model for the Kraken 4 years ago.
SOOOOO….when the time comes (and it’s coming soon) I want you all to know…our Kraken came FIRST!
SO THERE!
By the way…the idea for the Kraken came from my love of the movie Clash of the Titans!
I saw it as a kid and fell in love with it.
So our Kraken is more like that anyhow.
🙂
Hack.
Re: Kraken
Yeah, I had a similar experience in a script writing class, where I had a giant squid-like beast attack a ship very similarly to that pirate movie that came out over 2 years later…
Ah well, not like giant squids is anything ‘new’ nowdays anywho, I mean, you have the likes of 20,000 leagues under the sea and [the aforementioned] Clash of the titans (though, that Kraken is more huminoid), or heck, we could even go as far as to mention the Goonies Theatrical cut (with the giant squid that is run off by a tape player in it’s mouth, lol).
No matter, as it’s like my screenwriting teacher said, “you can borrow something, as long as you make it yours and do it better”. Hollywood does that all the time and in some cases, they DO do it better then the original.
In some cases, yes. Take for example, Jurassic Park…although Crichton redid his own material for the script, but the guy has had some experience in doing movies. And Lord of the Rings…I honestly think Tolkien should have been a screenwriter, and that he was ahead of his time. The story was kept, and the world and the behavior carried the social intricacies of Middle Earth better than the interwoven Elven Social Studies lesson in the Ring trilogy.
On the other hand, Hollywood has taken things, made it theirs, and done it WORSE. Much, much worse. Example: Eragon. Although the book was a synthesis work of LOTR and the Pern series, it had enough of a storyline to call its own. Then, they translate it to a movie…which could have been done well. Except they didn’t. Everyone except Eragon acted like they read the book in advance and knew what was going to happen, they didn’t even use the full two hours (another thirty minutes would have filled in story elements and made it coherent), plot-critical characters were butchered or eliminated, Nobody seemed really motivated to act…the only decent character was Saphira, but one dragon does not a movie make. Plenty of other movies fit this description…The Relic, Congo (Crichton was angry about this one)…
Oh no! I hate when that happens! and then everyone thinks you’ve copied it or something 🙁
Silverwolf – You’re right. Eragon was a synthesis of LOTR and Pern, but the storyline wasn’t its own. Have you ever seen the original three Star Wars movies?
I suppose the author thought no one would notice as long as he used a wider variety of genres. Maybe?
The Star Wars storyline wasn’t its own either. Have you ever read The Oddyssey?
Yes, yes, I know, the “hero’s journey.” But there’s a difference. There’s a general resemblance or there’s completely plagiarism. There’s a really good article about it here: http://www.anti-shurtugal.com/starwars.htm
As a Sandman fan, the Kraren will allways remain to me like it was in the World’s End story. On the other hand, it’s a very old monster, and nobody knows how it looks like, so u can pretty much get away with anything. The only question is whether or not u give it human-like intelligence. Most stories just show it as a beast, not something that can talk.
For me, when I hear/read “Kraken” what initially comes to mind is not PotC:DMC. Rather, I think of (I think it was) The Wishsong of Shannara, which I read back in middleschool. Actually, when Dead Man’s Chest was being previewed and I found out a Kraken was going to be in it, I got excited because I remembered the one in that book. I really ought to go back and reread those books…
Anyway, definitely looking forward to your version!
The Kraken is Greek myth. No-one would ever think it was original to the Pirates films, I’m sure.
I won’t watch the Eragon film because I think it’s insanely stupid to film part one of a trilogy when book 3 has yet to be released, and utterly duplicitous to pretend it is a stand alone story when it is not.
Star Wars – like The Matrix – is a fairy tale, but it’s a fairy tale set in space. The main problem with the prequels is that Lucas didn’t understand there is a vast difference between a fairy tale and a story made for children, so he left out the archetypes that make the difference. Oops, eh?
***
Oh yeah – still loving Dreamland 😀 Nastajia might be being mean to Fliss, but she DOES have a point…
I also love Clash of the Titans! I’m excited to see what you’ve done for THIS Kraken.
Elliot – No one would think POTC invented the Kraken, more that it is being used here because it was used in POTC. It’s like how when Underworld came out, ALL my friends suddenly started writing about a war between werewolves and vampires. When LOTR (the movies) came out, ALL my friends suddenly started writing about elves. These were the same friends, too. Some people just go with whatever is popular at the time and as a creative person, it’s such a let down to be lumped in with these people due to an accident of timing or some other silliness 🙂
Nastajia! You are so mean! Jealousy is one thing, but that’s just being nasty 🙁
“The Kraken is Greek myth.”
Actually, it’s Norse. The name is the Norse word for “twisted monster” (or something similar – kind of like the English “wraith”) and the monster was originally called “lyngbachr”… and Ray Harryhausen mistakenly attributed it to John Wyndham…
But you’re close enough for anyone who’s not a mythology obsessive.
Alex
M – you could be right 🙂 A lot ofpeople do draw inspiration from novels, TV & film, and it’s easy to presume a source which is not so 🙂
Alex – according to the many books on Mythology I own, the Kraken appears in the myths of Perseus pretty much as shown in the film Clash Of The Titans. Not that the Norse didn’t have an equivalent, I’m sure, but many mythologies had similar stories. I may not be entirely obsessive, but I’m not wholly reliant on films, either 🙂
Nope – I’m wrong. Clearly too long since I hit the books. According to The Illustrated Encyclopaedia Of Myths & Legends, the Kraken derives from the medieval legends of Western Europe, and is an updated version of the Jewish Leviathan.
More Kraken: According to The Ultimate Ecyclopaedia Of Mythology Perseus killed ‘a sea monster’ to rescue Andromeda. That seems to be general canon, with no name given. Indeed, the number of references to a Kraken in the various books I own is very slight.
I find no references to the Kraken in Viking mythology either, however. Alex, are you sure the root is not Gemanic? The two mythologies were very similar in many ways.
Well. wikipedia dubs it a norwegian myth…
But the word is from the nordic languages and german.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken
I love those silly Pirate movies.
My personal favorite kraken is in the end of the 1st book in the Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce.
Elliot – Well, you seem to have done a lot of the research yourself already… As Daniel said, the word itself seems to be German but the myth is Norwegian (which would make sense, since a lot of Germanic mythology derives from the Norse anyway; See Siegfried/Sigmund, for example [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried]).
Just for further commentary – the monster described in the Perseus legends is properly called Ketos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketos, but this may or may not be the monster itself or, as it says, “a personification” of similar sea creatures), which the constellation Cetus is named after… and I think Ray Harryhausen, the “Clash of the Titans” animator, once mistakenly claimed that the name originated from John Wyndham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kraken_Wakes) – I think the quote is in the commentaries on the DVD version.
So it’s no wonder people are confused.
Alex