Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Mahabharata as science-fiction epic !

The writer Grant Morrison ("All Star Superman," "Final Crisis") along with film director Shekhar Kapur ("Elizabeth" and a comic writer for Virgin) and Sharad Devarajan (CEO of Virgin Comics) is on scripting an animated adaptation of the Mahabharata as science-fiction epic . Morrison said "I'm trying to convert Indian storytelling to a western style for people raised on movies, comics, and video games."
I have always maintained that the mythology and modern sf both have many things in common.But it depends a lot how the subject is treated /interpreted by the concerned stakeholders.
Mahabarata is a Sanskrit epic of ancient India possessing more than 74,000 verses, long prose passages, and about 1.8 million words making it one of the longest epic poems in the world.
Mahabarata being essentially a war story contains many images and ideas which keep it in the category of a great fantasy literature.Its a welcome idea to put the great Indian epic in an sf way but how the project is handled by the Morrison ,Shekhar Kapoor and Sharad Devrajan is any body's guess.Yet one more distortion in the name of eye-sf or some intelligible and concrete work remains a matter of conjecture.
More details are here .

4 comments:

  1. given the brand value of our epics, such an attempt at making it SF will attract lot of people and would be a commercial success. I am sure.

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  2. चलिए यह एक अच्छा समाचार है। इसी बहाने पुरानी चीजों को नए तरीके से समझने का सुअवसर प्राप्त होगा।

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  3. Mahabharata is Itihasa or history. Calling it SF is sin. It is Panchama Veda or the 5 Veda.
    It has national importance not filmy fun and frivolry.

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