The Lindsay Brothers

Category: 100 Extraordinary Adventures

  • The Count of Monte Cristo

    Extraordinary Adventure
    64

    Allow me if you will to take a plot, shine a laser at it and see if, like a cat, you can follow it: Once upon time there was a young man who was unjustly imprisoned. Then one day, an old man finds him and mentors him, all the while telling him of a secret treasure hidden on a forgotten island. The young man executes a daring escape, finds the treasure and takes revenge on his unjust imprisoners. Did you follow it? Or are you one of those cats that prefer shoelaces?

    Impressively this kitten has just finished putting the lace back in the shoe.

    Make no mistake; the following was not a random exercise in plot-following. It was intense scientific test performed with an actual plot taken from number 64 on our countdown: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. This is the condensed version of course. The actual plot from the actual novel is so serpentine and convoluted that it would be difficult to get too far into it without having to leave breadcrumbs. The labyrinthine nature of the plot is due to three important factors. Number one: The book was written for humans not cats. It seems that the bigger brain on a human allows for more characters to be processed at one time. Number two: the novel was first published in serial form. Meaning readers only got a little bit of it at a time and Dumas took a long time telling it. Therefore, by the end, if you hadn’t been following from the beginning, it was difficult to catch up. Factor number three is this: Alexander Dumas did not actually write the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo.

     

    On second though
    On second thought, it's quite possible that this particular version really was made for cats.

    No, a guy by the name of Auguste Maquet wrote it. This is not a joke. Alexander Dumas always got the credit, but his collaborator, a professor at the local university, wrote the basic plots of most of his novels. Not only that but he was a bit of a wunderkind professor, having achieved professorship by the time he was 18. The two first met when Dumas rewrote Maquet’s play called Bathilde. Making it into an instant hit. This thrilled Maquet, and they entered into a partnership whereby Maquet stayed out of the limelight. The legend goes that Maquet was responsible for plot and characters and Dumas was responsible for the dialogue and for stretching the stories into opulent sprawling  epics published by literary magazines in 18 separate parts.

    Judging by this picture, it was probably for the best that Maquet decided to stay out of the spotlight.

    It is difficult to tell whether it was Dumas or Maquet’s responsibility to choose the milieu, but one of the coolest aspects of the story involves the formidable island prison known as Chateau D’if. This is where the main character Edmond Dantes and his mentor are held captive. It is an actual island located off the coast of Marseille in France. Originally started as a fortress, it later became a prison. The fortress itself was such an intimidating piece of rock that no army ever even bothered to test its defenses. When later it was turned into a prison, it made a very good one. For not only was it solid stone, but also sat on an island surrounded by an insurmountable windswept sea. Much like Alcatraz without the fog. Furthermore, although the plot of the novel involves a prison break, no prisoner is known to have ever escaped. Well, besides Sirius Black of course.

    Looks miserable doesn't it?

    Next up … 63!

  • Myst

    Extraordinary Adventure
    65

    There are many reasons to love Myst, not least of which is that there is hardly any mist in the game.  Myst, I presume, is short for “Mystery,” because you’re trying to solve one during the game.  You begin life on a strange, mysterious island that is full of strange, mysterious contraptions and surprisingly devoid of people.  Your job is to visit each of these contraptions, learn how they work, make them work in concert with each other, and get yourself teleported off this rock.

    In that regard, it's a lot like middle management
    In that regard, it's a lot like middle management

    Adventure purists probably are fuming that a video game about a mysterious island made the list, but Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel Mysterious Island did not.  As if Jules Verne doesn’t get enough respect or something.  Nevertheless, Myst is a groundbreaking piece of work, that actually relies on the power of your brain rather than the speed of your thumbs.

    The interface was so simple as to be pure genius.  You point at something.  You click.  Either something happens or not.  There is no inventory to collect, no experience points to earn, no ammo rounds to keep track of.  You do not have to worry about dodging Goombas and Koopas and Dodongos.  Your only weapon is logic.

    Spock beat Myst in 5.2 seconds, and would have been faster if not for his half-human blood.

    This kind of simplistic gameplay put more focus on story and atmosphere, and it is indeed an enthralling environment.  The machines and puzzles are very Mission: Impossible meets steampunk, with a little magic thrown in for good measure.  But everything is relentlessly logical.  Once you’ve got it all figured out, you know how the island functions, and that puts you two steps ahead of LOST’s creative team.

    The only downside is, it’s not much for replayability (unless you’ve been away from the game for 10 years and forgotten how it works).  Now that I know how to operate the spinning dome, it’s not much fun for me to sit there clicking levers.  But on the first time through, it’s completely obsorbing.

    Player's Hint: The forest is connected to the dome, which has something to do with the mountain, which involves the lighthouse. Good luck.

    There’s a version of Myst for iPhone now, which blows me away, since I remember when it required 48 CD-ROMS and an NSA supercomputer to run.  It’s sequel, Riven, is even more awesome, and I highly recommend the entire series.  It’s way better than that Jules Verne crap.

    Next up, #64…

  • Voyage of the Dawn Treader

    Extraordinary Adventure
    66

    “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” This, the opening line of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, has been called one of the best opening lines in the history of books and it almost deserves it. Most people don’t realize that not all books even have opening lines. For instance, James Joyce’s Ulysses actually manages to go the whole book without ever starting. Chronologically speaking Dawn Treader is the fifth book in The Chronic-what-cles of Narnia, however C.S. Lewis actually wrote it third after Wardrobe and Caspian.

    One of the great elements of the Narnia series is that one never arrives at the fantastical realm in the same way twice. This time out Lucy and Edmond and their annoying cousin Eustace arrive because a painting of a ship comes to life and floods the whole room. The captain of the ship is none other than Prince Caspian, the leader of Narnia that the kids helped in the previous book. It is now ten years later and Prince Caspian is sailing the lonely islands of Narnia looking for its 7 lost lords. And while in the book it is ten years later, in the film it is only three. Either way is long enough it seems for Ben Barnes to have grown a beard and shaved off his horrible accent from the previous film.

    Judging by this screenshot, you may think that there is a scene in Dawn Treader where Lucy and Edmond are shrunken to the size of mice. Actually the actor playing Prince Caspian was a real life giant and had to be photographed very carefully so as not to spoil the illusion of him being normal size.

     

    You probably don’t know this but Dawn Treader belongs to a subset of the adventure genre called “immram” which is irish for voyage. Thus it is called Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The genre refers to an Irish myth where monks would pilgrimage to lonely isle to lonely isle seeking isolation or enlightment, often sailing off into the “otherworld.” Apparently they made a lot of these types of stories in Ancient Ireland. Similar to the way Hollywood does a lot of movies about Aliens or Volcanoes. The only problem is that in the immram stories, the monks travel west. The Dawn Treader travels east, hence its name. If it traveled west, it should have to be called Voyage of the Dusk Treader. Immram is very old and very irish so don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard about it until now.

     

    Here the Dawn Treader arrives at the most harrowing island of all: England.

    Dawn Treader is also notable for being a tad more heavy-handed with the Christian imagery than Prince Caspian. Aslan, the lion, first shows up as a lamb and states that in our world you must get to know him “by another name.” Aslan is the Turkish word for lion and he is the son of the Emperor-over-the-sea. Aslan is also the only character to appear in all seven books in the Narnia series, with that said he is still not the greatest creation in the Narnia series. No. That distinction belongs to a mouse by the name of Reepicheep, one of the greatest swashbucklers ever and a great character. His rodent ancestors were the ones that gnawed through Aslan’s ropes in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and as a reward they became talking mice.

    In another overt Christian reference, Aslan reminds us to remove the giant wooden sailing ship from our own eye, before dealing with the splinter in another's.

     

    The 2010 film adaptation from Walden media strays a little bit from the book, but it is fairly accurate. Both of them feature a great little twist concerning the horrible cousin Eustace, which I will not spoil here. In fact though, the portrayal of Eustace by Will Poulter in the film is one of the things that recommends it. The film made  403 million dollars though most of it was overseas. That makes it the 12th top grossing film of 2010 which is a dubious distinction considering that it was post-converted to 3D so that theaters could charge more for admission. Either way it seems clear that Disney dropped the franchise at the wrong time. Walden Media seems pleased as they’re moving ahead with the next film. In a surprising stroke of genius however they are not going to do The Silver Chair which is next in the series as Lewis wrote them but instead going back to The Magician’s Nephew which is the first story of Narnia chronologically, and acts as a sort of prequel to The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe which is the most famous.

    The film also veers away from the book when the young stars break into an impromptu version of Michael Jackson's thriller dance.

     

    Next up … 65!