Damn Disney and its inherant whitening of facts! I always believed Nemo to be some strange Englishman with a funky sci-fi name. I saw James Mason and Kirk Douglas and the giant rubber squid. There was no hint of diverse ethnicity in that movie. All the illustrated comics that I read of the time were similar. Nemo was implied to be white.
Now, the upcoming movie “League of Extraordinary Men” shows Nemo in Indian garb. At first I thought, HA!! Holloywood is at it again, changing well known story facts to suit the business. Then I went to their sight. Sure enuf, Nemo origins = India. Why would they do that? I googled “Captain Nemo Origin”
I find that he IS Indian!!
Theres some vague reference about him in “20,000 leagues under the sea” But I am not sure where exactly it is.
Question becomes Did Anyone else here know from a long time ago (perhaps someone who actually read the story instead of watching the movies) that Captain Nemo was from India? If anyone here did, can you please clue me in as to where in the novel it ws revealed that he was from India?
IIRC it isn’t in 20,000 Leagues, but is revealed in The Mysterious Island. (Also, IIRC, having Nemo being Indian – a swipe against British Colonialism – wasn’t his first choice. He originally wanted him to be Polish or something.)
The silent version of **20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ** – which is a pretty good film, by the way – depicts Nemo as an Indian prince. Unfortunately, to a lot of peopl he looked kinda like a dark-skinned Santa Claus, and at Blackhawk films they referred to this version as “the Santa Claus film”.
A quick glance through my copy of The Annotated 20,000 Leagues (with notations by Walter James Miller) reveals the following (footnote 3 on p. 355):
“…but he did not assign a definite nationality to Nemo until late in The Mysterious Islan (1875)…There the dying Nemo identifies himself as Prince Dakkar, son of th rajah of the Indian territory of Bundelkund. Dakkar served as a leader in the great Sepoy Revolt of 1857. He was ‘ten times wounded in twenty engagments’, his family killed, the rebellion crushed, and ‘a price set upon his head’ by the British Empire. He escaped with ‘some score of his most faithful followers’ and took to the submarine life.”
Does this thread title constitute a spoiler? I mean, granted, it’s a century-old piece of literature (or rather, two pieces of literature), but I know I was quite surprised when I learned Nemo’s origins, and I think that knowing it in advance would have somewhat blunted the impact.
Well, since he’s clearly depicted bearded and turbaned in all the print ads I’ve seen and identified in all the reviews and press kits as “Nasruddin Singh of Monsoon Wedding,” I’d say the cat’s pretty much out of the bag.
Here’s a spoiler for you, though:
In the last issue of the first comics series of League, it was strongly implied that Nemo was actually Sherlock Holmes in disguise. There’s been no follow-up on this so far.
I’m not sure how. The only thing I can find that hints to me that he might be Holmes is his quick identification of Moriarty. (Which was in issue 5, not 6) While Holmes was adept with disguises, Nemo’d be an odd choice (If I were hiding after faking my own death, I wouldn’t chose a dead criminal as my false identity), and Holmes never displayed - at least in the stories I’ve read - the incredible amorality displayed by Nemo in issue 6. The circumstances surrounding Moriarty and Holmes’s supposed deaths (and their adventures before that) aren’t exactly unknown in the world of League, so I don’t see that as much of a hint. Quatermain or Mina could as easily have been the ones to figure it out.
The big clues were: O’Neil drew the two characters with identical profiles in #5, but started hedging on Nemo in #6. Also, see Mycroft Holmes’ reaction to Mina Murray’s attempt at a consomatory comment about Sherlock. There were two clear indications: Moore wanted us to think that Holmes was disguised as a member of the League, and he wanted us to think it was Nemo. A better choice would’ve been Griffin, although in retrospect I’m sure glad that wasn’t the case.
I understand where you’re coming from, but if someone hasn’t yet read a book published that long ago that many consider a classic I’m sure you’d understand the lack of thinking that the poster would need to use a spoiler box.
I once read an un-boxed spoiler here about a 1930’s classic movie I never got around to seeing and thought, “Oh darn, that’s life.”
The Mycroft part is irrelevant, because he knows that Sherlock is alive, whether he’s Nemo or not. I think that was just meant to be a in-joke type nod. At any rate, as I said, Moore has denied this, and, I THINK, even denied he even intended it. But I’d have to look around to be sure.