Stephen Hunter tempts fate, as it were.
“Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas,” in fact, has nothing whatsoever to do with Arabic culture or any culture. The story has been cut loose from its historical moorings and transpires in a world that never was, as overseen by gods who never were, in lands that never existed, hard by seas that were never wet.
Chalk it up to a spirit of planetary ecumenism. And, of course, the businessman’s practical grasp of market realities. But I, for one, will mourn the passing of the old tribalisms; I liked the exciting specificity of a divided world. It was nice when the Japanese had samurai, the English knights, the Arabians harems and the Greeks goddesses. This new mulch of place and thing may be safer but it sure is duller—and maybe it’s not even safer.
So the New Sinbad—voiced, however improbably, by the very Yankee Doodle-dandy Brad Pitt—plies a sea that encompasses a Fiji and a Syracuse but not an Alexandria. He is haunted by a god not called Allah or Buddha or God but, improbably, Eris. Eris? Yeah, and she’s voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer—you know, of the Valley Pfeiffers.
Eris is the Goddess of Chaos. Why would there be a Goddess of Chaos? I have no idea.
Apparently, he’s never heard of Google, either.
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