Young Merlin works magic in Camelot
Merlin (Colin Morgan) and Prince Arthur (Bradley James) star in the big-budget television adventure series Merlin.A reworking of the ancient legend of the wizard and the king borrows from the Smallville style, writes Michael Idato.
SUPERMAN soared from the destruction of Krypton, Wonder Woman from the ancient Amazon city-state of Paradise Island and Batman from the crime-soaked alleys of Gotham City. Such "origin stories", as they are called in the comic-book vernacular, are compelling because they mark ordinary mortals for future greatness, saysMerlin co-producer Julian Murphy.
"Something about these people marks them out from the rest of their world, there is something unique and special about them, and somehow that is tied to their origin," he says. The big-budget adventure TV series Merlin, which Murphy has co-produced with Johnny Capps, is the origin story of the future King Arthur and the wizard Merlin, a sort ofMalory-meets-Smallville pitched at a family audience.
The story of King Arthur is constructed from a number of works, but particularly Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin work Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), written around 1138, and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, published in 1485. Most of the Arthurian adaptations for film and television - from 1915's The Quest of the Holy Grail toExcalibur (1981), First Knight (1995),Merlin (1998) and The Mists of Avalon (2001) - are predominantly derivative of both, but particularly the latter.
The degree to which the source material - the countless films and the medieval texts - actually influences the story of this retelling of Merlin, is debatable. Murphy acknowledges the brilliance of John Boorman's Excalibur (1981) and says both he and Capps watched the Hallmark miniseries version of the same story.
"But I think Johnny is right when he says we're probably more influenced by something like Smallville than we are by something like Malory, because I think the struggle is to make this contemporary, and this is a story before all of that happened, we're trying to see them grow up and that dramatic truth is just as important as what follows."
Capps says the key was in subverting what existed. "We had to understand that Merlin was an older man and Arthur was king, and then subvert that, so when you first meet the young Prince Arthur, he's a bit of a dickhead. He's a modern-day Prince Harry, he occasionally shows great strength but likes to party and have fun. He's a slightly comic character but occasionally you see heroic moments, and the audience should enjoy going on the journey, seeing the first signs of the king he will eventually become."
Both agree the series has some obligation to the keystones of the story - a romance between Arthur and Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, and others - but otherwise takes a very loose approach to the material on which it is based. "You have to take the view that this legend is 1200 years old or so, and it's been rewritten hundreds of times in that 1200 years," Murphy says. "And I think if you worry about that you will go quietly insane, because for every version you tell me, I can tell you another. There are lots of things about the story which are enduring and powerful and you have to treat them with respect, the story of Guinevere and Arthur for example and the Round Table, because it is the story of how a society becomes equal."
In the first season, for example, the sword Excalibur makes an appearance, but not in the way audiences may expect. Murphy thinks he and Capps have set the balance fairly, and haven't overplayed any of the series' aces. "Obviously we don't want to tell the story too fast, but yes, you can begin to see there is a danger that when the audience sees Excalibur, for example, they want to see Arthur wield it in battle. I'm not saying that's not something we won't ever do, we're just not going to do it too soon. At the same time, I think if you watched this show about Merlin and Arthur and you didn't see the heroic characters they will become deep down, then that would be incredibly frustrating."
The challenge is twofold; not just rethinking the story for a contemporary audience, but shifting focus within a legend that casts Arthur as its natural star to the more mysterious Merlin, a wizard with immense power whose ambition and influence shapes the personalities who surround him. "The first question was, 'What if Merlin and Arthur were young contemporaries?"' says Capps. "We set the clock back and asked in a Smallville sense, what would Merlin and Arthur have been like if they had existed, if they had been friends and if they had been the same age?"
Central to Merlin's personality, says Murphy, is the secrecy that surrounds him, a sort of duality that casts him in the mould of the greatest comic-book heroes ever written, all of whom had dual identities. "Merlin is like many heroes, he's a secret hero. Nobody knows he's the hero," says Murphy. "He and Arthur are an odd couple in an almost Jeeves and Wooster kind of way in that the servant knows more than the master, and often gets the master out of trouble. So we're taking the legend and twisting it, and saying without the servant behind him, Arthur would not have been the man he was."
Merlin premieres Sunday at 6.30pm on Ten.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv--radio/young-merlin-works-magic-in-camelot/2009/04/28/1240684466509.html?page=2
SUPERMAN soared from the destruction of Krypton, Wonder Woman from the ancient Amazon city-state of Paradise Island and Batman from the crime-soaked alleys of Gotham City. Such "origin stories", as they are called in the comic-book vernacular, are compelling because they mark ordinary mortals for future greatness, saysMerlin co-producer Julian Murphy.
"Something about these people marks them out from the rest of their world, there is something unique and special about them, and somehow that is tied to their origin," he says. The big-budget adventure TV series Merlin, which Murphy has co-produced with Johnny Capps, is the origin story of the future King Arthur and the wizard Merlin, a sort ofMalory-meets-Smallville pitched at a family audience.
The story of King Arthur is constructed from a number of works, but particularly Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin work Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), written around 1138, and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, published in 1485. Most of the Arthurian adaptations for film and television - from 1915's The Quest of the Holy Grail toExcalibur (1981), First Knight (1995),Merlin (1998) and The Mists of Avalon (2001) - are predominantly derivative of both, but particularly the latter.
The degree to which the source material - the countless films and the medieval texts - actually influences the story of this retelling of Merlin, is debatable. Murphy acknowledges the brilliance of John Boorman's Excalibur (1981) and says both he and Capps watched the Hallmark miniseries version of the same story.
"But I think Johnny is right when he says we're probably more influenced by something like Smallville than we are by something like Malory, because I think the struggle is to make this contemporary, and this is a story before all of that happened, we're trying to see them grow up and that dramatic truth is just as important as what follows."
Capps says the key was in subverting what existed. "We had to understand that Merlin was an older man and Arthur was king, and then subvert that, so when you first meet the young Prince Arthur, he's a bit of a dickhead. He's a modern-day Prince Harry, he occasionally shows great strength but likes to party and have fun. He's a slightly comic character but occasionally you see heroic moments, and the audience should enjoy going on the journey, seeing the first signs of the king he will eventually become."
Both agree the series has some obligation to the keystones of the story - a romance between Arthur and Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, and others - but otherwise takes a very loose approach to the material on which it is based. "You have to take the view that this legend is 1200 years old or so, and it's been rewritten hundreds of times in that 1200 years," Murphy says. "And I think if you worry about that you will go quietly insane, because for every version you tell me, I can tell you another. There are lots of things about the story which are enduring and powerful and you have to treat them with respect, the story of Guinevere and Arthur for example and the Round Table, because it is the story of how a society becomes equal."
In the first season, for example, the sword Excalibur makes an appearance, but not in the way audiences may expect. Murphy thinks he and Capps have set the balance fairly, and haven't overplayed any of the series' aces. "Obviously we don't want to tell the story too fast, but yes, you can begin to see there is a danger that when the audience sees Excalibur, for example, they want to see Arthur wield it in battle. I'm not saying that's not something we won't ever do, we're just not going to do it too soon. At the same time, I think if you watched this show about Merlin and Arthur and you didn't see the heroic characters they will become deep down, then that would be incredibly frustrating."
The challenge is twofold; not just rethinking the story for a contemporary audience, but shifting focus within a legend that casts Arthur as its natural star to the more mysterious Merlin, a wizard with immense power whose ambition and influence shapes the personalities who surround him. "The first question was, 'What if Merlin and Arthur were young contemporaries?"' says Capps. "We set the clock back and asked in a Smallville sense, what would Merlin and Arthur have been like if they had existed, if they had been friends and if they had been the same age?"
Central to Merlin's personality, says Murphy, is the secrecy that surrounds him, a sort of duality that casts him in the mould of the greatest comic-book heroes ever written, all of whom had dual identities. "Merlin is like many heroes, he's a secret hero. Nobody knows he's the hero," says Murphy. "He and Arthur are an odd couple in an almost Jeeves and Wooster kind of way in that the servant knows more than the master, and often gets the master out of trouble. So we're taking the legend and twisting it, and saying without the servant behind him, Arthur would not have been the man he was."
Merlin premieres Sunday at 6.30pm on Ten.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv--radio/young-merlin-works-magic-in-camelot/2009/04/28/1240684466509.html?page=2
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