Alternate timelines
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Yes, I'm once again disturbed by a TV series, but at least it's not one of Hunter's.
10+ years ago, I managed to catch the last 15 minutes of Sharpe's Eagle on PBS and was instantly enamored. However, for various reasons, I never got around to seeing the movies.
BBC America started showing them in order a few weeks back. As much as I love them, it was obvious (especially in, say, Sharpe's Company) that there was much more to Sharpe's story than could be portrayed in a series of 90 minute episodes. So I've started reading the books in chronology of timeline, not when they were written.
And that's the rub.
See, Bernard Cornwell, like many other authors who work with an elaborate world in their stories, wrote a bunch of Sharpe stuff, then went back and fleshed out some of the backstory that had been alluded to in the original works.
So far, not a problem.
The problem is that they made movies based (more or less) on the books that had been published to date. You'd think that, since most of the movies revolved around the Napoleonic Wars that Sharpe's Waterloo would be the end. A shame, but there you have it.
Nope. There's a new one that will get its US premier sometime in September as part of the BBC showings. But the plot is based on the first and second book in the chronological series; they've just moved it to 1817s instead of 1803.
I don't know why this bothers me. I mean, they played fast and loose with Ian Fleming's work (and I liked the review that basically called Sharpe "James Bond with a baker carbine and a calvary sword") -- but I don't think I actually read any of the Bond books (I did Leslie Charteris' Saint, instead -- and I considered both the Roger Moore series and the Val Kilmer movie to be amusing but non-canonical.)
For Sharpe, I've only seen four of the movies and I'm halfway through the second book now, so I may get more accustomed to it as I go. And yes, I know there are plenty of comic book aficionados who would scoff at my fastidiousness.
But trying to wrap my head around it at the moment is giving me a headache.
10+ years ago, I managed to catch the last 15 minutes of Sharpe's Eagle on PBS and was instantly enamored. However, for various reasons, I never got around to seeing the movies.
BBC America started showing them in order a few weeks back. As much as I love them, it was obvious (especially in, say, Sharpe's Company) that there was much more to Sharpe's story than could be portrayed in a series of 90 minute episodes. So I've started reading the books in chronology of timeline, not when they were written.
And that's the rub.
See, Bernard Cornwell, like many other authors who work with an elaborate world in their stories, wrote a bunch of Sharpe stuff, then went back and fleshed out some of the backstory that had been alluded to in the original works.
So far, not a problem.
The problem is that they made movies based (more or less) on the books that had been published to date. You'd think that, since most of the movies revolved around the Napoleonic Wars that Sharpe's Waterloo would be the end. A shame, but there you have it.
Nope. There's a new one that will get its US premier sometime in September as part of the BBC showings. But the plot is based on the first and second book in the chronological series; they've just moved it to 1817s instead of 1803.
I don't know why this bothers me. I mean, they played fast and loose with Ian Fleming's work (and I liked the review that basically called Sharpe "James Bond with a baker carbine and a calvary sword") -- but I don't think I actually read any of the Bond books (I did Leslie Charteris' Saint, instead -- and I considered both the Roger Moore series and the Val Kilmer movie to be amusing but non-canonical.)
For Sharpe, I've only seen four of the movies and I'm halfway through the second book now, so I may get more accustomed to it as I go. And yes, I know there are plenty of comic book aficionados who would scoff at my fastidiousness.
But trying to wrap my head around it at the moment is giving me a headache.
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