Wow! Am in the throws of a full-fledged obsession! But not POTO this time.
And it's not Lord of the Rings eitehr, although my fascination with the Nazgul lead into it in a weird, circuitous way. Actually, it's a rediscovery of an obsession I went through about fifteen (yikes!) years ago. It didn't last long at the time, because the universe seemed to small at the time and I got bored. And also, I missed how POTO centred on music. But I seem to have recently gone back to this one with a vengeance!
The obsession in this case is The Shadow. It started with my re-finding the song from the 1994 movie, then re-finding the soundtrack. And in listening to it, I thought I should go back and watch that again and see if I'd love it as much now as I did when I saw it back then. So I watched it again, and I do love it as much! Maybe more! Partly because, now that I'm older, I can better appreciate both the myriad pop-culture references and the wisdom that hides beneath the cheese. And goodness knows there's plenty of cheese! But underneath that, and flavoured charmingly by it, is all kinds of neat psychological and spiritual stuff about redemption and about using your dark side as a weapon against evil instead of in its service. And Allec Baldwin's Shadow is sexy as hell! So now I'm tracking down the old radio-drama episodes, and so far I'm loving them just as much!
What I love about The Shadow is that he has the kind of charisma, not to mention the kind of costume, usually associated with villains. Think Darth Vader or teh Nazgul. But he's not a villain. Instead, he uses that charisma and darkness to fight evil and bring about justice. And in the 1994 movie, there's an element of his having started out a bad guy but been redeemed too. And I love the way that kind of parallels themes in POTO - think Erik if he'd lived, especially ALW Erik. Even his costume in the Baldwin version is very POTO! Hense, although I'm loving the radio-dramas so far, I think that that film will likely always have a special place in my Shadow fandom for its similarities to Phantom, my other great love. And his psychic powers, and the mental and spiritual discipline required to use them well, give it a Jedi parallel that's really neat too! In fact, come to think of it, Baldwin's Shadow could also remind one of what a redeemed Anakin Skywalker might have become if he'd lived. Oo! Wow! There's so a cross-over fanfic or two in there! One for Star Wars and one for POTO?
Anyway, as is probably obvious I love it! And it's having a huge influence on one of my novels too. Now if only I can get my own character to come out being that awesome!
The obsession in this case is The Shadow. It started with my re-finding the song from the 1994 movie, then re-finding the soundtrack. And in listening to it, I thought I should go back and watch that again and see if I'd love it as much now as I did when I saw it back then. So I watched it again, and I do love it as much! Maybe more! Partly because, now that I'm older, I can better appreciate both the myriad pop-culture references and the wisdom that hides beneath the cheese. And goodness knows there's plenty of cheese! But underneath that, and flavoured charmingly by it, is all kinds of neat psychological and spiritual stuff about redemption and about using your dark side as a weapon against evil instead of in its service. And Allec Baldwin's Shadow is sexy as hell! So now I'm tracking down the old radio-drama episodes, and so far I'm loving them just as much!
What I love about The Shadow is that he has the kind of charisma, not to mention the kind of costume, usually associated with villains. Think Darth Vader or teh Nazgul. But he's not a villain. Instead, he uses that charisma and darkness to fight evil and bring about justice. And in the 1994 movie, there's an element of his having started out a bad guy but been redeemed too. And I love the way that kind of parallels themes in POTO - think Erik if he'd lived, especially ALW Erik. Even his costume in the Baldwin version is very POTO! Hense, although I'm loving the radio-dramas so far, I think that that film will likely always have a special place in my Shadow fandom for its similarities to Phantom, my other great love. And his psychic powers, and the mental and spiritual discipline required to use them well, give it a Jedi parallel that's really neat too! In fact, come to think of it, Baldwin's Shadow could also remind one of what a redeemed Anakin Skywalker might have become if he'd lived. Oo! Wow! There's so a cross-over fanfic or two in there! One for Star Wars and one for POTO?
Anyway, as is probably obvious I love it! And it's having a huge influence on one of my novels too. Now if only I can get my own character to come out being that awesome!