After I posted a round-up of the scathing reviews for Universal’s “Dark Universe” Mummy reboot, The Mary Sue’s commenting community generated their own compelling plot that I would pay a lot of money to see onscreen.
Hollywood, take note! Much of our mutual frustration at The Mummy‘s reviews were centered on a few areas: 1) The apparent same Orientalist bullshit tropes with regards to the treatment of Middle Eastern characters we’ve been seeing for far, far too long; 2) The marginalization of the female villain, who appears to have been reduced to crazed lusting after Tom Cruise’s character; 3) The boring milquetoast romance between the rakish leading man and buttoned-up leading lady that’s been filmed a hundred thousand times.
In response to the reviews, you, the fine upstanding members of The Mary Sue community, quickly created some alterna-Mummy versions so good they deserved their own post.
BladeOfCreation
A team of Western archaeologists uncovers a cursed mummy. A team of Egyptians, led by an academic who teaches and studies ancient Egyptian mythology and culture steps in to save the day and finds a way to save both the living and the undead by helping the mummy come to terms with its existence.
Katherine The Grape
Yes. I would pay to see this. Bonus points if the lead academic is a Muslim woman.
Nic
Or a Coptic Christian – they’re a small minority and their liturgical language is the closest still in use to Ancient Egyptian; it would be interesting to see that used as a plot point.
Anja
Or both? To show that they can work together for the future of mankind?
Nic
That would be all sorts of good! :)
Katherine The Grape
I did not know this was a thing.
Nic
Yup. They’re a really early off-shoot, and pretty damn unique in many ways. And in recent years, Egypt has had far too many attacks targeting Copts.
BladeOfCreation
Oh, and one of the younger Western archaeologists decides to study for a year at an Egyptian college because they realize that there’s so much to learn about the modern culture, too. The movie features a scene where one of the young Egyptian researchers is listening to music while digging through books and the young Westerner hears it and realizes that they listen to some of the same music. One of the Egyptians wears a Star Wars shirt at one point.
I dunno, I think you could tell a good story about understanding (not just studying) an ancient culture and how that can translate into empathy and understanding of a modern culture.
It would be a slow burn movie and would only get limited release at theaters. It would be a hit at Cannes or Sundance, though.
Anja
Sounds more logical to me, too. Bonus points for the lead academic being a Muslim woman. More bonus points, if the mummy manages to adapt to modern times and teach at university as someone who really knows what happened in Ancient Egypt.
BladeOfCreation
A mummy teaching ancient Egyptian history is kind of hilarious to me.
Anja
Like … no, back in my time, the war chariots actually were horribly unsafe and nobody with half a brain rode those. The pharaohs did, though … you do the math.
spacecat in space
It’d be like the ghost history professor at Hogwarts, but you’d learn more.
I need someone clever on Vimeo or YouTube to make a Mummy Professor series. Bonus points if the professor acts like Indiana Jones, but goes after northern Europeans’/white Americans’ sacred/historical artifacts.
Jenny Islander
I imagine that her first several weeks, every single year, would be spent correcting her students’ hideous accent. Eventually she’d give up and just podcast it. “Listen to this before the first day of class and if I hear you people mispronouncing ‘Nekhbet’ even once you are out.”
Travis Boyle
Mummy teacher would be awesome.
Amanda Johnson
All of this!
Also, the main archaeologist could be an Egyptian Muslim woman and her assistant is a western female grad student who purposely sought her out because the Egyptian archaeologist has a stellar reputation in her field. They bring along with them a diverse group of bodyguards and skilled and capable diggers. Except some of the bodyguards and diggers turn out to be modern day Medjai, who are a secret society trying to protect the world from the mummy because they know about the curse (and there are multiple mummies that have been cursed).
You could even have the head one be the great-grandkid of Ardeth Bey from the Fraser/Weisz version of the Mummy to not destroy the old continuity and to show that the Medjai change with the times. He/she could mention how they all should have learned their lesson when the O’Connell’s did this shit the first time around. Hell, bring Ardeth Bey back with a cool flashback sequence that shows his older version training up new generations of Medjai.
Mummy gets released and this coalition of the archaeologists and Medjai-led bodyguards and diggers have to stop it. They travel from cool city to cool city on the Mummy’s trail to make things interesting. Throw in a hot bodyguard and digger to have some romance (which stays in the background and isn’t front and center) with the two archaeologists (straight or queer) and some solid action sequences and you’d have an interesting movie reboot/continuation of the 1990s movies.
You could even set up the modern Medjai as part of a larger secret sect spanning the globe that fights other Universal Studios monsters like modern Frankenstein, Wolfman, Dracula etc, for your sequel hook/building of a monster fighting universe.
AmethystOracle
I would very much watch this film : ) It sounds a bit better than Tom Cruise on a crashing plane.
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Hey, Hollywood, are you still reading? Our brilliant commenters just came up with a handful of plots and characters that would be refreshing, progressive, and fun to see—and even better, this sort of movie would win you acclaim and praise, instead of 20% Rotten Tomato ratings! We promise that if you populate a blockbuster with a coherent narrative and a diverse cast, perhaps even led by a woman, good things will happen. You could have a Wonder Woman-style opening weekend of your own, instead of headlines about how your Mummy should have stayed buried.
Now excuse me while I go imagine The Mary Sue Mummy in my head for a while longer. I really wish that this was the movie I could go and see tonight.
(image: Universal)
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