post-Apocalyptic Zorro
- Thread starter Temis the Vorta
- Start date
No studio head would spontaneously think of a Hispanic lead character for anything! I wouldn't be surprised if the new Zorro wasn't Hispanic at all. 
Studio head: "Huh? Was he supposed to be?"
Studio head: "Huh? Was he supposed to be?"
Well, is Johnny Depp an American Indian?
Actually, I suppose he could be for all I know....
Actually, I suppose he could be for all I know....
His great grandma is Cherokee or something like that.
Hey! Maybe Depp should be Zorro!
Hey! Maybe Depp should be Zorro!
Woudn't that help the foppish Don Diego persona?
Yeah, he could play Zorro (and he does look vaguely American Indian). Of course, Depp is such a mutable actor that he can really play a wide variety of characters.
I always thought of Zorro as the slender-athletic type, not rugged or brutish in the least. His foes are a bunch of knuckle-draggers but he dances rings around them and laughs at their clumsiness, tossing roses and sipping fine champagne while swinging from a chandelier.
Okay I might be thinking of Zorro, the Gay Blade.
Hey! Make him gay for real this time. Why the frak not? The world is ready for a post-apocalyptic gay superhero.
That's got Depp's name all over it.
Set it in the Firelfly universe!
His great grandma is Cherokee or something like that.
Hey! Maybe Depp should be Zorro!
Have you seen him in Don Juan De Marco? When he dons (pun unintended) the mask and hat, he really looks like a convincing Zorro. Might be a little too old now, but arguably so was Banderas.
Exactly. Zorro is basically The Scarlet Pimpernal translated to Spanish California (with a little bit of Robin Hood thrown in).
Zorro Unmasked by Sandra Curtis is probably the best book on the character's history, btw. The Legend of Zorro by Bill Yenne is also interesting.
(Can you tell I used to edit the Zorro novels?)
Greg, have you read Isabella Allende's Zorro novel? I thought it was an interesting take on it, if a departure from the usual legend.
Good gort, I had no idea people were still writing Zorro novels! This thread has been more educational than I expected.
Okay, that's it, I gotta catch up on my Zorrology by watching the movie with Tyrone Power.
This thread has been more educational than I expected.Okay, that's it, I gotta catch up on my Zorrology by watching the movie with Tyrone Power.
Zorro the novel was great in parts but was also very episodic, the narration was distractingly snarky at times, and most of all it just goes on and on and on - the Caribbean section should have been the climax, but then we get another big sequence in some California fishery thing. There are great moments and elements, but Allende both took herself too seriously and undermined herself with anachronistic self-indulgences.
I really enjoyed the Allende novel, which, I confess, is the only thing by her that I've read.
What sort of anachronistic self-indulgences? Did Zorro have moments of navel-gazing introspection? Or did the book bring up “issues” that weren’t really relevant to the time frame?
Good gort, I had no idea people were still writing Zorro novels!
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For the record, Tor put out three original Zorro novels around the time of the first Antonio Banderas movie, as well as a reprint of the original Johnston McCulley novel.
More recently, Moonstone has published at least two Zorro short story collections, including stories by me, KRAD, Peter David, Bob Greenberger, Ann Crispin, Max Allan Collins, Andy Mangels, Nancy Holder, Michael Martin, Alan Dean Foster, etc.
You know, the usual suspects . . . .
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Same here.
The book is first-person narrated by a side character named Isabel (hint, hint), who is very contemporary in tone, often pokes fun at Diego in a way that tends to deflate the pulp appeal of the story (or rather, multiple stories, as the text reads closer to a biography than your average novel, with the perhaps the smallest ratio of quoted dialogue I've ever seen), and in the epilogue, she actually says that she's tired of him - which would be insulting if she hadn't made us tired of him/the book also by that point.
The opening third is very good, with lots of rich Californio period detail, and Sony should definitely adapt the midsection into a "Zorro Begins with Pirates in the Caribbean" movie, but apart from that, it's an odd mishmash of a tome.
I can kind of see it. California and Mexico tension rises in the near future, mirroring what originally happened, only this time both sides have nukes. War happens, things get obliterated. Among all this is a descendent of Zorro who finds some of Zorro's things in his Great-Great-Great Great (How many??) Grandmother's attic such as his sword and mask and takes on his namesake.