Domande per V. Beretta - Back in Action e Microaggiornamento, ...con tre pagine di sceneggiatura in anteprima!

Si, ma chi sarebbe Maria Baitelli? La sento nominare per la prima volta...

No, è la redattrice capo centrale.
Un bel pezzo grosso...

Si!
In verità la ricerca è partita subito dopo la domanda!

Hi Ombra!

First of all, I feel strange at answering in English. While I do write a lot in English in my line of work, now it happens on Italian forums too!

I have reads your doubts re: "Il Segreto delle Ombre Diafane". Let's start by talking about continuity. As yourself have pointed out, Martin Mystere is supervised by Alfredo Castelli and, at least on the "pillars" of the continuity you simply cannot do what you want: everything must be pre-approved and debated. This happened with the two key elements of "Il Segreto delle Ombre Diafane".

First, Java's brother. When I came up with the character I liked the idea, the characterization and other nuances of his personality. All of this was simply an intellectual exercise, until it turned out that Alfredo liked the idea very much too. Since I was already working on the basic storyline of “Il Segreto delle Ombre Diafane” I felt that it was the perfect story to introduce him. Alfredo approved the idea, and thus Ka-wah was born (as a trivia, his temporary name in the script was Klavah – is was Alfredo who came up with the definitive one). Filippucci did some sketches, and they too were approved by Alfredo and Carlo before the work on the story began.

There is a funny anecdote regarding Ka-wah. Of course I had to come up with an explanation about why, for over 20 years, Java had never mentioned him. This implied a serious break-up in the relationship between the two brothers, so I turned back at when Java battled “El Jefe” in his youth. The Neanderthalian colony in the city is oppressed by an evil tyrant. Java asks to his brother for help, but Ka-wah, an intellectual, doesn’t want to be involved in a civil war. The tyrant is overthrown anyway, but, before fleeing, he manages to kill Java’s wife and their young son. So, the reason of the hate felt by Java towards his brother stems from the fact that he accuses Ka-wah’s non-belligerance, to be responsible, indirectly, for the massacre of his family.

I was at the seaside, taking sun on the beach, when a ***furious*** Alfredo, who was revising the story, calls my cell phone: “Where did you pulled out this disgusting, soap-operish, lame crap about Java’s wife and child being killed?!” He was outraged at the badness of the idea.

“Well…”, I answered, “I didn’t invent the fact. It is described in… er… ‘Il Passato di Java’, MM number 112-113, written by… uh… ALFREDO CASTELLI, art by the Esposito Bros.

Silence for a while.

“Well, it is soap-operish crap all the same!”

And so the main reason for Java to hate Ka-wah was ditched.

Regarding the “End of the World Device” being activated by aliens… let’s say that, the more I thought about it (during my years at writing Martin Mystere), the more it seemed logical.

First, there was this stalemate between Atlantis and Mu, broken by an unexpected and incomprehensible event. Not only the malfunctioning of the Device unexpected, but no one ***on Earth***, not even ***its own builders*** was able to fix it. This could have been explainable had the malfunctioning been caused by someone who both possessed a superior technology and had a reason to retaliate against Earth as a whole.

Second: it must be said that the concept of “alien” in the times of Mu and Atlantis was not the same that we have today. In my opinion, bot Mu and Atlantis had contacts with intelligent beings living “elsewhere”. Time and space had a different meaning for them, and the Pleiads could have been as far or as close as Faerie, a lost colony in South America or a bordering nation. To be short, I felt that the concept of “alien” was, then, more spiritual than scientific. I do not know if I have expressed myself well, but in the original version of the script what the “Pleadians” actually “were” was expressed in a more fuzzy way.

And, third, I didn’t felt that my idea broke the continuity. Remember that the source of the whole chain of events still was (and is) the struggle between the two powers, and the struggle to be the only remaining empire in the world. The intervention of an outside force (but, again, maybe at the same time Atlantis was marshalling the ‘mystic energies from Faerie’ for a devastating first strike…) was only a move by Mu in this complex chess game.

Ironically, and this is another idea I liked, Amaterasu correctly predicted that Isemori’s action would have spelt disaster for everybody, but, like in the classic fairy-tales, it was the very steps that Amaterasu took to prevent disaster that caused it.

This leads us to two other objections I have read: the monoliths and the nature of Amaterasu. Regarding the monoliths, I can only remind of Java’s tribe lived in the ruins of an already existing and much older city – whose nature and importance had been researched by Ka-Wah. The monoliths were buried in very ancient times deep underground under the city for the reason explained in the story by Ka-Wah to Martin.

Regarding Amaterasu, unfortunately there was a change from my original script during the revision process of the story that broke continuity. As someone maybe remembers, I had written a sort of “bible” summing up both the historical and current background for “Magic Patrol”, and the one for the (never written) mini-series “Atlantis Tales” (when I stopped writing Martin Mystere I left a copy of them both to Carlo and Alfredo, so that my narrative lines – even those left unsolved – could have a reference; as far as I know they still have them).

In “Atlantis Tales” I had written down that, while both Atlantis and Mu controlled very high magic powers and technologies, Atlantis was a little bit more biased towards technology, while Mu towards magic and spirituality (I remember writing “spiritual machines” in a note about Mu). So, I imagined that Amaterasu had done some step towards immortality by fusing her mind with a machine (“made of organic-like crystals” I wrote).

When the cataclysm broke out (WARNING: what follows was in my notes for “Atlantis Tales”, but, since it has never been used, it is, of course, not to be considered “canon”!) Amaterasu made copies of herself, and placed them governing hidden bases all around the world. To avoid both confusion and the possibility that, after the cataclysm, the different copies started a war against each other (“I’m the real Amaterasu! No, I’M her!!”) she made each copy aware of the fact that she was not the original. Amaterasu also decided an “hierarchical order” for the copies. So, the one governing the submarine base was to obey the one governing where antimatter was hidden – should the two be able to contact each other after the cataclysm - since the latter was higher than the former in the hierarchy established by Amaterasu.

This means that neither the Amaterasu found in the submarine base nor the one found in ‘Il Segreto delle Ombre Diafane’ were the original one”. More practically they not even were the same copy of Amaterasu, so the one found in Java’s city couldn’t have recognized Martin Mystere at all (as, instead, happens in the published book). This was developed correctly in the original script, but, IIRC for some reason, changed in the revision, and resulted in some confusion and in a continuity error.


After I stopped contributing with Martin Mystere I didn’t really followed the developments of the storylines I had introduced or worked with. We had many discussions, back there, about what happened, what would have happened and why; this had laid the groundwork for some (I feel) interesting surprises in the MM’s universe (all respectful of the continuity, of course!). But, of course, when I and Russo had to stop working on MM they stopped. The only thing I left were the two “bibles” I mentioned, but they were written only to sum up things and clarify some plot points that I had left obscure. From the stories I read, I saw that some plot lines were changed from what we had discussed way back (is it really ten years?! ) but I honestly do not know how if this made some of the published “foundations” obsolete.

The period of Magic Patrol, Atlantis Tales, "Il Segreto del Re degli Elfi", the Millenium’s countdown and the second encounter between MM& Nathan Never was a great ride, and I was happy to be allowed to be part of it!

Vince

Dear Vincenzo, we miss you sooooooooo much

Ok ok, ritorniamo all'uso del BVII (Buon Vecchio Italico Idioma)! Benvenuto tra noi, anche se ormai potrai intervenire solo in qualità di ex-autore E qui potrei mettermi a far polemiche gratuite riguardo al fatto che mi ritrovo per l'ennesimo anno fra le mani uno speciale che il mio subconscio si rifiuta di leggere, che la bimestralità avrebbe dovuto portare un incremento di qualità e bla bla bla e mi ritrovo a leggere che sono in lavorazione storie scritte da sceneggiatori al loro esordio su un personaggio notoriamente 'difficile' come il BVZM (facile pronosticare un risultato disastroso), e che Torti continua imperterrito la sua opera maligna, ma non lo faccio

Mi limito ad una semplice ed accorata domanda: ma per far tornare ai testi te e il buon Russo (sempre che abbiate voglia di farlo, of course) c'è qualcosa che noi lettori possiamo fare? Una petizione, una manifestazione, un mail-bombing alla Bonelli?

Ok, torno a cercare di leggere lo speciale ... mi auguro di poter leggere tanti altri tuoi interventi in futuro.

Beh, un grosso benvenuto a Vincenzo Beretta, che ringrazio per essere venuto qui e aver dato dei chiarimenti ai dubbi di Ombra!

Io, onestamente, non avevo mai visto le storie di Beretta come distruttrici di continuity, anzi apportavano sempre quel qualcosa in più che faceva conoscere meglio l'universo di Martin (e lo stesso discorso vale per le storie di Russo). Ora, leggendo anche l'intervista di Ubc a Morales, mi viene da pensare che "grossi" cambiamenti non sono mai stati previsti e non sono neanche in programma per il futuro.
Se sia un bene o un male, non saprei dirlo. La Bonelli, in generale, è una casa editrice vecchio stampo e ha i lettori vecchio stampo. Ma le nuove generazioni preferiscono l'innovazione.
Il nuovo Martin è di certo innovato, ma è sufficiente? Secondo me Beretta e Russo dovevano certamente continuare a scrivere le loro storie, soprattutto per la freschezza che portavano! Spero che i rapporti tra di loro non siano finiti in maniera troppo brusca e che in futuro ci potrà essere una nuova collaborazione...

P.s.: Vincenzo ti ho mandato anche un mp!

Hi Vincenzo! Thank you for your reply on my post, you have cleared a lot of doubts that I have before regarding MM continuity. Actually, from some of your answers (i.e. Amamterasu), I realized that both of us have similar ideas on our minds...

If you don't mind, I would like to make some remarks on your answers.


OK, I understand that you have used Java's family tragedy as an opportunity to introduce his long lost brother (you have spoken through Diana about that matter), but, even though Java have a right to keep secrets for himself (as Diana, aka you pointed out), as well as his private life (and we all know that Martin don't ask Java too much about his private life), still, after 20 years of adventures coming up with Kawah's character seemed to me like a bad idea.

If Kawah is new java, what is Java's real name?


If I may quote you: La catastrofe e stata provocata da un'arma strategica appartenente all'impero di Mu, e collocata in orbita intorno a Marte. Per ragioni sconoscuite, l'arma e impazzita. Attivando automaticamnete il suo programma di attacco globale... Quote is from Gigante # 3 Gli uomini in nero, written by Castelli and you.


We know that. The war broken out, after few years of mass destruction of Earth, both powers had crossed the point of no return, made a peace, and start building chambers around the world for the future generations to reminds Earthlings what can happen to them if they repeat their mistakes. That was the founding line of MM series, right?


Why would some alien specie come to Earth with only one wish: to destroy it? I mean, how many Prostetnic Vogon Jeltzs are out there?


As of aliens: OK, we know that many alien species have visited Earth in its past and present (Kundingas, Quivevra, Nomo, just to mention a few...), and all of them made some kind of impact on civilization, if not as civilization as whole, then they made some improvements here and there. Therefore, aliens were/are playing a huge role in MM Universe. It is natural to assume that both powers, Atlantis and Mu had some kind of contacts with much more advanced aliens. But, we still have a problem. During 20 years of this series, there were no mentions about those contacts, and suddenly we have Isemori who made a pact with Aliens, Amaterasu who bolwed it up, and destruction of Earth by outraged aliens, as a punishment for double-crossing I understand that concept of time can be different for any species (I actually argued with my professor while I was a student of Astronomy at Belgrade University that whole concept of time, in my opinion, is more metaphysical than real, but that's the other story), but reading Il segreto delle ombre diafane I didn't find anything like that. In my opinion, Pleiadians were more than clearly expressed. Maybe because the script was changed...


Of course. The whole concept of Empire is: ONE Empire, ONE Patriarch/Pope, ONE World. There can be only one


Very interesting. I would like that idea, if it was from the beginning. But, it wasn't. And here we are coming to the bottom of the problem (at least as I see it). In Le creature dell'abisso, Castelli was telling the story that Signore (Emperor, President, whatever) di Mu Ra-Mu (clearly, Castelli was using names that already has been mentioned in other books, like Ra, Poseidon, Tvashtar, Vimana, etc...) and Signore della citta dei sei anelli Kala were fighting, we had Ra-Vanu, a traitor of Mu who caused tvashtar, and so one... Much later, we will meet Amaterasu, Robinson, Great Mother... One nice storyline about la guerra senza tempo.

But, the first real problem caused Castelli's La citta dei cinque (not sei?) anelli, where Amaterasu became a premier of Confederation of Mu, and Kronos (not Kala) was a President of Atlantis. Real shock to me came with your gigante (which was nothing when I compare myself after reading Castelli's Il destino di Atlantide - I feel soomething like this smiley , rwady to shoot someone ). It was like: forget about Ra-Mu, forget about Ra-Vanu, forget about Kala, Mu's satellite, now we have Amaterasu, Isemori, Peiadians! Plus, for the first time you called Atlantis as an Empire. Before this gigante and after, it was a republic.

Don't get me wrong, the story itself was well written, and you are one of the best writers in SBE. But, I just couldn't cut off a half of my brain and forget about La guerra senza tempo, therefore I couldn't like the story at all. People who had no problems with continuity liked it, as far as I know.

Oh, I had couple of more objections (I know they are minor, but hey, nobody's perfect) like: what is the name of Mu's capital? I know that you have mentioned one of capitals (how many were there anyway) in Magic Patrol, but in this gigante there was no mention of it. Also, I was furious when you said: ... diciottesimo anno del'era della grande aquila... I have no clue back then about which year you were talking about, and I have to wait to read last Maxi, when Russo explained that 18 year of Era of Great Eagle is actually 4919 year of Yod's Era, or better to say 8514 year BC, or 2 years before the destruction of Earth. It took so long to clear up that doubt.

What era was used on Mu before the Great Eagle? How long they last? Same for Yod and Atlantis.


There is an old Serbian saying that goes something like this: the path to Hell's made by good intentions...


Good explanation. One worry less.


Funny thing about Amaterasu is that I actually imagined her as an immortal being which presence is everywhere and at any given time, not like copies or clones at all, because she is Goddess and she can be wherever and whenever she wants. Another worry less!

At the end, I want to thank you one more time for clearing my doubts (or at least some of them ). I hope you will take more participation in this forum in the future.

Darko

Edited by L'ombra diafana - 21/7/2007, 00:58

Hi, Ombra. Nice to meet you!


No one knows – maybe Castelli does, but I do not.


Yes. Notice how that report underlined how the reasons for what had happened were *unknown*. No one, on Earth, could have imagined the real reasons behind the unstoppable activation of the device.


Yes. Which leaves an interesting question: what happened to Isemori? Amaterasu believed that the anti-matter was a weapon to be used agains Atlantis: she didn’t knew the truth (i.e. the pact between Isemori and the aliens) – and Isemori (the one who knew the truth) just does seem to disappear after the anti-matter is seized by Amaterasu and hidden in the Ombre Diafane’s city.

There was much more going on behind, of course – at least when we were plotting these storylines.


No: they came to Earth because they needed the anti-matter, not to destroy the planet. And they didn’t “destroyed Earth” (like the Vogon do in “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”). They “teached earthlings a lesson”. The method they choose for their retaliation was not one of total destruction, “only” one who would have guaranteed a long period of suffering to Earth’s inhabitants – from which maybe they would have re-emerged stronger and wiser. This, of course, didn’t worked at all.

My girlfriend at the time noted how in my stories there was this recurring theme of an “outside intervention” aimed at “improving humanity” – and how it always ended up badly. This happens in “La Maledizione del Sahara” with the alien device in the lost city, in “Il Segreto delle Ombre Diafane” and in the last story of Magic Patrol, where, again, the attempt by the aliens to “improve humanity” ends up in the biggest display of suffering and disaster of the whole mini-series.

While I never consciously put these ideas in my scripts, I must admit that they are there. I fondly remember the last dialogue between Martin and Leslie in “La Maledizione del Sahara”, when Leslie is sad for the “lost opportunity”, while Martin, at the end, is happier to improve and become a better men through experience, personal learning, mistakes and failures.

Trivia moment: in the original script the last line of dialogue was “…At the end, I do like adventure more” (“…Alla fin fine preferisco l’avventura”) – which was a word play between what Martin had just said and the classic “end words” of many adventure tales. This was judged “too banal” during revision, and changed into “Come on, let’s return home” (“Coraggio, torniamo a casa”)


There was a reason for this. Earth, in the MM series, has been described by some readers as “a galactic crossroad”. It was true, and when I left, we had already started to lay down the groundwork for the reason behind this (remember that Earth is “the planet of mysteries…” well, for a good reason!”) I will only say that for some alien races humanity was “part of the big scheme” while for others it was “an unfortunate accident”. All, I want to specify, grounded down in ancient myth and in scientific theories and/or speculations – i.e. nothing in the “sheer realm of SciFi”.

One key story was “L’Ultima Caravella”. There were many elements in it which I had put as a groundwork for future developments. Someone, for example, had criticized the fact that the alien probe came from “another galaxy” as “too far fetched”, because there was no need to go so far when our galaxy already has a lot of place and mysteries. It actually was one of the key points: to some alien species “space” had not the same meaning we give to it.

Again, I do not know how many of these plot threads, if any, were retained after we stopped writing.


As I wrote, I still feel that the reason for “The End of the World” was still firmly rooted in the rivalry between Mu and Atlantis. Isemori tried to up the ante and overcome Atlantis (and her sister as side effect) one time too much, and the breaking point was reached. It was bound to happen, soon or later, aliens or not aliens, IMHO.


Hmmm. Yes and no. First, in a dynamic narrative environment many ideas just come up during the natural writing process – and some of them can be born very late in it. Just think to the “Empire Strikes Back”: the idea that Darth Vader was Luke’s father is considered among the basic pillars of Star Wars, so it is still surprising to think that it wasn’t in the original plot of the trilogy at all (nor was the idea that Leia was Luke’s sister). Lucas said how, one day, while looking back at what he had already written “suddenly it appeared very logical” – and a modern myth was born.

When I rolled up my sleeves for Magic Patrol and Atlantis Tales I re-read all the issues of MM from number 1 to the ones published in 1994 – and I found a lot of seeds for ideas, loose connections, things never really explained and a lot of amazing material. Sometimes it was just a case of “connecting the dots”, while in other occurrences I thought “well, this has never been really explained” – and so we started thinking an explanation. Still today there are A LOT of things, ranging from where “Elsewhere” is really located to what happened to Nadia Timofeyev can be deducted, or at least imagined, starting from the very contents of the past stories – without need to re-invent the wheel each time.

[Another trivia moment: in the original edition of MM 23, pag. 59, in the caption Nadia is mistakenly called “Diana”. Reading the story we have the impression that the there is a feeling of sort between Martin and Nadia (Martin even asks her to come to America with him), and, of course, NADIA is the anagram of DIANA. One day I jokingly said to Alfredo that “if he needed an idea for “MM’s unknown son” the time that Martin and Nadia spend in the Siberian cave – awaiting death – could have been a good moment for the “scandal to happen”. Alfredo of course blew a couple of blood vessels and the question was never again touched

However, let’s imagine for a moment that the idea of a son for Martin was seriously on the table… see how without introducing anything new and without twisting the continuity, the story elements for him to have a son were already in the books? Many other things we developed at that time worked this way.]


I think that the mistake, here, is to think to Atlantis times as a “snapshot”. I think of them as a vast era in the world history, with some key players who had the powers to live for centuries, a floating geopolitical situation (think of our world in 1900, 1950 and 2000), and a lot of mysteries. Remember that “Atlantis had her Atlantis, too”, i.e. there are hints of an ever more ancient civilization that came ***before*** Atlantis and Mu, and disappeared. IMHO, numbers like “50.000 years of history” are nothing in geological times, but immense in human terms.


Maybe it was an “Empire” from Mu’s point of view – remember the “Imperialist Americans” of Soviet times


I don’t know. Actually, I had the feeling that Mu could have physically decentralized the government, so that there was not a single “Capitol” but a network of government offices and regional capitols connected in real time both technologically and spiritually – maybe to avoid the problems of a “first strike” or maybe because that was in their culture. If you accept this, then the “honorary Capitol” would have been were Amaterasu was located.


This because it was not part of the story, and there was no need to introduce unneeded complexity in an already complex plot.


Which is understandable, since I did that ***exactly*** to avoid a precise placement in time and space of the events portrayed


Mainly because it was Russo who decided to clear it up. He re-constructed a chronology from the events, so you would have to ask to him for more details.


I will do

Cheers!

Vince

Keep on discussing, guys!

Vince: your trivia are wonderful!