Arabian Nights (TV series)
Arabian Nights is a 2000 TV mini-series based on the Arabian Nights story cycle.
As in the original, it consists of a series of stories told by Scheherazade to her husband, the mad Sultan Shahryar, to forestall his determination to have her executed before she can betray him as his first wife did. This adaptation elaborates on the first wife's betrayal, revealing that she was not only having an affair with Shahryar's brother Schahzenan, but the two of them conspired at his overthrow. It is also said that Shahryar only remarried because of a law requiring him to do so or give up the throne (in which case Schahzenan would get it after all).
To prevent things going on for the traditional 1001 nights -- this is, after all, only a mini-series -- a subplot is added in which Schahzenan is preparing to take the throne by force. In the end Shahryar battles and defeats his brother, drawing inspiration from the stories Scheherazade has told him, and they live happily ever after.
Scheherazade tells versions of the following stories:
- "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves"
- "The Death of the Hunchback"
- "Aladdin"
- "The Sultan and the Beggar"
- "The Three Princes"
It also includes a version of the tale of "The Appointment in Samarra" (not from the Arabian Nights), told to Scheherazade by a marketplace storyteller she asks for storycraft advice.
The frame story features Dougray Scott as Shahryar, Mili Avital as Scheherazade, and Jim Carter as Grand Vizier Ja'Far, Scheherazade's father. Familiar faces in the stories include Rufus Sewell and Andy Serkis as Ali Baba and his hapless brother Kasim, Alexei Sayle as the hunchback, Jason Scott Lee and John Leguizamo as Aladdin and his genie, and James Callis as one of the Three Princes.
- The Archer: Prince Ahmed in the tale of the Three Princes.
- Author Avatar: Shahryar suspects this when Scheherazade is describing the beautiful, clever, independent Morgiana, to which she responds, "Like me? . . . Oh, no, she wasn't like me. Not like me at all." In the story being shown, Morgiana's face then changes from looking exactly like Scheherazade into a different woman.
- Babies Ever After: At the end of the miniseries, it's revealed that the entire account was being told by Scheherazade, to her and Shahryar's children.
- Benevolent Genie: The Genie of the Ring in the tale of Aladdin is benevolent, but limited in its abilities. (The Genie of the Lamp is less friendly, though not actively hostile.)
- Broken Aesop: In-universe. When Scheherazade finishes the story of The Death of the Hunchback, Shahryar asks her what the moral was. She replies that the moral was that people should take responsibility for their mistakes. Shahryar points out that the moral doesn't work, because if the many people who hid Buck-buck's corpse had taken responsibility and turned the body in, the entire misunderstanding would not have happened and Buck-buck would not have gotten his happy ending (a humorous death to be remembered by).
- But You Were There and You and You: When Scheherazade tells the tale of the Sultan and the Beggar, Shahryar pictures himself as the tormented and possibly mad Beggar, his brother as the cruel Sultan, and Ja'Far as the Sultan's principled but loyal Grand Vizier.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Scheherazade and Shahryar.
- The Corpse Stops Here: In the tale of the Hunchback, each person who finds the hunchback's corpse is afraid of being blamed for his death, so they hide it somewhere else, where another person finds it and becomes afraid of being blamed for his death, so...
- Death as Comedy: The whole point of the tale of the Hunchback.
- The Evil Prince: Schahzenan.
- Familiar: The sorcerer who recruits Aladdin to retrieve the lamp for him has a raven as a familiar.
- Framing Device
- Genie in a Bottle: The tale of Aladdin has the traditional Genie of the Lamp, and also the less powerful and prepossessing Genie of the Ring (who is also in the original story but usually left out of adaptations). Both are played by the same actor.
- The Good Chancellor: In defiance of received tradition both Shahryar's Grand Vizier in the frame story and Harun's Grand Vizier in the tale of the Sultan and the Beggar are this, balancing loyalty to the Sultan with some attempt to shield those below from the Sultan's shortcomings as a ruler.
- Lighter and Softer:
- This adaptation does a lot of tweaking to Shahryar's backstory to make him into somebody a modern audience would want Scheherazade to live happily ever after with.
- This version of the tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" leaves out the bit where Morgiana kills most of the thieves with boiling oil, replacing it with her getting them all captured by the city guards.
- Magic Carpet: One of the three treasures in the tale of the Three Princes.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: The Sultan's advisors in the tale of the Sultan and the Beggar.
- On One Condition: The law that the Sultan has to remarry or give up the throne.
- Promoted to Love Interest: Morgiana for Ali Baba. In the original version of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", Ali Baba is middle-aged and already married, and Morgiana winds up marrying his son.
- Retcon: In-Universe. Several times during Scheherezade's first tale, things change on-screen as she changes her mind about details. The most obvious is when she narrates that the Forty Thieves came to town in a wagon, which is shown on screen, and then has a better idea and adds that they were in a wagon hidden inside large pots, and suddenly they are.
- Rhetorical Request Blunder: When the sorcerer recruits Aladdin to retrieve the lamp, he warns him, "If you cross me, I swear by my raven's feathers you will not live to see your wedding day." And when Aladdin weds the princess, the sorcerer's raven suddenly loses all its feathers.
- Ring of Power: The genie ring in the tale of Aladdin.
- Uptown Girl: In the tale of Aladdin.
- William Telling: In the tale of the Three Princes, The Archer Prince Ahmed is called on to shoot a target balanced on a child's head to prove himself worthy of the treasure he seeks. It turns out to be a Secret Test of Character: when he declines to take the shot, admitting he's not certain he won't hit the child, he passes the test.