Nicolas Cage's Sacrifice
There once was a group of people called the United States Government and they had all this gold but did not want anyone to know about it. They even built an entire fort to hide this gold in the most secure place they could imagine. This fort had seven electric fences with barbed wire on top of them and alligators in between them. There were also armed guards there at all hours of the day and night. They decided to call this place Fort Treasure. The government did all they could to hide the location and even the existence of Fort Treasure. Despite their efforts a man named Riley found out a clue about Fort Treasure while looking through different government conspiracy sites and thought of people he might know that this would interest. He thought of his friend Nicolas Cage who had a passion for seeking out hidden treasure. When Riley told Nicolas the clue about Fort Treasure they both got extremely excited. Nicolas thought about finding this place and all the joy the gold could bring him. So one day he set out, along with Riley, to find Fort Treasure.
As they followed the clue they ended up in Alaska digging through the snow for a hidden map. After hours of digging in the frigid arctic they eventually found the map. The map, however, was blank because the writing was only visible in a hot humid climate. So Nic and Riley set a course for Panama, the hottest and most humid place they could think of. Once there they were able to see the map which told them where Fort Treasure was located. But first they had to find a way to get past the fences and alligators.
This really stumped Nicolas at first but then he started to get creative to find a solution. He thought about this for a while and decided that he would use some of the money from the last treasure he found to buy a fast car and he would just jump the fence in his car. So Riley and Nicolas got this car and made their way to where the map said that Fort Treasure was. Once they got there they jumped the car past all the fences and ended up one hundred yards away from the building where all the gold was stored. Unfortunately, Nicolas had neglected to take into account the security guards that would be there. The security guards all converged on the car shortly after it landed. They immediately started shooting at the car and both Nicolas and Riley thought they were going to die. Nicolas decided to make a bold move and jumped out of the car and ran towards the building. While he was running, all the security guards focused on him and he got shot but Riley was able to get the gold and get away to safely in the car. After the guards shot Nicolas they ran to him and tried to offer medical attention to save his life but he did not want it. He said, "It's no use. I have done what I came to do and I will die soon anyways."
Nicolas Cage
Author's Note: This story was inspired by "The Monkey King's Sacrifice" for the comic book "Monkey Stories." This story was about a monkey king who saved his people from a human king who attacked them so he could get the mangos that were in their forest. The monkeys had been trying their best to hide the mangos from the humans but eventually the humans found out. The human king took a trip to find and collect these mangos. Once they were to the forest where the mangos grew the king's army began shooting at the monkeys. As the monkeys fled the area the king monkey made a sacrifice to save his group of monkeys and ended up getting betrayed by a hateful monkey who caused the monkey king to fall to his death.
I got my inspiration in part for this story from the movie National Treasure. In this movie Nicolas Cage's character is following his family's pursuit of a long lost hidden treasure. He goes through many challenges during his hunt for the treasure and the story of "The Monkey King's Sacrifice" reminded me of this movie. Also, I am aware that this is Nicolas Cage from "Con Air" not "National Treasure" as you would assume I would choose. But let's be honest here, Nic looks better with long hair. My goal in writing this story was to be a little bit funny. I feel like my writing may be confusing at some points however. Obviously I changed the name of the main character because I thought that it sounded like a fun and exciting idea to write about Nicolas Cage instead of the King Monkey. If you are unaware of the concept of the movie "National Treasure" I have provided a link to the Wikipedia page for it here.
Citation: This book, Jataka Tales: Monkey Stories by ACK Comic Books, is is available in the Bizzell Memorial Library and I have provided a link to my reading notes from it here.
I got my inspiration in part for this story from the movie National Treasure. In this movie Nicolas Cage's character is following his family's pursuit of a long lost hidden treasure. He goes through many challenges during his hunt for the treasure and the story of "The Monkey King's Sacrifice" reminded me of this movie. Also, I am aware that this is Nicolas Cage from "Con Air" not "National Treasure" as you would assume I would choose. But let's be honest here, Nic looks better with long hair. My goal in writing this story was to be a little bit funny. I feel like my writing may be confusing at some points however. Obviously I changed the name of the main character because I thought that it sounded like a fun and exciting idea to write about Nicolas Cage instead of the King Monkey. If you are unaware of the concept of the movie "National Treasure" I have provided a link to the Wikipedia page for it here.
Citation: This book, Jataka Tales: Monkey Stories by ACK Comic Books, is is available in the Bizzell Memorial Library and I have provided a link to my reading notes from it here.
Well this was a really interesting stretch for me! How neat! I haven't used modern day actors to replace story characters yet, so this was very interesting to read. I especially agree that Nicholas Cage looks better with long hair. I imagined him in the story that way, anyways, before the picture even came into view. Was there a link to the comic book? I only found the link for "National Treasure" handy. Fun, Fun, FUN read!
ReplyDeleteYou really captured the intensity of this situation. It's an interesting combination of two very different source materials.
ReplyDeleteRight now, the entire story is in one paragraph. I had to copy it into Word and add my own lines breaks in order to read it easily. You should divide the story into different paragraphs based on the key idea of the paragraph (the car, Nicholas Cage getting shot, etc.)
There are a few typos in this: "Thought" is spelled as "though". "Made their way" is spelled as "made there way".
While this adventure is pretty crazy, it does a good job of combining the general style of the epics and legends, and of National Treasure. It would be interesting to read more adaptations in this style. It would be especially interesting to read about Riley and Nicolas' past adventures. I am sure they'd have a lot of stories to tell.
I saw Nicolas Cages name and I was instantly interested! I was curious what you were going to do with him, of course it's what he does best! He hunts treasure! I read your author's note and I think you did a really good job of retelling the original story. I love how you built up the characters. I also thought it was genius how they put the map in a cold arid environment when it needed the humidity to be read. I'm curious on how they figure that out too! Maybe you could add in a couple of sentences that would explain their thought process? I wish I could read more about how they got to the treasure. As in, what happened during their journey. I guess I'm comparing it to National Treasure and my favorite parts of that movie was how they pieced together the clues. Overall, I think you did a really good job and I loved reading it!
ReplyDeleteYou had me at National Treasure. I love that movie! This was a really creative idea and I enjoyed reading it! I like how you were able to successfully merge the two stories together as one. You were able to stick close to the National Treasure storyline but also stay true to the Mahabharata. I only caught one typo:
ReplyDelete"but Riley was able to get the gold and get away to safely in the car. "
It should say "get away to safety" instead of "safely". Unless you would like to say, "get away safely in the car", instead!
I also would maybe focus more on commas. I am personally really bad with commas and didn't even know till this class that you are supposed to use commas like quotation marks! I think there are some sentences in your story that could benefit from some commas!!
You did a great job with this story. It was such a fun read!
This story was awesome! I was laughing the whole time (in a good way!) because I think that you did a really good job with writing it in a funny tone, something you said you were hoping to do. I really like how you combined National Treasure into an Indian Epic. It was something I couldn't imagine being done before, but since I've read your story I see how the two actually perfectly relate.
ReplyDeleteI had a few questions while reading your story, here are a few that it may be a good idea to answer! You say that there once was a thing called the U.S. Government, so does that mean that this is taking place in the future? If so, is it in the near or distant future. It may be nice to expand on this...you can even write about the fall of the United States. Do the guards know what they are protecting, or do they just know they are protecting something important? Also, when Nicholas refuses medical assistance, he says he has done what he needed to do. Was his sole goal for this mission to help Riley get the gold? Although very brave of Nicholas, this was a little confusing for me to understand.
One more thing you may want to focus on is your grammar in some places by adding commas, getting rid of run-ons, etc.
Overall, this story was incredible and I really enjoyed reading it!
I certainly love the focus on National Treasure! When I was little, it was one of my favorite movies. As a life-long constitutional nerd and history buff, it is certainly fun to reimagine American history. In terms of your story, I think you certainly stay true to your inspirational material, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about the source story. I think that you might have ended up retelling National Treasure with a slight Indian twist when I think it would be really interesting for you to retell The Monkey King's Sacrifice with a National Treasure twist. That way, your readers who haven't read the original source story can get a better idea of what the original story is about! In addition, I would also like to hear a little bit more about the intricacies of Riley attempting to get into Fort Treasure. There are so many awesome ways you could take this!
ReplyDeleteHAH. I picked this portfolio the minute that I read, "Nicolas Cage". Did you know that he has his own acting method and is in serious debt? Fun fact. Anyway, wow. A very interesting connection, but I think that it totally works! Some thoughts that I had...
ReplyDeleteGo ahead and add commas when you're introducing Nicholas Cage's character. (He thought of his friend, Nicolas Cage, who had a passion for seeking out hidden treasure.)
You used the name Riley, which is a character name from the movie. But then you used Nicolas Cage's name, rather than character name. Is that part of the joke? If so, I totally get it, but I was a bit unsure!
When Nic is dying and claims that he's done what he's set out to do... I think you could add some clairity to that. Why was it so specifically special to him? Etc?
All said, hilarious concept. I enjoyed it!
Hello Joe! I thought this story was very funny to read. I really enjoyed the fact that you used Nicolas Cage in your story, and that you didn’t even use the correct Nic for this story was even funnier to me. Also to add on a little more to Nic Cage he does look way better with long hair. Going through the entire story I thought that it could have had a little bit more development throughout the story. However, after I read your author’s note the way you went about the story makes a lot more sense to me. I had read the jataka tale “The Monkey King’s Sacrifice” and in that story the plot is very rushed throughout the comic. So knowing what book you chose to write about helps this story a lot. Overall I thought this story was very funny to read and written very well Good Job!
ReplyDeleteHaha I like how we can assume that Nicolas Cage has excess treasure lying around for when he needs to buy a sporty getaway car. Can't say I'm terribly sad he died in the end...I wonder, though, how Riley managed to get back out of the compound. How did he carry all the gold back to the car? (How much gold are we talking about?)
ReplyDeleteYour inspiration to this story was very cute. I like how you kept to the characters and really filled them with the taste to match this story. I could just imagine Cage acting out the story. There was great transition, and the story was broken up into paragraphs. The length was not too long, and the details kept the story interesting. I like how the author’s note explained every so well. I like that it was recognizable, yet had your own taste to it. Reading the story, I could imagine exactly what happened in the story. The author’s note also showed what details were the same and which weren’t. There were not any grammatical errors that I found which made this a great and easy read. I thought the little explanation on the portfolio was good as well. Keep up the good work, and hopefully get to read more stories from your blog page.
ReplyDeleteHaha, National Treasure is one of my most favorite movies so I applaud your choice for inspiration for the story! I had no idea that Nic Cage had long hair before but I can agree that he looks better with it. I really love the way you incorporated details from the movie and the story you read! The explanation you provided in the author's note about the story really helped me understand what was going on too. Great story!
ReplyDelete