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Top 10 Moby Dick Trivia


Oh welcome to watchmojo.com and today
we’ll be exploring ten pieces of trivia
you should know about Moby Dick I will
chase that white whale from Good Hope
and round the horn around the Norway
Maelstrom and perdition’s flames before
I give him up this is what your ship for
man number 10
based on a true story kicking off our
Moby Dick trivia list is a factoid about
the origins of Herman Melville’s 1851
novel for his epic work the author
combined his own voting experiences with
other real world events the plot of his
tale was based both on the story of a
ship called the Essex which sank in 1820
when it was attacked by a whale and on
the 1830 slaughter of an albino sperm
whale called mocha dick number 9 a
metaphorical tale of evil this is an
evil oil judge moby dick is a literary
tragedy we’re in a have ignores his own
limitations while foolishly dictating
his life to vanquishing a living
embodiment of pure evil the novel’s
foreboding atmosphere suggests that
certain doom lies ahead of the captain
and his crew aboard the Pequod as
evidenced by such small details as the
strange behavior of the fish and birds
he’s berry beer you ready for him
number eight coffin for a bet in the
1956 film adaptation of the novel the
obsessed Captain Ahab is told to get
some sleep by his chief mate Starbuck
however a hab refuses and calls his
birth a coffin and ironically that’s
exactly what it was sweep that is a
coffin and those are landing ships
officers used to sleep in a box so that
upon their untimely death they could be
buried at sea the rest of the crew slept
in hammocks which also served as burial
shrouds number seven a fake prop whale a
long-standing misconception is that the
crew of the 1956 film built a complete
60-foot prop whale from head to tail in
reality they used specific sections of
the whales body as needed while on
location the only complete whale props
used were ministers shot in a special
tank back at the film studio where they
simultaneously recorded all of the
whales head shots
you
number six shot on-location it was
insisted that the 1956 film was shot on
location in the Canary Islands and
around Ireland however only a third of
it actually was the rest of the film was
filmed in an English studio location
shooting was impacted by stormy
conditions which made the crew sick and
resulted in two years of production
delays plus uploaded 4.5 million dollar
budget that was four times the average
of the time whosoever of ye finds me
that white whale he shall have the
Spanish gold ounce by boy number five
Hollywood’s vision in 1930 a very loose
adaptation of Melville’s classic novel
was produced it turned the source
material into a standard Hollywood movie
that did not properly convey what the
story was about rather than portraying
Ahab as a vengeful madman he was
depicted as a lovable scoundrel his
hatred for the whale came only from
having lost his leg and for not
believing that the whale was a source of
evil that had to be defeated number 4 a
true adaptation there have been several
adaptations of Melville’s opus but the
screenplay of the 1956 film remained the
truest to its source material call me
Ishmael however due to its generally
dark and depressing vibe plus its lack
of romance female actors or a happy
ending that version was shunned after
the script circulated Hollywood for a
few years it was finally put into
production with a Lister Gregory Peck
accepted for the role of Ahab but
nameless inscrutable unearthly thing
commands me against all human loving and
long number-3 the a-list actor
unfortunately Peck was widely considered
to be terribly miscast as the
domineering captain since he was only 38
years old and a hat was written as an
old man at the end of his career he also
struggled to recite prose and almost
drowned during the sea and whale hunting
scenes but if the great Sun cannot move
except by God’s invisible power
how can my small heart beat my brain
think thoughts unless God does that beat
you does that thinking
not living and not I so you think Peck
would never want to be involved with
Moby Dick ever again however the final
acting role of his career was his father
maple in the 1998 made-for-tv movie and
God awaken comes upon him in a mighty
whale clamps all his ivory teeth about
him and swallows him whole number two
the Star Trek connection I’m sorry I
didn’t mean to interrupt your little
quest
Captain Ahab has to go hunt his whale
this same 1998 film starred Patrick
Stewart as Captain Ahab and it was not
the first time this British actor quoted
Melville while portraying a ship’s
captain he piled on the whales white
hump a sum of all the rage and eight
vampire hallways
if his chest had been a cannon he would
have shot his heart upon it not that
Star Trek has ever been a stranger to
whale speak there be Williams number one
Moby Dick’s legacy rounding out our
trivia list is the fact the entire
sci-fi genre seems to love this novel
the folks at Battlestar Galactica
nicknamed their characters Starbuck
after a Habs young chief mate Scully
from the x-files was such a fan of the
book she called her dad Ahab and she was
dubbed Starbuck
hello Starbuck and say and while it’s
not a sci-fi franchise the Starbucks
coffee chain was named for this
character as well think about that the
next time you’re waiting in line what’s
your favorite piece of Moby Dick trivia
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