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i guess they didn't do there homework! I've i've never seen the mummy or the mummy returns but they don't have good facts by the sound of it, aparently there is a part where scarabs eat someone alive, i mean, come on!! they ate dung!!
I deal with this all the time with visitors at our museum, especially with kids. They all want to see the "bugs that eat people." And they're shocked when they see an authentic Book of the Dead. "It doesn't look like the one in the movie," they say.
The Mummy and
The Mummy Returns, starring Brandon Frasier, are takeoffs or modern versions of the original 1932 film
The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff. No one needs to take them too seriously--that's the first mistake people make. They are
not documentaries, and no one involved in the production of any of these films has ever made such a claim. They are simply entertainment, and in that I think they are highly successful, especially the two modern versions. They are for fun, and that's all. I have both
The Mummy and
The Mummy Returns on DVD and I'm not even afraid to admit it!
What these movies do is take snippets from actual history to lend themselves an air of credibility or authenticity. That's just part of the fun. Hence we have Imhotep, the vizier and architect of the 3rd Dynasty pharaoh Netjerikhet (aka Djoser). It
is kind of odd that the original producers and writers of the 1932 film with Karloff should have taken one of the greatest and most revered personages from ancient Egypt and turned him into "the undead, a curse upon mankind." Then we have the pharoah in the movie, Seti I, second king of the 19th Dynasty, who lived almost 1400 years after the time of Imhotep! I think in the second movie the actress Rachel Weisz (Evelyn) plays the reincarnated Nefertari, who was of course the Great Wife of Egypt's greatest pharaoh, Ramesses II. The actress Patricia Velasquez plays the reincarnated "Anck Su Namun" (that's how it's spelled on the website--I would have thought it would be something more like "Anuksanamun"). This is almost certainly a takeoff on the wife of Tutankhamun: Ankhesenamun.
If you want to be really picky, there are all sorts of historical inaccuracies. Did anyone catch in the first film that the mummy Imhotep has to track down
five canopic jars? There were never five but four. There's that scene where soon after coming back to life he approaches the comical character Beni, who is fumbling with his many religious necklaces to try to "pray" Imhotep away. Imhotep is clutching a shattered canopic vessel as he asks something like "Where are the other sacred jars?" This canopic vessel bears the head of Sekhmet or some other feline or lioness deity!
But why be picky? Again, it's just for fun. If you want to learn about Egypt, read, then read some more, and read more...you get the idea.
Now, go watch
The Mummy and have a good laugh!
