What if they were stranded some place much colder?
I don't think they would have survived for long.
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MovieChat Forums > The Blue Lagoon (1980) Discussion > What if they were stranded some place m...
Then they would live like the Eskimos, which, by the way still exist (so the correct assumption is that they manage to reproduce).
shareYes, but the more cruel environment needs more protection and more lessons by older ones (parents, ancestors, members of tribe...). Do you expect that kids at this age (about 8) coming from warm countries could suddenly know how and be able to build an iglu, kill a polar bear or a seal to get fur... Even with an old sailor like Paddy - most likely he wouldn't know more and would die together with the kids.
shareYou have a good point, przgzr. Maybe a lot would depend upon what supplies they were able to obtain from the ship. Based on this story, there didn't seem to be too much in that old chest that they had that would help. I read a true story, though, of a man (yes, he was an adult, not children) who survived all by himself in the Arctic after a commercial plane crashed and every single person was killed except him. He was rescued after being there for six months. Of course, a crashed airplane has a whole lot more useful things than the children in the Blue Lagoon had. For example, the man said that he was able to keep warm with parachute material. There would be pieces of jagged metal that could be fashioned into weapons. Presumably, there was even some food on the plane (that, thanks to the arctic conditions, were "refrigerated". The interesting thing about his case was that he had had absolutely no prior experience with the outdoors. He had never gone camping, wasn't ever a Boy Scout, wasn't in the military, never even slept outside in his own backyard. And yet, all by himself, amazingly, he was able to survive in the Arctic.
If this Blue Lagoon ship were wrecked in the Arctic, meaning that perhaps that ship sailed that route before, then maybe they would have had supplies appropriate for that location, and Paddy might have had experience with that region and might have been able to give the kids a good start.
But I guess the real truth was that they really would not survive, after all. Maybe that's why all these Robinson Crusoe-Swiss Family Robinson-The Cay-The Blue Lagoon stories happen in the tropics!
I also find your point about experiences depending on routes valid, thomasdosborneii. It would be logical that back in old days the equipment of the ships and even their construction was depending on planned routes even more than today. And those old captains used to chose at least half of the crew that already had experiences on the particular line.
So, not only that Paddy would more likely be Harald, Olaf or Erik, but the ship would be constructed to withstand coldness, ice etc.
But in the time when the story takes place there haven't been many commercial lines in Arctic region (in fact there aren't many today as well). It was in late 80's of 19th century when first ship managed to go through northeast passage, but being captured in ice for months, and the first successful (and only then some rare commercial) navigation happened before WWII. Northwest passage was successfully navigated even later. So, in the time of our story there was no chance that a ship with kids might appear in this region. (And, if you take a look into history books, you'll see how many polar expeditions terminated with sunk or crashed ships, sometimes with fatal outcome for the majority of the crew - that was experienced, adult, equipped and trained for these conditions.)
Of course, we can speculate that the ship didn't have to go so far into Arctic sea. But if this shipwreck happened somewhere below this most cruel parallels, then it would be hard to find available islands to set the story. There aren't many islands, and those that exist are either inhabited (Iceland, Faroerne, Shetland, or Aleutian in Pacific Ocean), or at least often visited by fishermen or miners (Svalbard, Jan Mayen - but even they are too far north; or small islands near Norwegian or coast, Orkney) and most north Pacific islands are close to the continent, so again there is little chance to make a story like this.
So, it seems that all the Robinson-ish stories that you've mentioned have to be in tropics, because they simply have no adequate place elsewhere...
Very cool analysis, przgzr, especially for someone like me (and, obviously someone like you!) who loves geography, history, explorations, seafaring, and navigation. I love it that Paddy would have been a Harald, Olaf, or Erik...or, I might add, somebody maybe even with the nickname of "Red".
Your comment makes me think of several things. One is, the Titanic, how in a "normal" cross-Atlantic route between Southhampton and New York, they didn't have to as far north as the Arctic in order to have killing cold, killingly cold especially if you had to be IN that water! I don't know if you have seen the revolving Titanic exhibition, but one of the things that impressed me was that they have a chilled wall that matches the temperature of the water that the people floated in. They challenge you to put your hand against the wall to see how long you can stand it (and then imagine being stuck in water that cold where you cannot escape it). I held my hand against the wall as long as I could, which wasn't very long. And then my hand burned with pain the whole rest of the way home, so powerful was the effect of that cold.
Another thing that comes to mind is during a warming period in the world's climate, seafaring Scandinavians found their way to Greenland that at the time was warmer (than it is now) and appealing, so they colonized it. But then the climate got much colder and the colony died out. So that's a concept of a "long term shipwreck"--the place was quite habitable, then became way too cold for civilization. By then, there were no more ships going that way, so the people were really quite stranded! I suppose this is the opposite of the "boiled frog" metaphor.
And the third thing was that last weekend, I read a children's book by my favorite children's author, E. Nesbit, about England's royal children, and she wrote about how during the reign of King Alfred, England was constantly molested by invading Danes. Nesbit describes the land of the Danes as being "just awful" (of course, she was prejudiced) and England looked so nice to the Danes so they really wanted it. But it reminded me, again, of the seafaring efforts of the various Norse people, who were a force to be reckoned with, and, of course there are islands all over that region. (And over on the Swedish side, too, between Sweden and Finland, there is the whole Stockholm Archipelago, scores and scores of islands in basically an "Alaska-like" climate zone.) I think for an interested writer, there may be a possibility of making some attempt at a "Blue Lagoon" type shipwreck story involving that region. Of course, they would have to forgo the concept of "very sexy teenagers running around naked"....!
There are numerous islands next to Scandinavian coast, not only around Stockholm but Göteborg as well; also there are bigger islands like Gotland, and not to mention thousands of Norwegian islands along the Atlantic coast up to Lofoten. However, all these islands are too close to one another and the coast, and in few days or mostly months (though the latter seems very unbelievable) they would be found, giving authors no chance to develop the plot about kids becoming teenagers (more or less clothed).
There is one archipelago that could suit the location in the term of isolation, Aland islands, and maybe one solitary island but placed in the south of Baltic, Borhnolm. Unfortunately for potential moviemakers, both Aland islands and Bornholm have been inhabited centuries before any of Robinson-ish stories, including Blue Lagoon, so again for a story like that only an imaginary island could fit the criteria. And unlike Oceania it would be hard to convince average audience that such an island could exist in this part of the world.
As for Titanic, she went by far too north from ordinary routes. Again, something that a captain from Blue Lagoon year would never have done.
Denmark, on the other hand, no matter how awful might have seemed to Brits, was a developed and, compared to neighbors, rather rich country in 19th century, so if the shipwreck happened on any of Danish islands there would never be a story similar to Blue Lagoon. The difference in economic situation was well shown in Bille August's Pelle Erobreren where Swedes leave their homes because of poverty and hunger and go to Denmark (some of those old antagonisms and relict of despise appear in Susanne Bier's Haevnen). Some movies show the stories from old times when children managed to live alone for a while in north European cold wilderness, like Trollsyn or Ulvepigen Tinke, but it was for too short period confirming my statement that in this region no shipwreck could be unnoticed and no surviving children left unsaved for more than a few weeks.
If they were stranded some place much colder? Well,then there would have been no nudity in the film, and this movie wouldn't have so many posts on this site :)
shareIf there was no nudity this film wouldnt have been worth watching at all
shareIgloos can be surprisingly warm, and the Inuit (Eskimos) have been reproducing for thousands of years. I bet you could get them nude for some of the movie.
I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler.
- Jon Stewart
I have yet to come accross ANY eskimo porn inside of an igloo.. anywhere.... so your theory might not hold any water
shareIf it was colder out, Chris's tinkle would be smaller!!!
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