Week 6 Story: Survivor Season 36: Castaway

(Survivor Bermuda Logo: Wikimedia Commons)

“Welcome back to Survivor Season 36. I am your host, Captain Jack Sparrow, and we are down to our final three contestants. We have been through several challenges and only the strongest have survived. First, we have Jack Dawson, a starving artist from Wisconsin who was one of the survivors of the infamous Titanic wreck. Next, we have Chuck “Wilson” Noland, a systems manager and high school volleyball coach from Memphis, Tennessee. Last, but not least, we have Sindbad, a sailor from Baghdad, Iraq. For all of you new viewers joining us this week, let me run over how the show works. It is the same rules as previous seasons of Survivor, but with a twist. Instead of voting contestants off of the island, the contestant with the most votes against them are left stranded on whichever island we are currently on. Tonight, we will find out who will make it to the finale and who will be left stranded.”

Camera zooms in on Chuck and Jack privately discussing their votes for tonight

“I don’t know Jack, Sindbad is a nice guy and he’s my friend. I feel bad teaming up against him like this behind his back.”

“Chuck, it’s him or one of us. We have to stick together and vote for him. He’s already rich from his long run on Jeopardy!, it’s our time to shine.”

Sindbad is facing the camera for an interview

“I honestly don’t know who I’m voting for tonight. I have grown to like both of them throughout this experience. Chuck is a great guy, but he does tend to talk about volleyball way too much. Especially how superior Wilson volleyballs are to other brands. Jack is cool too, but he did almost lose our team the challenge in week two when we realized he wasn’t a strong swimmer. This is definitely going to be a tough decision.”

Camera is on Captain Jack Sparrow in the middle of the beach

“Who’s going to get stranded tonight and miss out on the chance to win one million dollars? Find out after these short messages.”

Commercial break

Author's Note: The original story that is the basic of this retelling is Sindbad's Second Voyage. In this voyage, the sailor Sindbad goes to various islands with a group of merchants. However, one day they end up on a nice island where Sindbad decides to relax and go to sleep. He wakes up and realizes that the ship has left and he is stranded on the island alone. Sindbad now has to find a way to get back home. Later on, Sindbad meets up with the ship that left him and finds out that is was an accident. I changed this story and turned in into the reality TV show Survivor. I included Jack Dawson from the movie Titanic, Chuck Noland from the movie Castaway, Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. This retelling changes the way Sindbad was left on the island since it is now a competition on who will be left stranded. 

Bibliography: Sindbad: Second Voyage by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898). 

Reading Notes: The Voyages of Sindbad, Part B

(Sindbad Plots Against the Giant by Maxfield Parrish: Wikimedia Commons)

I like how Sindbad just decides to build his own ship and travel even though he has gone through so many terrible experiences already.

Whenever their ship gets destroyed by the Rocs, I think it would be funny to see everyone freaking while Sindbad is calmly floating with his driftwood because he has been through this scenario plenty of times.

It was extremely weird reading the part about the old man that forces Sindbad to carry him around. However, it is actually a pretty funny scene which I could use in my retelling.

My favorite part so far of this entire unit is when they throw rocks at the monkeys because they know they will get mad and start throwing coconuts at them. I can just picture this happening and someone next to Sindbad saying, “Watch this,” as he throws the rocks at the monkeys.

Whenever Sindbad the crew get shipwrecked this time I would like to change it to where he is like on a phone or something while the captain and everyone else is freaking out. They see Sindbad on his phone playing a game or something and he just looks up and says that he’s bored and he’s been through more exciting adventures.

It would be funny if the people of Serendib prank Sindbad once they realize he’s harmless. They hear him speaking in Arabic to himself and they decide to pretend like they’re savages or something to scare him. They let this prank go on for awhile and then reward Sindbad with treasure for being a good sport.

It seems as though Sindbad really does not want to go back to see. I’ll change it to where he secretly does and puts up kind of a fight against the Caliph’s wishes. However, he’s secretly excited about going on another adventure.

Everything seems to go fine at first during the first few days. I would like to see Sindbad just constantly looking over his shoulder or something just waiting for something bad to happen since he’s so used to it now.

In my retelling, Sindbad will be relieved when he sees the pirates because it wouldn’t be a voyage for him without something terribly wrong happening. Sindbad will be like, “Oh no, pirates,” but say it in a tone to where you can tell he’s not scared.

I found it interesting how the elephants decided not to kill Sindbad. In fact, they showed him where an abundance of ivory was even though he had killed so many elephants.

Sindbad’s whole story kind of made me think of the movie “Groundhog Day” because he’s sort of reliving the same day over and over again, but with different adventures. I could possibly incorporate something like that into my version of the story. 

Bibliography: The Voyages of Sindbad by by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).

Reading Notes: The Voyages of Sindbad, Part A

(Sinbad's third voyage. Encounter with a man-eating giant: Wikipedia)

It is interesting to me how Sindbad was able to see that he was managing his money poorly because I feel like a lot of people do not realize that until it is way too late.

It’s crazy how everyone mistook a whale as an island. I think I could retell this part to have someone question the legitimacy of the island before a huge group of them get on it.

Sindbad being stranded in the ocean and luckily getting on shore to an island reminds me of the movie “Castaway.” I will probably have Tom Hanks as the main character in my retelling.

I think it would be funny if Sindbad had to something outrageous or tell a secret that was only between him and the captain before the captain believed it was him.

I like how Sindbad ended up better off getting thrown off the whale and landing on that island. In my retelling, I will talk more about the stuff that he bought when he got home and will include expensive items that are just unnecessary.

When Sindbad said he was bored, I imagined him doing really mundane activities and I found it comical for some reason because of his earlier story.

It would be funny if the merchants Sindbad was traveling with were pranking him when he thought they had left him. They are hiding and watching him freak out, but then he gets a ride from that huge bird and they realize that they made a terrible mistake.

The snakes around the diamonds made me think of Indiana Jones because of his travels and his fear of snakes. I could incorporate some aspects of those movies into my version of this story.

The way the merchants got diamonds by throwing meat so that the birds would get it is so bizarre, but I love every part of it.

Sindbad seems really calm when the bird is coming to pick him up. I will change this and have him thinking or saying stuff that will show how scared he is.

Once again, I love how he came out rich by going through some terrible events.

Although they were savages, I don’t like how easily the dwarfs took control over Sindbad and his fellow travelers. I think it would be better if the dwarfs thought they were stronger, but Sindbad and the rest of the crew easily handled them.

I will retell it as if Sindbad and the rest meant to land on the island with the giant on it without having any clue what was on the island.

It would be funny if Sindbad was like, “Don’t worry guys, I read this in the Odyssey,” and devised a plan like Odysseus to escape the giants.

It’s hilarious how he met up with the crew of his second voyage which had left him stranded. It would be funny if Sindbad had acknowledged that this had happened to him before.

This part took an unexpected turn and I did not think Sindbad was going to kill people for their provisions. I will probably try to retell this in a lighter way.

Bibliography: The Voyages of Sindbad by by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898).