Not Apollo

 

Martin Winkler lists “some non-classical Apollos” in Cinema and Classical Texts: Apollo’s new light (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2009), 90 fn. 36:

            Battlestar Gallactica (1978) and related productions: Captain Apollo

            Battlestar Gallactica: the second coming (1999): promoted to Commander Apollo

            Jetsons: the movie (1990): Apollo Blue, a character (not eleaborated by Winkler)

            B.A. Rolfe, creator, Miss 139 (1921 film): Professor Apollo Cawber

            D.W. Griffith, director, The White Rose (1923): a character is nicknamed Apollo

            Sydney Morgan, Shadow of Egypt (1924): a character named Apollo

            Henry Hathaway, director, Johnny Apollo (1940 film noir): protagonist’s alias

                     Daniel Mann, director, A Dream of Kings (1969 film): a character named Apollo
Mann’s A Dream of Kings is based on “a work by Harry Mark Petrakis and set among Chicago’s Greek population.”

J.G. Avildsen, director, Rocky (1976) [and then S. Stalone, dir.] 4 of 5 films feature Apollo Creed

Hercules: the legendary journey ... mentioned but not explicated by Winkler

Mamoru Hamasu and Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, directors, Arion (Japanese anime 1986): Apollo is a ‘bad guy’ who wants to rule over the Titans

Gregory J. Markopoulos, director, The Illiac Passion (1967): Apollo has a role in the narrative that is ‘loosely based’ on Aeschylus’ Promtheus Bound, though Aeschylus did not conceive the role of Apollo

E.B. Hesser, director, The Triumph of Venus (silent film 1918): a “curio” with an Apollo

A. Patrick, director, The Affairs of Aphrodite (1970): another ‘curio’ with an Apollo

Magnum, P.I. (80’s television series): featured two Dobermans named Apollo and Zeus

 

Winkler’s list raises some question in my mind:

1)    Winkler assembles this listing (above) under the presumption that these usages are based less on Greek mythology than they are on “constellations and ... space travel.” He specifically links them to “science fiction.” Is that really the case? Is it true for all of them? Indeed, 1/3 of the list is comprised of pre-Sputnik usages.

2)    Winkler’s text, to which this note is a comment, pertains to “general historical and cultural amnesia” that is manifest in the Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?”, an episode where such amnesia pertains. Should the instances above really be so blithely dismissed as “non-classical”?

3)    Would it not perhaps reward some digging, especially into the less obvious usages, to ask how the name was arrived at?

 

 

Apollonia:

            “...The first wife of Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) and Apollonius of Tyana in George Pal’s 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), originally a first-century AD Greek philosopher and the subject of a fictionalized biography from the early third century.” (Winkler, op cit.)