Re: Roc (02)

And a bit more about Roc the giant bird. Basically, in the canon of the “Arabian nights” it is nothing more than a giant eagle or a hawk, whose wings overshadow the sun and who feeds on elephants, cattle, giant snakes and so on. There is not much monstrous about the Roc, then, other than its size. Roc is an uttermost – well, one of the uttermost – manifestation of humans’ ancestral primate fear of the diurnal birds of prey that hunted our ancestors (fact that is supported by the fossils), nothing more. In Harryhausen’s Sinbad movies the Roc was just a “random encounter”, a monster that Sinbad and his crew had to defeat. In Sinbad 2012, the Roc is actually turning to be a helpful and intelligent ally to Sinbad, after he frees the giant bird from Razia’s chains. Score 1 for the new Sinbad show and for the new and improved (as hard as it is to believe) Roc!