Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works

Fate/Stay Night is a popular visual novel(or game) released in 2004. It consisted of three routes which all follow a similar line of plot: there are magicians called Masters who control beings called Servants and fight each other to obtain the Holy Grail, which can grant any wish. 

The second route of the visual novel, titled Unlimited Blade Works, was adapted into a movie in 2010. 

The important thing to note when comparing the movie and the light novel is that the movie was made with the assumption that the viewer has some knowledge of the plot.The consequences of such a constraint on a source material can be heavy. The Unlimited Blade Works visual  in particular, had a deep philosophical message about how Gilgamesh, a warrior who could use all Noble Phantasms(powerful,ancient weapons) would never be able to defeat Emiya Shirou, a master of one specific weapon. Other fights in the visual novel too possess such philosophical backgrounds.
The movie however, strips the plot of all these. It is a perfect example of an intentional violation of fidelity. The movie aims to accentuate the x-factor of the series: the fight scenes. 

Intertextuality is also a noteworthy cinematic aspect of Unlimited Blade Works. While the movie is based on the light novel, the Servants in the light novel mentioned above are based on the stories of real-life mythological characters.

As a result, Unlimited Blade Works is also a good case study of appropriation:

The first picture is Gilgamesh, a character in Mesopotamian myth, whose appearance has been appropriated to the modern era setting in which Unlimited Blade Works takes place in. The picture below it is the actual sculpture of him.









The Fate series has countless branches with the same principle and I would highly recommend giving one a try!


Written by Amogh Bharadwaj
ID: 2019A7PS0086H

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