angels and demons

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WRITING SKILLS FINAL REPORT A PROJECT REPORT ON ANGELS AND DEMONS BY SYED WAJAHAT ALI (9718) Submitted to Respected SIR:MR.AYYAZ RAFIQUE Submitted on SATURDAY, 12 TH DECEMBER, 2009 Section 9:00 am to 12:00 am M-1

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Page 1: Angels and Demons

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WRITING SKILLS FINAL REPORT

A PROJECT REPORT ON

ANGELS AND DEMONS

BYSYED WAJAHAT ALI (9718)

Submitted toRespected SIR:MR.AYYAZ RAFIQUE

Submitted onSATURDAY, 12TH DECEMBER, 2009

Section9:00 am to 12:00 am M-1

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CONTENT

1. WRITERS INFORMATION………………………………………………4

2. WRITER’S WRITING STYLE IN THE BOOK…………………………...5

3. SUMMARY OF THE STORY……………………………………………..6

4. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MOVIE AND BOOK……………………….8

5. MOVIE CRITIQUE……………………………………………………….10

6. PERSONAL RECOMMANDATION…………………………………….11

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Writer’s Background :-

Dan Brown, best-selling author of 'The Da Vinci Code' and ‘Angels and Demons’ was born on June 22, 1964.

Brown grew up as the eldest of three children in Exeter, New Hampshire and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy. His mother, Constance, was a professional musician involved in performing sacred music. Dan Brown was a Catholic Christian and he used to sing with the choir in the church and was involved in Christian reading as well.

Brown then attended Amherst College, graduating with a degree in English and Spanish in 1986 and spent several years attempting to establish himself as a singer-songwriter and pianist with no great success. These endeavors did, however, lead him to live in Los Angeles where he taught Spanish at Beverly Hills Preparatory School and where he also met Blythe Newlon. This lady was then employed as Artistic Director of the National Academy of Songwriters. As their relationship developed Blythe used her influence in attempts to further Dan Brown's musical career.Four CDs of his music were produced but he was not very well received by the industry due to his reserved personality. In 1993 he decided to return to New Hampshire and secured a teaching job, in English, at Phillips Exeter Academy, Blythe Newlon accompanied him.

Dan Brown puts his writing career down to reading a copy of Sidney Sheldon's "Doomsday Conspiracy" which he had found on the beach whilst on holiday in Tahiti in 1994, saying, "I finished the book and thought, 'Hey, I could do that'."

In 1995 Dan Brown and Blythe, (now describing herself as an art historian), wrote, under the pseudonym Danielle Brown '187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman'. The following year Dan Brown became a full-time writer, Dan Brown and Blythe Newlon were married in 1997, he published his first thriller, Digital Fortress, in 1998. He went on to write 'Angels and Demons' and 'Deception Point'. In the early pages of 'Deception Point' there appeared an Acknowledgement where Brown thanked "Blythe Brown for her tireless research and creative input." 'The Da Vinci Code' which seems also to have benefited from such "research and input" was published in March 2003 and sold 6,000 copies on the first day - going to the top of the New York Times' Best Seller list in the first week of publication.

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His popular books like ‘Da Vinci Code’ and this one ‘Angels And Demons’ have been transformed into mega blockbuster hit movies. Tom Hanks is given the responsibility to be ROBERT LANGDON.

Writer’s Writing Style

The genre that Dan Brown writes is a bit difficult to define since he uses a blend of religion, history, fiction, mystery and thriller in his books. Therefore his writings is an combination of all the above mentioned flavors.

Although Dan Brown's books have exciting plots and are what one would call "page-turners", I believe that his style of writing is rather mediocre.

In this book which is ‘Angels and Demons’, Dan Brown has used a more elaborative type of writing. In his books, Dan Brown gives more attention to the place rather than the characters. Usually places and environments are the trigger mechanism of the entire story where characters are used just as a source of support for the story itself. Places are used to give the entire story a direction but characters are just used for the steady flow of the story.

Dan Brown’s style of writing is more 3rd person in which he tends to tell stories as a narrator the old fashioned way rather than adding different characters to explain to you the entire story from their own perspective. Therefore his books contain less dialogues and more elaboration and explanation from a third person’s perspective.

Dan Brown also uses his elaborative writing style to explain you each situation in depth so that when you read the story, it’s almost like the book is alive and you can feel the entire environment. This is the reason why the readers is transformed to the place what DAN BROWN is mentioning in the book as soon as he reads the book and ANGELS AND DEMONS is no exception.

One important thing to note in this book and in general in all of DAN BROWN’S books is that the chapters are usually short.What this means is that he changes

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places and scenarios frequently to give the reader a feeling of race against time feeling in which your mind is everywhere and you have to keep the entire situation in your mind to plane your approach.

Finally Dan Brown uses the facts and manipulates it in such a way that a plain and simple date like 25th December is transformed into an enigma.

Summary Of The Story:-

The plot follows Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, as he tries to stop what seems to be the Illuminati, a legendary secret society, from destroying Vatican City with the newly-discovered power of antimatter.

CERN director Maximilian Kohler discovers one of the facility's most respected physicists, Leonardo Vetra, murdered in his own secured, private quarter at the facility. His chest is branded with a symbol—an ambigram of the word "Illuminati”. Instead of calling the police, Kohler researches the topic on the Internet and finally gains contact with Langdon, an expert on the Illuminati. Kohler requests his assistance in uncovering the murderer.

What Langdon finds at the murder scene frightens him: the symbol appears to be authentic, and the secret society of legend, long thought to be extinct, seems to have appeared again. Kohler calls Vetra's adopted daughter Vittoria to the scene, and it is later revealed that the Illuminati have also stolen a canister containing a quarter of a gram of antimatter—an extremely dangerous substance with immense destructive potential comparable to a small nuclear weapon, which explodes upon contact with any form of normal matter. When charged with electricity at CERN, the canister's magnetic field controls the drop of antimatter , ensuring safety; but when it was taken away from its electricity supply, it automatically switched to its back-up battery, which will only power it for 24 hours, at which point the antimatter will fall, come into contact with the base of the canister, and self-destruct. The Illuminati have placed the stolen canister somewhere in Vatican City, with a security camera in front of it, as its digital clock counts down to the explosion.

Langdon and Vittoria make their way to Vatican City, where the pope has recently died, and the election of the new pope is beginning. Cardinal Mortati, host of the election, discovers that the four Preferiti(cardinals who are considered to be the most likely candidates in the election) are missing. After they arrive, Langdon and

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Vittoria begin searching for the Preferiti in hopes that they will also find the antimatter canister in the process. Their search is assisted by Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca (the late pope's closest adviser) and the Vatican's Swiss Guard, including Commander Olivetti, Captain Rocher, and Lieutenant Chartrand.

Convinced that the Illuminati are in some way responsible for the disappearance of the Preferiti, Langdon attempts to retrace the steps of the "Path of Illumination", an ancient process once used by the Illuminati as a means of admission of new members, prospective candidates were required to follow a series of tricky clues left in various landmarks in and around Rome. If the candidate followed the clues properly, he would be able to locate the secret meeting place of the Illuminati and be granted membership in the order. Using his knowledge of religious history, Langdon sets off on the Path of Illumination in hopes of uncovering clues as to the disappearance of the Preferiti and the location of the antimatter canister.

The Path leads Langdon to four major locations in Rome (Vatican City is within the city of Rome), each associated with what the Illuminati believed to be the four elements of all things in existence: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Upon arriving at each location, Langdon finds one of the Preferiti murdered in a fashion appropriate to the location's respective element: The first cardinal was branded with an Earth ambigram, had soil forced down his throat and was buried; the second was branded with an Air ambigram and had his lungs punctured; the third was branded with a Fire ambigram and was burned alive; and the fourth was branded with a Water ambigram and was chained and left to drown at the bottom of a large fountain.

After finding the bodies of the first two Preferiti (Earth and Air), Langdon hurries to the Santa Maria Church and finds the Preferiti's abductor in the act of setting the third cardinal on fire. The kidnapper, who is also responsible for Leonardo Vetra's murder and the theft of the antimatter canister, is an unnamed assassin who is working under the orders of the Illuminati master "Janus", whose true identity is unknown. Commander Olivetti is killed, and Langdon nearly dies himself in this encounter with the assassin, who manages to kidnap Vittoria. Langdon manages to escape and meets the assassin yet again at the final element's landmark (Water), but is unable to save the final cardinal.

Langdon nevertheless attempts to complete the Path of Illumination in order to find the assassin and rescue Vittoria. His search leads him to an underground tunnel leading directly into the pope's chambers in the Vatican. Langdon frees Vittoria, and together they send the assassin falling several hundred feet to his death. The two hurry back to St. Peter's Basilica, where they find that Kohler has arrived to confront the camerlengo in private. Langdon and Vittoria fear that Kohler is Janus, and that he has come to murder the camerlengo as the final step in his plot against the Church. Hearing the camerlengo scream in pain, the Swiss Guards burst into the room and open fire on Kohler. Just before he dies, Kohler gives Langdon a videotape that he claims will explain everything.

With time on the canister running out, the Swiss Guard begins to evacuate the Vatican city. As he is exiting the church, the camerlengo rushes back into the Church, claiming that he has received a vision from God revealing the location of the antimatter canister. With Langdon and a few others in pursuit, the camerlengo goes deep into the church and finds the canister sitting atop the tomb of Saint Peter.

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Langdon and the camerlengo retrieve the antimatter and get in a helicopter with only five minutes to spare. The camerlengo manages to parachute safely onto the roof of St. Peter's just as the canister explodes harmlessly in the sky. Langdon's fate is not immediately known, as there was not a second parachute on board the helicopter. The crowd in St. Peter's Square look in awe as the camerlengo stands before them. Because of this "miracle", the papal conclave decides to elect the camerlango as the new Pope. Langdon managed to survive the explosion by using a window cover from the helicopter as a parachute, and landed in a near river,some people rescue him and takes him to the hospital where he recovers.

Langdon returns to St. Peter's and views Kohler's tape with the College of Cardinals. Langdon, Vittoria, and the cardinals confront the camerlengo in the church, where the truth is finally revealed.It was the camerlango all along who plotted this entire scheme to become the POPE. He also killed the Late Pope to be his immediate successor.

Differences Between The Book And The

Movie:-

The primary criticism for the movie was that it did not follow the exact same plot as the book did. A lot of events never took place in the movie that were described with great details in the book and one or two characters never showed up in the movie

that were there in the book.

Some of the important differences are given below.

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1. In the book the fifth ILLUMINATI Symbol is different than the movie. In the movie the fifth illuminati symbol is a diamond shaped ambigram while in the movie it is the shape of a key.

The Symbol In The Movie.

The symbol in the BOOK

2. In the book all the four Preferiti(the chosen four who have the best chance of becoming the pope) are killed by the Assassin and the Cardinal Mortati who was hosting the election for the new Pope is made the new Pope. However, in the movie it is shown that only 3 of the Preferiti are killed while the fourth one-Cardinal Baggia of Italy survives and in the end is made the new Pope.

3. Perhaps one of the most critical deviation of the movie from the actual plot of the movie is that in the book, the antimatter is created by CERN scientist Leonardo Vetra and his adopted daughter Vittoria Vetra. No one knows about this titanic discovery that Leonardo Vetra along with his daughter Vottoria Vetra has uncovered the antimatter technology. However in the movie, it is shown that the entire CERN facility knows the discovery since they themselves were involved alongside Leonardo Vetra in the discovery of the

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antimatter while the adopted daughter of Leonard Vetra was not involved in the discovery.

4. In the book, Kohler-The Director Of CERN- contacted Robert Langdon through a phone call and faxed him the illuminati symbol since he knew that Robert Langdon is the only man who can help him in this critical situation since he discovered the dead body of Leonardo Vetra in his bedroom and also the canister containing the Antimatter is missing which might have disastrous ramifications. He went to CERN facility with a high tech Jet. Together with Vittoria, they went to Vatican because they believe that it is hidden there as the Papal conclave for the Pope Election has convened. At first they didn’t believed them but later on the guards find a video from the Vatican which shows the canister. However in the movie, a representative of Vatican approached Langdon , showed him the illuminati symbol and took him to the Vatican in a normal airliner and he goes there without Vittoria Vetra unlike in the book.

5. In the book,the Camelango Ventrasca-the closest adviser to the Late Pope and also his murderer-burns himself in front of the entire Vatican City who is gathered to elect the new Pope. He stands in the balcony and burns himself in front of everyone as his cover is blown. Whereas in the movie, Camerlango Carlo Vantresca burns himself inside the St.Peters Church in front of the oncoming guards who are coming to arrest him.

In the Movie, they have taken out some characters like Kohler, Leonardo Vetra, reporter Glick and Macri and their side stories like the Hassasin.Why he did the killings told by Janus(disguised by camerlengo). They also never mentioned about the attraction between Langdon and Vittoria.

Movie Critique:-

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Angels and Demons , an intriguing blend of mystery and race against the clock games.  In this Tom Hanks (as well as the remaining cast) performance was top notch and intense with a capital “I”.

This movie has an edge of your seat, stomach clenching, fear for the heroes/heroines, automatic response.  Angels and Demons was not a typical sequel, it just had the feel of a movie all to its own. A table-turning, trust no one but must trust everyone great suspense. One of the best things in the Dan Brown books turned to movies, is that Robert Langdon isn't always right, he's always coming to some false conclusion.  But that’s a plus to his character, makes him seem more believable, more realistic.  Plus the fact that symbols can be interpreted in many ways, adds a sense of authenticity to this claim.

But perhaps the below mentioned things can best describe the movie.

Threaten a someone or a whole bunch of someones, make us care about the someone; start the clock ticking; throw up a whole ton of obstacles; throw in a loved-one, religion politics, and perhaps some special effects.  Blend them all together and you have the movie.

However as the main theme of ANGELS AND DEMONS says that everything is made in pairs, therefore with appraise also comes criticism. The movie has some flaws like the characters are not pick in accordance to the book.

But perhaps the biggest flaw is that the movie was ina way made for the people who have read the book rather than the person who has no idea about the movie.It will take time for people who are watching this movie without actually reading the book to grasp the basic idea behind it as it is very complicated and the producers made no effort to make easy for people to understand the movie who have not read the book prior watching the movie.

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Personal Recommandtions:-

This is the part where I will give my recommendations regarding both the book and the movie.

Personal Recommendation Regarding The Book:-

Although the book was very properly written with suitable characters and the proper elaboration of all the places and events. However I would like to recommend that Dan Brown sometime elaborated and exaggerated the situation so much that it became a drag, it was almost like the Dan Brown was trying to exaggerate certain things and places which is not always the right idea to do given he actual plot was already a bit difficult to grasp for the general reader who does not have sufficient knowledge on the topic (just like me).

My second recommendation as far as the book is concerned is the lack of character mentioned in the book. The story line is excellent yet the absence of enough characters makes me feel that I am listening to a bed time story from my grandma. The lack of characters make this movie a 3rd person narrative story which I don’t like that much.

All in all I must recommend everyone to read this book as it is very though provoking and helps you teach some history lessons as well.

Personal Recommendation Regarding The Movie:-

The movie was obviously the actual adaptation of the novel however it does not mean that the entire movie was made in accordance with the plot mentioned in the book.

My first and foremost recommendation is that the movie should have been in the same sequence as the book was since the book mentioned some background history on the topic while the movie never mentioned it. Its fine for me to grasp he idea but the person who has not read the book prior watching the movie might end up with a blank stare on his face since the movie does not make any attempt to clear the idea assuming that the watcher has already read the book which is not always the case.

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Secondly I will like to recommend that the flow of the movie should have been a bit slower.The actual flow of the movie was breathtakingly fast. It did not give the viewer any time to think and analyze a scene rather the movie itself was a breakaway train

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