Perspective on the Soviet TV Miniseries “Captain Nemo”

When I read the "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" for myself, my take was that Captain Nemo was an antihero. I felt that his actions, while out of pocket, were justifiable in light of his motivations. As an Indian Prince fighting against the British for freedom, Verne was expressing anticolonial sentiment in a very poignant way. He held Professor Aronnax and co. hostage, yes, but purely due to the valid assumption that they would report his existence to Western Authorities and ruin his ability to continue the guerrilla warfare he was engaging in.

Considering the story is from a place of anticolonial sentiment, and revolves around revolutionaries fighting an oppressive government, I would have thought American audiences would love Captain Nemo and see him as a hero. We had our own revolution against the British, after all. 

Instead, the 1954 Disney movie “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” depicted Captain Nemo as a villainous authoritarian figure in and of himself. It hardly even touched upon his background.

Then in 1975, a three-episode TV miniseries “Captain Nemo” was aired on Russian television while the Soviet Union was still in power. In contrast to the Disney movie, it portrayed Captain Nemo as a thoughtful, gentle-mannered man, and dedicated a good portion of the second episode to flashbacks of his heroic efforts against the British as a young man in India. Notably this TV series, while campy, made a much more obvious effort to remain true to the book.

I was very curious why an authoritarian regime like Soviet Russia would glorify a man fighting against the government. (I love to hear other people’s thoughts on it.) The best I can make out is that the Soviets, who held a Marxist perspective, interpreted Captain Nemo’s story as common men fighting against the imperialist Westerners. Meanwhile, Americans couldn’t palette the thought of someone taking someone’s individual freedom, whatever the circumstances might be.