Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ is based on Neil Gaiman’s comic book of the same name. The series premiered recently on August 5. Netflix dropped the whole season at once instead of releasing a single episode per week. “The Sandman isn’t only about dreams. It’s really a story about stories,” says creator Neil Gaiman.
The series contains a total of 10 episodes plus a surprise bonus episode. Tom Sturridge plays the Sandman, a.k.a Dream. It is a cinematic masterpiece and a blend of dark, funny melding of myth and magic in the modern world. It is filled with seductive and destructive supernatural beings in a richly layered realm of fears and fantasies. The core of ‘The Sandman’ is the humanity of the people Morpheus encounters.
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Who Is Sandman?
Sandman is a figure of mythology, and the roles he plays across fairy tales and stories are complex. This folkloric creature lulls people to sleep and brings pleasant dreams to his charges. Using magic sand sprinkled into the eyes of the sleeping, the Sandman brings good dreams to sleepers, leaving only a fine dusting of sand in their eyes. Hence why you may sometimes wake up with ‘sleepy sand’ in the corners of your eyes.
Gaiman created a whole new version of the character. He took the original mythical nature of Sandman, added gothic and dark elements, and came up with a grim and mystifying ‘Morpheus’. The Sandman is one of the seven siblings known as the Endless, who predates god. They each rule over a different realm of existence. They are powerful but not totally invulnerable, all-knowing, or free from the rules of the universe.
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Why Morpheus Is Known As The ‘King Of Dreams’?
The Sandman paints a picture of Morpheus as a selfish, arrogant adventurer whose pleasure with his own cleverness fades over time. The other Endless mostly call him Dream, but ‘Morpheus,’ as in the ‘Greek god of dreams,’ is one of Dream’s favorite guises among mortals and is a name he uses in numerous contexts. And it is pretty clear from the series that, Dream is really more of a title than a name. As an Endless, Morpheus incarnates one of the concepts without which life wouldn’t be possible in the universe: the ability to dream, wonder, and imagine new worlds. Also, just as every other Endless, Morpheus has a realm from which he rules; the Dreaming.
The synopsis of the series from Netflix: “A rich blend of modern myth and dark fantasy in which contemporary fiction, historical drama and legend are seamlessly interwoven, The Sandman follows the people and places affected by Morpheus, the Dream King, as he mends the cosmic—and human—mistakes he’s made during his vast existence.”
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