Alyvia – Olivia Newton John
Zanadu – Xanadu
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Alyvia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Newton-John
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu_(film)
Alyvia is an Aquilan Muse and adviser to Khan. She was given charge to watch over Zanadu in Khan’s abscence. She holds court in the Leisure Dome in the Comfort Zone.
Once you meet her she demands that the “Imposter” Khan prove himself on the dance floor. Although she knows that Khan is truly who he claims to be she cannot pass up the chance to see the King of Zanadu totally rule the dance floor.
Best known for her starring role as Sandy in the film adaptation of the musical Grease, Dame Olivia Newton-John AC DBE (September 26 1948 – August 8, 2022) was a British and Australian singer and actress. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included fifteen top-ten singles, including five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200: If You Love Me, Let Me Know (1974) and Have You Never Been Mellow (1975). Eleven of her singles (including two Platinum) and fourteen of her albums (including two Platinum and four 2× Platinum) have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
In 1978, Newton-John’s career soared after she starred as Sandy in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Grease. Grease became the biggest box-office hit of 1978. The soundtrack album spent 12 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 and yielded three Top 5 singles for Newton-John: the platinum “You’re the One That I Want” (No. 1 Pop, No. 23 AC) with John Travolta, the gold “Hopelessly Devoted to You” (No. 3 Pop, No. 20 Country, No. 7 AC) and the gold “Summer Nights” (No. 5 Pop, No. 21 AC) with John Travolta and the film’s cast. Newton-John became the second woman (after Linda Ronstadt in 1977) to have two singles—”Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “Summer Nights”—in the Billboard top 5 simultaneously.
Based on the success of Grease, Newton-John was given the starring role of Kira in Xanadu, a 1980 American musical fantasy film written by Richard Christian Danus and Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. Newton-John starred alongside Michael Beck and Gene Kelly in his final film role. It features music by Newton-John, Electric Light Orchestra, Cliff Richard and the Tubes. The title is a reference to the nightclub in the film, which takes its name from Xanadu, the summer capital of Kublai Khan’s Yuan Dynasty in China. The city appears in Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an 1816 poem quoted in the film.
Xanadu was released in the United States on August 8, 1980 by Universal Pictures. A box-office disappointment, it earned negative critical reviews and was an inspiration (along with Can’t Stop the Music) for the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards to recognize the worst films of the year. Despite the film’s lackluster performance, the soundtrack album became a great commercial success around the world and was certified double platinum in the United States. The song “Magic” was a U.S. number one hit for Newton-John, and the title track (by Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra) reached number one in the United Kingdom and several other countries. The film has since become a cult classic for its mixture of 1940s music and culture with modern-day aesthetics.
Ashley D. points out that Xanadu was also the name of Charles Foster Kane’s estate in the 1941 film “Citizen Kane”. That portion of the reference is more pertinent for R0S1E and Ben’ana Foster Kane.
The current list of all the (known) Empyrea references can be found here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Alyvia image is from Wizard101, and is copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment.
Olivia Newton-Jon image is borrowed from Wikipedia. It is copyright Eva Rinaldi and is shared under the CC BY-SA 2.0 Creative Commons license.
Sandy and Danny from Grease image is copyright Paramount Pictures.
Xanadu movie poster is borrowed from the IMP Awards and is copyright Universal Pictures.
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
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