Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Gothic Horror => Topic started by: majorsmith on January 04, 2020, 05:58:53 PM
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Anyone watched it yet? I must admit I liked the first episode, although it was a tad cheesy, the 2nd episode was better, and the 3rd a tad disappointing, but not too bad 7/10 for me, and a more unusual take on Dracula
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Interesting,it probably won’t come to Australian free to air for awhile ( though it is on the aethernet thingy,which I’m not),hopefully it will improve.
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About the same for me to start with.
Thought episode 1 was, well, a bit different - but well done.
Thought episode 2 was almost like a standalone film - the story Stoker referred to but never wrote: ‘The nightmare voyage of the Demeter’.
So far, so good, just about. Then... :o :( >:(
Thought they were taking the piss with where they then took it off to.
Won’t give spoilers, but I felt like that massive shift was really abusing the trust of an audience that’s already invested three hours in what they thought was one thing, only for it to turn out to be something else entirely.
The pantomime Dracula really didn’t work for me either. A great performance, but just too silly.
Classic Gatiss I’m afraid. Trying to be too clever for his own good and ours, resulting in a triumph of ‘the concept’ over actual substance.
I literally couldn’t finish watching part three, I was that pissed off with it.
Ultimately disappointing and self-indulgent. Just IMHO ;)
Got rave reviews in the papers though, so what do I know? lol
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Ah,if they had kept to the novel,I would be a happy man. Think I’ll be giving a miss. I’m actually a fan of the Coppola film,which as far as I could tell kept to the book,word for word in some instances.
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I read a really fun prequel somewhere - a short story describing the experience of Renfield during his visit to Transylvania. I don't recall if it was Bram Stoker's work that wasn't released until much later, or if it was a later writer.
I also remember playing Fury of Dracula with my brother as a kid. It has to be one of my favourite board games of all time, just so innovative and original a concept.
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Loved it! Very enjoyable, that chap Claes Bang made a great Dracula.
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Liked some bits, hated other bits.
Way better than the recent 'War of the Worlds'
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Ah,if they had kept to the novel,I would be a happy man. Think I’ll be giving a miss. I’m actually a fan of the Coppola film,which as far as I could tell kept to the book,word for word in some instances.
I completely agree although the Coppola film is still not perfect ( the love story and demise of Dracula at the hand of Mina for example) but it goes a long way to being accurate to the book.
I am afraid I hated the BBC production. I was hyped up about it knowing Gatiss was a fan of the novel and the Hammer films so trusted him with the task. The trailer looked promising, the first ten minutes were great, Jonathan being given the cross by the peasant, the journey to the castle . What a great castle it was, the meeting with the Old Count and their initial conversations.
After that it just went south for me. I didn’t enjoy the way it developed. The humour didn’t work and I felt the gore was unnecessarily over the top.
Episode two I don’t understand why they felt the need to turn the Demeter into a passenger ship and introduce a cast of characters worthy of an Agatha Christie novel and modern PC stereotypes. The climax on the ship was laughable followed by the bombshell ending. The Voyage of the Demeter should have been a superb episode with crew being silently picked off one by one with a mounting sense of dread and paranoia .
Part three I’m not even sure what it wAs about. It almost felt like a totally different production with a new cast whom we did not know or get to know. It was just totally bizarre.
The various nods to all the films before did not go unnoticed. Baeg resembling Chris Lee st one point when he was in his age transformation When he rose from his coffin. Wearing a Bela Lugosi costume on the ship with white tie and medal and in the last part where the Dr runs along thee table and jumping on the curtains from the Horror of Dracula.
Somehow I feel they were trying to hard to make everyone happy and I think they took the wrong direction. A big disappointment for me as I feAr we are unlikely to see a new version in the future that will have the courage to do the book justice.
This is of course just my humble view and if you enjoyed it as it seems from social media that LP s are saying they did then fair play to you. My secretary for example is now going to read the book so that’s something positive to come from it. :)
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Funnily enough I liked the drift away from the book, after all,I’ve read it and seen most of the movies, it’s a bit of a waste just following that slavishly. There were very nice touches along the way and I especially liked Dracula’s reaction to the world in episode 3. That said, Ep 3 felt rushed, frankly I thought the programme would have stood 6 episodes, not 3.
I may start a petition ;)
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My personal summary is:
Episode 1 - rapidly developed into a violent version of Carry on Screaming
Episode 2 - was more like an episode of Doctor Who and would have been quite a good standalone programme had it not been sold as Dracula.
Episode 3 - Ive no idea really, it was like Torchwood crossed with Black Mirror, but without any of the things I enjoyed about those.
Totally just my opinion and it's great if people enjoyed them as a re-imagining, though unfortunately for me I wanted to see a well done version of the book. If it gets people to read the book, that's fan(g)tastic!
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I enjoyed the new take in episode 1 but got a bit bored during episode 2 and was then turned off by its surprise ending (It’s not that I don’t like modern vampire stories - I love’m! - but I’d settled down to watch what I was expecting to be some highly polished Victorian Gothic Horror. :(). Nevertheless I persisted and watched episode 3 but was bored - so much talking. I regard the series as a great opportunity wasted. The best part for me was the performance by Jack the young doctor but I’d recently seen him in Vienna Blood (where he also played a young doctor) which was brilliant.
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It felt like a real mixed bag with some high points a long the way, but more gore then horror which is something I'm not a fan of, while I can understand the creators wanting to put their own stamp on a tale that has been told many a time, for my it just didn't hit the spot.
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I read a really fun prequel somewhere - a short story describing the experience of Renfield during his visit to Transylvania. I don't recall if it was Bram Stoker's work that wasn't released until much later, or if it was a later writer.
Dracula's Guest, (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dracula%27s_Guest) maybe? The narrator is usually assumed to be Harker, but he isn't named in the story. Certainly, some subsequent media portrayals have had Renfield as the first solicitor to visit Dracula.
I also remember playing Fury of Dracula with my brother as a kid. It has to be one of my favourite board games of all time, just so innovative and original a concept.
A friend of mine had the game, and a few of us played it begrudgingly (because it wasn't Warhammer), but then really enjoyed it. I don't remember that much about it, except that we were surprised by how good it was. I see it's still in print (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wizkids-WZK73459-Fury-Dracula-Multi-Colour/dp/B07CF9B57Y/ref=sr_1_1?crid=OQ36CW3CGBRU&keywords=fury+of+dracula+board+game&qid=1578214339&sprefix=Fury+of+Dracuka%5D%2Caps%2C147&sr=8-1) - generally a very good indication of the quality of a 'niche' boardgame.
I haven't seen the series yet, but my wife commandeered the TV (and exiled the children from the room) to finish watching it yesterday. She reports good things, though she thought the destination wasn't as good as the journey.
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Can understand why peeps didn't like it - especially ep 3 - but I loved it all. IMO best thing on - admittedly a low bar - over Crimbo
What a great castle it was,
The same castle as used in Nosferatu 8)
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This is on Netflicks. We watched most of episode one the other night. I quite enjoyed it but Mrs Fish wasn't sold, too much talking/exposition for her liking. I imagine I'll be watching the other two episodes on my own.
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In the end I loved the adaption , very clever storyline .
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Dracula's Guest, (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dracula%27s_Guest) maybe? The narrator is usually assumed to be Harker, but he isn't named in the story. Certainly, some subsequent media portrayals have had Renfield as the first solicitor to visit Dracula.
That's the one!
A friend of mine had the game, and a few of us played it begrudgingly (because it wasn't Warhammer), but then really enjoyed it. I don't remember that much about it, except that we were surprised by how good it was.
The ones available now aren't the same edition as I played, but I don't know what, if any, real changes have been made to the game. The one I played had Dracula as one player secretly moving about the globe (using his own hidden map) trying to make vampires, whilst other players (as the characters in the book) tried to track him down.
MrsCub has shown reluctance to try the new series, but I might give it a go just to see.
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Watched the 1st episode yesterday. I liked the visual aspects - the scenery, costumes, special effects, etc. - but that's about it. I don't mind changes to the storyline, but the reveals were annoying (is it a spoiler to write there are some twists?). Plus IMHO the dialogues felt out of place, like they were written for a "Dracula in modern times" story.
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I didn't really like it, (though Mrs Northstar loved it) but after the appalling BBC offerings of War of the Worlds and Christmas Carol, it was the best of the three so forgave it's many shortcomings lol
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Funnily enough I actually thought A Christmas Carol was very good as it tended to fill in backstory rather than overhauling it. I thought Andy Serkis was very good. I didn't think much of the Dracula series as an actual Dracula series. I didn't bother with War of the Worlds after listening to some of the comments.
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Gawd no, hated Christmas Carol. I just thought it lost all the point of Dickens' story. And it wasn't Dickensian England, so why set it there. The effin and Blinding, no way.
And Andy Serkis, not my favourite in any role. IMPO of course.
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I watched the first episode and a half of Dracula; it was fair enough, I thought, but actually better the closer it cleaved to the original story. The 'old' count was very well done (though why does he almost never have his long white moustache in adaptations?), but I thought the suave, anglified version was less interesting, albeit well done. I liked the lesser vampires, though: genuinely creepy.
I really enjoyed the Gatiss documentary - and the detail about Stoker's plan to have Dracula unpaintable (portraits would never look like him) was worth the price of admission alone. Lots of RPG potential in that idea ...
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Was tempted to switch it off after 10 minutes as it just didn't sit quite right with me, but decided to give it more of a chance. After an hour, however, I did give up. Having just read the synopsis of the remaining episodes, I'm glad I did!
When adapting a well-known story, I guess it makes sense that the creators want to find a new spin and in general leave their own mark on things. At some point, however, I'd rather they just created their own thing form scratch, and perhaps it would sit better with audiences too as they won't go in expecting something that simply isn't what's given to them. Besides, I'd argue a faithful adaptation without changes can be perfectly enjoyable, as I can re-read the novel of Dracula and enjoy it many a time (I imagine, having only read it once so far...). A missed opportunity, as the quality was certainly there in some aspects.
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I have watched episodes 1 and 2 and the first 10 minutes or so of 3. Not horrible, but it doesn't really grab me. Dracula seems to be channeling the Roger Moore version of James Bond with all the one-line zingers and double entendre, and to me that approach undermines the attempt to build a creepy, frightening atmosphere. It's like playing a RPG where the GM has lovingly set up mood and everyone is staying in character - except that one guy with his annoying jokes.
I will finish episode 3, probably tomorrow after work.
-Michael