"Dracula" on Masterpiece Theater--anybody else see it?

[raccoon]

I thought it sucked. The story lilne had VERY little to do with the book.

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At the end when Mina and Dr. Seward were walking together and passed by an old, long-haired Dracula--though he'd been finished with a stake.

I'm so tired of that crap, of the villains coming back to life over and over, after the characters and the audience think they're dead.

[mainegreen]

1. Dracula is at its heart a tragic love story, not a horror story. This version was not a love story.

Or if it was a love story, it was so terrible, I didn't know it was a love story.
Hence IMHO a very sucky version of Dracula.

[raccoon]

2. I don't think the book was a love story. nt

[mainegreen]

5. Really? Interesting.

I always felt that the core of the book was about about love.

:shrug:

[Aristus]

6. I think you're thinking of the movie "Bram Stoker's Dracula" not the novel,

"Dracula" by Bram Stoker. In many ways, this film version of the story was the most faithful to the novel. One important departure from the book was the romance between Dracula and Mina. That, and making Dracula a tragic, Christ-like hero. He fought for the church against the Turks, but renounced God when told his suicided wife would not join him in Heaven. At the end of the film, Dracula reconciles with God, uttering Jesus' last words: "He has forsaken me. It is finished."

This character appears nowhere in the original novel. In the book, he is a monster from beginning to end with no redeemable qualities at all.

[mainegreen]

7. Perhaps you're right. Having read both the book and seen all the movies, it tends to blur a bit.

I definitely liked the love tormented Dracula better then. Seemed to fit with the whole 'damned' thing he has going.

:P

[fidgeting wildly]

3. I saw it.

And I wish I had watched the Grammy Awards instead. Ugh.

I've seen enough Dracula adaptations to not be bothered too much if it doesn't follow the book, as long as the story is good, but this one was not good.

I was confused by the reappearance of Dracula at the end. Most of the characters were bratty and unsympathetic. I really didn't enjoy it at all.

[Courtesy Flush]

4. Frankenstein was worse

The newest one at least tried to be more faithful, but please read the original. It was so different from ANY movie version.

The original monster was a sensitive, well spoken, well educated genius. He became violent as a natural reaction to being rejected by every human he encountered. He simply wanted acceptance.

Not great literature, but a great story. It took place in the 18th century, not the 19th as the movies tended to favor.

Go to librivox.org and download the free audiobook.

[BlueIris]

8. I saw it and it scared the crap out of me.

I thought the portrayal of Dracula (as a cruel monster instead of a suave, misunderstood villain) was refreshing and scary. Although I did laugh a little when they went out of their way to give Steward's character lines emphasizing that Dracula wanted London because it was a "port of Empire" ("...we must stop him...before the whole world goes dark"). Vampires have been metaphors for syphillis and HIV, deviance and greed in modern interpretations of Dracula...why not make them symbolic of neo-conservative imperialism, too? It was topical.

[crim son]

9. The blurb on MPBN said that it was about Dracula being able

to cure syphillis, or TB or something. It didn't sound much like the original to me so I gave it a pass.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

10. Tried watching it

Got bored and turned off the teevee to read. I like the Dracula story but this one wasn't interesting, IMHO.

[jus_the_facts]

12. Same here...

:boring:

[Beausoir]

13. I bailed on it, too. As I said in another thread...I need my Draculas on the HOT side.

This guy was just....repulsive.

The day after, I read a review that pretty much tore the thing to shreds.
D.O.A.

[bleedingheart]

11. Okay...I saw it and even with the altered story line it could have been better

the characters were all cardboard like.

In an odd way...I never could figure out from Bram's book why Dracula wanted to come to England and how he would secure the means to do so...aside from robbing his victims.

The idea of a syphillitic englishman who had all the money but a death sentence..paying for Dracula to visit was kind of a neat twist.

However the story line was awful....I think the fact that they did it in 90 minutes is part of the problem. Too little time to expand on the story.

As for Dracula. He sucked big time. His character was hollow. A man who lived a thousand years would be far more cosmopolitan, polished and I am sure far more alluring.

The nobleman guy was a twit and his character a spoiled brat.
Lucy by all appearances left the one man who lived her for a guy with more money.
Mina ..well she was Mina the Mouse...
The Doctor...well he had some chances but still too much like cardboard.
Van Helsing was turned into a blathering whacko with no backbone until the very end...

[Ivan Sputnik]

14. I thought they took too many liberties

with the book. There was nothing about syphilis or "consummating marriage" in the original (Victorian!) novel. In fact, repressed sexuality was the unconscious subtext of Dracula (according to my literature professor). And the book is scarier and creepier by far, IMO.

[BlueIris]

15. Oh, the book makes any adaptation pale in comparison to its freakiness.

And for some odd reason, no filmmaker ever portrays Jonathan Harker in the way he's portrayed in the novel, which bugs me.