Dracula (2020) - General Discussion

[Meredith Quill]

Airs over three nights on 1st, 2nd & 3rd Jan on BBC (UK)

[Morrigan2575]

What are the odds they keep true to the book instead of adding some soul-mate/past life/Eternal Love backstory to Dracula/Mina?

[Meredith Quill]

It's a Moffatt/Gatiss version, so who knows.

[Zima]

On 11/5/2018 at 4:20 PM, Morrigan2575 said:

What are the odds they keep true to the book instead of adding some soul-mate/past life/Eternal Love backstory to Dracula/Mina?

Haha, I understand the frustration, but I loooove the 1992 movie, so I would totally be fine with them adding that element :p

[Morrigan2575]

21 hours ago, Zima said:

Haha, I understand the frustration, but I loooove the 1992 movie, so I would totally be fine with them adding that element :p

I haven't seen this since it worked on USA in the 90s but, there was a Great (as I remember it) mini series called Dracula the True Story, that goes into Vlad Tempish's life as Warrior/Ruler and ends with Vlad being ex-communicated by The Church, assisted and rising as the Dracula of Legend.

I could totally get behind a series that followed the same path and then expanding into the book but, I'd prefer they leave out the BS love story.

[Scarlett45]

I enjoyed the version with Johnathan Rhys Meyers in 2015, I wonder if this one will be any good. 

[Kromm]

On 11/5/2018 at 4:20 PM, Morrigan2575 said:

What are the odds they keep true to the book instead of adding some soul-mate/past life/Eternal Love backstory to Dracula/Mina?

There's too much in the book which doesn't play well for modern audiences.  They'll definitely update it, like all adaptions do, the question is just how. 

[formerlyfreedom]

Here's the first look at Netflix and BBC's Dracula!

Quote

Danish actor Claes Bang plays Count Dracula in the three-part series from Sherlock co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

[MisterGlass]

On 7/1/2019 at 7:47 PM, Kromm said:

There's too much in the book which doesn't play well for modern audiences.  They'll definitely update it, like all adaptions do, the question is just how.

I think there is room for a genuine horror adaptation of the book, but that would require Dracula to be portrayed as a disturbing villain instead of a romantic anti-hero.  It seems unlikely this will break the romantic anti-hero trend.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Rewatched the 2006 tv adaptation with Marc Warren, Dan Stevens, Sophia Myles and David Suchret 

recently.

Any thoughts on that one, still one of my least favorites.

Edited August 12, 2019 by MrsRafaelBarba

[MsTree]

Newbie here...and don't have Netflix. Will this be shown on BBC America? If so, when does it start?

[MisterGlass]

A teaser trailer for this is out.

Hmm.

[Keywestclubkid]

Anyone watching this yet? Episode one was bonkers lol

[headhoncho]

I watched it - it was certainly cheesy at times!

[Meredith Quill]

It was a fun ride for a first episode. Interested to see where Moffat & Gatiss take us with it.

[Rushmoras]

Well.. that's definatelly a different take on Dracula's novel with a wee bit of modern sassyness from the main protagonist. Except from this thing, I kinda enjoyed the first episode. Even shivered in places a bit, though I expected jumpscares.

P.S. Have I zoned out in places, or no one asked Jonathan, or Jonathan himself did not find it odd, that from 90 something looking senile skeleton Dracula gradually becomes with every new day's conversation younger and younger to a Timothy Dalton's more buff James Bond days lookalike?

[Ceindreadh]

2 hours ago, Rushmoras said:

Well.. that's definatelly a different take on Dracula's novel with a wee bit of modern sassyness from the main protagonist. Except from this thing, I kinda enjoyed the first episode. Even shivered in places a bit, though I expected jumpscares.

P.S. Have I zoned out in places, or no one asked Jonathan, or Jonathan himself did not find it odd, that from 90 something looking senile skeleton Dracula gradually becomes with every new day's conversation younger and younger to a Timothy Dalton's more buff James Bond days lookalike?

I think Jonathan did remark on it but by the time there was a significant change he was too far in Dracula’s thrall to really question it. 
 

Just finished ep 2 and am picking my jaw up off the floor. Damn!

[Meredith Quill]

I called it as soon as I saw the 'coffin' floating down to the sea floor. I said to my OH "I bet when he emerges it'll be modern day Britain" then doubted my idea but then it happened, heh. I thought ep 2 was a weak whodunnit-esque plot (for the characters) and it all felt kinda drawn out. Lord Ruthven was a total asshat; his death was one of the best parts. However, it managed to retain my attention enough to stay with it. I'm hoping ep 3 will live up to the potential.

[Keywestclubkid]

So after you are turned you need to feed on smart people to absorb their intellect is that how that works? if you just feed on randoms you become less and less human? am i getting that part of it right? 

[Rushmoras]

I liked episode one better, I think. Episode two was kinda... I don't know, kinda boring when you know that Dracula is just all horror franchises baddies in one.

Spoiler

Jus Dracula offing ship's crew members one by one, and making Agatha watch.

Spoiler

 

 

P.S. What's this? Someone speaking Russian without a horrible non-underatandable accent? I'm pleasently surprised.

P.S. Huh? Is it just me or they are setting up for live action Hellsing anime now, where Dracula (Alucard) gona work for Agatha Hellsing (Integra Wingates Hellsing)? No? Well, you could only wish...

3 hours ago, Keywestclubkid said:

So after you are turned you need to feed on smart people to absorb their intellect is that how that works? if you just feed on randoms you become less and less human? am i getting that part of it right? 

Yeah, basically, if Dracula chows down on someone with an IQ of a monkey, he could barely function, I guess...

Edited January 3, 2020 by Rushmoras

[Keywestclubkid]

15 minutes ago, Rushmoras said:Yeah, basically, if Dracula chows down on someone with an IQ of a monkey, he could barely function, I guess...

  Hide contentsJus Dracula offing ship's crew members one by one, and making Agatha watch.

That’s just a random weird thing to add. Did someone on this show work on IZombie cause it just screams izombie 

[Meredith Quill]

Hate to admit it but kinda disappointed in the plot overall, it didn't live up to its full potential for me. I think restricting it to three (albeit feature-length) episodes was a mistake; this is a story that warranted a more comprehensive telling of the tale given the tone and perspective the writers chose to go with. A full series would've allowed the story to breathe and less handwaving needed. As it stands, some character decisions made little sense, some plot points seemed too convenient, while others were skipped over leaving us to fill in the gaps.

Claes Bang was awesome casting though, pity we won't see more of him as Dracula (with a better plot).

[HauntedBathroom]

I really enjoyed this series, but I do think the last episoder was badly structured. I could have done with less self-entitled pretty 20-somethings have sexy fun, and more Doctor Hellsing and the Harker foundation.

Basically, Agatha and Dracula had this series in their pockets, but she so ruled the whole thing.

[skotnikov]

Oh well. It wasn't really good. All the nice moments were in a trailer, and the rest was overlong badly written unimaginative and rushed nonsense. It's not even so bad it's good category, it was just plain awful.

The show-runners better stick with their Sherlock for life.     

[Razzberry]

I really enjoyed this one, or most of it.   Dolly Wells and Claes Bang were great and the writing was sharp, with some really funny dialogue.

[DoctorAtomic]

I'm on E1, and I'm dying at the sassy nun. "Huh. That actually worked." I love her. The castle was just brilliant too. All the hiding and the dark corners.

Anyone catch the Sherlock reference? That gave me a good laugh.

 

[Rushmoras]

What a weird final episode, at one time I thought Holland Manners (from Angel) would pop up from Hell and offer his lawyery services, lol.

I actually liked this interpretation, until his quasi-romantic fixation with Lucy (or what was her name). No romantic vampire crap - just a monster trying to satiete his hunger. A dose of something fresh in my book.

P.S. So... I'll address the elephant in the room. Who turned old Vlady boy in to a vampire? I mean, there should have been some other "higher" vampire, right?

Edited January 4, 2020 by Rushmoras

[Prower]

Well, it wouldn't be a Moffat- Gatis- colaboration if the whole thing didn't fall off a cliff towards the end. And this time they managed it in record time!

I really liked episode one and two, but once it got to modern times, yikes. First I was bored with the focus on all these new vapid characters, then really annoyed by how stupid all of it played out and then the ending was just pseudo-deep and really dumb.

And I think the idea to bring it to modern times in the later half of a season/show had a lot of potential. But this was certainly not the way to do it.

  

On 1/3/2020 at 9:58 PM, Rushmoras said:

P.S. What's this? Someone speaking Russian without a horrible non-underatandable accent? I'm pleasently surprised.

The german was also pretty good, I have to give them that. Not flawless, but pretty good.

 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Prower

[DoctorAtomic]

I'm on E2 and I'm totally confused at Van Helsing and Dracula just bantering.

 

[cdnalor]

E1:  What the hell? A wisecracking Dracula vs a sassy nun?  This doesn't follow the book at all! And since when is Harker a "bride" of Dracula?  This is stupid.

E2:  Okay, this is more like it.

E3:  Oh, crap, this is just a "Lucifer" wannabe.  I'm out.

Note:  Someone tell the writers the New World refers to the Americas, not England.  I kept expecting the ship to land in Boston.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

Claes Bang clearly enjoyed himself, he and Dolly really should work together again. They're the best thing about this adaptation so far.

Nearly done with E2, gotta shout out the child actress who played Yamini.

Had more balls than her dad, went out on her own terms.

[Rushmoras]

3 hours ago, cdnalor said:

E3:  Oh, crap, this is just a "Lucifer" wannabe.  I'm out.

Lucifer, I assume from Lucifer TV show (not Supernatural) wishes he was more like Dracula, cause Lucifer is just Richard Castle with super powers.

[MisterGlass]

Well, I've seen better versions and I've seen worse.  The casting was good all around.  Claes Bang was a good Dracula, and I did smile when Mark Gatiss showed up as Renfield.  I think the writing and the story arc let this down.  In the end, it was pretty cheesy.

It started well, but it got wobbly in the first episode.  It was a little jarring to jump from some parts that were spot on from the book to overly modern dialogue.  I think they could have trimmed the speechifying at the convent considerably to get on to more plot.  The second episode was okay, and it was an interesting twist that Dracula might try to arrange his own traveling companions, but I think it would have been better with some actual drama instead of so many sassy asides.  They could have compressed these into one episode.

The third episode was just a miss for me.  Some of the funny bits were quite funny, but it was so rushed and surface level.  Lucy was the 19th century equivalent of a party girl, but we barely got to know her.  I don't think the Torchwood Harker Institute was necessary.  I would rather have seen Dracula discovered and defeated by average people who found a Van Helsing relative by her fringe-science online research page.

I knew immediately that the nun was a Van Helsing, but I didn't like the way that the character who is supposed to save the day was set up as a victim.  They then compounded it by making the descendant willingly drink the blood of Dracula, and die in a 'romantic' fantasy with him.  She wasn't a character but a vessel for Agatha.  Dracula is supposed to die from a knife through the heart, not food poisoning.

Edited January 5, 2020 by MisterGlass
Spelling

[DoctorAtomic]

Do they think they're clever being so disorienting each episode? At the end of 2, Dracula was arrested, and how they kick off the next one with him in Bob's house.

I'm not sure on how being in a wooden box under the sea kept him preserved for over a century though.

 

3 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

The third episode was just a miss for me. 

I certainly don't have a problem with modern updates of classics, but I think they wanted to have too much cake with this series in being both the past and the present. They could have got to present day sooner and spent more time there I think. E2 was kind of filler in that regard, and I didn't need 20 minutes in a club in E3 or anything to do with 20 somethings in a club. Or perhaps set the show entirely in the present and flashback. Even with the longer running time, they were trying to do too much.

I did actually like the idea of Torchwood - Dracula, and the idea of him 'missing' a century is an interesting take. Having the lawyer, etc.  I think they should have spent more time either in the past or in the present but ended up not doing enough of both. Like E3 could have been E1 and flashed back from the picture of Harker to the castle, from Dr. Helsing to the convent.

The lady playing Van Helsing is an absolute treasure. She's very uncommonly attractive and I mean that as a compliment.

How moronic do you have to be to shove your hand in Dracula's mouth?! It's hilarious that Dracula figured out the wifi password.

 

3 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

Mark Gatiss showed up as Renfield.

This was peak Gatiss. Right in his wheelhouse.

 

3 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

Lucy was the 19th century equivalent of a party girl, but we barely got to know her.

This is why the way the show was structured was a problematic. I don't need to characters to root for to like a show, but if I'm just bored, then that's trouble. I didn't know anything about her except that she was kind of full of herself and she bored me. He ate her and she died. Ho hum. Maybe make it a little more clear he was looking for brides or give us a peek into this thinking as to why she was a potential bride.

It might have been a better choice to either show him feeding off a host of vapid 20 somethings to show that people are a mere trifle to him. Or take another episode to develop the modern time characters. I didn't really care that she was freaking out about being horrid looking. I was like 'get it over with' when Jack was going to kill her. I don't get why if she was such a great bride that Dracula was so droll about her dying or didn't try to stop it.

For someone who doesn't like sunlight, it seems unstrategic to have an apartment with a giant picture window.

I like the 'blood is lives' concept to allow the Van Helsings to communicate across time. I do like research into why he's afraid of the cross, etc. I wish there was more of that. It seems there were a lot of good ideas in this series, but I think it required some more forethought as to the actual story they wanted to tell.

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by DoctorAtomic

[NeenerNeener]

2 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

I did smile when Mark Gatiss showed up as Renfield. 

Mark Gatiss was born to play Renfield. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

[MisterGlass]

4 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I think they should have spent more time either in the past or in the present but ended up not doing enough of both. Like E3 could have been E1 and flashed back from the picture of Harker to the castle, from Dr. Helsing to the convent.

I think either option would have helped.  If they'd had a fourth episode they could have done two in the past and two in the present.  Or, if they'd been prepared to do a second series, they could have had Dracula washing up on shore be the end of this series, and had the next series set in the present.

[DoctorAtomic]

That's a good take too. There's a lot of interesting things to explore, but perhaps 6 hours was needed. I mean, it's BBC and netflix, so it's not like there were firm constraints on time, and lots of one off BBC shows are 6 hours anyway.

I liked the idea that he picked up intelligence from the victims. And I liked that the 'rules' weren't really rules, but they spent such a short time on it. He was like, 'oh the sun doesn't hurt. Let me die now.' There wasn't any period of Dracula unleashed. Likely, the cross would have been ineffective too. I would have loved to see him tear apart a congregation at Sunday mass.

[MisterGlass]

7 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I do like research into why he's afraid of the cross, etc. I wish there was more of that.

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

And I liked that the 'rules' weren't really rules, but they spent such a short time on it. He was like, 'oh the sun doesn't hurt. Let me die now.'

It is too bad that they didn't spend more time on research and investigation.  That's one of the big themes of the novel - communication, research, and accumulated knowledge are how they fight back.

It's interesting the rules that they picked to include.  They went with some of the more common pop culture rules.  In the novel, Dracula is able to walk around in the sun.  But, during the day he can't transform or use his powers.  And victims have to drink his blood to transform into vampires.

 

[DoctorAtomic]

Another reason to center the show around Torchwood. 

[FlowerofCarnage]

If anyone is interested. 3 part podcast with the creators of the show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07z63xz

Edited January 6, 2020 by FlowerofCarnage

[Linda956]

I've only watched the first episode, but I'm finding this Dracula to be rather tiresome.  The character is too over-the-top camp and immediately reminded me of the way Moriarty was portrayed in Sherlock.  I will say I'm loving the nuns and will continue to watch for Agatha.  That was a refreshing change.

[bettername2come]

Some good elements. I like Mina's offscreen awesomeness in founding the Jonathan Harker institute. I liked the explanation of why crosses work on Dracula. There were moments where I thought they would go one way and they went another that I didn't expect - thought Agatha was gonna be a vampire, didn't realize that was Mina at first, didn't see the whole institute thing coming. He was a good Dracula. 

At this point I think the most shocking thing would be a faithful adaptation of the story. Out of curiosity, what is the best, most true to the book adaptation?

[DoctorAtomic]

The irony being that Dracula let Mina go because he was taken by Agatha.

Except for Mina being the 'lost love' isn't that movie fairly good with the book?

I almost would rather the show focus on Agatha tracking down Dracula mysteries and killing vampires.

[MisterGlass]

In Bram Stoker's Dracula the actual narrative is pretty close to the book.  It adds a lot of creepy adult material and the romantic bits related to Mina as the reincarnation of Dracula's lost love, including a prologue flashback to the 1400s.  As a movie it's campy, and features some bad accents, but the make-up is impressive.

 

[kieyra]

Hmm, tried to watch this, but the casting director and I apparently have completely opposite ideas about what makes an actor interesting to watch. That was the blandest Dracula I've ever seen, and even the Creepy Nuns would have been more watchable with basically any actress from, say, Call the Midwife. 

(I don't need Dracula to be hot, I just need him to not look like a vampire accountant. No offense to vampire accountants.)

[DoctorAtomic]

14 hours ago, MisterGlass said:

As a movie it's campy, and features some bad accents, but the make-up is impressive.

It's hard pressed to beat confused Keanu in any movie really. I mean, I saw Johnny Mnemonic even. In the theatre. Like, I paid money for a ticket. 

[Bruinsfan]

On 1/4/2020 at 3:35 PM, Rushmoras said:

P.S. So... I'll address the elephant in the room. Who turned old Vlady boy in to a vampire? I mean, there should have been some other "higher" vampire, right?

In the novel it's remarked more than once that Dracula studied at the Scholomance, a sort of black magic Hogwarts reputedly instructed by the Devil. It's possible that Dracula becomes a vampire directly through a curse or by his own use of magic without there being a prior vampire to turn him into one.

[kieyra]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

It's hard pressed to beat confused Keanu in any movie really. I mean, I saw Johnny Mnemonic even. In the theatre. Like, I paid money for a ticket. 

Never forget

 

[DoctorAtomic]

Truly a luminary. We should consider ourselves lucky. 

41 minutes ago, Bruinsfan said:

In the novel it's remarked more than once that Dracula studied at the Scholomance, a sort of black magic Hogwarts reputedly instructed by the Devil. It's possible that Dracula becomes a vampire directly through a curse or by his own use of magic without there being a prior vampire to turn him into one.

He's always been considered the original in any version, so I'm not too concerned the show didn't answer that. 

That question would be a good movie into and of itself though. 

Didn't the movie have something to explain it. Like he killed so much he became a living death or something? 

[Zanne]

On 1/4/2020 at 1:35 PM, Rushmoras said:

P.S. So... I'll address the elephant in the room. Who turned old Vlady boy in to a vampire? I mean, there should have been some other "higher" vampire, right?

The part that confused me were the "zombie" characters. I admit I wasn't watching with 100% attention, but didn't someone say that gravediggers knew that some people didn't stay dead? What I got from this was that reanimation was a rather random, but rare, happenstance that usually resulted in the weak, withering things that were trapped in their coffins. Yes, some had been bitten, like those who were trapped in Dracula's basement, but what about those who were in modern day England like the little boy? I supposed an errant vampire might have made its way there, but look at how much work it took for Dracula to travel that far and survive. Dracula seemed intent on finding a bride that would turn out like him, though none of them apparently did. I took that to mean he was some kind of aberration and he was trying to replicate the accident that made him undead, but still cognizant and capable.

I hoped they might have been hinting at a more complex backstory than just Dracula as the fount of these zombies.