97051
Current Talk '24 I / Re: Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!!
« on: May 30, 2012, 05:09:00 AM »On my second viewing, I noticed that Vicki was very lucid at the end. She was looking over Widow's Hill, but I don't think that she was preparing to jump just yet. Barnabas came up to her and they embraced. But then Barnabas says something like he thought he'd lost her, and she told him that he already had, because she lives in the light and she will grow old and die, and he will not. She sounded very sane, calm, and logical. I don't remember the exact exchange but I think she was challenging him, because he said something like he'd never do that (make her like him). I think that Vicki knew full well what she was doing when she jumped, and I don't think she was under anyone's spell. I think that sometime between seeing Barnabas burning and that point, she had come to understand what Barnabas was, and that there was only one way to be with him, and the only way he would change her was if her death were the only other choice.
Like you, I didn't completely pick up on it the first time around either. It wasn't until the second time I saw the film that I realized that Vicki specifically says to Barnabas that there's only one way they can be together and then she deliberately falls, thereby forcing Barnabas to "save" her the only way he can. But I also think the entire idea of doing what she does is connected to Josette and Josette's appearances to her, begging Vicki to help her, and then falling. It's all as if Josette is begging Vicki to help reunite her with Barnabas. And I think that all ties in when Vicki declares herself to be Josette once she awakens as a vampire.
It's a very interesting twist. And it completely explains why plotwise, unlike in previous versions, Barnabas is not already a vampire when Josette falls from the cliff. If he had been, he could have "saved" Josette in the same way he saves Vicki - and, of course, that would have been the last thing Angelique would have wanted.
19 days 0 hours 9 minutes 0 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!