DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '13 II => Topic started by: Joeytrom on August 27, 2013, 11:56:05 PM
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I just finished the new book "Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising".
Either Lara Parker didn't do her research or this is the aftereffect of the 1840 storyline. I liked the story in the present time but the 1929 part was too much- bootleggers, the Klan, Liz a movie star and in a romance with her great uncle Quentin!
This also makes both Liz and Roger a decade older then they should be.
And one thing that always irritates me more then anything else: Can a story ever include Jamison's nameless wife???
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as I recall from my reading of the abysmal 'the salem branch' parker's knowledge of the series narrative is minimal at best. which is pretty stunning since she was on it every day for four years.
she just makes up random stuff and then cuts and pastes the names and Collinwood location across it. so this report does not surprise me one bit.
I shudder to think of the treatment she's got in store for Victoria in her next magnum opus. [ghost_tongue]
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"Parker didn't do her research"--thanks, Joey, for that laugh. I needed it tonight.
cheers, Gothick
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Actually LP had long periods of hiatus from the show. Despite what I think of her as a writer, I always found the show more lively and fun when she was on.
And I'll also say in her favor, that at least Parker markets her work as fiction. There's a high imaginative content, for lack of a better phrase, in the KLS books, but she sells those as if they're historical documentations of the series and its production history.
G.
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they are marketed as fiction...
but since they are "official"(deemed so by whomever does such things with authority these days, jim pierson?)like the audiodramas and the comics some fans will insists they are continuity and/or canon no matter how far off the beam they go storywise.
over on one of the FB boards someone was recently insisting that the RTTC presentation was "official continuity" because, of all things, it was written by david selby's son as if that makes a difference.
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I've stated my own views about "canon" a few times here. As far as I am concerned, Return to Collinwood is not canon. Period.
I learned the hard way because for the longest time, I regarded Sam Hall's early 1970s TV Guide article as canon. It was MB who finally made me realize that while I could enjoy the article for what it was, what is was not was part of the DS canon.
The idea of people treating the Lara Parker novels as canon... well, it's a free country, at least where speculation about Dark Shadows is concerned.
G.
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everything can be considered canon if you take the various parallel times into account.
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I don't believe parker's novels or the RTC scenario are presented as "parallel time" stories.
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All of the novels and audio dramas are merely authorized works, not official DS canon. But regardless, since we know that the original series was rather "continuity-challenged", I think all we should really expect from any of these new works is that it be internally consistent. That is, would it present a complete, consistent story to someone coming to it without any other DS knowledge. For example, is Elizabeth a complete character, and does everything told about her make sense within this story, apart from any other story having been told about Elizabeth anywhere else?
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in terms of a completely fictitious situation one can believe whatever one wants because none of it is "real" anyways so there's really no way to prove or disprove anything...
but with the recent onslaught of "authorized" and "licenced" and "official" works of fiction debates arise because there are fans that, because of this "authorization", consider whatever the writers come up with to be official DS continuity/canon and then will insist on it.
for instance now there are fans that will tell you in no uncertain terms that Vicki is Elizabeth's daughter. period. end of story. how can they make this assertion when the series itself never resolved this particular plot with any finality??? because the RTC presentation said so!
to me that's a real stretch. since it was unresolved on the television series to my mind it remains unresolved. now what happens if lara's next literary masterwork contradicts the conclusion set up by RTC??? is it negated because lara's work is also "authorized" and "official"???
apparently the "year one" comic book series (which I have not read) reveals...
[spoiler]that Vicki lived and died only in the eighteenth century. she did not come from, or return to, 1967.[/spoiler]
this product is also "authorized" but how on earth does one square that with OS canon??? some are calling this series another 'parallel time' DS universe. but I didn't think that was the point. the title "year one" would strongly imply to the reader it is an attempt to clarify and flesh out events from the series 1970s sequence, not set up an entirely new and different universe for one to absorb.
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I just started Wolf Moon and the first thing that struck me was her over-use of adjectives. I remember this from the last book LP wrote. I would stress that she read Stephen King's "On Writing".
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I think some people get a little too obsessive about their obsessions.
There's Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi
Horror of Dracula (1958) with Christopher Lee
Dan Curtis' Dracula (1973)
Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992)
which one is "canon"?
none.
They're all original works based on the same source material.
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There was also the excellent PBS version with Louis Jourdain in the title role. That was probably the most faithful one I've ever seen. But I take your point, D-E.
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Bram Stoker's Dracula would and always will be the canon version of Dracula. For anything to be a canon version of Dracula, it cannot deviate from what's established in the novel. If a Dracula version goes off on its own and establishes its own rules and stories, it becomes its own entity entirely. A completely separate canon would be established for the one that goes off on its own, and hopefully any subsequent stories that claim to be within that version will then follow the new canon which was established in the deviating version. This is how I look at the different versions of DS. For example, the original show, the '70s movies, the '91 DS, and the Depp/DS film all have their own separate canons. All of those versions subsequent to the original do not fit within the canon of the original - and that's all perfectly fine with me because they're DS entities unto themselves. However, where I have a problem is when subsequent versions claim they do indeed fit within the original show's canon and they're a continuation of that canon, yet they make significant enough changes that make it impossible for them to actually fit within the original show's canon. Such an example is Lara Parker's Angelique's Descent. As I've lamented ad nauseum (so I'll try to keep things as brief as possible this time around), it was originally released with the promise that it fit completely within the original show - going so far as to recreate established 1795/96 scenes word for word. However, once it inserted its own dialogue into a scene that aired as part of the show, dialogue that instantly changed the entire thrust of that established scene, there's no denying that it totally broke from the canon of the original show and went off on its own. And that would have been perfectly fine had there not been claims that the novel fit completely within the original show. But due to the changes, any claims that that novel could possibly be original show canon are completely and utterly erroneous.
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What distinguishes the audio series is their efforts to remain faithful to the original series. That coupled with the fact that they are using original series cast members convinces me that it should be considered canon. Many people dismiss it because it's "simply audio." If that's the case, Guiding Light fans need to ignore decades of radio eps that came before the TV series. Like Star Trek the Next Generation, I see it as a legitimate continuation of the show.
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Here's a way we can all safely look at Lara's novels, the comic books, and the audio CDs:
as imaginary tales, like the imaginary Superman/Batman stories in DC Comics.
They're all speculating as to what the TV show MIGHT have done had it continued beyond 4/2/71.
The 1991 series & the Burton film are remakes.
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Here's a way we can all safely look at Lara's novels, the comic books, and the audio CDs:
as imaginary tales, like the imaginary Superman/Batman stories in DC Comics.
They're all speculating as to what the TV show MIGHT have done had it continued beyond 4/2/71.
The 1991 series & the Burton film are remakes.
I'll go along with most of that, but I wouldn't include Burton as a remake. 1991 was still Dan Curtis and pretty much repeated the original storyline. Burton is not only a totally different creator, but the whole thing is very different from the original. I think one has to take that as just a separate take on the same subject matter as opposed to a remake.
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I think you'd have to call most of the projects remakes. With the exception of the audio series, the Innovation comic, and perhaps the current comic series (I'm behind on that), all the other licensing has totally ignored what was on the show.
Whether you want to consider the audio series canonical or not, it has attempted to remain faithful to what we saw on TV. Have there been errors and gaffes? Yes, but the OS couldn't even remain faithful to its own canon. Look at the contradictory origins of Angelique and Barnabas.
The Innovation comic actually filled in a gap left within the 91 series continuity, fitting betwen the 3rd and 4th hour of the show.
No matter how hard you try, you can't fit any of the other projects into continuity. They all start from scratch and remake the OS. I suppose you can count Night of Dark Shadows as an exception. It does loosely adapt the PT story, but it's no more a remake than the Gerard ghost story was a remake of the Quentin one.
I suppose, in the end, David's suggestion that they are all imaginary tales of what might have been makes sense. Let's face it, they're all imaginary tales! Unless of course you want to suggest there really is a town of Collinsport and we just can't find it on the map.
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i think i might be more likely to consider the audio series, if not necessarily canonical, but at least part of an "ongoing story" if the forty-odd year span of time between the series' conclusion in 1971 and the present was taken into account. sort of an updated story about what these characters were doing "today"...
but it is to my understanding(i've only listened to two or three)that they pick up where the OS left off in 1971 or shortly thereafter with the actors playing their characters at the age they would have been then.
to me that's a continuity gaffe even at the audio level. touching on the delicate issue of age a 70 year old actor does not sound like a 25 year old character. i don't mean that to be unkind but it's true. that audio difference jumped out at me in the few listenings i gave these.
at the time of the RTC performance it worked because it seemed like a lighthearted festival presentation meant to be taken as just that. i thought it was being recorded merely as a festival momento so to speak. i had no idea it would end up being taken so seriously and then considered canonical by so many.
or maybe it's just the "dramatic readings" and not the "audiodramas" where they are playing the characters at the age they were then. i'm not sure.
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again parhaps i'm incorrect on the timeline of the audiodramas...
i get them confused with the timeline of the RTC presentation, lara parker's books, the current comic series etc...
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Even though original cast members have done some of the audio dramas, the first one which is the only one I have heard in entirety just did not work for me as a "continuation" of the original series. I found the dialogue and characterizations too different from how the characters/personalities were established in the OS. I'm particularly remembering a scene between Maggie and Willie at the Blue Whale and a couple of later ones with Quentin and Angelique. The dialogue just felt really off key and jarring to me.
I am a writer (of sorts) and very sensitive (maybe overly so) to the textures of words and the nuances of characterizations. Why I consider DS my all time favorite show is because the characterizations were so exquisitely nuanced and theatrically presented in the unfolding story. Granted, even the OS had its speed bumps--I mentioned in the episode discussion a couple of episodes where I felt Julia was behaving and speaking completely out of character. It was Grayson Hall in a show produced in 1968 or whenever but I just felt as if something wasn't right there. Not to belabor but I guess it stuck out because by and large, the OS writing, even when it had severe continuity problems, DID have consistent writing for the characters.
This kind of thing is very subjective. But at one point in time, the definition of canon for TV shows was really simple. Anything that was aired, original broadcast content, was canon. Period. Fanfic, novelizations, tie-ins etc. have a relationship but aren't canon. Film versions are their own canon. I definitely think this about Serenity, the film that spun off from the Joss Whedon FIREFLY series (just to give a more recent example).
cheers, G.
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The problem with the canon (meaning the OS) is that, over the years, it became somewhat convoluted leaving lots of logical gaps. I also noticed that Ms. Parker took some liberties with it in Angelique's Descent (a novel which I loved, by the way), but to make her own work flow she had to move this, turn that, twist that thing over there, even when having to reconstruct direct scenes from the series.
When I wrote my DS novels in the late '90's (hoping for them to be published in the quickly risen and then fallen Harper-Collins series), I had to do the same thing. For example, I had to jettison the whole thing about the members of Collinwood remembering Quentin's haunting because - since it ended up never happening - there would be nothing to remember. Some, like an elderly Roger (and that novel was set in 2000), had vague, inexplicable memories that remained, despite the paradox.
Gerard
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my recollections of 'the salem branch' are quite dim but didn't parker pull a mary sue move and cast herself as angelique in a sympathetic light and using the name "antionette"???
that alone throws the whole thing so far out of whack i cannot square it with OS canon in any way.
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i think i might be more likely to consider the audio series, if not necessarily canonical, but at least part of an "ongoing story" if the forty-odd year span of time between the series' conclusion in 1971 and the present was taken into account. sort of an updated story about what these characters were doing "today"...
I hadn't really thought of it that way until recently. To me, their voices hadn't seemed to age that much in the beginning. Lately though, many of them are even starting to sound old to me.
I don't really have an ear for that sort of thing though. For example, many people complain that Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor, sounds a lot older. He sounds pretty much the same to me.
I can see how that would be jarring though. In the case of Selby, they don't really have a choice. His character is ageless.