My thanks to retzev for his support in both threads.

We need more support in both threads, folks.

Can someone help me obtain screen captures of the cut scenes for my upcoming breakdown? I know there's missing footage in trailers and TV spots and on-set photos and such, but my PC doesn't have a video card or the ability to capture frames. So I must ask for help. I will keep plugging away at both places. Large rez screen captures at 500 kb or higher will be a big help. Use the Private Message function and I will provide an email where you can send them.

Many thanks.

Richard

Done.

I tried real hard to be nice but that review pushed my buttons.


Richard

I expect the film will be a big hit with the audience being targeted and with the Depp / Burton fan base. That's all it needs.

Did anyone here see Captain America (2011)? This was a hit film by Marvel Comics new production company arm. It is a period action-adventure set in World War 2 (1942) in which a scrawny young man who wants to serve his country is rejected as 4F by the military. [spoiler] So he submits to a new experiment that weaponizes humans so that they can win in combat. But all the US Army can find for him to do is sell war bonds by making a fool out of him in a "captain America" costume. Gradually, he proves himself in combat, and wins acceptance. There is an emotional arc in his progress, and in believable interaction with other characters. There is an intelligent story at work. Then, after two hours of exposition, his plane goes down, and he is frozen in the Arctic for 70 years. But the movie isn't over yet. There is a brief epilogue, lasting less than twenty minutes, in which his body is recovered and he is revived. As the movie ends he is facing a modern world in Times Square, and with a bright future ahead of him.[/spoiler]

If Tim Burton had directed Captain America -- and if Johnny Depp had starred in it -- they would have reduced the two-hour period action-adventure to a brief prologue of about twenty minutes or so, then turned the film into a full-length farce about how Captain America comes to terms with modern times. Instead of making a classic, standard-setting superhero adventure, they would trivialize it with ridicule. They know how to ridicule. They don't know how to tell a legitimate story. They are preoccupied with their own kinky fetishes and kinky humor, and they think everybody else is the same way. They have enough of a fanbase to reinforce their insulated ego bubble.

The Dan Curtis estate exercised extremely poor judgment in selling the rights to Depp and his crony Burton. I'm very disappointed in the estate.

I expected nothing better from Pierson.


Richard

Didn't Jim Pierson state on the internet radio that the trailers accurately represent the film?

Hasn't Tim Burton said in an interview that (edited by admin)

There is such a thing as being too skeptical.

Depp, Burton and Pierson will say whatever they have to say to sell the movie. Understand that if they can get good ticket sales on opening weekend, and put the film in the black, they are justified, financially, before the backlash hits. A film this size can recover its investment in a weekend. They also know there is a new audience that doesn't have the same involvement in Dark Shadows that older fans have. This parody throws the older fans under the bus and enables Depp and Burton to flip the middle finger. They are arrogant people who thrive on extreme behavior. The celebrities have just told you what they think of you. The younger fans will keep spending their money on the new product, or forget about it as they did Bewitched  and The Green Hornet parodies / reboots.

Turning the new feature film into a Saturday Live Night parody of the program is not a legitimate extension of Dark Shadows. Just because it was discussed in the 2004 negotiation doesn't make it right. Dan Curtis despised that, and expressed his opinion of the reboots and negotiations in the interview on The Night Stalker / The Night Strangler DVD. This is a parody that appeals to the lowest common denominator. Many of you will laugh at the cheap jokes, but the film could have been so much better, so much more.

Personally, I've stopped listening to Jim Pierson. I don't believe a word he says. I have reason to know he mis-represents Dan Curtis's intentions. He knows who butters his bread. The less he has to do with Dark Shadows, the better.

I see David Lynch and Guillermo del Toro mentioned as possible directors for a Dark Shadows reboot. This suggests to me starting a new separate thread asking fans what they would like to see in a Dark Shadows feature film.

Richard

Note how the script writer uses extreme logic -- the new film has to be either a comedy at one extreme or a chamber piece with organ music at the other extreme -- to justify his inability or refusal to write a straightforward Gothic horror film. I disagree with the bias that the traditional approach is out of date. The traditional approach is precisely what people have been hoping for and looking forward to. THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012) proves that a straightforward period Gothic horror film is still viable and very much in vogue.

The truth is Depp and Burton are one-trick ponies. They know how to make a parody. Every film they make together is a parody. So Seth Graham-Scott wrote a parody because that what he was commissioned to write. His reasoning in that interview is just spin.

Richard

Author Susan Hill was influenced by Dark Shadows when she wrote The Woman In Black, published in 1983, and now considered a classic Gothic ghost story.

In case Jim Pierson or anyone else tries to tell you that Gothic horror films don't work today, The Woman In Black has been a tremendous success this year. It opened in February and is still in theatrical release. It is more like a Dan Curtis film from the 1970s than Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. In fact, Burton and his entourage could learn a lot from it about how to tell a story.





By ridiculing Dark Shadows and turning the film into a parody of the program, Burton and Depp have insured that a straightforward adaptation will never get made. Industry insiders will ever take it seriously again, and neither will the general public.


Richard

See the one-sheet and view the trailer:

http://thefilmstage.com/trailer/tim-burtons-dark-shadows-trailer-featuring-johnny-depp/


Richard

I assure you the film is not respectful of the original series.

Depp and Burton's idea of respect is not my idea of respect.

Further, I don't believe Dan Curtis would like this film.

Every part Depp plays is in flamboyant clothes and headgear and face paint, way over the top, like a drag queen. When you see the film, and his makeup, you'll see what I mean.

It's sad that so many people are going to accept this garbage as Dark Shadows.

It is NOT Dark Shadows, and that's that.


Richard