When the '91 prime-time remake came out, I was so excited, and then had my major disappointments. As I stated before, I thought it was, for the most part, horribly miscast. Some, I thought, were perfect: Jean Simmons (as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and Naomi Collins), Barbara Steele (as Dr. Julia Hoffman and Natalie DuPres), Stefan Gierasch (not so much as the combined Michael Woodard/T. Eliot Stokes character, but as Joshua Collins [he was great in that]), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (I think he made an even better David Collins that David Henesy did - he was the one that improved on the original), Julianna McCarthy (she was great as both as Sarah Johnson and even better as stick-up-her-patoot Abigail Collins and did Clarice Blackburn proud, even though she didn't make any mayonnaise). I'll even give Barbara Blackburn her due playing Millicent Collins. In that role, she was fabulous and did better than Nancy Barrett did (although Barbara's portrayal of Carolyn Collins Stoddard was very annoying to me). Michael T. Weiss also pulled off a great Joe Haskell and Peter Bradford. Just for making Peter Bradford a likeable character should've earned Weiss an Emmy. As for the rest, pheh. Even Ben Cross couldn't elicit the sympathy for Barnabas, with an early mixture of monster loathing (as it was originally intended) that our late, great Jonathan Frid did.
The rest of the '91 series also grated on me, from the writing to the sets (palm trees, palm trees, PALM TREES!!!).
But I loved it. While it bounced around in schedule (the thing that killed it in the ratings) because of that pesky, annoying Gulf War, I made sure I found out when it was on, and if I couldn't watch it at home, I taped it. I wouldn't've missed an episode if it meant my life. When I found out it wasn't renewed, I went into the same tear-soaked depression that I did when our beloved original was cancelled. It was, despite its many deficencies from our beloved original, and because of the faux pas from the original (and the HoDS rip-off that it also was) that should've been corrected, my DS. I was so proud that the show I loved had made it to prime-time and to an even more vast audience.
The same with HoDS. It had all my characters and their actors/actresses, and even though it followed the original intent (to a degree) that was originally imagined for Barnabas, a totally evil, vile but with a tinge of sympathy character that was to be staked at the end of 13 weeks, but by that time the series had moved on for several years and was long gone from that original intent. Also, the PTB at MGM demanded so many cuts that it made parts of the story incomprehensible, even to a 14-year-old like me. But I still loved the movie. It was my DS. And, despite it being a gore fest rather than a character-driven film (made so by the cuts demanded by the MGM PTB), I still enjoyed it because I was living in a era with Hammer films.
And then there was NoDS. Like I posted before, it had none of the characters from the original. None. Yes, there was a "Quentin," but he wasn't the Quentin from the original. Neither was the "Angelique." She was removed decades from the original. The movie also suffered from cutting problems ordered by the MGM PTB, but I still loved it. It was my DS.
So I do find fault with everything that followed from the original (and I find fault with the original). The movies weren't perfect. The '91 version wasn't perfect. I'll forever hold that making Willie a doofus in the '91 was a massive mistake when it came to trying to inject comedy (Barbara Blackburn's portrayal of Millicent Collins actually did it to almost perfection - if Dan Curtis had just stuck with that, I wouldn't've had any problem).
Oh, but I loved them all, warts and all. To me, that's a basis for DS fandom. I'm so psyched about this movie and can't wait to see it. For many, if not most, if not all of us DS fans, it'll have warts. That's a part of DS. I happen to agree with Depp and Burton that doing just another straight-forward, all-horror remake of the same old same won't work anymore. If HoDS had been made following the exact, same storyline of the TV show, I believe it would've died in the theaters. (And MGM looked into making a movie that would've consisted of cutting-and-pasting scenes from the show - what a nightmare that would've been.) It went a different direction and became a 1970 box-office smash. If NoDS has been just a sequel rehash of Barnabas coming back to exact revenge or whatever (an impossibility since most everyone was killed off in HoDS), it would've looked like The Return of Count Yorga. If the '91 version had tried an exact replica of the original, it wouldn't have garnished the high ratings it initially did (and draw into our family of cousins those who had little exposure to, or even heard of, the original).
So I'll retain my criticism of what followed the first DS (and my criticisms of the first DS). Whether or not they are all valid, the original and what has all followed has kept our beloved DS in the spotlight. We've now got a major motion picture again bringing it "back to life." It might not be the way all of us want it (and the '91 version wasn't the way I wanted it), but it's put our show out there for the whole world to see. As I posted before, I have friends who have absolutely loathed DS and all it stands for. Because of this movie, they are becoming fanatical supporters, and they haven't even seen it yet. In my DS-movie Saturday, May 12th matinee party that we are planning, we now have about 30 people. Maybe five of us grew up watching and appreciating DS - the rest have only vaguely heard of it, seen little bits of it, and didn't care for it. Now they can't wait. If that means that Barnabas (i.e., Depp) slaps Willie Loomis on the forehead the way Leslie Nielson did to Renfield in Love at First Bite, then that's what it takes. Would our original have had a scene like that involving Jonathan Frid and John Karlen? Well, it didn't. But now I'm seeing around two-dozen people whom I know who once hated DS now turning into fans.
We all need to give this continuation of DS a chance. We gave all the other incarnations a chance. We all found fault with them. And yet, all of them have kept this show visible. I've made my perception of the '91 remake clear. I thought, in comparison to the original, it was awful. But I still loved it. It brought a whole new generation of fans, including many of those here. I laud the '91 version for that. I bow before it. Now, bring me those up-coming comments in the film about birthing hips and Karen Carpenter on TV being a miniature sorceress songstress and watching a vampire try to brush his fangs in a mirror where he casts no reflection. Don't worry if it doesn't line up with the original. That was then, this is now. And we want DS to always remain in the now. Carrie, in the 1974 Stephen King novel, and the 1976 screen adaptation, looked up information about her abilities using a flip-card catalogue and something called "books" in the library In the 2002 made-for-TV version, she used a computer and the internet in the library. It was changed, and the different adaptation didn't distract from the original at all.
That was then, this is now.
Gerard
Topic: Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Production!! (Read 716959 times)