Well, I haven't read the entire thread here, but I aim to do so! What a remarkable relief after all I've had to endure. Rationality. Simple feelings, calm discussion. And we can discuss this movie. I will likely come back and detail a lot more that I love for the sake I can do so safely.
Oh, to go back in time when the world made more sense...
I was so excited, calling Mum on the phone and calling out, "They're making it now, as we speak! They're finally creating the film!" Then we saw the trailers and thought, "Okay, there's gonna be some jokes, and that was fun." One of the lines they gave Carter for Hoffman, just her voice, "Who the hell is this?" made me think, "Wow, I'm convinced!"
It coincides with so much, my personal experience. Years before we'd been on a trip and I managed to get an NPR station on my sanza with speakers of a show that asked players, "Which of this line up of unbelievable things is actually real?" I can't remember the list but the real thing was a book called "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" in which an author took Jane Austen's book and added zombies to it somehow.
Cut to this film being released and I see the screenwriter is the same man who added zombies to a Jane Austen novel, and I think, "OH! That is the type of person who could write good period piece dialogue for Barnabas. Excellent!" And a lot of that very dialogue surpassed my expectations. Didn't love every line, but his version of "kiss my rear end" was a delight!
Because of some things I'd seen and heard about I didn't expect to really enjoy it, one of which was knowing it was Victoria Winters and not Maggie Evans. And there I was in the packed theater on opening night with my husband and a a few friends, cringing through a few credits. (I think we were the only people to riotously laugh at the exploding tree for the Lincoln preview.) The train sequence starts and she said, "Hello, my name is Maggie Evans-"
Time stopped. I could not believe what I heard.
Then the bonus delight of seeing the Amtrak ad for Winter Sports in Victoria B.C. (A spot we spent our very enjoyable honeymoon.) And she switches her name to that, but we haven't heard the last of Maggie. THEN they started "Nights in White Satin" which I had recently fallen in love with a year or two before and I just about melted in my seat. I thought, "My God, I might actually enjoy this movie!"
I liked what some one suggested earlier in the thread that she had thought of the name before but the poster was a reminder, because when introducing oneself one automatically goes with what they're used to. So it could be a film "oops" or a Maggie "oops". Hee hee hee.
There is so much I love about this film that I haven't been able to discuss with anyone in years. (That's terrifying.) My name is Victoria Winters and Willie responding, "Congratulations." all dead pan. Elizabeth explaining why they didn't use the whole house to save on heating. I can't remember if it was in the OS but it felt good for someone to finally address that bit.
I absolutely adored the fish-out-of-water jokes and wanted more of them. It was something that irked me about the OS and I thought, "Um, where did this vampire steal his instant knowledge about a century he's never lived in?" I remember phrasing it once with "Well the culture shock is no small potatoes." But it's fun to speculate, isn't it?
I had my troubles with Roger but I remembered this style of him in what we saw of the '91 and thought, "Well, I can't have everything." And as I've told a couple friends, "I'm able to perform a more enjoyable Roger than that other guy, so who cares?" ^_^
And then Barnabas, apologetic to the last, requests forgiveness from the people he's killing, or at least one of them. The McDonald's sign was hilarious. I want to say, "Don't be too hard on yourself for being a vampire, Barnabas. There's a big display right there of one that's even bigger than you."
Willie only getting one smack was also nice. (The beating felt scary for the OS and HoDS.) In retrospect it being in October makes me think of the beginning of the 2004 pilot. "Fetching creature" Carolyn being a werewolf was a fun twist for me. I kept wondering if the werewolf bit was why Paul Stoddard left for the film, that perhaps he was the one who handed it down to her.
I was good that first night catching all the eggs. Okay, my sweetie caught Wyndcliff on the loony bin wagon that took Maggie away as a child. I caught the cameos and pointed very quickly for him, "There they are!" and he was grateful I pointed them out. The Blue Whale was in there, and I gotta say, it was nice to actually SEE this cannery before we managed to get all of the OS series to catch glimpses of it there.
And I actually got misty when Magtoria says, "For most of my life I've wanted a place where I belonged. A place where I could feel at home again, feel loved again. And I found that place here at Collinwood and with you." I just felt like, "She took the words right out of my mouth!" That's how I've felt about Dark Shadows. (Possibly the fandom too if a lot of folks didn't get so harmed by the new tech stuff. Yikes.)
I really want to talk about this more, if I may. But I'm going on and I want to wrap up for now.
What I've especially noticed outside of the viral, regurgitated hate-speak that resounds with people about this film, even when it isn't even mentioned which I find Orwellian in structure, that people in my age bracket (late thirties/early forties) have no problem with this film because we lived in a world where we longed for what Tim Burton had to offer in his work prior to its existence. We've seen both sides, a world with and world without. We grew up with Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas when they were brand new. We loved the spooky but we wanted it to be fun. Tim Burton made it fun. Halloween became safe to love year round when once you could be ostracized for that. He helped provide safety in loving the spooky.
So with this film we knew what to expect. Kooky fun, but with that edge of other things, a mixture. Like "Ghost" it had romance, drama, comedy and the supernatural involved. Perhaps we love that because much of life is a mixture, it's complicated, there are many people and communities involved.
But the greatest part of all is being able to discuss this with rational people. It's astounding me that the reincarnation aspect is being discussed so casually when I've been surrounded by fans who treated it like a taboo. Thank you for giving me a place to type my enjoyment without the fear of being yelled at, harassed or being retaliated against. I hope I can discuss more of what I like soon. Blessings.
Topic: Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!! (Read 350475 times)