Murky/Inaccurate Memories...?

[Patti Feinberg]

First...howdy y'all. I've not been on in a while, thanks to my illustrious career at Walmart.

Put in the '12 Depp movie last night. While it's not blu ray, I'm now watching on my 42" flat screen and a blu ray! Wow!

I'm going to 'try' to put my OS questions in bold, my '12 questions in italics.

Ang's curse was that whomever Barn loved, would die.
Murky Sarah memory....she was sick, can't remember if it was plaque or one of the common for that time diseases. IIRC, Barn asked Ang's to help....again, IIRC Ang's did NOT want to hurt Sarah, correct?


We know why short cuts on movie.
Barn (and therefore Sarah) were BORN in the 'new world', not England, correct? What about Joshua & Naomi (because Judas Collins (I always want to say Judah Macabee ) was in 'new world' (though, so was some incarnation of Ang).

MB, I know you love your "Elementary"....but, again, WHY DID THEY MAKE ROGER SUCH A PRICK? And, where does 'serial/mass murderer' Barn get to tell him to leave?

I believe we all L O V E  Roger proclaiming to ghost of some dude  "We'll be back...."

In the secret basement room with loads of riches, I briefly noticed some paintings. What would c. 1790 pictures be of great $$ value? Also, Joshua was wearing the crimson 'necklace' (which is in Barn's portrait). Did Barn take it off of his Dad? If so, how did it get to the rich basement (while Ang was having townfolk put Barn in a box)?

The stars of the 2012 movie have REALLY taken off. I believe I finally know (I hope) that Ang is Eva Green, aka, Penny Dreadful. What's his name is Sherlock,I forget Vicki (but I know something(s), also 'Carolyn'. The boy who played David...what's his real name? Has he been cast for anything substantial? (Look at JGL!)
I don't think I need to mention  Michelle Pfieffer or Johnny Depp.

Thanks for reading, and, perhaps more than 1 or 2 could put their opinions/facts.

Patti

[DarkLady]

Hi, Patti--welcome back! I can answer your OS questions at least.

OS Angelique's curse was that whoever loved Barnabas would die and that he would live with it for all eternity. Angelique was amoral to start with, and was increasingly desperate because everything else she had done to force Barnabas to love her hadn't worked. She stuck pins into a Sarah doll to make her sick enough that Barn, not knowing it was a hex, promised to marry Angelique if she cured his cherished little sister. Angelique took out the pins, Sarah was cured, Barn married Angelique, and we know what happened next. But Sarah really sealed her fate when she was dying after seeing what her big brother had become. (She went into shock and died of pneumonia.) While Barnabas held her, her last words were, "I love you, Barnabas. I always will."

Roger was the last one out the door when the family abandoned Collinwood to Quentin the angry ghost. On the doorstep, Roger shook his fist and vowed that they would be back. Of course, the next thing we know, we hear Quentin's uproarious laughter echoing throughout the empty, deserted, darkened house.

In the OS, Barnabas and Sarah--and their parents--all were born in America, because the Collinses had come over in the late 1600s and built the Old House atop Widows Hill. I think that early in the movie, we have a shot of the boy Barnabas turning to look at the girl Angelique as he and his parents embark on a ship to America (from Liverpool, maybe?). I think Barn and his parents traveled in whatever was first class in the 1700s, whereas Angelique and her mother were in steerage on the same ship. So in the movie, only Sarah--if she was in the movie at all--was born in America.

Johnny Lee Miller was movie Roger and now plays the title role in "Sherlock." If you want to see more of him in a very different role, check out the 2009 BBC miniseries of Jane Austen's "Emma," in which he played Mr. Knightley.

I don't remember who played Vicki or Carolyn in the movie (which I'm afraid I hated), but Gulliver McGrath played David.

No idea why they made movie Roger such a jerk. I guess they were just amping up OS Roger for the big screen. Don't remember the paintings in the basement, I'm afraid.

Anyway, I hope some of this helps!

[Uncle Roger]

I saw the 2012 several times but I have no recollection of those paintings. Vicki was played by Bella Heathcote and Carolyn was played by Chloe Grace Moretz. Both actresses work frequently. Chloe has been in more high profile projects such as If I Stay and the remake of Carrie.

[Gothick]

1966 Roger in the original series was intended by Art Wallace to be the villain in the story, but his sinister nature was supposed to unfold gradually.  One thing 1966 Roger wasn't, was a womanizer.    I thought the 2012 Roger was like a caricature of the 1966 character, but I think there were a number of Roger scenes and moments that went into the cutting room bin due to the studio directives about the re-cutting of the picture.

Sarah wasn't a character in the 2012 redaction.  Barnabas had been born in England in that version.  Maybe Burton's attempt at a sly nod at the whole "cousin from England" business.

Are you thinking of Judah Zachary from the 1840/1692 storyline in your mention of Judah Macabee?  Judah was part of the revised Angelique origin story and her original name having been Miranda. (Even though the Countess told Vicki in 1795 that she had known Angelique as a child.)

 I'm really surprised Eva Green (whose PENNY DREADFUL series you really should check out) has reportedly signed to work with Burton again on a new project.  I thought she was given dreadful makeup and horribly mis-directed in Depp Shadows.  But, evidently, she was sincerely in saying in interviews that she loved working with Burton.  I hope this doesn't tank her career, which has had some speed bumps already.

G.

[Midnite]

MB, I know you love your "Elementary"....but, again, WHY DID THEY MAKE ROGER SUCH A PRICK?

I do too. I don't know if Tim Burton has discussed this publicly, but the distant or absent father (or father figure) seems to be a theme in a lot of his movies.

And, where does 'serial/mass murderer' Barn get to tell him to leave?

If I understand your question, I think Barnabas' relationship with David stopped him from killing Roger outright.  Instead, he had Roger make the choice to leave.

I thought the 2012 Roger was like a caricature of the 1966 character, but I think there were a number of Roger scenes and moments that went into the cutting room bin due to the studio directives about the re-cutting of the picture.

A significant cut was made of a long, sad goodbye scene between Roger and David in which Roger tells his son why he is, as Patti said, such a prick.  But because it elevated the character more than what was wanted, Burton had it edited out.

[DarkLady]

So OS Roger was supposed to be a villain! I had no idea. He did seem kind of dodgy at first, blithely telling someone that he had spent all his money, and that's why he had to return to Collinwood.

Thanks to both Gothick and Midnite for the details!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

So OS Roger was supposed to be a villain!

Oh yes! And not only that but he was slated to be killed off because the original plan for Roger was that he was to die by plummeting to his death from Widows' Hill! But TPTB liked Louis Edmonds so much that that plan got scrapped - though Roger was still guilty of committing several ill-deeds during the show's first year.

[DarkLady]

Yes, he certainly did! I'm so glad they didn't kill him off. But no wonder he was so fixated on Widows Hill in the earliest episodes--I guess that was supposed to foreshadow his eventual fate.

[MagnusTrask]

Say what you will aboit the Tim Burton movie (and think of it that way... TB made it, not Depp), they know their Dark Shadows, better than I did until I saw the pre=Barnabas ep's in 2011.  There are references to early events that only the all-out fans would know.  This is definitely 1966 Roger we're seeing.  And 1966 Roger wasn't an innocent, not at all, even though his villainy was moderated.  Some things he was suspected of he was guilty of, and some things he wasn't.

Why the story shortcuts?  Because it's only a couple hours, and was made so newcomers could understand and enjoy the story too.  All the alterations also mean we old fans can see it and still be surprised.  I know fans almost never see it this way, but if the story had unfolded in the same way, I'd have been straining for them to get on with the set-up, and move on to something I hadn't seen before.

[BangsnFangs]

Yeah, the whole Roger arc of DeppShadows was really the one part of the movie that kinda worked for me.  The moment when Barn gives RC that ultimatum rang oddly true for me with Barn sticking true to his role of (morally ambiguous) defender of the Collins family.  If the movie had continued more along those lines I think it would have started to have worked better for me.  In fact, if I recall correctly (I've only seen the movie twice and the blu ray special features once) there was a deleted scene involving Barnabas and David playing with toy dinosaurs which was actually pretty good.  Had it been included in the finished product it may have given the scene of RC's departure from Collinwood an even greater impact.

[michael c]

I'm not surprised Green wants to work with Burton again. I actually thought her "Angelique" was one of the film's strong points. her garish "look"...platinum hair, bright red lips... was supposed to be "too perfect" and evoke a nightmarish, dystopian version of the "American dream"...

and I get the distinct impression Roger, David and Vicki were the biggest victims in the cutting room. there was obviously supposed to be a lot more "there" but they were sacrificed to push Barnabas and Angelique to the forefront of the narrative.