#actually there a bbc2 dracula made in 1977 that is the best adaptation ive ever seen

[a-random-fandom-friend]

So, Netflix/BBC Dracula review : Part1, from an adaptation standpoint.

It’s a bad adaptation.  I’m just gonna warn you right ahead. I would even say as far as saying it’s not an adaptation.

First of all, the serie only follow the story of about HALF the book. The story ends at the Lucy’s deal. And it’s over, like, big end of the story, it’s not like they are waiting for season 2. At little more than HALF the book. but hey, if it’s well paced, good characters...

Secondly : the episode decision. It makes no sens.

Episode 1 follow Jonathan’s adventure at the castle of Dracula (which is now a maze contructed by a mythical architect which may have had a vampire wife, for whatever reason) and then his recruitement in the Sister’s covenant. In my edition that is 546 pages long, the first takes 77 pages and the latter is only metionned through two letters of 1 page, after it happened.

Episode 2 follows the Demeter, a boat that, in the book, arrived in Lucy’s town with no crew except for a dead captain tied to the wheen by crucifix; a black dog, implied to be Dracula, jumps out of it as soon as it touches land (and all the town search for it becasue they wanna adopt the doggo). A journal is found, that narrates its voyage, with crew memebers dissappearing one after the other with no visible reason or body. That whole story is 15 pages long. again, out of the 546 pages of that book. (fun fact: in the book he spent all the trip in a crate with soil in it, only going out to kill the crew of the boat. Here, Dracula is a passenger, because somehow now there are passengers, and when someone is like “what, you didn’t even hide yourself?” he answered “what, you really think i would spent all this trip in a crate? come on, that’s ridiculous!”. The adaptation calls the book it’s based on... ridiculous? it spends 1h30 on something that specifically didn’t happen?  that’s just... bad from an adaptation standpoint.

Episode 3 is... a mess. the first part is pure improvisation, then there’s a “three month later” elipsis and for the second part there’s element of Lucy’s story? which is about 250 pages in the book, so, about half of it ? and they crammed it all into the second half of the third episode.

Thirdly, and most important for me : the characters are not respected. 

Character they changed : I get that there is room for interpretation, and more room for adaptation.  But Mina is useless and naive, Lucy is a narcissic hedonistic party girl, (btw Mina lives in the 18-something century while Lucy lives in 2019, so they don’t even met) Sister Agatha (yeah, from the covenant) becomes Sister Agatha Van Helsing, Quincey is a fuckboy and Jack is an Nice Guy(TM), Arthur Homswood diseappeared so now she agrees to marry Quincey...

Character they made up : they a modern time relative of Sister Agatha van Helsing called Zoe Van Helsing, and also litterally ALL OF EPISODE 2: On the previously desert demeter, there’s now a captain with ptsd, a cook missing a hand, a south asian doctor and his deaf daughter, a pretty young lady, his dashing fiancé and said fiancé secret boyfriend, a young sailot, an old sailor, an adventourous guy, an old duchess... it’s actually a pretty interesting crew of characters, but NONE OF THEM COME FROM THE BOOK. There’s also Lucy’s gay best friend (who dresses kinda like Bobby from queer eye). Still not in the book.

 Dracula has powers he had not in the book (he can read people’s thoughts, and he can absorbes people memory through their blood (including their knowledge of an eintier language), and it becomes such a big plot device), and inversly, some things that worked against him in the book now don’t work at all (garlic isn’t even mentionned, he can see his reflection in mirror) or new things can hurt him (he can’t touch the sunlight, and dead or dying people’s blood is deadly to him...) and all the explanation given is “that’s how vampires work, actually.”

The thing that bother me is that... yes, nowaday if you create a vampire you can decide what power you give them, what you want for your story. The problem is,  this story was already written : this particular vampire already had a set of rules. No, Dracula cannot gain the memory of his victim by drinking their blood!  No he cannot... walk in the floor of the ocean ! that just doesn’t happen ! I’m mad!

Oh, and also he had big Moffat’s Jekill vibes, is familiar, crack jokes à la nbc Hannibal, uses emojis... not saying those are good of bad, just that they are not Dracula. (He misses the moustache and the hairs in the hand but those are super hand to adapt so i let it slide). And also, i guess he was supposed to be presented in a sympathetic light, cracking joke, missing the sun, kind of a loner bur wisecrack smug dude, but he’s doing horrible things ! he helds a woman at gun point just because he wants her to smile to him ! that’s nightmare scenario ! And it’s the guy that i’m supposed to feel SORRY for ? fuck this guy !  

That an adaptation asked me to be sorry for dracula is bad enough, but that i’m supposed to like him... And not even ONCE get a found family group... not even a scooby gang trying to solve a mystery... I’m mad. Lucy and Mina live two centuries apart, Quincey and Stewart hate eachother and Arthur is absent, the first Van Helsing interracted with mina for a grand total of 2 lines and the second is friend with Steward even before the events of the story... No one gets together to be against Dracula. The power of love and friendship and solidarity isn’t even MENTIONNED in this serie. I’m mad.

BAD ADAPTATION. 2/10 FOR THE EFFORT.

Anyway, rant to follow about of it’s a bad original story.