![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
HORRIBLE...
...is the only word I can use to describe the Dark Shadows trailer. This movie is going to be terrible and probably an affront to me personally and anyone else who genuinely loves the Dark Shadows franchise in its various incarnations. I've been dreading this movie since it was announced to be in pre-production and all of my dread has been vindicated by that trailer.
If Tim Burton wanted to poke fun at vampires, he didn't have to do it by ruining this beloved cult franchise.
Dark Shadows was a soap opera, yes, and I know that few people have any respect for the genre these days but it's a great genre. Shows like Dark Shadows were important even outside of the soap genre; it paved the way for things like Buffy to exist. Yes, it was unintentionally hilarious because of its short production time and shoestring budget and it is seriously dated from our POV, but everyone involved was earnestly trying to create a good show. And they did -- between the hilarity and the camp, there are so many moments of genuine emotion and pathos, of clever storytelling, real atmosphere and theme.
Soap opera in general and Dark Shadows in particular doesn't deserve to be denigrated and mocked like this. Just like comic book fans or scifi fans don't like it when people boil their genres down to its silliest bits, we soap and supernatural fans feel the same way, but that's exactly what this movie does.
This movie pisses me off. It pisses me off because it's obvious they never had any intention of doing the property any justice. It pisses me off that star power alone will probably cause this travesty to make money. It pisses me off that Grayson Hall's Julia Hoffman will be remembered as whatever caricature of a cartoon crazy HBC is playing this time around. It pisses me off that the complicated Barnabas/Angelique relationship has been boiled down to gag-worthy sex jokes.
The small light at the end of this tunnel is that it looks like they've thoroughly blended the Maggie/Victoria characters so I can pretend that "Vicki" is really Maggie and preserve my sanity, and I thank whatever deity out there that Peter Bradford/Jeff Clark has about 0 chance of having made it into the movie.
This is not the last I have to say on this but it's Friday and I can't bitch anymore.
If Tim Burton wanted to poke fun at vampires, he didn't have to do it by ruining this beloved cult franchise.
Dark Shadows was a soap opera, yes, and I know that few people have any respect for the genre these days but it's a great genre. Shows like Dark Shadows were important even outside of the soap genre; it paved the way for things like Buffy to exist. Yes, it was unintentionally hilarious because of its short production time and shoestring budget and it is seriously dated from our POV, but everyone involved was earnestly trying to create a good show. And they did -- between the hilarity and the camp, there are so many moments of genuine emotion and pathos, of clever storytelling, real atmosphere and theme.
Soap opera in general and Dark Shadows in particular doesn't deserve to be denigrated and mocked like this. Just like comic book fans or scifi fans don't like it when people boil their genres down to its silliest bits, we soap and supernatural fans feel the same way, but that's exactly what this movie does.
This movie pisses me off. It pisses me off because it's obvious they never had any intention of doing the property any justice. It pisses me off that star power alone will probably cause this travesty to make money. It pisses me off that Grayson Hall's Julia Hoffman will be remembered as whatever caricature of a cartoon crazy HBC is playing this time around. It pisses me off that the complicated Barnabas/Angelique relationship has been boiled down to gag-worthy sex jokes.
The small light at the end of this tunnel is that it looks like they've thoroughly blended the Maggie/Victoria characters so I can pretend that "Vicki" is really Maggie and preserve my sanity, and I thank whatever deity out there that Peter Bradford/Jeff Clark has about 0 chance of having made it into the movie.
This is not the last I have to say on this but it's Friday and I can't bitch anymore.