Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the works

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Temis the Vorta, Oct 3, 2010.

  1. Temis the Vorta

    Temis the Vorta Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    I've been reading Iron Man and Thor since before I even knew how to read, so no, those don't sound very original to me.

    A movie about a colorful superhero character is mainstream now. Taking the superhero trope and placing it in a historical context is more risky than placing it in a modern context, simply because it's not the expected thing.

    Hollywood doesn't do risky concepts. But when they try something that isn't a sequel, or a superhero comic book movie (ie, the most expected thing), they get smacked down. That's not going to send a message to get more risky. Just the opposite - that any inkling of risk, however small, is going to be punished.
     
  2. the G-man

    the G-man Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    First off, your familiarity with a particular subject matter is largely irrelevant to whether its original or not.

    Second, the first Iron Man was considered pretty risky. You had a second-string character, a director known for comedies and an actor known for indie films, TV and substance abuse issues. Similarly, Thor was about a second string character set in a world that looked like Dino DiLaurentis' Flash Gordon, with an unknown star and a director known for historical dramas and indie films.

    And, finally, you're going to argue that vampire movies aren't mainstream? They've been mainstream since at least the 1930s when Bela Lugosi first told us he never drinks wine.
     
  3. Mr. Adventure

    Mr. Adventure Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    This is a pretty solid flick, good action and the historical setting works well. Plus, Lyle the Intern!

    [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CIkQ8VJrPA[/yt]
     
  4. Dorian Thompson

    Dorian Thompson Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    Saw it today. I found it extremely enjoyable and Ben Walker very charming and quirky in the lead role. The ending made me wistful as Abe hurried off to the theater, leaving Henry behind. This got bad word of mouth? From whom? Transformers fans? :rolleyes:
     
  5. Thestral

    Thestral Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    And comic books have been around for how long? And there've been regular superhero movies since 2000.

    Because the Transformers movies were such abject failures...
     
  6. Dorian Thompson

    Dorian Thompson Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    I'm sure no film maker actually aims for a metacritic score of 40. ;)

    Why are we arguing orginality? There are no original ideas left. There are only seven basic plots for movies; isn't that what someone once said?
     
  7. the G-man

    the G-man Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    Because one of the posters here claimed that this movie was original and implied that no one wanted to see "original" ideas like this.
     
  8. Thestral

    Thestral Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    It's more original - even if based on a best-selling novel - than the capstone of a movie series that's been running for several years that's itself based on a fictional universe that's been running for 40+ years.
     
  9. Dorian Thompson

    Dorian Thompson Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    True that, Kestrel.

    I'm surprised. The movie was pretty quirky and weird, but it was fun. I didn't go in expecting the gravity of Lawrence of Arabia. People enjoy superheroes and giant robots but they can't enjoy this? I just don't get it. It seemed a slam dunk for the summer season. Lincoln leaving Henry behind was like the hole he left in history when he was killed. You have to wonder how reconstruction would have progressed and about the bitterness and segregation in the south that continued for a century for many a reason, not the least of which was Andrew Johnson's ineffectiveness. In the film it was the vampires who survived, though they were temporarily exiled; real life is far more tragic when you consider the history of the region after the war. Henry wanted to make Lincoln immortal so they could continue to work together. How sad that real life Lincoln didn't live 10 or 20 more years. Things might have been very, very different. Or perhaps not. We'll never know.

    Maybe Ben Walker isn't "cool" enough for summer audiences. Me, I thought was great in the part. I guess his mother-in-law rubbed off on him. :lol:
     
  10. the G-man

    the G-man Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    Yeah, because it's not like we've had vampire movies for the past ninety years or anything...:rolleyes:

    And it's not like having historical figures battling vampires is somehow original either.
     
  11. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    I don't think Seth Graham-Smith would claim that either his novel or the movie was "original". There was an interview with him that I saw where he said the basic genesis of the novel came from seeing vampire books set next to biographies in book stores, on a repeated basis. He got the idea to combine the two from that basically. I think he picked Lincoln because he was fascinated by him. He also expressed a hope that people would, due to the film and book, express an interest in the historical Lincoln.
     
  12. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    To be exact, he kept seeing books about Abraham Lincoln in display next to the Twilight books. This being 2009, Lincoln's bicentennial and Twilight was really starting to build its popularity thanks to the movies, thus explaining why there were so many books on both subjects at the stores.

    This got him thinking about merging Lincoln with vampires somehow. He thought about making Lincoln a vampire, but realized this didn't make sense and so made him a vampire hunter instead.
     
  13. Mr. Adventure

    Mr. Adventure Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    If not original, I'd say the treatment was at least unusual. You don't see many supernatural films set in that timeframe without being set in Europe or the Old West. Throw in Abraham Lincoln and at the very least it isn't something you see all the time.
     
  14. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    @TheWormhole...yeah it was Lincoln biographies, my mistake! Unusual would be a good descriptive word for it. Maybe even unique as the material was presented in a unique way this time. I really can't wait to see this movie. Looks like I'm gonna have to wait until next weekend. None of my friends are interested in it. LOL.
     
  15. Gryffindorian

    Gryffindorian Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    I wanted to see this movie over the weekend, but to my surprise and disappointment, it had limited showtimes and locations in my area. I may either see it next week or just wait for the DVD.

    Meanwhile ...
    :p
     
  16. Dorian Thompson

    Dorian Thompson Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    The Onion? :cool:

    If they'd penned a little satire about an upcoming Theodore Roosevelt movie and him being a hunter of supernatural things, people would probably have believed it. :lol: Roosevelt actually went hunting for 6 weeks after the birth of four of his five children (his wife Edith must have loved that :rolleyes:) and he was a noted big game hunter after his presidency. Then, of course there was his 2 year sojourn into the Badlands a few months after the birth of his first child, Alice, which was followed by the death of his first wife, Alice Lee, and his mother, Mittie two days later, 11 hours apart from one another. Talk about your double whammy--and fertile material for a monster movie. The sparsely populated frontier North Dakota Badlands of the mid 1880s? Teddy chasing criminals.....and perhaps something else. ;) It actually writes itself more than Lincoln hunting the undead, and I really enjoyed the movie. :)

    At the risk of sounding girly, Ben Walker is puppy dog gawky, brawny and adorable. :drool: What a sweetie pie. And he wields an axe. :devil: Hell, if Liam Neeson floats your boat, Ben Walker's the same thing only 25 years younger.
     
  17. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    Out of curiosity, what is your source on this? I did a Google search on all those titles, and this thread was the top result in most cases. Likewise, a search for Seth Grahame-Smith didn't reveal anything either.

    Although there is a surprisingly large amount of websites connecting FDR to werewolves.
     
  18. Thestral

    Thestral Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    ^ Twas a joke.

    Though I do like Dorian's idea about Teddy Roosevelt the hunter.
     
  19. Dorian Thompson

    Dorian Thompson Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    It's all true about Teddy's life. I'm not embellishing. With his first wife passing away like that when his baby daughter was 2 days old, and him leaving her with his older sister and leaving the east to go into the frontier....my imagination is in overdrive. I don't know if they could find an actor to mimic that highbrow, upper New York Knickerbocker type accent that the upper classes all had. If you listen to a recording of Teddy's voice on youtube (he made a recorded speech in 1912), his high pitched voice will surprise you. It's not "rugged" and macho by today's standards at all. Also, Teddy was pretty short, only about 5 feet 8 at the most. Still, here he was--this hoidy toidy New Yorker with his thousand dollar cowboy outfit he had specially tailored, going out there in the West with the local cattlemen laughing their asses off at him. 2 years later, after he managed to bring in some local criminals that were on the run for robbery, Teddy won every one of them over. They all respected him even though they thought he sounded hoidy toidy.

    Lincoln with his height, his eloquence and his well documented extraordinary physical strength as a young man was the easier choice for incorporating into a story such as this, no doubt. Teddy Roosevelt was so asthmatic and skinny as a child that they feared he'd never be healthy.
     
  20. Skywalker

    Skywalker Admiral Admiral

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    Re: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter produced by Tim Burton in the work

    Joke or not, a JFK vs. aliens story could be all kinds of awesome. :lol: