He seems to be doing a light North London accent rather than his own central London accent so that might account for it.
Dracula - NBC
- Thread starter Taylirious
- Start date
He seems to be doing a light North London accent rather than his own central London accent so that might account for it.
^Good catch. I should've said "his own nationality" rather than "his real accent," since of course there's more than one English accent. I should've remembered that.
But that means that pretty much everyone in the show is doing a fake accent. Although I'm not sure whether Kretschmann's accent as Van Helsing is really Dutch or German. Can the German speakers on this board clear that up for me?
But that means that pretty much everyone in the show is doing a fake accent. Although I'm not sure whether Kretschmann's accent as Van Helsing is really Dutch or German. Can the German speakers on this board clear that up for me?
So based on Dracula's fake American accent, is Christian Slater one of his descendants?
Yes, and it is through nepotism that he is able to score all those exclusive interviews with vampires in the next century.
I found the pilot a little bit ho-hum and somewhat too knowingly anachronistic; the Dracula character feels like Rhys Meyer's audition for the part of Tony Stark. It's early days yet, though, and the show could go either way. Hopefully it'll gather momentum in the next couple of episodes.
After the second hour (and now 20% of the way through the series), I think I see where the series is going.
Dracula and Van Helsing have a plan to take down the Order of the Dragon. However, Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray are unforeseen complications in that plan, and Mina especially could be the plan's destruction as Dracula puts his need for love ahead of his desire for vengeance. With his relationship with Mina on shaky ground, Jonathan will investigate further into Alexander Grayson's past, which will lead to his discovery that Grayson is actually a vampire. Jonathan will give this knowledge to the Order of the Dragon because he sees it as the only way to save Mina from Dracula's clutches. With his identity exposed, his business interests under attack, and his love for Mina possibly spurned, Dracula will go over the edge, forcing his former ally Van Helsing to destroy him.
I'm not sure, though, if the Order of the Dragon will survive.
Dracula and Van Helsing have a plan to take down the Order of the Dragon. However, Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray are unforeseen complications in that plan, and Mina especially could be the plan's destruction as Dracula puts his need for love ahead of his desire for vengeance. With his relationship with Mina on shaky ground, Jonathan will investigate further into Alexander Grayson's past, which will lead to his discovery that Grayson is actually a vampire. Jonathan will give this knowledge to the Order of the Dragon because he sees it as the only way to save Mina from Dracula's clutches. With his identity exposed, his business interests under attack, and his love for Mina possibly spurned, Dracula will go over the edge, forcing his former ally Van Helsing to destroy him.
I'm not sure, though, if the Order of the Dragon will survive.
The Great Batsby?
Episode two changed everything.
Dracula is the good guy?
Now, that's a little frakked up!
Dracula is the good guy?
Now, that's a little frakked up!
When I read some of Fred Saberhagen's Dracula novels, that was the hardest thing to wrap my head around -- Dracula was the hero in these books.
I think what's going on here is different, though. Right now, by default, Dracula feels like the hero of the story. Dracula is the story's only sympathetic, active character. (Mina is a borderline case at this point.) I expect that will change in the next two or three weeks as other characters come to the fore.
And I didn't agree with it at first, but, yes, I see The Great Gatsby comparisons.
Except if Jonathan and Mina are meant to be the real protagonists, it's a fault of the casting that they're played by two of the least interesting performers.
A couple of observations:
1) Dracula may appear to be playing a more heroic role, at least in his opposition to the evil oil barons, but he's still not above murdering some poor hatcheck girl now and then . . ..
2) What sort of kick-ass vampire hunter is Lady Jayne if she can't even tell when she's sleeping with one? (I guess there are no mirrors in her boudoir?)
1) Dracula may appear to be playing a more heroic role, at least in his opposition to the evil oil barons, but he's still not above murdering some poor hatcheck girl now and then . . ..
2) What sort of kick-ass vampire hunter is Lady Jayne if she can't even tell when she's sleeping with one? (I guess there are no mirrors in her boudoir?)
Whatever VanHelsing is doing to him is effecting his pallor and attitude.
It's a very good disguise.
Besides most Americans seem like 900 year old serial killers to the English.
It's a very good disguise.
Besides most Americans seem like 900 year old serial killers to the English.
Really? I haven't had issues with either thus far. Jonathan has been suitably milquetoast, and Mina finding her inner confidence in the second episode worked for me. These characters don't require subtle performances.
That's a little bothersome. Stoker's Dracula was markedly subtler with his feedings than that, at least until the point where people like Van Helsing and Seward had caught on to what he was doing.
Perhaps that's a trope they're ignoring for this series. It's a trope that never made any sense to me.
I'm not really sure what to think of Jayne just yet. I feel like her overconfidence is going to get the best of her, and I'm not entirely sure if Dracula knows that she's the Order's chief vampire hunter. (Though after the end of episode two, he should know that now.)
Speaking of tropes . . . .
It dawns on me that we have yet to see Dracula transform into a bat. No real surprise there; the whole man-to-bat thing, which was once a staple of old Dracula movies, has been largely discarded by vampire fiction, both in print and onscreen, since at least the eighties. Is it that the bat thing is now seen as campy or kitschy or (God forbid!) "unrealistic," invoking memories of phony-looking rubber bats on wires?
The irony, of course, is that modern CGI would actually making such transformations more convincing than ever before . . . .
It dawns on me that we have yet to see Dracula transform into a bat. No real surprise there; the whole man-to-bat thing, which was once a staple of old Dracula movies, has been largely discarded by vampire fiction, both in print and onscreen, since at least the eighties. Is it that the bat thing is now seen as campy or kitschy or (God forbid!) "unrealistic," invoking memories of phony-looking rubber bats on wires?
The irony, of course, is that modern CGI would actually making such transformations more convincing than ever before . . . .
Well, I've only seen the first episode so far, but I found Jonathan boring and his accent the least convincing of all the fake accents in the show. As for Jessica De Gouw, I'm judging mainly based on her performances as the Huntress in Arrow, which I found underwhelming. (Plus she's not nearly as hot as Katie McGrath. I prefer it when Mina is more attractive than Lucie.)
Perhaps that's a trope they're ignoring for this series. It's a trope that never made any sense to me.
It's an impossibility from a physical standpoint, of course. All a mirror does is change the direction of the light that's already there, so if you can see something directly, you could also see it in a mirror.
The basis of the myth, though, is that silver rejects evil (according to folklore, a power granted to the metal as a sort of compensation/redemption for having been the coin in which Judas was paid to betray Jesus), and so silvered mirrors don't show the image of evil creatures like vampires. Much vampire fiction ignores this by having vampires also fail to reflect in water or other types of reflective surfaces, or by having them be invisible to film and video. Well, I guess that makes sense for film, since it has silver nitrate in it, but not so much for video.
(By the way, the silver thing is also why breaking a mirror is bad luck -- and, of course, why silver bullets kill werewolves.)
I think Stoker's Dracula lacked a reflection, but I'm not sure. There are a lot of familiar vampire tropes that were added after that book. For instance, the trope of sunlight burning vampires to ash began with the movie Nosferatu; Stoker's Dracula wasn't fond of daylight, but could survive it.
This show does something that Buffy/Angel also did and that I find ridiculous: having vampires be harmed only by direct sunlight rather than reflected sunlight. For instance, in episode 1, Dracula was burned if the sunbeam touched his skin directly, but he could be just inches away from it and be fine. I know from personal experience how little sense that makes. I once had a hematoporphyrin dye treatment as part of a melanoma therapy, and it basically gave me a temporary case of porphyria, the condition that's often considered the basis for vampire myths. I was rendered hypersensitive to sunlight and needed to avoid not only direct sunlight, but sunlit rooms in general, because the reflected/scattered light could still burn my skin. We had to cover the windows in the house, and I had to wear a hat and scarf indoors when I went back to school. (No, I didn't pretend to be the Shadow. I did get an "Indiana Jones Authentic Hat," though. I think I inadvertently started a minor fashion trend at my school.)