# Dracula Untold



## Duosphere (Jun 30, 2014)

Looks cool, just like in Underworld I hope they'll leave religion crap out of it


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## Daf57 (Jun 30, 2014)

Holy crap - that does look good!!


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## Explorer (Jul 1, 2014)

Duosphere said:


> I hope they'll leave religion crap out of it



I would agree with you wholeheartedly, but I suspect you still want all kinds of silly superstition of other kinds. If you want vampires and superstition, just not the parts you don't like from the Stoker Dracula book, that's hilariously like saying you hope a movie version of The Ten Commandments would avoid Yahweh. *laugh*

I know, modern audiences want certain things stripped out of modern reinterpretations, but it's silly to think that maybe they'll do a serious film about Vlad III Dracul, and then they have to insert the supernatural and vampires into it.

Vampire stories in Europe traditionally had the Christian element in them years before Stoker wrote the book Dracula. Vlad &#538;epe&#537; didn't need all that superstition to be scary. If they have to stick the word "Impaler" into your name after you die, you know you're a badass. 

This movie is just taking part of the history of the real Vlad III Dracul and inserting some ideas from an Irish writer who just happened to have liked the "Dracul" part of the name. It's already bastardizing the story of Vlad III. I like that the line has to be drawn somewhere, but not so far that you exclude superstition.


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## Daf57 (Jul 1, 2014)

Explorer said:


> If they have to stick the word "Impaler" into your name after you die, you know you're a badass.



Ain't that the truth! 



Explorer said:


> This movie is just taking part of the history of the real Vlad III Dracul and inserting some ideas from an Irish writer who just happened to have liked the "Dracul" part of the name. It's already bastardizing the story of Vlad III.



As I watched the trailer, and is normally the case in a lot of the movies as well, I get caught up in the screenplay and forget to draw any parallels to the reference. Just works better that way. I love real history but I also love the romanticized shenanigans that come from it. 

This looks like it would be a fun watch!


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## Duosphere (Jul 1, 2014)

Explorer said:


> I would agree with you wholeheartedly, but I suspect you still want all kinds of silly superstition of other kinds. If you want vampires and superstition, just not the parts you don't like from the Stoker Dracula book, that's hilariously like saying you hope a movie version of The Ten Commandments would avoid Yahweh. *laugh*
> 
> I know, modern audiences want certain things stripped out of modern reinterpretations, but it's silly to think that maybe they'll do a serious film about Vlad III Dracul, and then they have to insert the supernatural and vampires into it.
> 
> ...



Just like I said, Underworld treats vampires just as an another species trying to survive, I can stand some religion bs but I hope it won't be too much based on it, TO ME religion always made vampire movies/stories sound dumb, any God who turns a person in revolt because he just lost his wife while killing in the name of God into a vampire is not a God but something really evil, well God to me is something dumb cause for sure a so powerful creature who can create universes would never pay attention to some cockroaches cause he can create how many earths he wants to, a God would never care who is doing who or who is good or bad cause he already knew that stuff before creating us.............cause he's God 
So they can use religion but please treat vampires like another species and not a creation of an evil joker God 
Wait....a God who created vampires to suck human blood = AWESOME BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHA(evil laughter)


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## tssb (Jul 1, 2014)

Explorer said:


> Vlad &#538;epe&#537; didn't need all that superstition to be scary. If they have to stick the word "Impaler" into your name after you die, you know you're a badass.



He was still alive when they gave him the nickname.


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## SD83 (Jul 1, 2014)

Am I the only one who found the trailer horrible? Dracula, sacrificing himself and becoming a monster to safe his wife and son, million-bat-monsters five times the size of Godzilla... why does every villain need a reason to be evil? why does every movie need absurdly huge monsters?


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## tssb (Jul 1, 2014)

SD83 said:


> Am I the only one who found the trailer horrible?



You are not the only one. However, personally, I don't expect any Dracula-themed movie to be even half-decent, which means I don't even bother expressing how bad I think it is.


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## Duosphere (Jul 1, 2014)

SD83 said:


> why does every villain need a reason to be evil?



Why???!!!
We all born with empty memories so we're the result of everything we "upload" to our brains, our experiences make us good or evil but as we're always "uploading" new experiences, it's impossible to know what we'll be in the end of our lives, brain is too sensitive so anything could cause a nerves breakdown, you know chemistry is a bitch.
The only thing that doesn't need a reason is Chuck Norris, he died 20 years ago, Death just hasn't built up the courage to tell him yet


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## MFB (Jul 1, 2014)

SD83 said:


> Why does every villain need a reason to be evil?



I don't know of a single person who just woke up day after day and said to themselves, "I'm going to be evil!" and then went out and did it - again, day after day - only to _not_ get yelled at/repremanded every time they did it until the point where society would basically condition them to say "Hey, maybe evil isn't the way I should act" and he begins to act 'good.' You have some pivotal reason villains act 'evil' because something happens in their life where they said that being 'good' has betrayed them and so in their mind, being 'evil' is now the only way to get back what was taken and it must be the right path because it's the opposite of what cost them that object they're trying to regain.


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## Explorer (Jul 1, 2014)

Duosphere said:


> Just like I said, Underworld treats vampires just as an another species trying to survive, I can stand some religion bs but I hope it won't be too much based on it, TO ME religion always made vampire movies/stories sound dumb....



You're right in that the Underworld stuff avoided religion and made vampires another species.

However, this production went for a connection with *DRACULA*. They did it deliberately, in order to evoke the most famous literary and film vampire, and thus to take advantage of the Dracula story as a shortcut, instead of coming up with a completely original property. If you want to make a movie without religion, then you don't choose Dracula, Jesus or the Antichrist as the main character.


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## Duosphere (Jul 1, 2014)

Explorer said:


> You're right in that the Underworld stuff avoided religion and made vampires another species.
> 
> However, this production went for a connection with *DRACULA*. They did it deliberately, in order to evoke the most famous literary and film vampire, and thus to take advantage of the Dracula story as a shortcut, instead of coming up with a completely original property. If you want to make a movie without religion, then you don't choose Dracula, Jesus or the Antichrist as the main character.



Yep but it's the UNTOLD, in that version(I hope),Vlad found a vampire and asked him to bite his neck while we can listen to this soundtrack:

At first I was afraid I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
Thinking how you bit me wrong
And I grew strong
And I learned how to get along

Oh no, not I. I will survive
Oh as long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive


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## wrongnote85 (Jul 2, 2014)

needs Christopher Lee.


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## SD83 (Jul 2, 2014)

MFB said:


> I don't know of a single person who just woke up day after day and said to themselves, "I'm going to be evil!" and then went out and did it - again, day after day - only to _not_ get yelled at/repremanded every time they did it until the point where society would basically condition them to say "Hey, maybe evil isn't the way I should act" and he begins to act 'good.' You have some pivotal reason villains act 'evil' because something happens in their life where they said that being 'good' has betrayed them and so in their mind, being 'evil' is now the only way to get back what was taken and it must be the right path because it's the opposite of what cost them that object they're trying to regain.



I do not doubt any of that, but I'd say that more often than not there is no single event or decision that makes people turn sides. AND it is not aout "normal" people, it's about Dracula. I mean, Sauron didn't need a reason to be evil either. And no one cares if Hitler oder Stalin were molested by their uncles or bullied at school. There are cases where such explanations add sooo much to the story (Frankenstein for example, which is probably also the best book I ever read), but more often than not it feels kinda forced. To me. 
Hannibal Lecter, for example. In 'Silence of the lambs' and 'Red dragon', we have an evil genius, insane, scary, but as soon as you add some reason (his childhood), it becomes... bland. Sure, it might be absolutly logical. But horror movies and logic usually don't work. Even most action movies and logic don't get along well  That's why I nearly fell asleep during Hostel and would never watch xXx sober. Come on, it's a story about Vampires. That is NOT logical. So why bother with it?


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## Xaios (Jul 2, 2014)

SD83 said:


> I do not doubt any of that, but I'd say that more often than not there is no single event or decision that makes people turn sides. AND it is not aout "normal" people, it's about Dracula. I mean, Sauron didn't need a reason to be evil either. And no one cares if Hitler oder Stalin were molested by their uncles or bullied at school. There are cases where such explanations add sooo much to the story (Frankenstein for example, which is probably also the best book I ever read), but more often than not it feels kinda forced. To me.
> Hannibal Lecter, for example. In 'Silence of the lambs' and 'Red dragon', we have an evil genius, insane, scary, but as soon as you add some reason (his childhood), it becomes... bland. Sure, it might be absolutly logical. But horror movies and logic usually don't work. Even most action movies and logic don't get along well  That's why I nearly fell asleep during Hostel and would never watch xXx sober. Come on, it's a story about Vampires. That is NOT logical. So why bother with it?



This, so much. A couple great recent examples is the guy from No Country For Old Men, as well as the Joker from The Dark Knight. All you really need to know for the story to work is that they are straight-up sadistic bastards. There are times when trying to humanize an evil character and make them sympathetic works for the story. Other times, however, it's better for that evil to be an elemental, unknowable _force_, damn the backstory. Revealing any obvious motivation would only make these kinds of characters weaker, take away everything that makes them compelling.


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## Duosphere (Jul 2, 2014)

SD83 said:


> Come on, it's a story about Vampires. That is NOT logical. So why bother with it?



Blasphemy


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## ilyti (Jul 11, 2014)

I'll probably check this out. I've seen many film incarnations of Dracula, and read the book a few years ago. Historical stuff is interesting, but I expect this to be as "historical" as 300. 

Just in case anyone wants to know, the book tells the story of the action through letters the characters have written. I found that profoundly boring. There was also no backstory for Dracula, no REAL explanation for why he is the way he is (except for a few characters educated guesses). Which is why in retrospect the Gary Oldman Dracula movie is shite. So much added stuff that doesn't make any sense, and the girl Winona Ryder plays in the movie never falls in love with him in the book, and there's no redemption. It tried really hard to make an evil guy with mad superpowers sympathetic, and I really don't think it worked.

Also, LOL at that trailer - Dracula is a Marvel superhero!


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## Explorer (Jul 12, 2014)

If you're using Dracula the vampire as the main character, the whole insertion of a backstory for Dracula in the films is just an attempt to make him understandable and sympathetic. The "lost love" story from the various film adaptations (and nowhere in Stoker's book) all make the effort to not have Mina's "seduction" be about love and not just animal rape. 

Dracula (the man, not the fictional character) actually has a very interesting history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler

So this movie of the "untold" story took some of that, and then added a vampire to explain how Dracula was able to win. 

Honestly though, Dracula's methods are actually worthy of a movie because his methods to shore up Wallachia's economy and stability were pretty ruthless. 

What's cooler? A man who was so weak he needed supernatural help to win, or someone who was so driven that he was called "Sir Impaler" by his enemies?

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SD83 said:


> Hannibal Lecter, for example. In 'Silence of the lambs' and 'Red dragon', we have an evil genius, insane, scary, but as soon as you add some reason (his childhood), it becomes... bland. Sure, it might be absolutly logical. But horror movies and logic usually don't work. Even most action movies and logic don't get along well  *That's why I nearly fell asleep during Hostel*....



Don't read the following if you're thinking about watching Hostel for the first time. Contains spoilers.



Spoiler



Eli Roth and friends had run across an Asian website where you could pay to kill someone. They never figured out if it was a hoax or real, but decided to do a film about what it might look like to the victims, what the customers might be like, and the actual process for the transactions.



I actually thought both Hostel and Hostel II were worthwhile. 

I also am amused that Eli was so taken with that girl in the first film. I remember how excited he was every time he'd introduce her. "She's going to be a big star!" I don't remember her name now....

----

Anyway, Dracula!

I picture the writing sessions like this:

"I want to do a serious film about the untold history of Dracula. Let's get away from the silly superstitious stuff! Let's respect our audiences and lose the vampire stuff. It should be logical and realistic. Let's make it about the wars against the Ottomans, and his efforts to strengthen Wallachia... and, ooo, let's stick in some vampire stuff to guarantee some bank at the box office! Let's give him vampire powers! Fvck logic and realism! Fvck the audience! Let's make some cash"


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## ilyti (Jul 12, 2014)

Oh yeah, there's plenty of Vlad the Impaler stories around. Enough to make a semi-realistic historical movie, instead of the vampire/tortured-soul-superhero-gone-darksided stuff. Pick one or the other.


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## skeels (Jul 12, 2014)

Vlad Szekely was a great ruler. Kept his kingdom from being wiped from history. Great history. 

Szekely...
Skeels....

Hmmmm...


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## setsuna7 (Oct 6, 2014)

Saw this last night, to be honest I was disappointed, despite a great lead in Evans, the story arc suffers from bad dialog poor story telling. Universal intends this to be a reboot of the Universal Monsters franchises,but I only see it towards the end.


Spoiler



where Mina Harker makes an appearance


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## Xaios (Oct 7, 2014)

setsuna7 said:


> Universal intends this to be a reboot of the Universal Monsters franchises



Oh for crying out loud, really? Sounds like they're trying to put together "Universal Monster Avengers Assemble!"


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## Rev2010 (Oct 7, 2014)

SD83 said:


> Am I the only one who found the trailer horrible? Dracula, sacrificing himself and becoming a monster to safe his wife and son, million-bat-monsters five times the size of Godzilla... why does every villain need a reason to be evil? why does every movie need absurdly huge monsters?



You're not the only one. I saw the trailer and rolled my eyes and lamented how stupid and retarded it looked. Then about a week or so later the trailer came on and the wife exclaimed, "Oooh, I want to see that!" to which I, like an as$hole, had to give my view of how stupid it looks to which she took offense that I couldn't just let her like something, to which she is right. And seeing how many people here are interested in the movie I feel more like an a$s for foisting my view on her. I still think the movie looks stupid, but in retrospect there are a fair number of movies that I hated when I first watched but later gave another chance and now love. Unfortunately, the turn for the worse that Hollywood has made for the past 15 or so years has made me an instant skeptic which is sad.


Rev.


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## Duosphere (Oct 7, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> You're not the only one. I saw the trailer and rolled my eyes and lamented how stupid and retarded it looked. Then about a week or so later the trailer came on and the wife exclaimed, "Oooh, I want to see that!" to which I, like an as$hole, had to give my view of how stupid it looks to which she took offense that I couldn't just let her like something, to which she is right. And seeing how many people here are interested in the movie I feel more like an a$s for foisting my view on her. I still think the movie looks stupid, but in retrospect there are a fair number of movies that I hated when I first watched but later gave another chance and now love. Unfortunately, the turn for the worse that Hollywood has made for the past 15 or so years has made me an instant skeptic which is sad.
> 
> 
> Rev.



Sometimes you "know" a movie probably will be bad BUT, as you like its genre, you hope it'll be good and even if not, come'n sometimes we don't need a master piece, we just want to have fun even with stupid things.TO ME Underworld 1 & 2 are master pieces so after them anything about vampires is only about having fun, watching a creature with some powers I'd love to have doing things I can't is so cool, of course new master pieces are welcome but I(we) know they're rare so sometimes just relax and have fun, even better with naked wife(girlfriend, Gianna Michaels whatever) by your side


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## Rev2010 (Oct 7, 2014)

Duosphere said:


> TO ME Underworld 1 & 2 are master pieces so after them anything about vampires is only about having fun



I actually really liked Underworld, the first one. But my two absolute favorite vampire movies of all time are "Near Dark" and "Let The Right One In" (the original Swedish version, not the American remake). Have you seen those? I also like that they're not soooo outlandish in that they don't fly or have any of the other ridiculous super powers like many other vampire films.


Rev.


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## Duosphere (Oct 7, 2014)

Rev2010 said:


> I actually really liked Underworld, the first one. But my two absolute favorite vampire movies of all time are "Near Dark" and "Let The Right One In" (the original Swedish version, not the American remake). Have you seen those? I also like that they're not soooo outlandish in that they don't fly or have any of the other ridiculous super powers like many other vampire films.
> 
> 
> Rev.



I have and love Let The Right One In, so far I watched it 4 times, I LOVE its mood.I really like movies made in places/cultures very different than mine. 
About Near Dark, as I was a kid I probably watched it on tv with another name in my language so I don't remember it, gonna watch it


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## Explorer (Oct 8, 2014)

I liked Byzantium quite a lot, but if we're talking about "Let the Right One in," I'd also recommend "Cronos" (Mexico, 1995?) highly. 

I tend to like films which don't necessarily resolve, as is the tendency with Hollywood films quite often.


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## Duosphere (Oct 8, 2014)

Explorer said:


> I liked Byzantium quite a lot, but if we're talking about "Let the Right One in," I'd also recommend "Cronos" (Mexico, 1995?) highly.
> 
> I tend to like films which don't necessarily resolve, as is the tendency with Hollywood films quite often.



Damn, I never heard about those, gotta watch them


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## chopeth (Oct 8, 2014)

Explorer said:


> I liked Byzantium quite a lot, but if we're talking about "Let the Right One in," I'd also recommend "Cronos" (Mexico, 1995?) highly.
> 
> I tend to like films which don't necessarily resolve, as is the tendency with Hollywood films quite often.



Cronos is great, Guillermo Del Toro's debut.


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## Bekanor (Oct 16, 2014)

I really liked this, don't care that it's popcorny hollywood schlock, I was entertained, I enjoyed my snacks, and had a fun day out with the girlfriend.

Entertainment is a perfectly acceptable merit to enjoy something on. Especially these days where just about anything promising "depth" boils down to preaching some bullshit agenda at you and making you feel bad for being a middle class white guy and not doing enough to help the world around you. 

Not everything has to be the moving tale of 2 gay Turkish dudes trying to come to terms with their love and sexuality in a society that shuns them and the adventures they have escaping to Denmark on a motorbike. Sometimes it's cool to just watch Luke Evans bat punch some stuff.


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## Gothic Headhunter (Oct 18, 2014)

I would much rather see a movie about Vlad the Impaler than about Dracula. If you can't make something interesting with this source material, then you just plain shouldn't be making movies 

Dracula Tales - Vlad the Impaler - Dracula


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## Xaios (Oct 20, 2014)

Gothic Headhunter said:


> If you can't make something interesting with this source material, then you just plain shouldn't be making movies



The MO of Hollywood is "If it will make money, we didn't give a crap about whether or not it's got artistic integrity."


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## Yo_Wattup (Oct 20, 2014)

2.5 stars from me. Average.


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## Basti (Oct 20, 2014)

- CGI? check.
- Passionate shouting? check.
- Vampires portrayed as models with pointy teeth? check.
- Whispers for effect? checkaroo. 
- Song from the chart's top 10? check.

I'll pass.



Bekanor said:


> I really liked this, don't care that it's popcorny hollywood schlock, I was entertained, I enjoyed my snacks, and had a fun day out with the girlfriend.
> 
> Entertainment is a perfectly acceptable merit to enjoy something on. Especially these days where just about anything promising "depth" boils down to preaching some bullshit agenda at you and making you feel bad for being a middle class white guy and not doing enough to help the world around you.
> 
> Not everything has to be the moving tale of 2 gay Turkish dudes trying to come to terms with their love and sexuality in a society that shuns them and the adventures they have escaping to Denmark on a motorbike. Sometimes it's cool to just watch Luke Evans bat punch some stuff.


Entertainment is one thing and quality is another. It doesn't have to have some stratospheric message to be of good quality, it just have to have some form of independent thought and effort behind it. It's easy enough to tell when this is the case by the fact that it doesn't look like a truckload of other films that preceded it. 
There's nothing wrong with entertainment, but if we want to talk about the actual merit and/or value of a film, it's pretty much irrelevant. Cat videos on youtube can be entertaining, but they don't deserve oscars.


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## Duosphere (Oct 21, 2014)

Basti said:


> Cat videos on youtube can be entertaining, but they don't deserve oscars.



Why not?
I really prefer those cats videos than ANY movie with Sandra Bullock/Hugh Grant, and comparing to those movies, cat videos deserve all oscars in the world.For every thing in life there'll be people who love it, hate it and don't care about it so who's gonna judge what deserves an oscar?
You?
Me?
The academy?
We're all judges.
If you ask to an unschooled person to watch a complicated sci-fi movie, he/she will hate it, for sure his/her oscar would go to cat videos, schooled people will prefer that sci-fi movie so it's all about points of view 
Some claim Mona Lisa is a masterpiece, to me it looks like crap, to me Earth is a masterpiece and nothing man has created comes even a little close to it , amazing beautiful planet which we're covering with concrete and garbage.


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## Bekanor (Oct 21, 2014)

Basti said:


> - CGI? check.
> - Passionate shouting? check.
> - Vampires portrayed as models with pointy teeth? check.
> - Whispers for effect? checkaroo.
> ...



Sorry I did go a bit exaggerative in my use of allegory but my point remains valid, though I do get irked by the broad social trend of trying to awkwardly aim objective measurements of quality at subjective exploits, especially singling out things like CGI when there's not really any other way to turn a swarm of bats into a giant fist and slam it into an army of armoured people and have them react appropriately, at least not without it looking like a Jim Henson directed episode of Power Rangers. 

I think this movie achieved exactly what it set out to be. A couple of hours of light entertainment to pull in some bucks and establish a base for further light entertainment. Everyone is welcome to not enjoy that endeavour but that's their prerogative. Were I in an argumentative mood I'd posit that far more people seem to be simply knee-jerking negatively to modern blockbusters these days out of adherence to broad social trends of pseudo-intellectual contrarianism, rather than just stepping out of their own colon for two hours and enjoying something for the simple pleasure that it is. But far be it from me to get into that swarm of fist-shaped bats.


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## flint757 (Apr 4, 2015)

You know, if you watch this movie with little expectation and can come at it with a fresh mind (as in no preconceived view of Vlad the Impaler or Dracula) it's actually a very solid movie. I enjoyed it!


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