Bram Stoker's Dracula comparison *PIX* - Page 22

yep. No amount of remastering or tweaking can fix that

They took time to ruin the picture but had no time to reinsert the cut 25 mins from the directors cut, the thought of that really bugs me

I love the characters in that film, and how they all bring something to the story. Wynona was fantastic, and played the initial innocence of Mina so well. Keanu is perfect in that film from a story perspective. His casting makes sense. Dracula played by the superb Gary Oldman is centuries old and knows everything including how to manipulate with ease. Keanu gives a perfect contrast to him with the naive Jonathan Harker who knows little about life and pays the price for his greed and short-sightedness in wanting the promotion to marry Mina. So his lack of acting skill at the time actually does not get in the way and works well in his scenes. But Mr Reeves has come a long way now as an actor. I cannot wait for Bill And Ted 3!!!! Might even get an Oscar for his performance

Wait...what?! There's a second film? I remember the excellence of the original, but I seem to have repressed all memory of the sequel

There is no way Keanu can recapture the lighting of a bottle that the first one possessed. That being said, it would be more interesting than the Monopoly and Battleship movies studios are putting into production.

BTW, does the D in your name stand for Dracula?

Bill and Ted 3 will be a classic! Middle-aged slackers like me. Is the D for Dracula?. No, in all seriousness it is not.

the D just sounds better with the addition of my first name.

You should check out Bogus Journey the sequel. Bill and Ted even outsmart the Grim Reaper! But I have to be careful to not receive an admin warning about not being relevant to the original film the thread relates to. I already have one warning!

Mr Dave Mack! Please wash your mouth out for such disrespect for one of the finest actors ever. Where is your humanity and respect for the history of cinema? Keanu is as necessary to Bram Stoker's Dracula as the film grain. He cannot be tampered with. I am just too used to Keanu in that film and removing him would be like removing Dracula's red cape. No way dude!!!!!!!!

FFC himself regrets casting him just to get teenage girls in seats

Think if we had had say, Jude law as Harker?

I would take that with a pinch of salt. I know Reeves hated his performance. But if you read a few posts back, I think the contrast between Oldman's super-experienced Dracula versus Reeves inexperienced Harker works just fine. It may be true, but somehow I think Keanu worked out well and the film has a classic/cult status.

And most importantly, even in 50 years from now, the story as well classic painting style visuals will still look beautiful!

And I see the whole film acting-wise as an ensemble performance. The chemistry at least on-screen works so well.

My god know I hate him with a passion unreserved


He said it, not me! I like him normally (not in this tho) hell I even like JM!

Well Mr Coppola surely by the time he made that film must have known about casting the right actor. So only Coppola can take the blame for that one. Once a film goes out to the public, they should best leave it to us to judge. I pay no attention to what a director says or doesn't years later. Reeves character was subdued whilst Oldman was subtle but powerful. It is not as if Keanu was cast as Dracula. That would have been wrong casting.

No! Was he on the cards as playing the role?????????????

Apart from when the PQ comes into question?

I think you missed the part where I surpressed that memory Station and the evil robots killed the movie for me. Also, I'm a history nerd rather than a slacker so less appeal for me. And B&T 3 won't have George Carlin, so it's an automatic no go.

Bacon topic:

Oldman and Hopkins were the only ones that sold it for me. If we're going to start inserting characters into movies I nominate Peter Lorre replace Keanu, (old) Sean Connery replaces Hopkins, and Cathrine Devineu replaces Winona. I can't wait until the day computers get to the point where we can't tell digital actors from real ones.

The new Blu-Ray look is not so radically different overall by any stretch. Just a few too dark scenes especially in the castle once Harker arrives.

Remember the look Francis Coppola wanted as well as classic style and that is not easy to squeeze down from 8k to 2k resolution with so much detail. The film's costumes were as much a part of the story and detail of the costumes alone is not something I see attempted in many films. So I have no doubt that Zoetrope have had to balance so many things. The film was supposed to have a antiquated visual style as opposed to Hi-Def modern Rob Zombie films. To Zoetrope's credit, the film gain is intact and the look of the film in parts has that almost classic master painting look in terms of the colours as well as sets. There is so much subtlety and wonderful visual compositions. This is in my sole opinion but what so may modern horror directors miss. Horror is not about mindless violence or killing every two minutes.

Now here I totally agree with Mr Robert Harris's defence of the transfer. We have to be careful about what we think the intention should have been and what in reality the intention actually is. This film was never supposed to have a squeaky clean sci-fi Star Wars look or the overly clean look of modern films. The film style has a lot of character and this transfer certainly has that. To call this Blu-Ray " botched " or " messed up " is disrespectful to the people involved in bringing this to Blu-Ray. The film has purposeful imperfections as if you are watching something historical that had been filmed years and years ago.

Now the castle scenes look fine, and it was more of a shadow detail issue for me. As I said in an earlier post, when Mr Coppola is referring to the droplets going up, I am having difficulty seeing that.

Now BSD works on so many levels and is not a film juveniles would get. This is true adult cinema!

Horror films are just not about gore. And Mr Coppola using Dracula as the historical figure Vlad Tepes was inspired. Only Sleepy Hollow comes close since Dracula in capturing that classic feel of vintage Hollywood especially,although I know Sleepy Hollow took more inspiration from the British Hammer films.

Found a review of the Criterion and it has screen shots and transfer details from the sleeve for people doubting the look in the cinema

http://www.horrordvds.com/viewarticle.php?articleid=195



I ordered a copy of the Criterion today but now we have a new source

Please use multi-quote


If I had a Laserdisc player it'd be one of the very high end ones. But I don't have the space nor room currently.

No but at least he's an actual Brit who can act

Have you actually read this thread? Go back to page 11-ish and read from there. Several special effects are simply gone due to the black crush.

I think it's a beautiful movie (or rather, it used to be) but that's the only reason I can stomach it. The acting and script is mostly cringe-worthy. What I find most offensive about it is the use of Stoker's name in the title: Of all the Dracula movies, this one probably has the least to do with his wonderful book - thematically speaking. Terence Fisher's version may have taken greater liberties with the actual plot, but the characters are reasonably close to the source - unlike Coppola's love-story-with-vampires.

I believe they had to use Bram Stoker in the title because Universal owns the rights to "Dracula"

But this is the only film that has ever had all the characters.
And aside from Keanu I have no problem with the actors.
And Oldman alone is worth the price of admission

I agree about the black crush, especially in the scene where Harker opens the chest of bottles. Shadow detail there on a properly calibrated display is almost as if you wouldn't know the direction the drops were going up in, and that causes frustration for me. Plus the journal writing too. But overall I like the antiquated look of the film. My problem with the transfer related to some castle scenes and the removal of the original burned in subs.

I think the computer generated subs alone in the prologue being so modern looking do not hold a candle to the original ones and how they complimented the historical style of the film. So already with the subtitle issue alone, Zoetrope have not given us what was in the original film and little things like that make them an easier target in the debate. So to me the Blu-Ray is not the definitive version because it is incomplete.

Now I would be interested in what Zoetrope have to say about why those burned in subs are no longer there. If the answer print is what was used to make copies for the cinemas back in 1992, then why were they removed for the Blu-Ray?. Unless they say that there were no burned in subs on the original answer print and were only put on the subsequent copy for distribution in the theatres. Please do not kill me if that did not make sense, because I have limited technical knowledge of the process. Someone way more qualified than me could perhaps answer this.

Now to answer you comment about the faithfulness to the book, Mr Coppola being a highly intelligent director also used the Dracula story to explore religious themes, religious friction ( which is very relevant today let alone at the time the film was made ), redemption as well as the rise of AIDS in the world. So there is a lot of metaphor in that film too. And the film has some very disturbing scenes like when Dracula hands the baby to the vampire brides.

That and FFC always puts the writer above the title

For DVDMike007.

I am assuming the one in the middle is the Superbit and the one to the far right is the LD. Blu-Ray is far left. Yes they all look different to me, but I did read Mr Robert Harris's article regarding this film and on why screenshots do not help.In addition Mr Harris wrote about the limitations of transfer technology at the time or something along those lines. I mean Laserdisc is an inferior medium compared to DVD. And DVD is inferior to Blu-Ray. That much we all agree.

Sorry patient forum dwellers, but there is more I want to add regarding the faithfulness to the novel. The Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee Dracula's had the image of a magician at the turn of the last century. And the Hammer films eventually became a mockery of the source material. Plus they did not capture both the repulsion and sympathy we have for the character like Gary Oldman did.

The Francis Ford Coppola version was the first time that an extremely accomplished actor put his own interpretation to the role cinematically and here I am not including theatre actors and their stamp on it. I am not making a comparisson, but it was like when Timothy Dalton an also extremely accomplished theatre actor seriously changed the way we looked at James Bond. Love Dalton or Hate him, you know who he is and that is amazing to me. With Dalton, who read the Fleming books, he showed that the character is almost like a villain sometimes. Potentially as evil as the people who are presented as the bad guys. Remember Licence To Kill?

When I first saw BSD at the cinema, I hated the film because at the time my image and social conditioning of the Dracula character was based on Christopher Lee. And being very young, I was very shocked by the way Francis Ford Coppola presented all the wickedness of the character, but wanted us to see that he was not always evil. Remember how he defended the church in the prologue.

That is why these characters be it Dracula or James Bond have stood the test of time. Because they can adapt to the times we live in. Although I take Roger Moore out of that equation.

His article was deeply flawed

Hello DVDmike007! In what way would you say his article was deeply flawed Sir?

It does deserve an explaination from you, because the author of that article went to some effort to explain to us generally non-industry people what happened and why. You having a different opinion need to increase the detail of your observation.

We must give him ( Mr Robert Harris ) the respect he deserves for at least trying to educate us and open our eyes to the multitude of things that the process involves. I say this, because I began to notice some of the replies I received to my thoughts on the subject did not specify why or what the reasons were for their disagreement with me. Why and what is what makes a forum great to read for outsiders too i.e non-members. For all we know Mr Coppola could be reading this over a nice cup of coffee although I admit I was born with an over-active imagination.

And if Mr Coppola is reading this, there goes my imagination again, a very good morning to you from London!!! How is Nicolas Cage doing, and are you happy with some of the choices he has made with his recent roles? Have you seen your nephew in Drive Angry 3D????

He knows everything there is about film, but it would appear nothing about digital colour timing, Dracula has obviously been retimed it is not all about black crush screenshots and transfer equipment.
Full colour ranges have been removed from the movie digitally

I really do not know what to say or how to answer. And I will not even attempt to. I hope Mr Harris could respond to this. This is a question only he can answer.

Mr Dave Mack, welcome to the thread that you certainly helped gain notoriety. I know Jude Law is a Brit, and I assume Dave why Harker being a Brit in the novel is why you think that would be better for the film.

Another thread perhaps, but what about Brits being cast as Amercan heroes like Christian Bale and Henry Cavill?

Watched Bram Stoker's Dracula last night and was quite impressed overall. I was surprised how well the transfer looked given all the negative talk regarding this title. Yes, there were a few instances of black crush(I was only able to see 2 of the 4 drops in the chest of bottles sequence), but that is excusable given the darkness of the overall presentation. I had no trouble reading the journal entries on my 50VT-20 plasma and thought the overall image quality quite film like. No noticeable DNR or EE. Grain where grain should be. As this was my first ever viewing of the film, I cannot comment on the color timing changes, but I found the look and design of the film to be stunning. Some of the performances and dialog may be cringe worthy, but this is one beautiful looking film. Something not many have commented on was the excellent audio. Very impressive. Definite thumbs up from me. Thanks to the folks on this thread for pointing me in it's direction.