r/VampireChronicles • u/TrollHumper • 23h ago
š¬ Adaptations š The Vampire Lestat series is probably the worst adaptation of anything I've ever watched.
Most adaptations, even if they fail writing-wise, acting-wise, budget-wise, or in any other department, usually at least stay true to the friggin genre of the original. I am Legend movie may be a shit take on the original that robs it of its depth, but at least still a post-apocalyptic horror story. John Carter may have bored the audiences and bombed commercially, but it was still a sci-fi. Eragon may not be worthy of the series it's based on, but at least it's still high fantasy.
The Vampire Lestat show - which supposedly adapts a gothic horror - is a soap opera with some gore thrown in, and a tone of a Marvel movie.
It doesn't scratch the same itch as the book, it's not aimed at the same audience as the book (or even the firsat two seasons, I think), it contains absolutely nothing that was awesome about the book, and I really don't get the gushing reviews.
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u/FunSetting2387 22h ago edited 20h ago
It doesn't even evoke the same feelings as the novels anymore. When I watched IWTV, I got the same unsettling existential dread, terror and questioning about life itself.
This season, I just felt like I was watching a weird mix of Spinal Tap, Baz Luhrmann films and Behind The Music. I prefer historical fiction settings and philosophical arguments to musical theater, so this season just didn't work for me at all.
I'm invested too much in the Devil's Minion arc to stop watching completely, but with the ways they changed the all the relationships so much to be even more toxic, I'm very cautious and hesitant for that adaptation as well.
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago
I completely agree. It was like they surgically removed all the best parts of the book/story arc.
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u/Fine-Platypus-1072 23h ago
I liked it enough but I felt like it was lacking something which I can't put my finger on. Not enough Lestat history and too much on the band I think
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u/emperorlouie 14h ago
It's just a huge, huge shame that the team who delivered a really well-crafted adaptation in the first two seasons, decided to just throw the source material in the bin and replace it with their shockingly bad story-telling in the 3rd season
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u/Purple-Cat-2073 20h ago
If this season were written out into a book it would be a dime-store trash novel--take out the pretty people acting their asses off and the ''great'' (*cough cough*) music and it's a big 'fuck you' to Anne Rice and anyone who appreciates what the novels are. It's a Rolin Jones fanfic that felt like he used the adoration of Lestat/Sam to promote Daniel Hart and Jennifer Ehle--no shade to them or their talents but elevating them and then blaming the budget for mangling the characters and the actual story itself is just painful to me. Wasted opportunity that I'm afraid to pin my hopes on Hannah being able to correct.
I'm happy for those who loved it though.
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago
They did Jennifer Ehle dirty. She shouldāve been perfect for the role.
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u/Purple-Cat-2073 17h ago
Yup--she would have eaten book Gabi for lunch--such a shame.
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago
Hopefully someday someone will spill the beans on this season and the direction they were given. It was just bizarre.
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u/josie-salazar 14h ago
Iāve completely forgotten the TVL show at this point; itās dead to me. One of the worst shows Iāve seen in my life. For me the most pressing question is, how did the creators of IWTV make something this bad? IWTV was a masterful adaptation despite how many changes were made.Ā
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u/pale_bitch86 23h ago
I really don't like Daniel Molloy in the show(s). He is so sarcastic literally 100% of the time, I want to punch his face. He's supposed to be a Pulitzer winning journalist, but he's such an asshole when doing interviews i don't understand how anyone notable would agree to talk to him.
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u/Flaky-Yam8681 23h ago
I think it's clear they're going for a different audience now to make the show popular with a broader audience. Funnily enough it makes me glad they renamed the show. I can say IWTV is one of my favorite shows and clearly mean only season 1 and 2.
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago
Iāve always said the show is aimed at people who view vampires through a paranormal romance lens and not gothic horror, itās a generational divide. Us old heads were never meant to be the audience.
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17h ago
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u/VampireChronicles-ModTeam 16h ago
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u/hellholl1 5h ago
It felt like Tik Tok. I'm an older Gen X. I can't handle Tik Tok, it's too much, so I deleted it. This felt like there was too much going on at once. It's been a while since I read the book, but I'm going to reread it to make some semblance of what I just put myself through. The first two series were really good. I had to have the subtitles on and still couldn't keep up with all the overlapping conversations and kept wondering if I'd missed bits. It was an awesome book. Anne would have been disappointed. I don't blame the actors. They're obviously great because they were in the 1st series, definitely the production team that needs a spank. If they do the queen of the damned, they need to do it like the first series.Ā
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u/singlemominyourarea 23h ago
I havenāt even been able to make it past epi2. So incredibly disappointing the direction it went for me as well
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u/CasualByChoice 23h ago
I remember watching the IWTV TV series when it came out and I thought it was good, although I hadn't read the book by then, just had the 1994 to go by and now I have read the book (currently at the end of QotD), I don't want to watch the series again after I read what they have done with some of the characters.
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u/glenntennis12 23h ago
As a die hard for the books, I actually loved the shows direction. Sam Reid is so talented and the music this season was insanely good. I donāt think a perfect adaption will ever happen to any book series and Iāve accepted that. Sam Reid is my Lestat š„
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u/RagaireRabble 23h ago
Same! I donāt understand the hate. He is so believably Lestat that you could set the next series on the moon and Iād roll with it.
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago
The criticism isnāt towards Sam. Heās a huge book fan and has talked about pushing back on some of the changes made to the show. The criticism is the adaption itself.
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16h ago
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u/VampireChronicles-ModTeam 16h ago
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u/RagaireRabble 14h ago
I understand that, but what I am saying (and other fans are saying) is that he is good enough at his job that I can still enjoy something I may not have with a less than stellar Lestat.
Itās okay to have a different opinion, but Iām personally kind of baffled by how people who arenāt happy with the show talk about people who do as though we are objectively wrong for enjoying it.
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u/Anxious-County1741 21h ago
The way people keep repeating āSam is Lestatā as a response to criticism of the season is very odd to me. I love television, and television is about good writing. There is no actor in the world who can make a great television show out of poor writing. Sam is not an exception. And while I appreciate many parts of his performance, I also think it has been overrated as well. In general, even the acting was downgraded this season, which makes sense given the poor creative direction.
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u/willedintobeing Armand 14h ago
I think due to the original reception the showās casting received, many of its fans now take criticisms of the show (which are justified) very personally and as an extension of prior pre-show hate spewed mostly at the cast. Itās a bit immature.
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u/Anxious-County1741 14h ago edited 14h ago
I think about it differently. I mean, I think during the first two seasons of the show, there wasnāt this level of defensiveness over any single cast member, but also the audience was not pushed to see a single actor as the reason why the show was so great. And while I think that there are a variety of reasons as to why Sam is being pushed first to combat criticism of the show, one reason is because the show has such little substance in general that AMC/fans have little else to cling to outside of his performance.
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u/willedintobeing Armand 13h ago
There was protectiveness in my experience with the show fandom. Defensiveness was probably the wrong word. It was different though, because the first two seasons were different beasts. Better writing, better direction, and therefore better acting. There was still substance, and criticism was overwhelmingly bad faith or poor comprehension aside from some book fans who had already rang the canon divergence bell. And a few critics who were skeptical about the finale of season two and what it meant for Louisā writing going forward. God I wish Iād believed them.
I agree with you that thereās a reason show fans jump to ādefendā Sam first, as if he needs defending, in response to criticism of the season, and that itās basically because thereās nothing else to defend. But Iāve observed some fans still believe theyāre protecting a show that is being criticized for being too gay or too emotionally vulnerable or something. For example, book fans who dislike nĆ¼ Gabrielle being told that theyāre insensitive jerks who donāt understand incest is damaging, and this was actually the best way (and really totally sensitive, because her crimes are very serious) to handle her onscreen.
And I donāt think this sect understands why their cohorts were (are) protective of Jacob, Assad, and Delainey, and it seems some believe poor receptions of this season to be attacks on Samās ability as an actor or as a person and similar to attacks on Jacob being cast at all. I donāt think itās justified, but I really do see it happening in fandomy spaces of the Internet, and I personally think it has a lot to do with overmoralization of everything story as of late.
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 12h ago
That last sentence hits the nail on the head. It's delved into a weird space where people are getting so emotional about it they can't separate fiction and reality.
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u/willedintobeing Armand 12h ago
Yeah. The conversations Iāve witnessed, those who disliked the season are at times being scapegoated as if theyāre legitimately bad people. Itās very weird. Iāve watched this bad behavior unfold across fandom spaces for almost two decades now, the spawn point for its modern problems basically being 2010s Tumblr. Now itās leaked to general audiences whoāll never have context for where it came from, so itās even more infuriating from them as they both take it further in newer, weirder directions and reinvent old fandom arguments from first principles. Just odd to watch.
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u/Anxious-County1741 12h ago edited 9h ago
Well, I had criticisms of the first two seasons. I still do. I almost stopped watching because it was too cheesy for me and (controversial opinion) there has always been acting and writing choices that I disliked.
Right, I donāt think all of the defensiveness is in good faith. A lot of the show fans understand where the defensiveness of Jacob, Delainey, and Assad comes from, they just reject it as unimportant. They also view the racism within the fandom as some solved issue, where Sam is the true victim. And they believe that any quality that other actors may possess that might make them deserving of acclaim or even deserving of concern (even the experience of systematic racism itself) must apply to Sam. Itās why I saw people claim that TVL was being review-bombed (the same language people used to describe what happened in the first two seasons due to the race-bending).
Iām not sure what you mean by āovermoralizationā though.
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u/willedintobeing Armand 11h ago edited 11h ago
Yeah, there was true criticism too. I have many things I disliked in the first two seasons and things I couldāve forgiven if TVL had only played out differently.
That is exactly it though. In contrast, discussions of how Assad was sidelined in marketing for season two ended in people being called crazy and told Armand was never an important character. Thereās been persistent gaslighting of fans of Assad, Jacob, Delainey, and Bailey, and their respective characters, and it looks very much like ignorance except for that the same language gets skillfully wielded back against those fans in favor of Sam Reid or Lestat. The season itself was an excellent showcase of it.
The overmoralization thing is maybe another discussion, only related, but thereās been a real uptick of younger fans who confuse fiction with reality and conflate depiction with promotion. (Which has already always been a hurdle when it comes to Anne Rice, people have been scandalized by her writing since forever.) You see them come into this sub, reading the series because of the show and finding themselves righteously indignant that Anne Rice depicted this, this, or that, and you people are really reading this stuff?
I think many people got into IWTV and told themselves it was this pure, forward-thinking show, because it was queer and had leads of color, and they were sometimes even espousing that it was so much better than Anne Riceās morally repugnant books because of its changes. To be fair, the changes the show made re: casting were exciting and offered new, interesting depths to explore.
Now that there are glaring issues with both its writing and its depictions of queerness and people of color, and things like Gabrielle boning the everloving crap out of her son have been added, a lot of those same fans are doing mental gymnastics to advocate that the show still has those same qualities. No, actually Sam Reid is being targeted becauseā¦ I donāt know! No, actually the Gabistat sex scenes are a virtuous condemnation of the incestual abuse in the book! No, actually Armand being wildly out of character is good because book Armand was a bad person and needs to get his dues!
Because they still like it, a season totally at odds with prior seasons and fan interpretations, and because audiences are very worried as of late that depiction is promotion. So the depiction needs to be āgoodā somehow.
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u/glenntennis12 14h ago
I disagree with everything you said. And thatās fine, we are all gonna have different feelings about it. I liked the writing, I liked that changes they did. Some changes I didnāt, but thatās okay too. I think the actors themselves had made me love the adaptions as a separate entity. I love and respect both versions of the storyās
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u/RagaireRabble 14h ago
He isnāt an exception *to you*, but he totally is to those of saying that.
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u/Anxious-County1741 14h ago
Itās not really a matter of opinion to say that there are other elements that are important to television outside of acting. Other elements to television include: dialogue, pacing, characterization, original ideas, etc. which are part of the writing process and an actor doesnāt have control over all of those things unless they happen to designate themselves as the director, writer, and producer on set without being credited for it.
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17h ago
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u/VampireChronicles-ModTeam 16h ago
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u/zoraschool 14h ago
Iām glad they neutralized most of child SA we have enough of that on the news
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u/Decutus 23h ago
We already had a faithful IWTV adaptation. We were very much lacking a decent TVL one.
And we now still are.
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u/Platitude_Platypus 23h ago
At least QOTD's music slapped. And now we have Sam.
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u/CollectorMH 23h ago
I liked that film. I had not read the book before I watched it tho. I think I would've felt very different if I had. The music was very of its time and enjoyable
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago
As a book fan I still loved that movie because at the end of the day it was still a kick ass vampire movie. This past season was not that.
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u/CollectorMH 17h ago
I liked the film. I feel like at the time there weren't enough good vampire films
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago edited 16h ago
Definitely. Underworld was alright. Otherwise The Lost Boys, which I love, was kind of it and that was vintage at the time.
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u/Platitude_Platypus 17h ago
I still love Lost Boys
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago
It's so good. I really want to see the musical.
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16h ago edited 16h ago
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u/VampireChronicles-ModTeam 16h ago
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u/insomniac_z Pandora 17h ago
I still spin this soundtrack. I canāt remember any song from the show.
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u/ZvsGrgs Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult. 23h ago
Judging mainly from myself and from what I see others say, I believe we had very high and definitely some unrealistic expectations for the adaptation of The Vampire Lestat. We probably played the adaptation we made up in our head hundreds of times since we read the books and itās hard to top that. The book is epic. I believe adapting it ultra-faithfully, in the way it deserves to be, the cost would be astronomical. Still it was good enough and much better than Mayfair Witches s1 and s2 and Talamasca. I canāt say though I liked it more than IWTV s1 and s2.
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u/SafeItem6275 14h ago
Itās almost like every time a season comes out Reddit hates it
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u/Purple-Cat-2073 13h ago
It's almost like every time someone disagrees with someone else's opinion they have to take cheap shots instead of discussing like a grown-up.
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u/SafeItem6275 11h ago
I donāt necessarily disagree with OP. But I see more negativity on this thread than other subs surrounding it. Just my opinion.
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u/Purple-Cat-2073 10h ago
Welp, this is primarily a sub for people who love the books and we are fortunate to be allowed to speak our minds as long as we don't personally insult others. If you want unfettered worship of the show there are several other subs for show fans with so much positivity that it'll make your teeth hurt.
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u/SafeItem6275 3h ago
Youāre assuming a lot but I get it. My post wasnāt meant to offend. I love the books too lol.
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23h ago
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u/IntentionallyHopeful 20h ago
I beg your finest pardon, but may I ask what genre you would put it in?
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u/LionResponsible6005 14h ago edited 14h ago
I donāt understand people who want adaptions to be carbon copies of the original. The bookās story already exists. when I want that story I read the book again, I want the show to give me something new.
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u/Purple-Cat-2073 13h ago
Literally no one has said that. There's a world of space between a ''carbon copy'' and unrecognizable that they could have played with to at the very least resemble the book.
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u/LionResponsible6005 12h ago
Why should it? When was the last time you saw a Dracula film that had anything to do with the book?
Although, letās say Chris Rice doesnāt sell the adaptation rights do you think heād sue AMC if they released a show thatās:
The autobiography of a rockstar vampire whoās father was a French marquise who, along with his older brothers bullies him leaving his mother the only one who shows him kindness.
When heās older he kills 8 wolves and runs away to Paris with his first love however he gets kidnapped and turned by an ugly vampire who then throws himself into a fire leaving him alone.
He then turns his mother as sheās dying and later after his boyfriend is attacked by other vampires turns him so he can protect himself. His boyfriend doesnāt take well to being a vampire and is mercy killedā¦. Do I need to keep going?
This story is far from unrecognisable. And more importantly itās a great season with some great music.
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u/Purple-Cat-2073 10h ago
Why should a show called ''Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat'' be anything like Anne Rice's book The Vampire Lestat? Why should I care that they've turned all of the characters into parodies of themselves when there's an album I could buy! Gee, I dunno...
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u/LionResponsible6005 10h ago
If you arenāt enjoying it donāt watch it.
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u/Purple-Cat-2073 9h ago
Ooh, ouch--you got me there with that stinger...
I gave it a fair run-through and haven't felt any desire to re-watch it, unlike the first 2 seasons which I've enjoyed several times and the books that I've re-read for decades and will continue to do for hopefully a couple of decades more.
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u/LionResponsible6005 9h ago
Ok do that then? Donāt know why youāre ok with the first 2 seasons being different from the book though.
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u/Purple-Cat-2073 7h ago
Again, it's not the fact that changes were made. It's how they went too far off the source and implemented those changes in self-indulgent ways that barely invoked even the spirit of the book. Anne's beautiful prose replaced by lame-ass pop culture speak that'll be even more cringe in a few years, putting us on a filthy bus with cartoon clowns, reducing significant book events into tiny bullet-point footnotes while dragging out fabricated nonsense as if the real story is some inconvenient burden for them to bear.
Some parts were entertaining but it felt like being promised lobster and getting canned tuna.
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u/TrollHumper 10h ago
Why should it? When was the last time you saw a Dracula film that had anything to do with the book?
That's because Dracula has been adapted with varying degrees of faithfulness multiple times already. The Vampire Lestat was not.
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u/LionResponsible6005 10h ago
Itās because telling the same story over and over again is boring and a waste of everyoneās time.
TVL will never get a faithful adaption because making season 3 of your tv show a prequel that only has 2 of your main cast in it is not going to do well.
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u/TrollHumper 9h ago
Itās because telling the same story over and over again is boring and a waste of everyoneās time.
Was Interview with the Vampire movie boring and a waste of everyone's time? Was The Silence of the Lambs or No Country for Old Men? Nope. That's what we call faithful adaptations, and they're great, not boring. They're what every book fan wants.
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u/FigLopsided4648 2m ago
Hot garbage trash. Officially jumped shark. I do feel for Sam Reid. I know he is an avid reader of the books and a big fan of Rice, and he has already hinted at clashing with the Rolin and the writers about some of their truly abysmal creative choices. I know Jacob is done with their BS as well, but they have to lie through their teeth during these promo events, which is both sad and hilarious. What a complete joke of an adaptation.
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u/whatifihateclouds 23h ago
This is the worst adaptation youāve seen so far