I have three blogs where this post would be appropriate but I'm choosing to speak here since it's more related to me reviewing my feelings about a book series that inspired me as a writer, and how I feel about future adaptations.
I don't really know what drew me into the Vampire Chronicles, when I think about it, the books were heavy going and verbose, they weren't intended for teens but I just chose to read above my level. I don't actually read a lot anymore. Back when I didn't feel like I was in an unspoken competition for attention as an author, I appreciated reading more, and my style began to gain some semblance of being "good/better" than how I started out. They tell you to read more to write more, I just don't and I don't feel like writing.
Anne Rice died almost a month ago, and I had no idea. Now I do know, I'm not as emotionally affected than as I may have been had she died when I was younger. I was in my early 20s when I was starting to give up, I thought I'd made it to the end of Lestat's saga and I wasn't happy with how it ended. So, upon his return, I can't say I was thrilled with that either. And I don't think I really want to find out the absolute origin of Amel detailed in the later books, because (spoilers) "aliens". Honestly it's something that owed itself to being shrouded in mystery, the Egyptian backstory was genuinely cool, to me anyway, the deeper that lore got the more I was interested. I loved Body Thief being a huge departure from the previous books, Memnoch is dense as hell, that's as close as I will ever get to reading the Bible. I took so much longer getting through the later books and the Witching Hour, which I'd pick up and neglect a lot but somehow I still read most of them before I graduated high school. I just don't feel like I was the voracious reader I appeared to be.
What I'm not opposed to is a remake of the original film. I tried to come up with which modern day actors I'd cast in the main roles, but having said that, I just can't see any other child actor doing Claudia justice. It's Pitt and Cruise I'm torn over in terms of how good they were. Cruise is pretty great but Pitt has these kind of flaccid moments in his performance that seem to take time to get better. Somehow he has more of a lisp for having fangs. And Slater's the best in this, really. Stephen Rae's great but Banderas is on the same level as Pitt, sometimes amazing and sometimes not. I think they had good chemistry by the final scenes. I just can't come up with their replacements (and no, Bert Newton's son isn't acceptable either, Queen of the Damned suffered the Matrix level of cringe associated with being a partly Australian production forced to utilise Australian actors - in fact the ratio would be higher when you have 3000 of Melbourne's then popular goth crowd, I think that added to the cringe factor, but I haven't seen this in a long while). Plus you've lost Akasha's actress, tragically. She wasn't fantastic. Stuart Townsend's performance is acceptable. Seriously, I would like to rewatch this now to see if it's truly as bad as I felt it was in my head. If I can handle the cringe. However, looking at one clip online I can say the acting/direction's about on par with Twilight already so, fuck, yeah this needs somebody else to treat it with the respect it deserves.
I don't know, nor will I ever, how satisfied Anne was with these versions, but I want a reboot fitting her desires for the project. It's not so impossible to pull off, but the biggest issue is, people are pretty tired of vampires by now and you risk doing something too closely akin to the Vampire Diaries if you leave this in the wrong hands. That'd be my main concern. I'd love a TV show over reboots of the movies, I think that's a smart move knowing this wouldn't get much interest as any kind of theatrical release. Time will tell.
But in terms of me feeling like I've lost a hero, I don't feel it as deeply as I think I should. I think about how I'll feel when I lose favourite musicians, I've departed from nearly all my fan bases the likelihood of me seeing any info would be slim. I'll be the last to know, for sure.
Some reason I became bored enough to give The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty a look into, because it sounded more romantic than completely erotic. I was wrong. It's pretty rapey and wired and too fixated on torturing nubile barely legals, (I can't even say for sure aside from we all know what age Beauty went to sleep but 1000 years later it becomes some weebo nonsense logic) going to the point of smothering genitalia with some substance to attract flies, like do you really want that, is that a thing? Descriptions are odd, confusing and mostly grotesque, I feel like there's a limit to spanking even the biggest enthusiast would draw a line at, but reading her when she's at her worst, I can see where I picked up my linguistic habits, same time this looks like a draft for all the editing and repetition. Most of the reviews are: I'm not a prude, BUT. And it wound up being a theme that all erotica had to be labeled with the hideous "if you like that one mommy porn book that sold for millions, you'll love this" despite this being in another realm entirely. It fascinates me reading women who write porn like this, I finally got Bad Behaviour by Mary Gaitskill just for Secretary but the other stories are fine. Similar, but fine. She's an okay replacement for Homes but I'm still pretty much over her too.
I want to read Tale of the Body Thief on its own at some point.
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