Shall we have....VAMPIRES?

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Shall we have....VAMPIRES?


  • Total voters
    68
Why do you even ask? ALTHOUGH TECHNICALLY it was to discuss vampires in cyberpunk...I think someone on the Witcher forums set me off.

I'm leery about watching the rest of BH UK - since I found out the vampire and then the adorable werewolf left. Pfui. The US one isn't bad - it does lack something though.

Peter Watt's corporate-designed vampires would a) fit in Cyberpunk and b) make for a very cool TV series as well:

http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm

Watts is a biologist as well as very good science fiction writer, ( HEY REDS HIRE HIM TO WRITE A CP2077 NOVEL PLEASE), and this is his take on vampires, later featured in the very good "Blindsight" novel. Blindsight is the novel equivalent of injecting caffeine and icewater right into your brain. It's not comfortable but boy howdy will you be awake afterwards. Also possibly dead? Not an expert on ice water into brains...

Anyway, his vampires are much smarter than us, by design, vulnerable to right-angle symbols and natural leaders. The one in the book leads a deep space mission, for example.

Check out the link.

If ever Cyberpunk had vampires, these would be them.
 
Moved. Oops. You started talking Cyberpunk again.

BH UK. It was OK after Aidan left, but no longer brilliant, and I didn't really like the arching storylines as much - they were somewhat contrived. I don't know for how long the US one followed the same story, but I hope it wasn't too long.

Damien Molony as the vampire was OK after he settled in, but I never seem to like Michael Sorcha in anything. He does gormless a bit too well.

I saw that Kyle Schmid has joined/is joining the US version. Any opinions? He was good in Blood Ties. Another vampire series I liked. (and that was staked too soon).
 
I've only watched three or so episodes of the US one, so hard to say. Mostly because the vampire is a Jedi Assassin. Yes, I'm that big a geek. Well, not so big anymore. Curse you torn bicep!

I wish True Blood had less...soapy drama. Kelly and I really enjoyed the first year or two but since then, ( and since they killed of Godric, who was goddamn awesome), it's often annoying. Eric Northman is great though. If they ever actually properly "do" the Vampire novels of Anne Rice, he would make a great Lestat.
 
True Blood tried to keep too many threads going at once, and they all suffered. Also fairies. I know they were in the books, but still.

I want them to make a series of the Anita Blake books.
 
Oh god. The faeries. I really like that actress - SO great in BSG - but still, the whole Old Gods/Faery bloodline season made me retch. And not anything cool like blood. Just half digested fish. Anyone else remember that bit in the Shogun miniseries when they pour the hot fishheads over the captured gaijin sailors? Like that.

Never got into the Anita Blake stuff. I'D like to see a series with Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey. Also had vampires.

The Guillermo Del Toro vampire books were a let down.
 
I guess I'm a bit more old school when it comes to Vampires. I'm a fan of the original Nosferatu and I still read Dracula once in a while. I really need to catch up
 
Well, my TV list
- Buffy, still the best
- Angel, first couple of seasons only
- Forever Knight, not bad, but the lead actor couldn't actually act.
- Blood Ties, best of the police-procedural ones.
- Moonlight, interesting concept, but too far from the lore and a bit too love-story-ish. Sard probably liked it. Deserved to be canned after one season.
- Being Human, as discussed already
- True Blood, as discussed already
- Vampire Diaries, got good after it decided NOT to be a High School Drama.
- The Originals, probably my favourite after Buffy
- Kindred, The Embraced, died too soon.
- Ultraviolet, OK, but again, died too soon.

It's embarassing how many of these I've watched. More than once.
 
Of course I have to plug Let Me In, and its movie version. Just fantastic. Oh! The original Salem's Lot TV mini-series with David Soul.


We should have a vampire fan thread.
 
Of course I have to plug Let Me In, and its movie version. Just fantastic. Oh! The original Salem's Lot TV mini-series with David Soul.

Yup, I'd forgotten Salem's Lot.
But if we're doing films too, I'm probably going to have to go with Interview with the Vampire or Van Helsing. Both of which will, I suspect, stigmatise me almost as much as Sard's admission regarding Twilight.


We should have a vampire fan thread.

Nope, I can't see anyone being interested in that.
 
meh no one beats him...

 
Well, my TV list
- Buffy, still the best
- Angel, first couple of seasons only
- Forever Knight, not bad, but the lead actor couldn't actually act.
- Blood Ties, best of the police-procedural ones.
- Moonlight, interesting concept, but too far from the lore and a bit too love-story-ish. Sard probably liked it. Deserved to be canned after one season.
- Being Human, as discussed already
- True Blood, as discussed already
- Vampire Diaries, got good after it decided NOT to be a High School Drama.
- The Originals, probably my favourite after Buffy
- Kindred, The Embraced, died too soon.
- Ultraviolet, OK, but again, died too soon.

It's embarassing how many of these I've watched. More than once.

I mostly agree, at first i liked Being Human UK, but it fell apart after main cast did.. When will they learn we don't like that.. (If it has to happen end the show instead..) It only works for Doctor Who because all the actors play same person and it has a pretty good explanation.. (Main character being an alien and all) Being Human US seemed much better as the actors were much better and main characters didn't seem all empty inside.. (Assuming it won't fallow on the UK versions foot steps and fall apart)

What worked great for the show Buffy, vampires had a second, more demonic faces, it wasn't trying to romanticize them and make them seem more like 'misunderstood good guys hated by the society for being different'.. (I mean, i'm not against non-evil vampires who only kill because it is fun, but good vampires? Hell no.. Spike was good example to this.. He wanted to kill people and rule the world just for fun, (or at least vampire equivalent of fun..) he didn't want to destroy the world and wouldn't allow anyone to destroy it either..) The main character was a vampire SLAYER and it was clearly explained that all vampires were soulless demonic evil creatures.. (With only two exceptions.. OK.. Maybe three..) I mean, being a vampire is a demonic curse in Buffy and they die under sunlight as they should, they are not depicted as living the good life as they are not even really alive..

Being Human is the only exception to this, vampires don't really lose their souls but they are still partly demonic as it is a curse. (And they have faces to go with it) Also, they have demonic urges to kill and drink blood and it is really hard (if not impossible) to control, especially if you tasted human blood before..They are not the good guys and definitely not misunderstood.. They don't die under sunlight like the Buffy or the original vampire stories, but it is explained as they have evolved above that over time but it still hurts staying under sun and long exposure can still kill a vampire..

Nowadays vampires only act as misunderstood, semi goth teenagers who only want to make friends and sparkle under the light just because.. Thats why we can't have good things.. :p

I have started to sound like Sard... WHY! NOOOOO... WHYYYY!
 
I think that the issue of "Good" monsters was also one of the problems with Angel, not with the vampires, but with the ever-increasing portrayal of demons as ordinary guys just trying to get along in a human world. It happened slightly with Buffy too, but they never let you forget that demons were mostly evil. And I agree about the portrayal of Spike - when I first heard that Spike was going to turn into a "good guy", I didn't think they'd find a way to do it realistically, but they did. But Buffy did an excellent job of staying within lore, most of the time.

And yes, Being Human worked because they always portrayed the vampire as someone who was fighting his natural urge to be evil, not always successfully. The way that they used this to write Aidan out of the UK version was excellent, even though I didn't want to see him leave.

(And yes, British TV, cursed with 6-10 episode seasons, which I think is why they have problems signing up actors for long contracts).

I also think that it's one of the reasons why I'm starting to prefer The Originals to Vampire Diaries. Again, even though individual vampires may occasionally be Nice, there's never any doubt that they're just out for themselves, there's always an ulterior motive.

But have you seen Blood Ties (or read the books)? It's one of the only ones that I think did do the "Not Evil" vampire successfully. But even then, there's the sense of supreme ego, being good simply to experience something new in a long life.
 
I prefer not to be a vampire at the beginning but have an opportunity to become one during the course of the game.
 
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