TheNightling
@TheNightling
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My review of Interview with the Vampire season 3 episode 3. The Vampire Lestat episode 3:
I think it’s weird that the start of each episode of Interview with The vampire season 3 (The Vampire Lestat) Lestat comes off as cynical nihilist who hates every place he visits. In the books he seemed to love every location. “Miame: A vampire City.” – Opening line of Tale of The Body Thief. He waxes poetic about New Orleans, San Francisco, Miame, Paris, and Rio de janeiro. I can’t recall him describing any place with actual hate or disgust. What did Toronto ever do to him? It’s almost ironic that he bashes Toronto since the Toronto skyline is in the opening of every episode of Forever Knight, the early 90s vampire TV series very loosely inspired by Interview with the vampire. (Are the show runners jealous of a low a budget Anne Rice / Law and Order Mashup from the early 90s?)
The way he bashes each city he goes to feels like the anti-Lestat. It’s the direct opposite of how he acted in the novels. Aloof and unimpressed is the wrong character persona, writers! Please, read more than the book’s first paragraph!
There’s some weird agism in this latest episode where someone refers to Gabrielle’s vagina as “past it’s exportation date.” It reminds me of that Dracula series from about twelve years ago with Johnathan Rhys Meyers. The fandom treated the huntress like she was an “old hag” even though she was played by an actress two years younger than Dracula’s actor and four centuries younger than his character.
Gabriella’s actress is only fifty-six. Why is the show acting like that’s ancient. Do they not know how old Cher is and her current lover?! The agism feels very shallow and unnecessarily mean to the actress.
“What we do in The Shadows” (The movie before the TV series) was weirdly more accurate, I think, about how vampires would react to age, where they’d still consider it cradle robbing if a vampire has an elderly mortal lover.
It’s both interesting and weird that The Talamasca had “Classses” (Levels) of vampires. It’s like the ghost categorizing of The Real Ghostbusters animated series. Also it’s odd to me that these supposedly Anne Rice vampires can get tattoos. Even Forever Knight acknowledged that a tattoo would not stay in a vampire’s skin, the healing factor would cause it to fade within a night. And that was a show only loosely based on Anne Rice- that they had more thought into how the healing powers worked.
And now we come to the first major historical anachronism. I never thought the 1960s Gothic soap opera would be more historically accurate than an Anne Rice adaptation. The last person executed as a witch in France was a man in 1745 (Before Lestat would have been born). The last woman burned at the stake as a witch was 1679.
“The Witches place” in The Vampire Lestat novel was the place where they USED TO burn so-called witches. And that was enough to horrify and traumatize child-Lestat. There was no need to change it to him witnessing a very historically inaccurate actual witch burning.
For comparison this would be like saying they were still hanging witches in Salem Massachusetts at the same time The Lone Ranger and Tonto would have happened. That’s how historically inaccurate this is.
Also it’s implied that Gabrielle is who took Lestat to The Witches’ place? In the novel she was furious that Lestat had been shown such a horrible place.
And I REALLY don’t like Lestat saying that “Had I heard it now I would have thought it pedestrian.” (about Nicolas’s violin music). Lestat would NEVER have said that about Nicolas’s music. Too melancholy was probably the worst thing he’d ever say about it, but never belittle the quality of his playing. That is NOT Lestat!
We also did NOT need a gratuitous scene of Gabriella getting unromantic annal from Lestat’s herpy ridden body double.
I am tired of the jaded, unromantic, cynicism tainting this show. Every hint of Gothic romance, every familiar trope is spit upon for being “Cliche” and replaced with mean-spirited cynicism. And poor Gabrielle’s character assassination.
The only thing I really like about this episode is the Magnus stalking and kidnapping Lestat scene played to “Your biggest fan.” That’s my favorite song from this show so far. I actually rather like it. And for some reason (Despite the ugly teeth) I find this version of Magnus weirdly attractive. He doesn’t look elderly like he’s supposed to in the novel. He just looks kind of middle aged. That scene was probably the first and only to truly feel like The Vampire Lestat to me even though it was only about thirty seconds long and then returned to unnecessary snark.
Also Magnus’s actor is only fifty one. That’s not really elderly, even by late eighteenth century standards. Though I do think the actor would make for a great Dracula, seriously. He’s a good actor, and strangely attractive, even with the weird teeth.
I made the mistake of watching the “Afterward” Behind the scenes thing and they called it a Taylor Swift-esque pop song making a fool of Magnus. That’s some way to ruin it, the first song I actually like from this show. It still told the trauma if you pay attention, it’s not sugar coated if you know what was going on. “I know you’re stubborn but you have to ask for it.” We know what was going on. And I thought it was interesting that Lestat understood Magnus’s point of view despite the horror and trauma of being made a vampire against his will. It was an interesting and clever take on the scene… and then they go and ruin it by comparing it to Stan and Every Breath you Take. It’s like the show runners are afraid of depth and layering. They want to keep things shallow and vapid.
I seriously dislike the diminishing of Lestat and Nicolas’s story, the way Lestat rescued Armand’s coven from his Satanic delusions has been utterly removed. The reason for the forming of the vampiric Theatre is almost entirely lost.
The end of the episode is interesting. It’s interesting that the Claudia look alike is named Regine (Regina). That happens to be the name of the vampire in Fright Night: part 2 (1988). I can’t help but think someone working on this show is a fan of the original Fright Night movies. I noticed this back in the first season with the song “Come to me” since a song called “Come to me” is a key part of the original 1985 Fright Night, and Fright Night Part 2 (where a woman sings it).
I am not a fan of the idea of vampires keeping human cattle to be milked for blood. Whatever hapepned to the predatory instinct to hunt?
Other thoughts:
I think it may be a sign of how cynical the show runners are that even when we get the story from Lestat’s point of view that The Interview with The Vampire TV series forgets that Lestat liked to feed on evil doers- specifically murderers who feel no remorse.
Why is it so difficult for these writers to allow Lestat to have a moral preference in his prey? Don’t they know how much more interesting it would be for the viewer to have a version of Lestat that is pretty much Dexter with fangs?
It’s weird to me that the Interview with the vampire movie is the only media adaptation of Lestat where they acknowledge that he preferred evil doers and specifically targets murderers. In fact had they done the sequel it would have been revealed that the two prostitutes killed in the room (where Lestat put one in the coffin) had been poisoning their johns.
The Interview with The vampire TV series / The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the damned movie both have Lestat preying on random innocents. Even the Lestat musical by Sir Elton John only had him feed on evil doers for the San Francisco version of the play before it got very dumbed down for New York.
Why the change against something that would have made him more sympathetic?
Changing Lestat’s mother’s name from Gabrielle to Gabriella is ridiculous. (The Vampire Lestat / Interview with The Vampire season 3 related). The main excuse I’ve been given for the name change is that it’s “more accurate since she’s Italian.” Well, yes, and no. Here are a few problems with that. In the eighteenth century if you came from another country and married into French nobility, you took on a French version of your name. Marie Antoinette started as Maria. Marie was her French name. Gabrielle came from a region of Italy that was occupied by The French at the time. According to Anne Rice, herself, Gabrielle’s mother was French. That means Lestat is only ¼ Italian. It’s Gabrielle’s FRENCH mother who named her. Gabrielle was married to Lestat’s father at fifteen, that means over two thirds of her life would have been speaking French, not Italian. She knew Italian but she would be far more used to talking in French. Lestat didn’t know any Italian until after he became a vampire. Also what is with Gabrielle being all for “The Great conversion”? Since when is she interested in a mad scheme for vampires to take over the world? And Glamping!? The character was practically fem Tarzan in the novel.
It seems obvious to me this show was written by heterosexual men who are trying to pretend they’re pro-LGBTQAI+ by fixating on a promiscuous interpretation of bisexual and completely ignoring Gabrielle’s gender nonconformity. (She stopped wearing woman’s clothes the night she became a vampire, folks!) She still identified as a woman but she didn’t dress like one. They took a very androgynous, masculine-leaning woman and made her hyper-sexual / hyper feminine and implied to be kind of evil. This is the woman who rescued Louis and Lestat from the concert in the novel. (Imagine the concert from the Queen of the damned movie but with Gabrielle pulling up in the chaos and driving Lestat and Louis out of there with Akasha not far behind). Gabrielle wouldn't go "Glamping." I feel almost dirty at the notion of her using the term. It feels rooted in casual sexism along with her new feminization. "Lestat's mother can't be butch! That's not sexy!" Because God forbid we have a female vampire who isn't modeled after the 1930s through 70s notion of glamorous, Fem Fatale, female vampire.
It seems there’s sexism here. A character who, in the novel, disliked to even be touched in gestures of affection (Lestat described her going stiff at hugs) and showed signs of possible autism, is now treated as a hypersexual and glamorous cliché woman vampire.
Why couldn’t we have our androgynous non-sexual Gabrielle?
I think it’s weird that the start of each episode of Interview with The vampire season 3 (The Vampire Lestat) Lestat comes off as cynical nihilist who hates every place he visits. In the books he seemed to love every location. “Miame: A vampire City.” – Opening line of Tale of The Body Thief. He waxes poetic about New Orleans, San Francisco, Miame, Paris, and Rio de janeiro. I can’t recall him describing any place with actual hate or disgust. What did Toronto ever do to him? It’s almost ironic that he bashes Toronto since the Toronto skyline is in the opening of every episode of Forever Knight, the early 90s vampire TV series very loosely inspired by Interview with the vampire. (Are the show runners jealous of a low a budget Anne Rice / Law and Order Mashup from the early 90s?)
The way he bashes each city he goes to feels like the anti-Lestat. It’s the direct opposite of how he acted in the novels. Aloof and unimpressed is the wrong character persona, writers! Please, read more than the book’s first paragraph!
There’s some weird agism in this latest episode where someone refers to Gabrielle’s vagina as “past it’s exportation date.” It reminds me of that Dracula series from about twelve years ago with Johnathan Rhys Meyers. The fandom treated the huntress like she was an “old hag” even though she was played by an actress two years younger than Dracula’s actor and four centuries younger than his character.
Gabriella’s actress is only fifty-six. Why is the show acting like that’s ancient. Do they not know how old Cher is and her current lover?! The agism feels very shallow and unnecessarily mean to the actress.
“What we do in The Shadows” (The movie before the TV series) was weirdly more accurate, I think, about how vampires would react to age, where they’d still consider it cradle robbing if a vampire has an elderly mortal lover.
It’s both interesting and weird that The Talamasca had “Classses” (Levels) of vampires. It’s like the ghost categorizing of The Real Ghostbusters animated series. Also it’s odd to me that these supposedly Anne Rice vampires can get tattoos. Even Forever Knight acknowledged that a tattoo would not stay in a vampire’s skin, the healing factor would cause it to fade within a night. And that was a show only loosely based on Anne Rice- that they had more thought into how the healing powers worked.
And now we come to the first major historical anachronism. I never thought the 1960s Gothic soap opera would be more historically accurate than an Anne Rice adaptation. The last person executed as a witch in France was a man in 1745 (Before Lestat would have been born). The last woman burned at the stake as a witch was 1679.
“The Witches place” in The Vampire Lestat novel was the place where they USED TO burn so-called witches. And that was enough to horrify and traumatize child-Lestat. There was no need to change it to him witnessing a very historically inaccurate actual witch burning.
For comparison this would be like saying they were still hanging witches in Salem Massachusetts at the same time The Lone Ranger and Tonto would have happened. That’s how historically inaccurate this is.
Also it’s implied that Gabrielle is who took Lestat to The Witches’ place? In the novel she was furious that Lestat had been shown such a horrible place.
And I REALLY don’t like Lestat saying that “Had I heard it now I would have thought it pedestrian.” (about Nicolas’s violin music). Lestat would NEVER have said that about Nicolas’s music. Too melancholy was probably the worst thing he’d ever say about it, but never belittle the quality of his playing. That is NOT Lestat!
We also did NOT need a gratuitous scene of Gabriella getting unromantic annal from Lestat’s herpy ridden body double.
I am tired of the jaded, unromantic, cynicism tainting this show. Every hint of Gothic romance, every familiar trope is spit upon for being “Cliche” and replaced with mean-spirited cynicism. And poor Gabrielle’s character assassination.
The only thing I really like about this episode is the Magnus stalking and kidnapping Lestat scene played to “Your biggest fan.” That’s my favorite song from this show so far. I actually rather like it. And for some reason (Despite the ugly teeth) I find this version of Magnus weirdly attractive. He doesn’t look elderly like he’s supposed to in the novel. He just looks kind of middle aged. That scene was probably the first and only to truly feel like The Vampire Lestat to me even though it was only about thirty seconds long and then returned to unnecessary snark.
Also Magnus’s actor is only fifty one. That’s not really elderly, even by late eighteenth century standards. Though I do think the actor would make for a great Dracula, seriously. He’s a good actor, and strangely attractive, even with the weird teeth.
I made the mistake of watching the “Afterward” Behind the scenes thing and they called it a Taylor Swift-esque pop song making a fool of Magnus. That’s some way to ruin it, the first song I actually like from this show. It still told the trauma if you pay attention, it’s not sugar coated if you know what was going on. “I know you’re stubborn but you have to ask for it.” We know what was going on. And I thought it was interesting that Lestat understood Magnus’s point of view despite the horror and trauma of being made a vampire against his will. It was an interesting and clever take on the scene… and then they go and ruin it by comparing it to Stan and Every Breath you Take. It’s like the show runners are afraid of depth and layering. They want to keep things shallow and vapid.
I seriously dislike the diminishing of Lestat and Nicolas’s story, the way Lestat rescued Armand’s coven from his Satanic delusions has been utterly removed. The reason for the forming of the vampiric Theatre is almost entirely lost.
The end of the episode is interesting. It’s interesting that the Claudia look alike is named Regine (Regina). That happens to be the name of the vampire in Fright Night: part 2 (1988). I can’t help but think someone working on this show is a fan of the original Fright Night movies. I noticed this back in the first season with the song “Come to me” since a song called “Come to me” is a key part of the original 1985 Fright Night, and Fright Night Part 2 (where a woman sings it).
I am not a fan of the idea of vampires keeping human cattle to be milked for blood. Whatever hapepned to the predatory instinct to hunt?
Other thoughts:
I think it may be a sign of how cynical the show runners are that even when we get the story from Lestat’s point of view that The Interview with The Vampire TV series forgets that Lestat liked to feed on evil doers- specifically murderers who feel no remorse.
Why is it so difficult for these writers to allow Lestat to have a moral preference in his prey? Don’t they know how much more interesting it would be for the viewer to have a version of Lestat that is pretty much Dexter with fangs?
It’s weird to me that the Interview with the vampire movie is the only media adaptation of Lestat where they acknowledge that he preferred evil doers and specifically targets murderers. In fact had they done the sequel it would have been revealed that the two prostitutes killed in the room (where Lestat put one in the coffin) had been poisoning their johns.
The Interview with The vampire TV series / The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the damned movie both have Lestat preying on random innocents. Even the Lestat musical by Sir Elton John only had him feed on evil doers for the San Francisco version of the play before it got very dumbed down for New York.
Why the change against something that would have made him more sympathetic?
Changing Lestat’s mother’s name from Gabrielle to Gabriella is ridiculous. (The Vampire Lestat / Interview with The Vampire season 3 related). The main excuse I’ve been given for the name change is that it’s “more accurate since she’s Italian.” Well, yes, and no. Here are a few problems with that. In the eighteenth century if you came from another country and married into French nobility, you took on a French version of your name. Marie Antoinette started as Maria. Marie was her French name. Gabrielle came from a region of Italy that was occupied by The French at the time. According to Anne Rice, herself, Gabrielle’s mother was French. That means Lestat is only ¼ Italian. It’s Gabrielle’s FRENCH mother who named her. Gabrielle was married to Lestat’s father at fifteen, that means over two thirds of her life would have been speaking French, not Italian. She knew Italian but she would be far more used to talking in French. Lestat didn’t know any Italian until after he became a vampire. Also what is with Gabrielle being all for “The Great conversion”? Since when is she interested in a mad scheme for vampires to take over the world? And Glamping!? The character was practically fem Tarzan in the novel.
It seems obvious to me this show was written by heterosexual men who are trying to pretend they’re pro-LGBTQAI+ by fixating on a promiscuous interpretation of bisexual and completely ignoring Gabrielle’s gender nonconformity. (She stopped wearing woman’s clothes the night she became a vampire, folks!) She still identified as a woman but she didn’t dress like one. They took a very androgynous, masculine-leaning woman and made her hyper-sexual / hyper feminine and implied to be kind of evil. This is the woman who rescued Louis and Lestat from the concert in the novel. (Imagine the concert from the Queen of the damned movie but with Gabrielle pulling up in the chaos and driving Lestat and Louis out of there with Akasha not far behind). Gabrielle wouldn't go "Glamping." I feel almost dirty at the notion of her using the term. It feels rooted in casual sexism along with her new feminization. "Lestat's mother can't be butch! That's not sexy!" Because God forbid we have a female vampire who isn't modeled after the 1930s through 70s notion of glamorous, Fem Fatale, female vampire.
It seems there’s sexism here. A character who, in the novel, disliked to even be touched in gestures of affection (Lestat described her going stiff at hugs) and showed signs of possible autism, is now treated as a hypersexual and glamorous cliché woman vampire.
Why couldn’t we have our androgynous non-sexual Gabrielle?
