Quoting: PenglingEven at its weakest points, the Netflix Castlevania shows have never been anywhere near as bad as those!

Yeah, I can imagine :) I haven't played the games though, so I didn't analyze it from perspective of being a game adaptation. I simply liked the story in the original show (before S4) and especially enjoyed those Witcher-like themes in that world.

But characters I cared about most got treated really badly in S4 (Lenore and Hector getting such a depressive ending) and those above themes like "who is the real monster" were ruined in result, which all contributed to a huge disappointment.

Spoiler, click me

I did read about games themes though, and if anything the show was an improvement in initially giving vampires free will, which is what I mentioned above was the idea that vampires and humans aren't better than each other.

S1-S3 stressed how idea of hating or seeing other side as completely monstrous / having no innocents is wrong and evil in itself, which equally applies to vampires hating humans and to humans hating vampires.

I quite liked that. But then S4 (and Nocturne too) leaned heavily into portraying humans as redeemable and having free will and pushing on vampires the idea of being doomed and lacking it. That was a major part of what I disliked.

Last edited by Shmerl on 3 November 2023 at 6:41 pm UTC

Quoting: ShmerlI checked it out. I didn't like the writing to be honest.

Same here. Not only the writing, I also think the voice acting is poor. I liked the original Netflix Castlevania series much more.

I didn't really have an issue with voice acting in either of them, but dialogue in the spin off often feels cringe (which is not the fault of voice actors). And I pointed out my major issues above. Just not something I can enjoy.

I wish they put more effort into finding good writers. Having fancy animation with poor writing is just a weird combination.

Last edited by Shmerl on 5 November 2023 at 6:16 pm UTC

Netflix has just dropped the release-date trailer for season 2 - it'll be out in January 2025.

I saw it, though it didn't help to give an impression that their writing changed for the better there. It also seems that Netflix decided not to continue it, since animation studio which was making it fired most of the people who were working on the show.

Last edited by Shmerl on 17 September 2024 at 4:30 pm UTC

Quoting: ShmerlIt also seems that Netflix decided not to continue it, since animation studio which was making it fired most of the people who were working on the show.

I didn't know about that; I suppose at least they're not leaving it hanging - that would be irritating!

Yeah, I suppose it's better not to have cliffhangers on one hand, but on the other hand I'd take a cliffhanger that ends on something decent over a bad sequel.

I'm talking more about the previous show (it would have been better for it to end at S3 which was a cliffhanger in many ways, vs getting that bad S4).

In the case of Nocturne I guess Netflix didn't see a potential with it. Bad luck with writers I suppose.

Last edited by Shmerl on 17 September 2024 at 5:35 pm UTC

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderIm always weary of video game adaptations......
How does this compare to the Street Fighter Movie or the Mortal Kombat Movie????..........

I feel like film/television adaptations of video games have gotten good recently, at the very least they aren't terrible by default nowadays. If you told me to pinpoint where I think that happened, I'd probably say it was the Sonic movie or Detective Pikachu.
Don't get me wrong, there are still video game movies that're terrible nowadays (I do not have faith in that upcoming Minecraft movie, I don't think adapting something as specifically stylised the way Minecraft is into live-action is a good idea.), but they've gotten way better on average.
Maybe because people that grew up with video games, and have actual attachment to them, are finally getting roles in these movies, rather than giving it to someone who doesn't give a damn about the video game world and just wants to make a quick buck with a recognizable intellectual property.

Also you can crucify me for this but I enjoyed the Mortal Kombat movie. Thought it was fun. Been a while since I've rewatched it, though.

Last edited by pilk on 18 September 2024 at 2:09 am UTC

I think Fallout was pretty good.

On a side note, whether something is a "good adaptation" can be a moot question if the intent is to simply mean good result.

I.e. sometimes it can be a good story but not such a good adaptation in the sense that it's not too close to the source material. On the other hand it can be a good adaptation in being close to the source, but still a bad story. Add to that, that you should also consider the quality of the source material writing wise.

Last edited by Shmerl on 18 September 2024 at 4:16 am UTC