So I've been tossing some ideas around inside my head about how the show could have been better, and this was the outline of what I came up with, for those who might be interested:
Improving upon Castlevania Netflix
While I really enjoyed CV Netflix, it has quite a few things in it that I am not fond of, so I thought I'd go over how the show could have been improved/written differently while still maintaining its overall integrity. Note that some of my changes are actually very minor, but I think would still improve the overall product.
* Tone down the exposition; it's all over the place and there's way too much of it. This is a visual medium; have things that happen speak for themselves.
* The castle is not just a machine. It is a living, magical/mechanical creature, hence "Demon Castle Dracula" in Japanese. This was a massive missed opportunity in the show, as they could have had the castle itself become malicious to those plotting against Dracula within its walls, or have it shift around/change form.
* Do not make Fahrenheit part of Alucard's name. Do not make Tepes part of anyone's name. Of all the things to carry over from the video games, these are perhaps the strangest. Lisa of Lupu was fine. Dracula doesn't need a surname; he has titles. If you really want to make reference to Alucard's goofy middle name, use "Fahren." I freely admit that this is just a pet peeve of mine but it was really distracting.
* Don't have Lisa pass by a bunch of impaled bodies on her way to Dracula's Castle. That makes her relationship with him come off as very strange. Make it so that she doesn't actually know all that much about him/doesn't have much trust in what she has heard about him on account of her having a history of being demonized as a witch herself.
* Hector and Isaac have lived in the castle since they were young, and they are both older than Alucard. Make it so that their powers extend their life-span so they age more slowly than the average human; they have power over life, after all. This gives them a connection to Lisa as well as additional time to develop loyalty to Dracula (it's also pretty much how it was in the video games, with Hector having gone to Dracula when he was very young). It would also give Lisa more cause to come to Dracula, if she had heard that there were other people going to Dracula to learn about lost or forbidden knowledge. Isaac should be closer to his portrayal from the video games, while Dracula's true right-hand would not be Isaac, but a mysterious fellow named Zead/Zobek. Keep Isaac's strap thing, history of oppression, and zeal, but his weapon should be a spear.
* Make it clear that Alucard was present when his mother said her final words, but had arrived too late to save her/was incapable of reaching her where she was.
* Make it so that Dracula does not return until several months after she has already been killed. When he does return, he maims Alucard and Hector prevents Dracula from outright killing Alucard, trying to calm him down; Alucard escapes through the Carpathian mirror. Hector, Isaac, and Dracula agree that they should target Targoviste, where Lisa was killed, and so the slaughter begins immediately and quickly spirals out of control as far as Hector is concerned, with Dracula having them gather the dead of Targoviste to start bolstering his forces. THEN we have a time-skip.
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* Cut the goat scene. Waste of screen-time, irrelevant.
* Change "sleeping soldier" to "sleeping guardian." Less catchy, but it is actually on-point, especially if they end up going all the way to the Sorrow series.
* Put more emphasis on the priest who blesses the water in Gresit, in order to balance out the depiction of religion in the show. Make the scene where Trevor gets the townspeople to turn on the corrupt church members less clumsy.
* Make the demons in the first season more diverse.
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* If Alucard is going to verbally spar with Trevor, it needs to be written with a bit more cleverness.
* Cut the scene that shows Lisa being arrested, as it was poorly written. Instead, show a scene of her interacting with Dracula, Hector, and Isaac in the castle in order to emphasize the relationship she had with Dracula.
* When the heroes are fighting the demons that are going to attack Arges, they are joined by a fourth person, a cloaked man named Grant Danesti. Danesti explains that he is the last of his family, a family that fought against Dracula during his attack on Targoviste, and has been hiding in Arges since he escaped from Dracula's Castle where he was been kept as livestock for his forces. It isn't until they reach the Belmont estate and Sypha lights up the vault that they discover that Grant has been twisted by dark powers, and can't really be considered human anymore. The group intentionally lets the last demon go in the hopes that it will draw Dracula to them rather than them having to go after his castle, and instead focus upon strengthening themselves at the Belmont Hold.
* Trevor should find a silver cross/stake in the Belmont Hold, and should be keeping salt and holy water around. Sypha should use lightning magic. Alucard should use his bat/mist transformations and spells. Dracula should use the spells he has other than just Dark Inferno. :-/
* Hector becomes increasingly distressed over Carmilla's blatant attempts at manipulation and the slaughter of people, and his breaking point is when a child's body is brought in for forging purposes. He flees, throwing a wrench into Carmilla's plans. Isaac chases after him, having killed Godbrand for far less and taking Hector's flight personally because of their shared status as Dracula's human generals. So, Carmilla instead has her forces abduct a priest in Braila and force him to bless the river. What she does not realize is that Zead has been keeping tabs on her, and so when the castle arrives at Braila, Dracula has dropped it straight into the river, displacing the water and decimating her forces. Realizing she's been outmaneuvered, Carmilla flees, but not before Dracula jabs out her left eye.
* After crushing Carmilla's forces with minimal effort and almost no losses on his part, Dracula changes track and immediately warps the castle near the Belmont Hold, re-asserting his control over his now cowed forces. He then sends Zead out of the castle to make sure that there are no Belmonts running around, and orders his army to prepare to attack Arges, not Braila. Because the castle has warped not once, but twice, and Isaac was chasing Hector, Isaac has been left behind, and cannot return to Dracula in time to help him.
* Zead is able to enter the Belmont Hold with almost no effort, and he attacks the three with almost no warning. Sypha and Trevor don't take him too seriously as an opponent initially until they see how worried Alucard and Grant are, and find themselves fighting for their lives against a single opponent who seems increasingly less and less human, until at least, Zead reveals his true form; a reaper of souls, loyal to the King of the night. Sypha is ultimately the one that subdues the reaper.
* The four of them then take on the castle itself, with Sypha focused CC'ing the forces that were to attack Arges while the other three narrow in on the major players. Grant kills the most of them, being enraged by the vampires who abused and mutilated him. But Dracula is not among the forces, and so the four let Alucard take point as they make their way through the demon-infested castle to the throne room. The fight plays out somewhat similarly to how it did in the show save that Grant is also there and Dracula uses more of his magic, including teleportation, fire pillars used in tandem with his horizontal lightning spell from SC4, Demonic Meggido, and Ghost Chaser. No thanks to all the fist-fighting. Wtf was that? :-/
* Alucard only takes Dracula on solo after Dracula knocks Sypha and Grant out a window and claws at Trevor's face, clawing out one of his eyes. When they come to a halt, Alucard can't bring himself to kill his father, and Trevor stakes Dracula from behind. This does not kill Dracula. Instead, Dracula calls upon the font of chaos that runs through the castle and shifts into a demonic form, and begins using Dominous Hatred/Fatal Ray, Demonic Meggido, and Delta Spark. The fight ends when Trevor uses Grand Cross.
* The castle disappears when Dracula dies. After Trevor is fairly well-healed, he gifts Alucard with the Belmont Hold. They re-seal the hold with Alucard inside, who goes to sleep. Grant, Trevor, and Sypha make their way to Braila in order to see what damage the chaos there left behind and help.
* Carmilla, infuriated by her losses at Braila, rallies what little she has left and begins to lay siege to Braila in order to replenish her vampire forces. Hector uses the devils he originally forged to attack the Belmont Hold against Isaac, sacrificing them in order to escape and go into hiding. Isaac searches for a way to return to Dracula's castle, only to find out much later from a revived Zead that the castle has fallen... but with some work... it and its master might rise once again.
Anyway, just some thoughts...