Topic: Netflix Castlevania Animation: Cast Revealed

[Dremn]

The morning star whip looks so freaking cool, and I just noticed Slogra and Gaibon in the fight scene in the snow!

Where's Death at though?

[Dracula9]

Calm down. If you don't agree with what I'm saying, just tell me why. I'm just trying to get a conversation going.

i'm perfectly calm, i said it because you have a habit of wanting this or that detail within the canon or a story to be true, and go through overconvoluted hoop-jumping and reaching to the point of driving yourself crazy trying to justify your desired narrative when occam's razor usually answers your questions from the onset

but if you insist:

and remove any marks you have made upon the land.

You had your chance.

neither one of these mean anything at all

we see him immediately after his kindle fire skype call declare that it'll take him a year to raise an army, meaning that his intention from the start was to kill everyone

meaning that these "outs" you're wondering if he offered the city were nothing but lip service since the outcome would be the same regardless of whether or not the "offers" were taken

he gave them a year to make peace with god, think about what they'd done, and come to terms with the fact that when the year was up he was going to kill them all

that's the long and short of it--the people were basically told to come to terms with their incoming deaths a year in advance, and nothing they did would've stopped or changed it

that's it

now if you want a more poetic or narratively less-simplistic reason, i have my own conjecture based on his interaction with the old woman

perhaps he DID offer a way out, despite his unrelenting fury in the scene with alucard strongly implying the opposite as listed above, and raised the army anyway to follow through on his threat in the event they didn't take the way out

something akin to "well i'm gonna raise a hell army, but if you can show me in a year that you can repent and make amends for the sin committed against me, maybe i won't kill you after all" or something

cue a year later, and everyone's instead treating that sin like it's carnival or some shit, so he follows through as he said he would

this is also largely what i believe to be the cause of his change from "kill wallachia" to "kill everything"-- if he can threaten humanity with unyielding and merciless genocide if they don't clean up their act, and they still carry on like nothing happened, then fuck it they all deserve to go

or, another idea, and one a bit more probable given how absolutely pissed off he is after giving the initial threat (you don't tend to genuinely offer mercy when you're that angry, after all), the "way out" of the threat was all a lie from the beginning

a ruse to give him an excuse to (essentially) gloat just before unleashing the onslaught, and justify said onslaught to himself, because he knew damn well they weren't gonna make peace or repent or any of that

he's the big bad evil villain after all, it's not like it's in his contract to be honest with his enemies

i'd lean more towards this second conjecture, as his unbridled rage as well as certain lines like "there are no innocents, not anymore" doesn't exactly paint a picture of a guy willing to show any mercy to those he wants to kill

[DragonSlayr81]

It isn't.
But it's still a fun reinterpretation.

It's true to IGA's Castlevania. While he doesn't have a role in the series anymore, when this project was originally being drafted, IGA DID guide some of the story beats. I remember hearing Warren was annoyed how insistent IGA was in keeping various beats and events true to the IGA timeline (post-SOTN canon). Even the "war on humanity", which I recall IGA saying LoI was when Dracula declared "war on God", and Lisa's death was when he declared "war on humanity".

[DarkPrinceAlucard]

It isn't.
But it's still a fun reinterpretation.

If you are measuring it up in the strictest sense in comparison to the IGA established timeline's story and this netflix one than sure it isn't true to the series since the storyline is not adapted down to a tee from IGA's.

But If you going into this without such a mindset and looking at this with open eyes its clear that this is definitely remaining true to the over all spirit of the storyline IGA introduced to us such as how the storyline about Dracula and Lisa and how his motivation against humanity is eerily similar to the IGA storlyline as well as Alucard's over all character, look, and motivation also being ripped directly from the previous IGA storyline other major nods to the previous canon storyline with how now they are going to be adapting Curse of Darkness plotpoints with Hector seemingly looking to be ripped from the game series as well. In short the team behind this seem to be making every effort to keep this as true to the series as possible while at the same time adding new elements and expanding on previous ones to give us a more coherent and fleshed out story.

[aensland]

It's true to IGA's Castlevania.

If you are measuring it up in the strictest sense in comparison to the IGA established timeline's story and this netflix one than sure it isn't true to the series

Oh

Further proof that this isn't true to the series, but it's a good reinterpretation of Castlevania.
Why? because people is giving their own meaning based on what they perceive of it, instead of an established canon that is written down in stone.

[Dracula9]

i will say this:

in regard to a lot of season 1, i was and still am very much in the camp of "it gets so much shit wrong and way off-base, but it's still got enough base material right for me to turn my canonite brain off for a half hour and enjoy it"

the new trailer gives me the feeling that the misgivings of season 1 were indeed at least partially responsible due to either lack of knowledge or the standard "adapt to appeal to wider masses" procedure in media, and it appears from both trailer and certain connections i know that more knowledge of the series has been learnt and incorporated since season 1

i can't speak for whether this will change me to either "series great" or "series crap" since i'm currently in the middle, not until season 2 actually drops, but the trailer definitely lights up a few bulbs on the board for the former to happen

[Nagumo]

Dracula9 is going to take a break from the forum for a while.

[Shiroi Koumori]

I just watched the trailer today. yeah yeah too late blah blah, real life required more of me these days.
It looks great! I love that Hector is there. hehehe.
I can't wait for October.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Finally saw the new trailer and fuck now I have to go play Curse of Darkness again brb

(not exactly something I need an excuse to do -- I love that game to death. But sure, I'll take an excuse to play through again when it's offered. XD)

[Aiddon]

This is what I have to say: I fuckin' called it (I do not apologize for being insufferably smug)

idea for Season 2: instead of the bosses from the game (like Medusa, the mummies, the water dragons, the Creature, etc) being random obstacles to get to the next stage, Dracula sends them out like assassins in the vein of Ninja Scroll and the Vampire Hunter D novels. Have them be personal captains of his forces while Death is his right hand man in the castle. Also, they're gonna have to pick one hell of a voice actor for Death.

Shocked to see Hector in the story to be honest. I thought they'd adapt him out, but I guess they're rolling story elements from CoD into the show. In retrospect Shankar is a fanboy and Ellis isn't known for halfassing, so maybe I should have seen this coming.

[affinity]

so they add Hector but still scratch out Grant?  the writer/leader of the whole cartoon is really stupid and closed minded when it comes to Grant.  ok, so you find his last name dumb, then alter the name if you have to!  dont write out a character from the original story just because of their family name!
and if they feel a pirate is out of place in that time and place, then Grant could still be a thief! 

anyways, in CVIII, Grant is first met as a monster before becoming human afterwards, so they could still add Grant later on.   

if they don't, then the cartoon is really just a what if spinoff that is not canon and not faithful to the source material.  all because the writer/director is too incompetent to adapt one of the 4 key heroes from CVIII into the animated series.  pathetic of them.  Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust had a more intelligent and talented director and team that had a lot more hunters involved, and they had less time to tell their story in a single movie!   whereas CV has multiple episodes that are well over 6 hours long combined.      ha, if that CV cartoon director directed The Warriors movie, he would cut out 6 of the 9 gang members in the story.   

4 heroes is apparently too much for their mind to handle

[AlexCalvo]

so they add Hector but still scratch out Grant?  the writer/leader of the whole cartoon is really stupid and closed minded when it comes to Grant.  ok, so you find his last name dumb, then alter the name if you have to!  dont write out a character from the original story just because of their family name!
and if they feel a pirate is out of place in that time and place, then Grant could still be a thief! 

anyways, in CVIII, Grant is first met as a monster before becoming human afterwards, so they could still add Grant later on.   

if they don't, then the cartoon is really just a what if spinoff that is not canon and not faithful to the source material.  all because the writer/director is too incompetent to adapt one of the 4 key heroes from CVIII into the animated series.  pathetic of them.  Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust had a more intelligent and talented director and team that had a lot more hunters involved, and they had less time to tell their story in a single movie!   whereas CV has multiple episodes that are well over 6 hours long combined.      ha, if that CV cartoon director directed The Warriors movie, he would cut out 6 of the 9 gang members in the story.   

4 heroes is apparently too much for their mind to handle

 

Um, I think you've over reacted.  Anyway, the producer has already hinted that Grant will be involved.  And Ellis mentioned years ago that Grant would show up in part 2, which in this case means season 2.

[Aiddon]

Um, I think you've over reacted.  Anyway, the producer has already hinted that Grant will be involved.  And Ellis mentioned years ago that Grant would show up in part 2, which in this case means season 2.

Plus it's kind of ridiculous to claim that the production team and Ellis are disrespectful of the franchise or never researched it considering that there all sorts of Easter Eggs in the background and design and the fact that the trailer alone revealed Slogra, Gaibon, and freaking HECTOR (and they just confirmed it with official promo art https://twitter.com/kloysius/status/1024374554225979392). Yes, it takes liberties and licenses with the source material, but so does every adaptation. The worst you can say about Ellis is that he's irreverent, he's not a fanboy (which has been his longstanding modus operandi even with superhero comics), but because of that he's able to approach the material differently and be critical of some stuff a fan would ignore. Plus reworking some things keeps long time fans surprised and offers a fresh interpretation on old material. If you're just going to copy-paste something then what's the point of adapting it in the first place?

[Lumi Kløvstad]

If you're just going to copy-paste something then what's the point of adapting it in the first place?

In the case of something like Death of Superman, faithful is better because it makes the story more presentable to people who aren't fans of the original storytelling medium.

In the case of Castlevania though, I agree wholeheartedly with your point and have often expressed similar sentiments. Not many people seem to be watching it who weren't already connected to the franchise in some way -- almost every single viewer seems to be either a fan of the existing Castlevania franchise, or a friend of said fans. The latter seem to view it as a decent place to step aboard (and it is; it even starts essentially at the beginning of the story!) but are nonetheless "familiar enough" with it.

So, given that basically every viewer possesses at the very least a cursory knowledge of the original material, Ellis has my fullest blessing to express a bit of artistic license. He gets to feel like his talents are used properly rather than as a very highly paid photocopier, and we get some twists and turns that keep things a little more interesting. It's a win-win in my opinion.

As long as he sticks to the major story beats like he's been doing, I really don't mind some changes elsewhere, even hefty ones.

[theplottwist]

Plus it's kind of ridiculous to claim that the production team and Ellis are disrespectful of the franchise or never researched it

Considering I'm one who made claims like this, let me sweep in and stand by my claim: I said ELLIS didn't, not the "production team". After the first season was released I was able to spot multiple times (and you know from Twitter I did) that the visual artists know very damn well their Castlevania.

But, dude. I'm not inventing what I said about Ellis. Ellis admited to have never even seen the games in his entire life. Will you say it's a "ridiculous claim" when the dude said it himself? Any other writer would get shat on right away for doing something like this, writing for a franchise without knowing the MAIN focus of the franchise. But for some reason, Ellis gets a pass. Minimal research about a Castlevania video game is sitting down to play it or watch someone play it, but Ellis couldn't do even that if this interview is to be believed.

These Easter Eggs and references and visual themes and designs and atmosphere you pointed out, who do you think is doing this? Ellis?

Now, a year after its release, I got to actually enjoy the show quite a bit more. But I won't just up and forget things Ellis did and said in the past regarding this project. I still think the writing could be much better had he sat down to play the goddamn thing he's writing for.

And I'll reiterate: The others involved with this have continuously displayed knowledge of the franchise over and over. The only thing I dislike is the Castle design, the rest is just perfect. Ellis? Dude had IGA in front of him and didn't know Grant wasn't meant to be a pirate. Didn't know candles are supposed to be the souls of the dead, a random commenter had to inform him. Amongst other things. Your point about not being a fanboy and not letting love muddle your vision to properly adapt the material I agree in full with, but you don't need to be a "fanboy" to merely sit down and play the game or getting a freaking manual translated to you.

PS: I'm stoked for the second season and, as I said before, I do believe Ellis has done much better now just by the trailer. I saw obscure shit getting referenced that can't work just visually, it had to be WRITTEN in there, something that renews my faith in Ellis. I can't wait to see it!