101 Reasons NOT
to See the QotD Movie
Or Why I Hate Hollywood
Marketing is a bitch. Hollywood is obsessed with marketing to the masses of idiotic, trend-following teens who wouldn't pick up a book longer than Goosebumps if their lives hung in the balance. So why cater to thousands of existing fans of a novel when you can ignore them and cater to thousands of teens? The Queen of the Damned movie should be forced to call itself "The Hollywood Perversion of The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned," or if that's too long, "Mindless Vampire Movies for Dummies." But I'm not bitter.
Issues (And not the Korn Kind)
With the sucess of movies like Fight Club that actually require thought, and the previous sucess of IwtV the movie, what the hell got into the heads of movie producers to make them think the only way VampChron movies would sell is if they turned them into something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, only without the storyline.
First of all, let's run over briefly what will change in the movie. No, wait, the list is too long. Let's review what will stay the same in the movie: Lestat's name and the names of other characters, the name of the band Satan's Night Out, the fact that Talamasca exists, and the general location of the happenings. Oh, and Jesse (though an entirely different age with her Lestat obsession as motivation rather than assignment) still works for Talamasca under David Talbot. Other than that, the movie seems to take bits from both books, stuff them through a grinder, and come out with something almost close enough to form a plotline. But not quite. Put that together with a soundtrack by metal-rock band Korn, and you get what I liked to call "Themish Crap". I would rather watch a weekend Beverly Hills 90210 marathon than this film--and at least they aren't killing Lestat's name and image.
Sometimes It's What You DON'T Say
Close your eyes and let's pretend. Pretend for a second that Louis and Lestat don't have those moments in the end of QotD and that Mael does not fall for Jesse. Daniel (the infamous "interviewer") is never named nor made a vampire. Claudia's diary is never recovered. Gabrielle, Magnus, Eric, and Baby Jenks also do not exist. Why kind of sick joke on the VC is this? The QotD movie script, of course. According to the movie, Marius will become Lestat's maker. *sigh*
"What's
the Subject Matter?"
"You're right, subject doesn't matter at all!" (MST3k, Werewolf)
Ever sit through the mini-series version of Stephen King's Salem's Lot? No? Well, don't. Unless your other option is seeing this movie, in which case go for the former.
QotD will turn Pandora, Armand, and Khayman into what should have been Baby Jenks and the dead guys. While I agree that Armand was portrayed as being too old in IwtV, making him into a "teen rebel" is ridiculous. And do they fly first class Paris airlines to reach San Francisco? No, that would make sense. Instead, they rise from their graves like zombies because of Lestat's music. *ahem* I knew Lestat went to sleep for a while, but I didn't realize that he wasn't alone and that burying oneself and sleeping is a process followed by every vampire older than Dick Clark.
According the QotD Movie Site, two of the older vampires (Armand, Pandora, Khayman, or Mael) supposedly die while trying to kill Akasha, but the site does not state which one. Let's see... Pandora and Armand both have their own novels. Without Armand, the end of MtD is gone and so is his book. So my guess is it's Khayman & Mael who bite it, but then I recall how little respect this script has for the books or the future of the books in film form, so it could really be any of them.
Casting Hell
Okay, so Claudia Black might be an okay Pandora, but since she's written more like Maharet (bitchy), I wish her luck. As for the rest of the cast, I can see why they might make them younger (Brad and Tom were a little old, but I think they did a great job anyhow ^_^)
Aalyiah? Do you know how many times I had to repeat that word out loud before it made sense when I first heard she would play Akasha? (7,564.) I think I'm going to be sick.
Words of Wisdom
No matter how tempted you are, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. Seeing it will support it and that means the rest of the VC will be hacked to bits. The best we can hope for is that in 10 years, somehow they remake TVL & QotD as seperate films that actually follow the story. If you need to see a good version of the VC on film, get a copy of IwtV, some popcorn, and have fun.