Did Twilight really ruin vampires? (Death of Vamps/Zombies)

[Kiutu]

Twilight is not about vampires. It really isnt. WHats ruining it is that people THINK it is about vampires.

 

[Amnestic]

Sure, you can branch back to BC to find the origins of how a proper idea of a vampire came to be, but you'd wanna check more around the 19th century for the more widely appreciated portrayal. When people think 'real vampire', Count Dracula is most likely to come to mind. Dracula has set the staple for a publicly acclaimed vampire.

But that was thousands of years after the original stories started entering the minds of people.

When I was younger, I was told a vampire was a monster who looked like a human, possessed the ability to transform into a bat, and could extract a human's blood from their neck to turn them into their slaves. The scary part was that their motivation for doing so was simply, "they need to drink blood to survive". But don't worry, vampires can't be exposed to sunlight otherwise they'll whither away and die.

Hang on a second, you just said Dracula was the popular version. Sunlight doesn't kill Dracula at all. He's less powerful but he can still change form at dawn, noon and dusk. Often forgotten is the can't cross running water or the "Can't enter somewhere unless invited." Something which Buffy - I might add - did pick up on and use. What about Crucifixes? Garlic? And - apparently - sacramental bread?

He can turn himself into a variety of things as well, including a wolf and fog of all things.

So are we going with the publicly acclaimed Dracula (who doesn't die in sunlight at all) or aren't we?

I will agree to the fact that there is no "original portrayal", you're right there, but I will remain steadfast to the fact that there is an appreciated portrayal,

Which most people haven't bothered doing five minutes of research on, it seems.

 

[rokkolpo]

it didn't kill the mood for vampires.
i lost the mood long ago,after watching the underworld series.(it was awesome nevertheless not scary)

the only thing i didn't like about twilight was also the shiny thing.

 

[Nicragomi]

I tried to watch Twilight in theaters, honestly, but every time something happen the Emo kids would start doing crap and the girls wouldn't stfu about how cute or hot someone was, so I left the theater.

I think alot of people who don't like twilight follow my view that it just feels like a teen melo drama, with everyone loving the cool in kids and the predictable romance etc. It's like the teen emo/scene kid eqivilant to high school musical. Alot of this high school musical comparision is that everyone i know who liked that... likes this.

God, the movie felt like Dawson's Creek mixed with fucking Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I remember when "Interview with a Vampire" came out in theaters. I felt like that was a good vampire movie, but thats just my opinion.

 

[Hatman Jam]

But that was thousands of years after the original stories started entering the minds of people.

And all those original stories concentrated into one idea.

Hang on a second, you just said Dracula was the popular version. Sunlight doesn't kill Dracula at all. He's less powerful but he can still change form at dawn, noon and dusk. Often forgotten is the running water or the "Can't enter somewhere unless invited." Something which Buffy - I might add - did pick up on and use. What about Crucifixes? Garlic? And - apparently - sacramental bread?

He can turn himself into a variety of things as well, including a wolf and fog of all things.

So are we going with the publicly acclaimed Dracula (who doesn't die in sunlight at all) or aren't we?

Ok you caught me on the mix up of facts, but it's all part of the same vampire people like.

Which most people haven't bothered doing five minutes of research on, it seems.

Oh hoh, now you're just getting personal.

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

I don't like the style of Twilight, but I don't feel it killed vampires. Styles of vampires change and while the daft emo sort with silly reasons for there powers may be popular now, I doubt it will last long so I don't worry too much.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Twilight didn't ruin vampires.
It just made them heterosexual again.

 

[Zero=Interrupt]

Twilight didn't ruin Vampires. Anne Rice did. Then all the emo kids read her novels and came up with crap like "Twilight".

Let's all go back to the good old days where vampires where bloodsucking monsters who lived in eastern Europe, turned into bats, wolves and fog, hated garlic, combusted in daylight and slept in coffins in the basement of their paid-for baroque castles. Manly vampires you and I wanted to fight and felt good about killing, and that's killing via:

- staking them down at a crossroads and waiting for the sun
- staking them with anything wood: table legs, bannisters, armoires, Uncle Snuffy's wooden peg-leg, George Washington's teeth.
- beheading them creatively.
- any variation of the above.

Vampires we liked watching because they were cool. Coppola's Dracula. The old black and white Nosferatu. We liked to see them stalking around and being really, really dangerous not because of the teeth, but because they were also schemers whose age-old wisdom was overridden by their unholy bloodlust and clothing fetishes sometimes.

I have to disagree with the poster who said there are no "rules" for vampires. If you didn't make them do the things that make them vampires, they wouldn't _be_ vampires; just "Scary Dudes I Just Made Up Just Now". Just like the rules for skeletons say "this used to be a living person and now it's just a moving bunch of bones". Sure, there's creative license ("my skeletons only move to xylophone music like In Jason and the argonauts", "mine all wear voodoo hougan hats", "mine each still have one eyeball", etc), but when you go too far people _will_ call "bullshit!", just as we're all doing here.

If I recall the original posting was concerned about movies killing the scariness of things. The truth of the matter is, when you see something, anything a few hundred times, it ceases to be scary. Familiarity is the slayer of scary. Sorry.

 

[tehroc]

Dracula: Dead and Loving It is far worse a deathblow to vampires then Twilight could ever been.

 

[Spacelord]

I don't think you can damage the 'rep' of mythical creatures. If as you say the description of said mythical creatures is open to artistic freedom then it's really more of a matter of the quality of the movie.

Case in point: first time I saw the Dawn of the Dead remake, that shit was intense and scary as fuck. In Interview With The Vampire, while not feeling scared, did leave me aware of the palpable dread during the interview in question.

Both were just really great movies, and the scary/unsettling-ness factor is most influenced by the writing and direction.

EDIT: Oh and the movie Twilight wasn't bad because of the wimpy vampires, it was bad because it was an embarrassingly transparent self-insert fantasy with a completely unlikeable main character.

 

[Rock 'n' Soul]

The only thing that ever kills anything for me are excessive fan boys/girls. That is the scariest thing of all.

 

[Amnestic]

But that was thousands of years after the original stories started entering the minds of people.

And all those original stories concentrated into one idea.

Hang on a second, you just said Dracula was the popular version. Sunlight doesn't kill Dracula at all. He's less powerful but he can still change form at dawn, noon and dusk. Often forgotten is the running water or the "Can't enter somewhere unless invited." Something which Buffy - I might add - did pick up on and use. What about Crucifixes? Garlic? And - apparently - sacramental bread?

He can turn himself into a variety of things as well, including a wolf and fog of all things.

So are we going with the publicly acclaimed Dracula (who doesn't die in sunlight at all) or aren't we?

Ok you caught me on the mix up of facts, but it's all part of the same vampire people like.

Which most people haven't bothered doing five minutes of research on, it seems.

Oh hoh, now you're just getting personal.

The last part wasn't directly personal (though I did find those facts within five minutes) but it was a general point against everyone claiming that they should return to Stoker's Dracula while in the same breath saying that vampires should die in sunlight - two viewpoints which are at direct odds with each other.

My point, through all of this, is that vampires have changed, changed back and evolved over time into a variety of different forms. There's at least a half-dozen vampire concepts in the media these days, probably a lot more. I'm not quite sure what they want anymore, since they clearly aren't that much into Dracula to know what he's all about.

Query: Why are Twilight's Vampires any less "Real" or "Actual" than any other that exist in the hearts and minds of today's public?
Answer: They are not, however they seem to be viewed as such because 'they' do not hate the vampires themselves, but merely the characters who are vampires.

I have neither read the book (got through the first five pages and thought it was written by a primary school student) nor have I watched the film, which makes my defence of such things odd - what I stand by is that people's primary hatred of Twilight has nothing to do with Vampires in and of themselves, but rather the characters that happen to be vampires.

Which is fine, I'm sure the characters themselves are quite poorly written. Once again, not actually read the thing; however when people start claiming that they're 'ruining' vampires and urinating on the 'Original' vampire concepts I have to stop and laugh.

Because most people don't even seem to know what that is.

 

[Littaly]

I can only see how things have changed, not how something by standard has been made less scary. If you put effort into it, you could probably make a scary zombie or vampire flick. It's just not what's "in" right now, so it's not being made. I guess it will eventually though ^^

And if so, "teen vampireism" is far from the only thing that "ruined" vampires.

 

[mindclockwork]

for every 'good' fantasy subject (like vampires), there are countless movies, games etc. some of them are brilliant while others might be pure crap.

i personally think this movie had to exist cause underworld was so awesome...

 

[Rooster893]

Twilight has just stagnated them in a manner of speaking. It's made them all mushy and taken their big awesome collars away.

Yes, because vampires never got mushy before Twilight.

...nevermind.

Owned.

 

[Firia]

For me, it's the mythos that is being trounced upon. The overdose of zombie/vampire content may have contributed to the lack of terror felt around them, but the people that feel the need to recreate the vampire mythos to fit their story is what irks me most. (Blade, I'm looking at you!)

 

[gamefreakbsp]

Twilight did not ruin vampires because they are not vampires.....they are sparkly wierdos who happen to drink blood.

 

[Rooster893]

Twilight did not ruin vampires because they are not vampires.....they are sparkly wierdos who happen to drink blood.

Finally, someone with the RIGHT answer.

 

[TheSeventhLoneWolf]

But, as has been stated, the only way to kill a vampire is with a stake through the chest.

Doesn't decapitation work pretty decently as well or does that merely leave them in a rather unfortunate position of having to carry their head everywhere from then on?

Or in the 'Blade' movie sense, It'll just grow back somehow.