I'm someone who was almost forced to read this book, (its my husbands favorite book, reads from cover to cover and then starts again) so I needed to know what was keeping him at it, I found the film a bit of a departure from the book. The film is initially a love story. The book however is scary, my own opinion is that Dracula is not actually in the book that much, his presence however is very in the book, very clever and made him even more sinister, the way he gets into your head.  The film I belive has to be looked at in its own right, and thats where Coppola  made his mistake - he should have not called it Bram Stokers - Just Francis Ford Coppolas. Good movie, some bad acting and some really over acting which works a treat I think, Hopkins and Oldham are just amazing. Ryder and Reeves could have been kept out, but he needed their names in lights.

I like the net but sometimes I liked the old pre net era.
You went to see a movies and you liked it or not regardless
of what any self appointed critics thought.

Artwork added for the Blu-ray release...

Yeah, I can understand people's dissatisfaction with this one, but I've always liked it. I love how it's all like a surreal dream. My main complaint would be that the film is much more of a supernatural drama/love story than a horror movie; the film never really tries to scare you.

Anyway, that's not even the reason I'm posting. Does anyone know if the commentary is just a port from the Criterion laser?

der Lohmi wrote: gnomekid wrote: It's strange; Francis Ford Coppola made three of the greatest films ever made with the first two Godfather films and Apocalypse Now (three and a half if you count the third Godfather), but aside from those his filmography has been pretty sh*tty, if you ask me.
Have you seen THE CONVERSATION and RUMBLE FISH? Also, ONE FROM THE HEART is one of the most magical and unfairly maligned films of all time (just IMHO, of course).

Coppola did Patton too. One of the greatest war films of all time thank you very much.

Fantastic cover of a long overdue Special Edition for a great film. I'll be picking up the BD!

finally quality cover and everybodys complains ! you get your conventional covers and everybodys cries "its always the same" ... now this is something unsual so be happy ... there should be more something daring like this out there.

Rick McGrath wrote: For the under-educated...The cover is showing Prince Vlads armour from when he was a defender of the church/christianity...and the lower picture is of Dracula repulsed at the image of his old armour, and what it represents....fairly simple and very clever, i think anyway..

Nah I think he just saw a big scary spider. "Ooh, get it, get it!"

For all those griping about the font used for the title, it's the same that was used in the opening titles, so it's not much of a departure.  I didn't despise the movie, despite it's numerous negatives, but I won't be double-dipping.  I do like the cover though.

Rick McGrath wrote: For the under-educated...The cover is showing Prince Vlads armour from when he was a defender of the church/christianity...and the lower picture is of Dracula repulsed at the image of his old armour, and what it represents....fairly simple and very clever, i think anyway..

That is simply your interpretation.

I can counter it simply by stating, for one, Dracula in the corner isn't looking at the Armour.

i liked it. kinda c**ppy cover. that font is hideous. clearly someone was looking around in photoshop and thought "hm this font looks alright, i'll just use this one then". i doubt i'd double dip unless this got down to $10.

Special editions of this AND "Caligula" on 10-02-07?!?!?! Wow... This is like Hannukah in October!

I remember an editing teacher at my film school told us how when he was a post-production student, Francis Forda Copola and his editors were guest speakers and brought a scene from "Dracula" (where Mina and Harker say goodbye in the beginging) for the students to cut together... The twist was that they were supposed to cut around Keanu Reeves' bad acting, they all did their best, but when they screened the actual cut of the scene, they noticed that practically all of Keanu's close-ups and lines of dialogue were DELETED.

Cheddar J. Cheese wrote:
Coppola does that to everything he makes, to make sure people know who the author of the source is, and to give them credit for the story.

Does he?  I think you'll find it was really to sucker the public into thinking they were getting something no one else had done.  And all they got was the same 'nothing much to do with Dracula really' flick.

I do agree that it does do things from the book that others have not...but the main bulk of the entire film is this romance plot.  And that has nothing to do with Stoker and completely changes the character of Dracula.

Dracula does not love Mina.  He barely has anything at all to do with her.  In fact the only time they actually meet properly is when he's physically forcing her to lick the blood from his lacerated chest "like someone forcing a kitten's head into a bowl of milk to drink".  Ain't nothing romantic there!

The point of Stoker's Dracula (in fact the entire plan of Dracula) wa that he was a sodded, decayed creature looking to escape 'the old country' to  the 'new world' to give life to his pitiful undead existence.  
He's a ruthless creature that uses people and lies to them to get what he wants.
That he ONCE loved is made explicit in that superb scene with the Brides when he 'saves' Harker (and throws them the crying baby in the sack to feed on, so well done in the BBC version) but it was obviously a 'love' that we don't recognise as love and not to one specific person.  It was said the the Brides in a way that implied he had loved each of them, in HIS way, as he turned them. "Yes...I too can love!  You yourselves can tell it from the past".

Stoker's novel may need heavy trimming of certain elements to move them along for a film but there is nothing that needs changing and no set-piece that is not expertly written in narrative and dialogue.

I have no love (and HATE IT as an adpatation as it removes literally every single good sequence and stupidly changes the entire Harker character) for the Hammer "Dracula" either and get annoyed as hell when people say it's the best adaptation when it actually adapts almost nothing at all (literally!) from the novel.  

But that did not call itself 'Bram Stoker's'.

Quote: However, I don't really think people will appreciate the term 'unenlightened', why not just 'those who haven't already', makes you sound less condescending, which I'm sure wasn't your intention,


Point taken.  Yes it was rather snooty, but the fact millions have heard Reeves' version but almost no one has heard John Stuart Anderson's amazing portrayal irks greatly.  And his readings really show how damn good (and at times chilling) Stoker's writing of them was.

Apologies.

Damn! Dave Brock means business! I have to agree with him, this movie sucked and it's mostly Keanu's fault. Other than the obvious plot changes, it could've been a good film without him and Winona. I read this book in high school, the same year the movie came out, and upon watching it I was stunned at how much hollywood can change a story that claims to be true to the book. The only movie I've seen that remains true to the original book is Frank Miller's Sin City.

I loved this movie and have the Superbit edition.  I've also got the 3-disc Criterion Collection laserdisc with some fairly neat extras on it; I wonder if Coppola's commentary's completely new.  The artwork's beautiful, I think, but I don't know if this is worth the triple-dip for me...

The film is pretty weird (to say the least), but it's still great fun. The novel isn't really that interesting; real estate business and about a dozen blood transfusions on Lucy(?) seem to take up most of the story.

The cover sure is odd, but at least it's interesting. Love the colors.

gay cover i liike my superbit cover more!!

I'm loving that artwork - it captures the film in a clever way. And hat's off to them for using the font from the film's credits.

Love the film, love the cover art, the set looks solid. I'm sold.

WORST
ARTWORK
EVER.

It's very, very, very unclassy cover.
The person who made up the cover obviously hated the movie.

A "Collector's Edition" cover need not a figure that only had 10 seconds of screentime [the wolf armor] OR a bad photo of "Dracula"....[see: Another actor posing as Gary Oldman].

It should've been classy: A Digipack, with an engraving style cover...sort of like the original teaser poster and DVD cover without the pictures on the bottom.

I might get this, it's a great comedy, honestly. Sometimes you have to look at the bad (Keanu+wolf rape+Winona) and make it glorious.

That cover is... odd.
No need to double dip here folks, just move along.

I can't stand this movie...looks like it'll be a good set, but no way am I going to waste money on it. Coppola was awesome in the 70s, but he realllly slipped after that.

the cover has me confused.

if you hate a movie, why even bother reading let alone posting in a forum about it?  i just never understood those people..lol

anyway i rememeber hearing about a 2 disc edition of this YEARS ago..its the reason i never bought the dvd.....about freakin time it comes....its such a pretty movie, surreal movie and annie lennox's song works so well with it

i never read the book but something interesting...in this, mina falls for dracula and lucy becomes a vampire...in the 70s version mina is turned while lucy falls, so which one is right?

One of the best versions of Dracula ever.SOLD!!!This is a great week in upcoming DVD releases.

I guess I'm keeping the Superbit Edition.

Awful, awful cover.

coverart makes no sense.

What a great movie! Even Keanu Reeves is stomachable in this, but, it's Gary Oldman who practically carries the entire film as The Count. Definitley worth the upgrade & much needed.

That's the goofiest cover art I've ever seen.

Will  this look and sound any better than the Superbit. That DVD had a great dts track. Because the special features suck and i wont double dip for them. The presentation matters more to me on this film.

wow. Today cost me about 200 dollars and i haven´t even ordered yet.

i don't remember if i was a fan of the movie...i think gary oldman was good in it.  but this cover is really cool!!!  even cool enough to buy.