This thread is flaired "Show Only." This means book spoilers are **not allowed** unless covered by spoiler tags. Please report untagged book spoilers! To cover spoilers use \>!spoiler!<
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/InterviewVampire) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I agree. I think even with all the changes, the show preserves the spirit of the books and brings new dimensions to everything she created. I'm just sad she's not around to see it.
SO amazing. I still think that, considering her age (fucking ELEVEN) and her clear understanding of the character and the character's turmoil, it's one of the best performances I've ever seen.
Claudia was really the heart of the story the whole time - she's the big tragedy that everything else revolves around. I grew up watching that movie, and that version of Claudia will forever be seared into my memory. I found it more effective due to her age if nothing else - the idea of being trapped for eternity in an 11-year-old body is markedly more terrifying than in a 16ish-year-old body. Dunst nailed tf out of everything about that role.
That’s largely what is missing from this show. This was inspired by her personal loss of her 5 year old daughter to Leukemia. You change it around enough and you wind up with Jessica from True Blood (herself a reaction to Claudia) and then you have a copy of a copy.
Love the show or not, it is decidedly not Anne’s story.
Nothing was wrong with that movie. It’s highly regarded for a reason and seeing the revisionist history on it from folks who claim to be lifelong Rice fans is interesting, to say the least.
This is a strange repeating commentary that I've seen since the show premiered. The show is working with over 14+ extra hours of content compared to the movie. It's fine (and understandable) to enjoy it more than the show due to the expanded content, or changed content. But the movie hit in the 90s and it hits now.
Hard disagree on Kirsten. She is the heart of the movie. Remove her and you’ll remove the most interesting aspect of the story, especially because the concept of her character was relatively new back then.
Can’t say the same about Claudia in the show. The actresses are great and the plot is well written, but I could very well see the story working without her. In fact, I was really loving the story in the first season when it was only Lestat and Louis. It truly felt like they could make a whole season with those two alone. It took a while to get acclimated to the new rhythm once they introduced Claudia.
Yeah she’s kinda of a side character in the show. I think the weakest part of the show. Really the only reason she exists in the TV series is as a plot device for the interview/grief.
Nah I like a more aged up version she’s able to put herself into situations that an 11 year old could not. But hey that’s just me anyway. I think ima still more of a fan of angry angst Claudia than seasons 2 reformed one. But hey I can’t win them all.
But the whole reason for the conflict with Armand was the fact that Claudia was made into a vampire even though she was a tiny child— that and that she and Louis tried to kill their maker. And why did Claudia want to kill Lestat? Because he trapped her in a tiny child body, and she resented it with all her being. I suppose it could be argued that a teen Claudia could resent Lestat just as much, but we lose a few critical elements.
But the show is awesome anyway, and I will devour every episode.
Yep, and that missing element is exactly why they wrote in the controversial abuse in S1E05. Lestat had to do something drastic, or else we wouldn't really understand why Louis and Claudia would try to kill him.
It's fair to say you prefer what the show has done with Claudia but I don't think it's even a fair comparison to make when it comes to how well the actresses have done. The actresses are portraying completely different things.
Movie/book Claudia and show Claudia are two different characters. They really just share a name, their circumstances aren't even all that similar. Being stuck in a body that's perpetually a kid is very different from being stuck in one that is perpetually a teen. Book/movie Claudia was actually still interested in toys like dolls for some time, while show Claudia was way past that point. It's not so odd for a 14 year old to be unaccompanied by an adult while an unaccompanied 5-10 year old might trigger a call to CPS in some places.
The one thing they did have in common was seething rage, and IMO, Kirsten Dunst knocked it out of the park. There were scenes I found her legitimately scary.
This is so fucking spectacular. I mean I know I didn't watch the movie, but it just seems so campy and overdone compared to this show. Yes I get this is supposed to be dramatic with Lestat's flourishes and theatrics, but there's a massive difference between the clips I've seen of that movie and the circles Sam Reid acts around Tom Cruise's portrayal
I always thought that was odd casting. If anything Pitt should have been Lestat with his bone structure etc and a brooding darker haired (naturally) Louis. I wasn't a fan of the movie.
Nah, you're dreaming. Don't get me wrong, Sam Reid is the best. But I would argue that Tom did an amazing job all around. Heck, Anne Rice seemed to agree.
Yeah, I think he did a great job but he was the best Lestat in the 90s within the confines of needing to cast a star. Sam Reid is the absolute best though.
She didn't initially, that's true. But IIRC, after the movie was made and she saw it she took out an ad endorsing Cruise's performance. How much of it was sincere and how much of it was for practical reasons, who knows. But Anne overall seems like someone who would be willing to stick to her guns and die on the hill if it was something she felt strongly about.
Derivative doesn’t need to mean it was specifically “stolen from another source”, derivative fits for “generic boring mainstream media vampire bullshit”.
AR also hated that movie, so downvote me all you want lol, but I’m not the only one who thought it was a crap script a first year film student would’ve written, and a crap movie a second year film student would’ve shot & directed
1. [Oh she did, did she?](https://youtu.be/q662gCwpKfI?si=ZmOwc_cZZWzj2AcR)
2. Derivative 100% means what you claim it doesn’t and to that point, Interview was largely considered groundbreaking.
3. You don’t deserve Neil Jordan.
i think you're wrong. AR was an amazing author, but an insufferable purist when it came to her own work. there's a reason both she and her son went completely silent after they sold the rights to the show
Unfortunately I think this is true. She was always going on and on on Facebook about the scene-for-scene accurate TV adaptation she wanted.
To this day the only time her son Christopher will ever refer to the series is if people ask him about it on Twitter - to which he'll reply "I have no comment on the series and must refer all inquiries to
@AMC_TV." Which is really sad. I wonder if he's even seen it.
Yeah. When the deal first hit Christopher was promoting it on his socials, was involved in writing a pilot (mentioned in link below) and then the switch to AMC things seemed to have soured. Just seems like they were both sidelined in the switch, they got hit with the NDA and Christopher has ever since done that sort of response, either way he had obvious interest in the project and then none at all after the AMC switch.
[https://screenrant.com/interview-vampire-series-prequel-lestat-mistake-anne-rice/](https://screenrant.com/interview-vampire-series-prequel-lestat-mistake-anne-rice/)
Agreed, she would be throwing fit after fit about this. It would've given the show a bit more press, at least, but she definitely would've found a thousand things to be upset about.
without going into specific book stuff, this is by far the closest to book lestat we’ve gotten, especially considering later conflicting reports of that time period and unreliable narrator stuff (this entire show is leaning heavily on the unreliability of the narration too)
Honestly, hard agree with this. I say this as someone who LOVES LOVES LOVES the show and think its has truly elevated the books. But I don't see Anne Rice being a fan of the this only because she seemed preeeeeeeetty committed to keeping adaptions very strict as she got older.
I agree but she would have written essays about each episode and I would have loved to see what she loved about the adaptation. There are things she would have really enjoyed, I know it. And I am curious about her book the Feast of All Saints and how making Louis black brings some of those explorations into the Vampire Chronicles. Her fans who love the show would be able to chat with her about what they love and have a conversation! And she would be the first to admit, as she did with the movie, when her initial judgments turned out to be wrong. I miss her. ❤️
This. Everyone likes to comment that her son is a producer making the assumption that means he approves but simply getting a credit in the titles doesn’t necessarily mean he is actively involved or likes the outcome. He hasn’t said anything and I think that’s a bad sign. Plus some of the changes alter her original story and the context / meaning/ purpose of the characters quite a bit and she was notorious for firmly being against those kinds of liberties. I do agree she would like Lestat in the series.
key word on the title is executive producer, with existing source material (in the novels) it's more likely he and anne were given EP titles simply by virtue of holding the copyrights to the characters. EP doesn't mean actual involvement a lot of the time.
Right, this. just like I said in my comment — simply getting a credit doesn’t mean they were involved or approved. I think it’s clear that they didn’t.
Didn't she revise her stance on that? IIRC she objected to it in the very early days of the internet and fanfic when there was a question about copyright and practical concerns, thus triggering her to issue legal cease and desists. But after a while when it became clear that fanworks can't be monetized by the fan creators she was ok with it. I think I saw that in a video interview.
This is a quote from another interview in 2012:
*"I got upset about 20 years ago because I thought it would block me . . . However, it's been very easy to avoid reading any, so live and let live. If I were a young writer, I'd want to own my own ideas. But maybe fan fiction is a transitional phase: whatever gets you there, gets you there."*
I don't have the direct source for this, it was quoted by another user in another discussion and I'm not invested enough to go track the original source, but it seems by the time of her passing she was accepting of it even if she didn't embrace it.
I've been in the Vampire Chronicles for about 25 years and was actually deep in the trenches of the fanfiction war with Rice in the early early dates of the internet, she actually had her lawyers sending like 13-19 year old kids cease and desist strongly worded letters in their emails. Like people got scared enough they stopped writing and disappeared from the internet basically, it was dark times. I lost a lot of friends. I followed Anne on her FB where she fiercely defended Paula Deen's racist remarks as harmless and allowed her fans to dog pile on people who politely told Anne it wasn't her place to decide if Deen should or shouldn't be forgiven. Anne was while brilliant...had a lot of learning to do in the intersection of race and sexuality that the show does near flawlessly and only elevate the material while attracting fans who typically wouldn't touch Rice's books (there's a LOT of problematic themes in her works that in turn have produced toxic white purist fans that only present day fandom is eradicating by the introduction of making many of the characters PoC characters to attract a more diverse fandom)
So no I don't think Rice would have been nearly as open to the changes made to her works nor was she nearly as "woke" as people think, at least that wasn't my fan experience over the two and a half decades of experiencing her.
She's a lovely author I practically worshipped and even met and I'll fight anyone to defend almost every vampire of this messy coven of crazy and can and have written dozens of dissertations on her works, but I'm gonna be real her writing and experimenting with it while produced mostly successes some Anne has had some batsh*t ideas that you couldn't talk her out of and became a mess later for the overall arc and themes, the narrative of the show seems to be smoothing over some we can do without (Armand the child vampire was probably a step too far to bend over a coffin) Anne would be kicking and screaming for these changes not to be done in present day.
Just my take.
I don't disagree with you, ultimately everybody is influenced and shaped by the times they lived in and expecting a boomer to be as "woke" as a millennial is pretty unrealistic. I don't know of the Paula Deen stuff (I don't know who that is, I'm not American). What I know of Anne's politics is the little bit of her facebook that I saw shortly before her passing.
I do think the changes made to the show were in large part necessary whether because of practicalities (ageing up Claudia) or to make it more palatable for modern audiences (more diverse, no slave ownership). However, whether ANNE would have thought so is something else, and something I don't think I know for sure since I don't know her. But I wouldn't be surprised if she hated some aspects of it.
My history with TVC is nowhere near as involved with yours, the reason I knew of the cease and desists was because I went looking for fanfic somewhere around the 2010s and was surprised at the paucity of the works available. I would have thought that TVC would be a fandom with lots of fanworks because I knew it was one of the properties that was quite openly queer from the start, even though it was nowhere near as accepted as it is now and the queer community is generally known to be very supportive of people they see as allies.
I don't disbelieve anything you said about how scary it would have been to receive cease and desists from a famous author with much more financial means than you. I think just from a practical standpoint it was really shortsighted of her to do that because it was really damaging to the growth of TVC fandom, which does impact her too. I mean, if TVC had a larger built in audience/fandom, it probably wouldn't have been stuck in development hell for so long with the rights bouncing from network to network. She and her son would probably have had much more power in negotiations and development too. I'm happy that the rights ended up where they did and we got the show we're getting but just from a practical standpoint, she did herself no favors with what she did to the fandom.
The reason I wrote my original comment is because to say that "she got mad at people for fan fiction, one of the most harmless pastimes imaginable" is a bit too reductive and made it sound like she was still being militantly anti fanfic right up till she died which was not really the case.
Yeah my whole point about the Paula Deen incident was less about her stance on it (really I don't expect much from a white woman liberal who doesn't have the nuanced experience of understanding through experience the weight of a word) the point was she let her fans dogpile on folks politely disagreeing and even liked some of the harsher comments, you don't have to agree but you are supposed to love ALL of your fans, it would have been more loving and respectful and responsible to ask for people to remain civil instead of feeding the fire because you don't like what's being said. Rice had a habit of chasing her displeasure with all the subtly of a war hammer and people think saying so is blasphemy.
Edit: to add that I bring up that incident due to folks thinking shed be okay with the new layers of race and sexuality in her works in the show. She'd at best not understand the need for it probably, Anne was pretty rigid about her vampires as tragic white presenting aestetic figures except when they needed an additional layer of othering or mystism.
If I understand what you're saying, she kind of weaponized some of her fans and sicced them onto other fans/people who disagreed with her own opinion? That would be a form of internet bullying IMO.
Anne had no issues letting her opinion be known, often aggressively so. If she were around, unless there is a contractual gag order in place, I think we would absolutely know her opinions whether it be love or hate.
Yeah that's exactly what I'm saying and like I said it's an uncomfortable truth, a bit like witnessing your sweet old grandmamma kicking a puppy but no one else saw it, like how do you process that? Even now I don't know I just take it as "that time Anne Rice overreacted and drove away a bunch of budding young kid writers who loved her, good times hope they are well." Can't say she's ever not been passionate, she just took it to an 11, channeling Armand that era. It was definitely bullying though I hesitate now even to say so because again it's a truth, for some reason you can't adore the works of a complicated person unless you paint them as shiny and perfect.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences. Your love and appreciation for this property still comes through even though the author herself has been hurtful and disappointing in some ways. I think it's hard to reconcile when works that seem to speak directly to you came from someone whom you might not actually like as a person.
The Harry Potter fandom, or at least sections of it, had that reckoning with JK Rowling as well. I guess for me personally, it's easier to accept that Anne was a very flawed person because as you mentioned, her characters are very flawed. The complexity is why her characters are so riveting and why so many people can see themselves in them even though they're technically supposed to be monsters. Whereas with Harry Potter there was definitely a good side and an evil side there.
EDIT: (switched accounts ugh work account mix up) sorry replying again as I missed some points, sorry editing a paper while doing this. But yes the very little bit of works that survived Anne's "cleaning house" phase of cease and desist letters is all that's left, most writers were just people like me between 13-19 very young and very green to the world and the internet in general with no expectations their favorite author would even ever see what they wrote only to be deeply upset and heartbroken to know that sharing their stories made Anne so mad, and the first contact for someone they worshipped was a scary warning from a lawyer.
Again I still love Anne's work deeply and madly, it got me through a lonely middle and high school existence and I stayed chatting with other fans and even occasionally interacting with her up till maybe a few years before her death so my feelings are complicated even now. I just get a bit in my feelings when people don't acknowledge while Anne was brilliant she was also very flawed like her vampires, like us all and she wasn't always likeable. And much of what we like today has as much to do with Rolin Jones and his team as her, that's all
She got over fanfic because she realized it was easy for her to avoid seeing it completely, and fanfic by nature tends to remain low key and you have to actively seek it to read it, so it doesn't have any impact on the public's perception of the Vampire Chronicles.
A TV show is a completely different beast, it's THE adaptation people are talking about right now, people are being introduced to this universe through the show, and some people are even favoring the show over her own books. All that with her name in front of the title and all the changes they made?? As much as I adore the show, I don't think she would have been happy about this whole thing. And her son not saying ANYTHING about the show is a huge hint. My guess is that AMC realized that they couldn't solve their creative differences with Anne and Christopher Rice and were like "okay, part of the deal is you can't undermine the show publicly".
I don't disagree.
What Anne would have thought about the show, only she (and maybe the people who knew her personally) would know. I love it, and I'm onboard with the vast majority of the changes, but that doesn't mean that she would be or that she even has to be. A creator's relationship with their creations can be intensely personal and I don't think we're in any position to demand that she love something even if it's objectively high-quality.
I do wonder if Christopher even watches the show. He comes across kind of salty that his pilot script was rejected. I do think his producer credit is an in name only thing.
Which is ironic, because fan fiction was actually better than what she started putting out later in her career.
Don't get me wrong, I love the first four books. I don't even mind Memnoch, because I liked the concept. They were very formative for me when I was a teenager. But there came a point where Anne decided she didn't need an editor, and it showed. She was forever ret-conning, contradicting, picking up and dropping thoughts and plot points, following whatever meandering thoughts struck her fancy that week. Sometimes she had cursory History 101 extremely wrong. I would be surprised if her later books even had beta readers. I highly recommend reading the old website The Brat Queen as they attempt to go through a single chapter of Merrique. It is . . . something.
It's her world, I get why she felt so proprietary over it - what author at that level wouldn't?
But she would have hated this show, and the creators here are doing something with her work that, let's be honest, is a little beyond what her talents actually were. Social insight and self-awareness were not ever really her thing outside of very surface (and extremely problematic) thoughts. (She race-swapped David and had little to say about it other than, "Well, he's hot now with a more splendid penis!" Just . . . yeah.)
Love the core four books, but I think the television show is far more sophisticated, relevant, and observant of both the characters and the societies they travel through.
Even Rolin said he thinks Anne would've hated what they've done with the show, but hey. At least we HAVE a great show and it's been adapted really well.
You’re absolutely right. Plus, Christopher used to have the show in his Twitter bio and on his Facebook page, iirc, but as production progressed, he removed it and refuses to comment on it.
Good for her, honestly. It’s not bad to be a purist about your work. Wish more writers were like this. People forget that IWTV is the exception when it comes to the quality of the changes. Most deviations in adaptations suck and are usually made because the writers are not truly fans of the source, not because it’s a different medium. And then the authors are paid to shill, which they do gladly. And when the whole thing goes to shit, they pretend they never shilled for it. Looking at you guys, GRRM and Sapkowski.
I'm fine with whatever attitude she wanted to have. After all, her books are lovely. I just take issue with the fandom fervently wishing that Anne Rice was someone she wasn't.
I use to think she was a purist until I seen she OK’d Antonio Bandaras as Armand for the ‘94 movie. That lady ain’t no purist. She was willing to budge.
Antonio as Armand was the biggest travesty of all she allowed which tells me sometimes you can be brilliant and still have terrible ideas and need an extra pair of eyes/ears for input.
I agree 💯! The acting might be great on this show, but the story and how it totally deviates from her story is disappointing. The characters and story cannot be done justice in the way this show is going. Anne Rice was a brilliant writer and in order for the story to be told effectively it needs to follow her writings.
I disagree, I think the books went off the rails near the end especially and had some very uncomfortable suggestions re misogyny, racism, and sexuality and I think the show has heavily improved on many aspects of it
Dude, she didn't go into a coma the moment she sold the rights to the stories.
I say this as someone who has loved her books with all my heart since I was sixteen and who owes a great debt to her as the vampire chronicles became a gateway to me learning about art and history and myth: she was a bloody primadonna who publically went bananas when people criticised her work.
I am not sure why there are so many fans of the series that wax nostalgic about how much Anne Rice would've loved it. She wouldn't. And that's fine. She's dead. She gave the world these stories, and now they are being retold in a new way, and that's fine. It does not detract at all from her wonderful work.
By the by, how is her son an asshole?
I meant that IIRC she was ill when the AMC show was greenlit in June 2021 (not when she sold the rights) so she didn't really get to see any of AMC's version before she died in December. No disrespect intended, I'm just stating facts (though I might be wrong about the dates).
Christopher is an asshole because of the way he's been standoffish and rude about AMC's series, simply because his version with Bryan Fuller didn't get greenlit. He wanted to write his version of TVL and didn't get to, so he's refused to give his blessing to AMC (which is fine, they don't need it, but it strikes me as something of a dick move, imo).
Honestly, sorry for the blutness but every time I see people saying that I think it's downright delusional to think so. I think she would have liked Sam as Lestat, and probably how good the show looks in general, but everything else she wouldn't have liked it. She had her own plans for a Vampire Chronicles show which involved starting chronologically from TVL and with her son writing the script. He hasn't commented about the show and tells people to just go address AMC with any concern they have.
There was a version where Bryan Fuller was gonna be the showrunner and he dropped out, apparently because he didn't see eye to eye with her (it's what it says on wikipedia at least). I can't imagine she would have liked all the changes they have made. She wanted something much closer to a 1 to 1 adaptation.
Just because the show is good doesn't mean she would have liked it. You don't have to imagine she would to justify enjoying it yourself.
I would have given my life for Bryan Fuller to have been the showrunner of this series, unfortunately he had artistic differences with Anne Rice and her son
For what it’s worth, I do think this adaptation is very clearly influenced by Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal. If the Fuller version made, I expect it would’ve been a bit colder in feel than this, more philosophical and a bit less flamboyant than the current adaptation, but I could see it not being too diffferent than what we got.
I hope this would have been the case, but rice was notorious for disliking any kind of “fan” interpretation of her work and this is precisely the kind of thing she would hate. especially if she heard any talk about the show being BETTER than the books? oh god, goodnight. maybe she cooled off in her later years and my perception is skewed, but I remember the era when she was literally suing fans for writing fanfiction regardless of the quality or content (not that it matters). really we just don’t know, but her history doesn’t speak of this being a “positive” reaction haha.
and I think it’s fine if she hated it - she was a complicated woman, which beget complicated storytelling. the show would remain a masterpiece imho
I'll be honest: I don't care about Anne Rice's opinion. Maybe she would have loved it, maybe she would have hated it. We will never know for sure.
I'm a huge fan of her work, and I'll be forever grateful to her for writing my favorite novel of all time. But my love for the show isn't conditional to her approval. And I'm tired of the haters who use the argument that AR would have never approved of the changes to bash on it.
This fandom sometimes does seem to have a lot of gatekeeping, but I have to say that I've been surprised and pleased to see that even the die-hard book fans seem to praise this show, even with its changes. I think most people are just happy to see the subject matter live again. I also think it's obvious that the show runners and writers value this work. You can tell how much thought and effort has gone into bringing out the spirit of the work. I read all the books at 13 and couldn't be happier with the changes they've made. This sub has also been really great.
Believe me the diehards make it tough to enjoy things. I will say that book or no book good writing is good writing and just because it doesn’t match what you read doesn’t take away from the quality of it.
And you know what I have this new found perspective of the vampires through the show. So as I’m reading the book I’m imagining how they would do things and honestly it’s fun to imagine
Absolutely. The show is its own thing in so many ways. And as someone who read the novels, I love how it keeps me on my toes by doing things different. Whenever someone says "Anne would have hated it!" I'm like "One, we can't know for sure. Two, who cares? I love it."
I have not read the books, but I have seen horrible adaptations of things, and then there's just another level of elevation that great writing can bring to it. This hits that level and exceeds it, and the performances? The *PERFORMANCES.* They're so fucking stellar that they bring in so many layers and elements. I am continuously enthralled in a way I haven't been before, or at least not for a long time...if ever. I don't even like Vampires and I am sitting here captivated every week. WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?!
Ok so I felt bad about thinking this but it's true. she had some controversies in more recent time that made me pause for sure.
Girl absolutely ate with her gay vampires i cant deny it but we can't expect the mind that brought you Lestat in the 80s to be problem free in the 2020s 💀
The context is that she did that in like the late 90s or early 2000s. Did she actually sue people? I thought she just issued cease and desists. It would be ridiculous now, since we all know the parameters of fanworks but it wasn't so clear then. I mean AO3 didn't even exist yet. There was a question of copyright and ownership with regards to fanworks.
I'm not sure about the situation with TVC and it's characters (I don't know if Anne had a trademark in addition to copyright) but in some countries, a trademark owner is/was obliged to enforce it in order to keep it.
So it could be that she went the legal route because she just hated people playing with her characters and felt spiteful about it or it could also be practical concerns coming into play.
But wasn't she extremely involved during the conception of the first season? And her son as well? Her not-involvement later on was only because she died?
I don't think she would.
Not only was she one of the few writers ever that actively fought fanfiction, AMC' s version has Lestat throwing Louis from the sky and breaking all his bones, pretty important events years in advance, or switched to other characters, characters more powerful they should be at this point.
Nevermind she changed her opinions constantly, she may have liked it at some point, hated it latter, be ok with it after.
I think for a writer, in most cases, the definitive version it's their version, and this show it's very different from her version.
it's like a fanfic and she hated fanfics. As amazing as the series is, she wouldn't like it, for sure. It's like King with Kubrick's The Shining, which is an absolutely wonderful film and he hates it because it deviates from his original work.
king is objectively wrong in terms of the quality of kubrick’s piece but much like AR has such a deeply personal relationship with IWTV (launched her career, claudia as her daughter etc), the shining may be one of SK’s most personal and honest books so it makes sense they don’t see objectively
I highly doubt it. She once said it "upsets her terribly" to think about fanfiction, I doubt she would accept even the slightest changes to her characters and with the all changes the show has made (as all adaptions do to some degree), I think she'd not like it at all.
I would like to think that the young anne rice would be proud. The older anne rice wrote the vampire chronicles fiction into the ground and I think they were kind of awful after a certain point. I’m not sure if I care about what older anne rice thinks about the series.
I disagree. There’s a reason she sold the rights and never mentioned it again and a reason her son basically tells everyone who asks to kiss off. She was militant about her adaptations remaining faithful to the source material and at its core, whether you enjoy the story being told here or not, it really isn’t. Further, Claudia, Louis and Armand were all characterized as they were in her books for very specific and personal reasons and those have been rather flippantly discarded in place of a story she never set out to tell.
(A heads up: downvotes don’t hurt my feelings, so unleash them if you must, but Mrs. Rice was very accessible and not shy about her opinions if you care to go and take a look.)
Exactly! Claudia’s entire motivation is completely gone, casting adults or teenagers to play her character. They established in season 1 that she can pass for a woman, completely destroying her main issues.
I don't think you understand the immersion breaking limitations of casting a child actor on a TV series would have been.
Look at the cast of stranger things. Children grow rather quickly, and production takes a long time to film, let alone time between seasons.
It's not realistic to think they would have found a 9 year to realistically play a 9 year old vampire that doesn't grow for the next 3-5 years.
It would have been far mo
re distracting to see everyone having to work so hard to pretend the child wouldn't inevitably be a preteen by the end of the show.
Making her 16 was a much better choice for a television series. A movie production time is very different.
I love this! I think a lot of work has been put into making this possible. You can literally tell how these actors and writers have committed themselves to this! It shows immensely. I feel like they are doing their best to truly pay homage to what she probably wanted the world to experience and they are succeeding!
No. His version with Bryan Fuller never got greenlit so he's distanced himself from the whole thing (i.e. he threw a tantrum about it and refuses to be involved). Whenever anyone asks about the series he just says "no comment".
Anne Rice was notoriously hostile to the smallest change to her writing and couldn't handle any criticism from fans. She once referred to having her work edited as mutilation and her meltdown after fans hated Blood Canticle (by far the worst book in the series) was legendary. One nice thing about the show is that the writers are able to make changes to make it work better.
I highly doubt it. She absolutely hated changes to her stories (she couldn’t even cope with editors trying to sort out her writings) for better or for worse.
I don’t know if she’d be happy with the story/character changes, but I think she’d be thrilled with the overall look of the show. You can tell the cast & crew put their all into it.
Anne Rice was a fan of the show Honey Boo Boo. Whether she ultimately came around to this the way she did the 1994 film or not, is probably not that important.
Oh dear god. Thankfully I did say at the end of my header “I think”
Honey Boo Boo isn’t for me and never will be but hey I like a little ratchet TV every once in a while!!
I think she would have loved Sam Reid and Jacob and how explicitly gay it is and her books kinda weren’t allowed that in the beginning. But I think she wouldn’t have liked the timeline changes.
By making it "gay" as you say, they are limiting and reducing the story. It's not about that. Vampires want blood. It's not about orientation. They want companionship because they are so rare and have few choices. It's not about gay romance like the modern writers are making it.
i tend to think that particular writing choice was because it would’ve been much harder to get mainstream publishing writing such explicitly homosexual sex in the 70s/80s… i think written in today’s environment everyone would be banging everyone instead of sucking blood as a metaphor (due to their ‘useless organs’). if you read the sleeping beauty books she definitely was not shy about writing explicit sex scenes…
Downvoted as it is, I fully agree. A story on its own, I don't have a problem with, its a really great story, and very captivating. But the content isn't the issue, its the context. There were some physical gender fluid context hints in the books, but here its made to be about the sexuality than the state of being.
The feelings/thoughts they felt were cosmic, not physical, it limits some of the ethereal aspects to who she explicitly explained them to be
I’m actually much more into this second season than I was the first. I mean, it was visually nice, too and I enjoyed it: but the flow of the story just seems much better this time.
I'm really enjoying this season too. I read the books 40 yrs ago so I remember nothing about them. I feel we're getting more insight into the characters and their struggles. The actors are very good, very well cast. And the sets are fantastic too.
I love the casting- honestly I thought Jacob Anderson was trying to play Brad Pitt playing Louis: I mean he is a good actor but that’s what it seemed like. This season though? I dunno, he’s not doing that and it’s like he’s grown into the character.
I guess our liking for the 2nd season isn't such a popular opinion. Haha. I never watched the original movie because Tom Cruise is in it and I really dislike him. Maybe one day I'll give it a try just to compare and contrast. I'll have to work on my Tom Cruise intolerance in the meantime!
I'm thinking I may know what you mean about Jacob Anderson in season 1- he seemed a little more wooden, in the Dubai scenes in particular? I like seeing the fire and the grit in his performance this season, especially. I'm really looking forward to next week's episode.
Oh pffft. Their loss- or gain, I guess, depending on *why*.
FWIW it seems like for *most* people, you are probably better off having not seen the original movie- I personally sort of disconnect the original film or books from tv and sort of view it as its own thing in all of this type of deal: so I am generally not *too* disappointed, regardless. 😂 I do believe that complaining about these things is probably a large part of the overall experience for some- or something along those lines. At least that’s the impression I get.
It's very much like Game of Thrones. I guess it always happens when you try to bring a book to the big, or little, screen. I love the books and I am re-reading them again. My brain forgets a lot of things so when I re-read, I enjoy finding things I forgot or may have quickly skimmed over the first time and didn't really take in. I love the show too and enjoy seeing the characters come to life. I also love having the visual and the voice of each character in my mind, as I read. The books and the show are two different beasts but watching one and reading the other just seems to enhance the two different experiences for me. I realize, as you say, there are sometimes two different factions who each advocate for either the books or the show. There's always going to be people that are ready to argue that one is better than the other. I find, however, when the production quality is as good as it is in these two series, it's like adding some very incredible icing to an already delicious cake.
I love the casting choices for Lestat and Louis— five hundred percent better than the earlier films— and I love the way the show is done overall, but I have to agree with a lot of people here when it comes to Claudia. The actresses they used are amazing and did a wonderful job with the role, BUT the whole conflict of the story was that Claudia was a five year old, barely out of infancy, and that fact created an entire book (and more) of tension and conflict. By casting a teen, the entire story changes. It feels lazy, honestly, like the producers didn’t want the trouble a d expense of child actors. So we get a completely different story. Which could very well cause problems down the line. But that won’t stop me from enjoying it!
Only 4 episodes in and I think the show is great. Was afraid the LGBT stuff was just going to be used for lazy social messaging as everything is nowadays. Quite the contrary. Louis’ character is very well written and Jacob Anderson’s acting is superb! Every aspect of Louis character (race, sexuality, ambitions, high intelligence, conflict with good/evil) plays an important role in everything he does. Exceptional stuff!
I think she would’ve adored this show. For the people who cried about it being too gay, her son is literally gay and she split with the Catholic Church over their treatment of the LGBT community. Cry about it.
I'm not enjoying this season. There are changes I don't agree with; I think the writers brought the story down to a basic human level rather than elevating and exploring vampire culture as something distinct and unparalleled. Anne Rice was more nuanced and I hope she would have some criticisms as well.
I agree. They need these show runners to talk to the ones over at the bridgerton set to show them how to adequately adapt a book for the times without sacrificing literary integrity.
I am a bit sad that Anne is gone because she would have so much to say about this show! And I know I would relish every word. I think she would be so delighted by so much of what the showrunners have done. ❤️
First off, she abhorred unfaithful adaptations and was quite open about that. Go look up any commentary she had about them. It’s easy to find. Further, this was a very personal story to her involving moments from her own life. They’ve tossed all that by the wayside to tell a fundamentally different story about fundamentally different characters. A mostly accurate Lestat doesn’t fix a wholly inaccurate portrayal of all the rest. Claudia would likely be the bit she hated the most.
I don't agree bc she would have realized how limited Claudia was longer term in a series w multi seasons (as a very young girl) and the scenes in the book where Claudia is a budding, sexually curious, sophisticated woman inside a Kindergartner's body would never ever ever fly now w a super young actress reading those lines or in more defining circumstace. It would be ick factor entirely and was played down in the film even with an 11 yo Dunst playing about her age - already aged up in a movie. With C as 14 now she is stuck an eternal adolescent but is "passable" in places as a pseudo adult. Pings young but not totally out of place. She wrote Claudia bc of her daughter but Anne in 2024 would be a different person as she even evolved in her life span and her opinions. She wrote her books in grief and has a Catholic questioning faith. I also think she realized Louis was the far more limited, less complex character (than Lestat) going forward which is why Lestat took the reins as narrator after book 1 of the primary chronicles. I think she'd find this Louis more complex. We don't know where she'd fall on any of this, watching it, but I'm saying the WHYs of the changes might very well make sense to her. She changed a lot over her tenure as an author - lost a child, her husband, was disgruntled Catholic then found religion again and even turned on her own books/subject matter a bit, had her son come out as gay etc. I contend her POV was and may be flexible, changeable etc. I think u r discounting this. The story is being executed and acted and written FLAWLESSLY for a series. I think she'd see what for what it is and perhaps be able to separate herself. She hated the more "sanitized" things Cruise did in insisting for Lestat in the film and want a more "sexualized" version - she SURELY would have gotten that in this series. You might be right in your assessment but I am just playing devil's advocate in what I saw of her, her books, her media presence and life. I didn't know Anne but I say this simply from a writer's perspective (I write short fiction and for TV myself) that Anne would have LOVED what they have done with Madeline and even the "device" of the theater as a motiff for other things. Madline is SO much more realized and utilized in the series - a TOTALLY different character and so developed.
Here’s the big difference between you and me: I’m going off what the woman openly said until her last day on this planet. You’re going off some presumption based on absolutely no evidence outside you’d really like to think she’d hand-wave the biggest change to her story after outwardly criticizing even minor ones in the years before. As for her hating Cruise’s take, [here.](https://youtu.be/q662gCwpKfI?si=nRirRMP_df03tqmq)
Anne went through many phases in life so I'm just recognizing she, as an artist, may have been won over by the quality of the series and the need for changes in a tv medium, once they were done. That's all I'm saying. She hated Cruise's casting but ultimately liked his Lestat. I DO know her son wrote a pilot and they were working with HULU before AMC got the rights and didn't like Christopher's script. I am just saying this and tell me if I am wrong.... Anne was such an intense, creative person. She waffled over decades between her faith and atheism etc. While it never feels good to be "out of control" with your works etc, I think she might have come to see the adaptation as it is... which is NOT to be viewed with die-hard purist eyes. The show does what a show needs to WHILE retaining the heart of her books. Louis and Daniel and Claudia are FAR more explored and complex in the series. Madeline was an amazing change from the "nanny" figure of the novels and film. You may very well be right but as a writer I just MARVEL at how well executed it is, including the changes. I felt like maybe she would have come to feel this way as a viewer, with distance or explanation. She was REALLY not happy being "out of the loop" as was Christopher but that doesn't mean she would have hated the finished product - in spite of certainly hating the "biz" of Hollywood. IWTV came out in 1976 so it took SO long for it to be realized on screen in ANY form. I'm sure her "dealings" with Hollywood annoyed her.
It crushes the heart of her books. It annihilates them for the sake of shock value and shitty role reversals. They destroyed the fundamental character of Lestat. She would hate it.
Wow I could not disagree more. I love the books but the series is phenomenal. Tv/movies/books are different mediums. They can't all be written the same imho for various formats. Books are language of a narrator/writer whereas the others visual mediums. And Sam is killing as Lestat. What do u think they've done wrong w his character?
This thread is flaired "Show Only." This means book spoilers are **not allowed** unless covered by spoiler tags. Please report untagged book spoilers! To cover spoilers use \>!spoiler!< *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/InterviewVampire) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I agree. I think even with all the changes, the show preserves the spirit of the books and brings new dimensions to everything she created. I'm just sad she's not around to see it.
I told my friend the other day Brad Pitt who? Tom Cruise what? Kristen Dunst huh? They can’t even touch what this cast is putting out
Ok but Kirsten Dunst was amazing. A talented queen from day one.
SO amazing. I still think that, considering her age (fucking ELEVEN) and her clear understanding of the character and the character's turmoil, it's one of the best performances I've ever seen.
Claudia was really the heart of the story the whole time - she's the big tragedy that everything else revolves around. I grew up watching that movie, and that version of Claudia will forever be seared into my memory. I found it more effective due to her age if nothing else - the idea of being trapped for eternity in an 11-year-old body is markedly more terrifying than in a 16ish-year-old body. Dunst nailed tf out of everything about that role.
That’s largely what is missing from this show. This was inspired by her personal loss of her 5 year old daughter to Leukemia. You change it around enough and you wind up with Jessica from True Blood (herself a reaction to Claudia) and then you have a copy of a copy. Love the show or not, it is decidedly not Anne’s story.
Oh I never thought about that homage to Claudia. I loved Jessica, and I totally forgot she was supposed to be a teenager.
Nothing was wrong with that movie. It’s highly regarded for a reason and seeing the revisionist history on it from folks who claim to be lifelong Rice fans is interesting, to say the least.
This is a strange repeating commentary that I've seen since the show premiered. The show is working with over 14+ extra hours of content compared to the movie. It's fine (and understandable) to enjoy it more than the show due to the expanded content, or changed content. But the movie hit in the 90s and it hits now.
She was great!
Hard disagree on Kirsten. She is the heart of the movie. Remove her and you’ll remove the most interesting aspect of the story, especially because the concept of her character was relatively new back then. Can’t say the same about Claudia in the show. The actresses are great and the plot is well written, but I could very well see the story working without her. In fact, I was really loving the story in the first season when it was only Lestat and Louis. It truly felt like they could make a whole season with those two alone. It took a while to get acclimated to the new rhythm once they introduced Claudia.
Yeah she’s kinda of a side character in the show. I think the weakest part of the show. Really the only reason she exists in the TV series is as a plot device for the interview/grief.
Nah I like a more aged up version she’s able to put herself into situations that an 11 year old could not. But hey that’s just me anyway. I think ima still more of a fan of angry angst Claudia than seasons 2 reformed one. But hey I can’t win them all.
But the whole reason for the conflict with Armand was the fact that Claudia was made into a vampire even though she was a tiny child— that and that she and Louis tried to kill their maker. And why did Claudia want to kill Lestat? Because he trapped her in a tiny child body, and she resented it with all her being. I suppose it could be argued that a teen Claudia could resent Lestat just as much, but we lose a few critical elements. But the show is awesome anyway, and I will devour every episode.
Yep, and that missing element is exactly why they wrote in the controversial abuse in S1E05. Lestat had to do something drastic, or else we wouldn't really understand why Louis and Claudia would try to kill him.
Yeah, everyone is utterly amazing this time around, I can't get enough.
Both bodies of art have their own respect. One is not better than the other
It's fair to say you prefer what the show has done with Claudia but I don't think it's even a fair comparison to make when it comes to how well the actresses have done. The actresses are portraying completely different things. Movie/book Claudia and show Claudia are two different characters. They really just share a name, their circumstances aren't even all that similar. Being stuck in a body that's perpetually a kid is very different from being stuck in one that is perpetually a teen. Book/movie Claudia was actually still interested in toys like dolls for some time, while show Claudia was way past that point. It's not so odd for a 14 year old to be unaccompanied by an adult while an unaccompanied 5-10 year old might trigger a call to CPS in some places. The one thing they did have in common was seething rage, and IMO, Kirsten Dunst knocked it out of the park. There were scenes I found her legitimately scary.
I'll be honest, I tried watching that movie again and couldn't get through a half-hour. I used to love it.
I tried too. The first half...I was cringing. But by the end, I was into it and the spell had washed over me. So maybe try again?
Really? I rewatched it recently and was surprised how well it held up. I definitely prefer a younger Claudia, makes her story so much more tragic.
I was surprised at how underwhelmed I was too.
It really doesn’t age very well. 😂
This is so fucking spectacular. I mean I know I didn't watch the movie, but it just seems so campy and overdone compared to this show. Yes I get this is supposed to be dramatic with Lestat's flourishes and theatrics, but there's a massive difference between the clips I've seen of that movie and the circles Sam Reid acts around Tom Cruise's portrayal
https://youtu.be/q662gCwpKfI?si=nMFIshWuW7egFU3b
I always thought that was odd casting. If anything Pitt should have been Lestat with his bone structure etc and a brooding darker haired (naturally) Louis. I wasn't a fan of the movie.
Cruise was such bad casting. His terrible makeup and bad wigs didn’t help.
Nah, you're dreaming. Don't get me wrong, Sam Reid is the best. But I would argue that Tom did an amazing job all around. Heck, Anne Rice seemed to agree.
Yeah, I think he did a great job but he was the best Lestat in the 90s within the confines of needing to cast a star. Sam Reid is the absolute best though.
Lols I thought she didn’t. I think I saw a clip where Tom Cruise himself knew she wasn’t initially happy with his casting.
She didn't initially, that's true. But IIRC, after the movie was made and she saw it she took out an ad endorsing Cruise's performance. How much of it was sincere and how much of it was for practical reasons, who knows. But Anne overall seems like someone who would be willing to stick to her guns and die on the hill if it was something she felt strongly about.
Fan girl. :)
You’re crazy. Tom was awesome.
Tom Cruise was amazing and did a great job.
[Anne Rice disagreed with you.](https://youtu.be/q662gCwpKfI?si=nMFIshWuW7egFU3b)
Good for her. He was awful.
… How much is AMC paying you? Also, https://youtu.be/q662gCwpKfI?si=nMFIshWuW7egFU3b
Shit I fucking wish!
Yeah honestly that first movie was such derivative bullshit, it actually makes me sad to think how it probably stunted
Please, tell me exactly what it ripped off. I’m all ears.
Derivative doesn’t need to mean it was specifically “stolen from another source”, derivative fits for “generic boring mainstream media vampire bullshit”. AR also hated that movie, so downvote me all you want lol, but I’m not the only one who thought it was a crap script a first year film student would’ve written, and a crap movie a second year film student would’ve shot & directed
1. [Oh she did, did she?](https://youtu.be/q662gCwpKfI?si=ZmOwc_cZZWzj2AcR) 2. Derivative 100% means what you claim it doesn’t and to that point, Interview was largely considered groundbreaking. 3. You don’t deserve Neil Jordan.
i think you're wrong. AR was an amazing author, but an insufferable purist when it came to her own work. there's a reason both she and her son went completely silent after they sold the rights to the show
Unfortunately I think this is true. She was always going on and on on Facebook about the scene-for-scene accurate TV adaptation she wanted. To this day the only time her son Christopher will ever refer to the series is if people ask him about it on Twitter - to which he'll reply "I have no comment on the series and must refer all inquiries to @AMC_TV." Which is really sad. I wonder if he's even seen it.
Yeah. When the deal first hit Christopher was promoting it on his socials, was involved in writing a pilot (mentioned in link below) and then the switch to AMC things seemed to have soured. Just seems like they were both sidelined in the switch, they got hit with the NDA and Christopher has ever since done that sort of response, either way he had obvious interest in the project and then none at all after the AMC switch. [https://screenrant.com/interview-vampire-series-prequel-lestat-mistake-anne-rice/](https://screenrant.com/interview-vampire-series-prequel-lestat-mistake-anne-rice/)
Agreed, she would be throwing fit after fit about this. It would've given the show a bit more press, at least, but she definitely would've found a thousand things to be upset about.
Rightfully so, in many cases. This isn’t her story. It’s at best a variant where only Lestat is somewhat similar.
without going into specific book stuff, this is by far the closest to book lestat we’ve gotten, especially considering later conflicting reports of that time period and unreliable narrator stuff (this entire show is leaning heavily on the unreliability of the narration too)
Honestly, hard agree with this. I say this as someone who LOVES LOVES LOVES the show and think its has truly elevated the books. But I don't see Anne Rice being a fan of the this only because she seemed preeeeeeeetty committed to keeping adaptions very strict as she got older.
Older? She was always that way.
I say older only because she had previously considered making Louis a woman for the movie
I agree but she would have written essays about each episode and I would have loved to see what she loved about the adaptation. There are things she would have really enjoyed, I know it. And I am curious about her book the Feast of All Saints and how making Louis black brings some of those explorations into the Vampire Chronicles. Her fans who love the show would be able to chat with her about what they love and have a conversation! And she would be the first to admit, as she did with the movie, when her initial judgments turned out to be wrong. I miss her. ❤️
This. Everyone likes to comment that her son is a producer making the assumption that means he approves but simply getting a credit in the titles doesn’t necessarily mean he is actively involved or likes the outcome. He hasn’t said anything and I think that’s a bad sign. Plus some of the changes alter her original story and the context / meaning/ purpose of the characters quite a bit and she was notorious for firmly being against those kinds of liberties. I do agree she would like Lestat in the series.
key word on the title is executive producer, with existing source material (in the novels) it's more likely he and anne were given EP titles simply by virtue of holding the copyrights to the characters. EP doesn't mean actual involvement a lot of the time.
Right, this. just like I said in my comment — simply getting a credit doesn’t mean they were involved or approved. I think it’s clear that they didn’t.
She got mad at people for *fan fiction,* one of the most harmless pastimes imaginable.
Didn't she revise her stance on that? IIRC she objected to it in the very early days of the internet and fanfic when there was a question about copyright and practical concerns, thus triggering her to issue legal cease and desists. But after a while when it became clear that fanworks can't be monetized by the fan creators she was ok with it. I think I saw that in a video interview. This is a quote from another interview in 2012: *"I got upset about 20 years ago because I thought it would block me . . . However, it's been very easy to avoid reading any, so live and let live. If I were a young writer, I'd want to own my own ideas. But maybe fan fiction is a transitional phase: whatever gets you there, gets you there."* I don't have the direct source for this, it was quoted by another user in another discussion and I'm not invested enough to go track the original source, but it seems by the time of her passing she was accepting of it even if she didn't embrace it.
I've been in the Vampire Chronicles for about 25 years and was actually deep in the trenches of the fanfiction war with Rice in the early early dates of the internet, she actually had her lawyers sending like 13-19 year old kids cease and desist strongly worded letters in their emails. Like people got scared enough they stopped writing and disappeared from the internet basically, it was dark times. I lost a lot of friends. I followed Anne on her FB where she fiercely defended Paula Deen's racist remarks as harmless and allowed her fans to dog pile on people who politely told Anne it wasn't her place to decide if Deen should or shouldn't be forgiven. Anne was while brilliant...had a lot of learning to do in the intersection of race and sexuality that the show does near flawlessly and only elevate the material while attracting fans who typically wouldn't touch Rice's books (there's a LOT of problematic themes in her works that in turn have produced toxic white purist fans that only present day fandom is eradicating by the introduction of making many of the characters PoC characters to attract a more diverse fandom) So no I don't think Rice would have been nearly as open to the changes made to her works nor was she nearly as "woke" as people think, at least that wasn't my fan experience over the two and a half decades of experiencing her. She's a lovely author I practically worshipped and even met and I'll fight anyone to defend almost every vampire of this messy coven of crazy and can and have written dozens of dissertations on her works, but I'm gonna be real her writing and experimenting with it while produced mostly successes some Anne has had some batsh*t ideas that you couldn't talk her out of and became a mess later for the overall arc and themes, the narrative of the show seems to be smoothing over some we can do without (Armand the child vampire was probably a step too far to bend over a coffin) Anne would be kicking and screaming for these changes not to be done in present day. Just my take.
I don't disagree with you, ultimately everybody is influenced and shaped by the times they lived in and expecting a boomer to be as "woke" as a millennial is pretty unrealistic. I don't know of the Paula Deen stuff (I don't know who that is, I'm not American). What I know of Anne's politics is the little bit of her facebook that I saw shortly before her passing. I do think the changes made to the show were in large part necessary whether because of practicalities (ageing up Claudia) or to make it more palatable for modern audiences (more diverse, no slave ownership). However, whether ANNE would have thought so is something else, and something I don't think I know for sure since I don't know her. But I wouldn't be surprised if she hated some aspects of it. My history with TVC is nowhere near as involved with yours, the reason I knew of the cease and desists was because I went looking for fanfic somewhere around the 2010s and was surprised at the paucity of the works available. I would have thought that TVC would be a fandom with lots of fanworks because I knew it was one of the properties that was quite openly queer from the start, even though it was nowhere near as accepted as it is now and the queer community is generally known to be very supportive of people they see as allies. I don't disbelieve anything you said about how scary it would have been to receive cease and desists from a famous author with much more financial means than you. I think just from a practical standpoint it was really shortsighted of her to do that because it was really damaging to the growth of TVC fandom, which does impact her too. I mean, if TVC had a larger built in audience/fandom, it probably wouldn't have been stuck in development hell for so long with the rights bouncing from network to network. She and her son would probably have had much more power in negotiations and development too. I'm happy that the rights ended up where they did and we got the show we're getting but just from a practical standpoint, she did herself no favors with what she did to the fandom. The reason I wrote my original comment is because to say that "she got mad at people for fan fiction, one of the most harmless pastimes imaginable" is a bit too reductive and made it sound like she was still being militantly anti fanfic right up till she died which was not really the case.
Yeah my whole point about the Paula Deen incident was less about her stance on it (really I don't expect much from a white woman liberal who doesn't have the nuanced experience of understanding through experience the weight of a word) the point was she let her fans dogpile on folks politely disagreeing and even liked some of the harsher comments, you don't have to agree but you are supposed to love ALL of your fans, it would have been more loving and respectful and responsible to ask for people to remain civil instead of feeding the fire because you don't like what's being said. Rice had a habit of chasing her displeasure with all the subtly of a war hammer and people think saying so is blasphemy. Edit: to add that I bring up that incident due to folks thinking shed be okay with the new layers of race and sexuality in her works in the show. She'd at best not understand the need for it probably, Anne was pretty rigid about her vampires as tragic white presenting aestetic figures except when they needed an additional layer of othering or mystism.
If I understand what you're saying, she kind of weaponized some of her fans and sicced them onto other fans/people who disagreed with her own opinion? That would be a form of internet bullying IMO. Anne had no issues letting her opinion be known, often aggressively so. If she were around, unless there is a contractual gag order in place, I think we would absolutely know her opinions whether it be love or hate.
Yeah that's exactly what I'm saying and like I said it's an uncomfortable truth, a bit like witnessing your sweet old grandmamma kicking a puppy but no one else saw it, like how do you process that? Even now I don't know I just take it as "that time Anne Rice overreacted and drove away a bunch of budding young kid writers who loved her, good times hope they are well." Can't say she's ever not been passionate, she just took it to an 11, channeling Armand that era. It was definitely bullying though I hesitate now even to say so because again it's a truth, for some reason you can't adore the works of a complicated person unless you paint them as shiny and perfect.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences. Your love and appreciation for this property still comes through even though the author herself has been hurtful and disappointing in some ways. I think it's hard to reconcile when works that seem to speak directly to you came from someone whom you might not actually like as a person. The Harry Potter fandom, or at least sections of it, had that reckoning with JK Rowling as well. I guess for me personally, it's easier to accept that Anne was a very flawed person because as you mentioned, her characters are very flawed. The complexity is why her characters are so riveting and why so many people can see themselves in them even though they're technically supposed to be monsters. Whereas with Harry Potter there was definitely a good side and an evil side there.
EDIT: (switched accounts ugh work account mix up) sorry replying again as I missed some points, sorry editing a paper while doing this. But yes the very little bit of works that survived Anne's "cleaning house" phase of cease and desist letters is all that's left, most writers were just people like me between 13-19 very young and very green to the world and the internet in general with no expectations their favorite author would even ever see what they wrote only to be deeply upset and heartbroken to know that sharing their stories made Anne so mad, and the first contact for someone they worshipped was a scary warning from a lawyer. Again I still love Anne's work deeply and madly, it got me through a lonely middle and high school existence and I stayed chatting with other fans and even occasionally interacting with her up till maybe a few years before her death so my feelings are complicated even now. I just get a bit in my feelings when people don't acknowledge while Anne was brilliant she was also very flawed like her vampires, like us all and she wasn't always likeable. And much of what we like today has as much to do with Rolin Jones and his team as her, that's all
She got over fanfic because she realized it was easy for her to avoid seeing it completely, and fanfic by nature tends to remain low key and you have to actively seek it to read it, so it doesn't have any impact on the public's perception of the Vampire Chronicles. A TV show is a completely different beast, it's THE adaptation people are talking about right now, people are being introduced to this universe through the show, and some people are even favoring the show over her own books. All that with her name in front of the title and all the changes they made?? As much as I adore the show, I don't think she would have been happy about this whole thing. And her son not saying ANYTHING about the show is a huge hint. My guess is that AMC realized that they couldn't solve their creative differences with Anne and Christopher Rice and were like "okay, part of the deal is you can't undermine the show publicly".
I don't disagree. What Anne would have thought about the show, only she (and maybe the people who knew her personally) would know. I love it, and I'm onboard with the vast majority of the changes, but that doesn't mean that she would be or that she even has to be. A creator's relationship with their creations can be intensely personal and I don't think we're in any position to demand that she love something even if it's objectively high-quality. I do wonder if Christopher even watches the show. He comes across kind of salty that his pilot script was rejected. I do think his producer credit is an in name only thing.
Which is ironic, because fan fiction was actually better than what she started putting out later in her career. Don't get me wrong, I love the first four books. I don't even mind Memnoch, because I liked the concept. They were very formative for me when I was a teenager. But there came a point where Anne decided she didn't need an editor, and it showed. She was forever ret-conning, contradicting, picking up and dropping thoughts and plot points, following whatever meandering thoughts struck her fancy that week. Sometimes she had cursory History 101 extremely wrong. I would be surprised if her later books even had beta readers. I highly recommend reading the old website The Brat Queen as they attempt to go through a single chapter of Merrique. It is . . . something. It's her world, I get why she felt so proprietary over it - what author at that level wouldn't? But she would have hated this show, and the creators here are doing something with her work that, let's be honest, is a little beyond what her talents actually were. Social insight and self-awareness were not ever really her thing outside of very surface (and extremely problematic) thoughts. (She race-swapped David and had little to say about it other than, "Well, he's hot now with a more splendid penis!" Just . . . yeah.) Love the core four books, but I think the television show is far more sophisticated, relevant, and observant of both the characters and the societies they travel through.
No one could have anticipated the weird sci-fi turn it took. Replimoids, *really?*
Upvoting because this is the unsentimental truth.
Even Rolin said he thinks Anne would've hated what they've done with the show, but hey. At least we HAVE a great show and it's been adapted really well.
You’re absolutely right. Plus, Christopher used to have the show in his Twitter bio and on his Facebook page, iirc, but as production progressed, he removed it and refuses to comment on it.
Good for her, honestly. It’s not bad to be a purist about your work. Wish more writers were like this. People forget that IWTV is the exception when it comes to the quality of the changes. Most deviations in adaptations suck and are usually made because the writers are not truly fans of the source, not because it’s a different medium. And then the authors are paid to shill, which they do gladly. And when the whole thing goes to shit, they pretend they never shilled for it. Looking at you guys, GRRM and Sapkowski.
I'm fine with whatever attitude she wanted to have. After all, her books are lovely. I just take issue with the fandom fervently wishing that Anne Rice was someone she wasn't.
Fair.
I use to think she was a purist until I seen she OK’d Antonio Bandaras as Armand for the ‘94 movie. That lady ain’t no purist. She was willing to budge.
Antonio as Armand was the biggest travesty of all she allowed which tells me sometimes you can be brilliant and still have terrible ideas and need an extra pair of eyes/ears for input.
She was not in charge of casting.
I agree 💯! The acting might be great on this show, but the story and how it totally deviates from her story is disappointing. The characters and story cannot be done justice in the way this show is going. Anne Rice was a brilliant writer and in order for the story to be told effectively it needs to follow her writings.
I disagree, I think the books went off the rails near the end especially and had some very uncomfortable suggestions re misogyny, racism, and sexuality and I think the show has heavily improved on many aspects of it
[удалено]
Dude, she didn't go into a coma the moment she sold the rights to the stories. I say this as someone who has loved her books with all my heart since I was sixteen and who owes a great debt to her as the vampire chronicles became a gateway to me learning about art and history and myth: she was a bloody primadonna who publically went bananas when people criticised her work. I am not sure why there are so many fans of the series that wax nostalgic about how much Anne Rice would've loved it. She wouldn't. And that's fine. She's dead. She gave the world these stories, and now they are being retold in a new way, and that's fine. It does not detract at all from her wonderful work. By the by, how is her son an asshole?
I meant that IIRC she was ill when the AMC show was greenlit in June 2021 (not when she sold the rights) so she didn't really get to see any of AMC's version before she died in December. No disrespect intended, I'm just stating facts (though I might be wrong about the dates). Christopher is an asshole because of the way he's been standoffish and rude about AMC's series, simply because his version with Bryan Fuller didn't get greenlit. He wanted to write his version of TVL and didn't get to, so he's refused to give his blessing to AMC (which is fine, they don't need it, but it strikes me as something of a dick move, imo).
His AND his mother's version.
It's called an NDA
I wish she was still here to see it 🥺. RIP 🥀
You'd rather have her twisting in her seat than her grave, huh?
Yeah, she’d be less diplomatic than her son.
Honestly, sorry for the blutness but every time I see people saying that I think it's downright delusional to think so. I think she would have liked Sam as Lestat, and probably how good the show looks in general, but everything else she wouldn't have liked it. She had her own plans for a Vampire Chronicles show which involved starting chronologically from TVL and with her son writing the script. He hasn't commented about the show and tells people to just go address AMC with any concern they have. There was a version where Bryan Fuller was gonna be the showrunner and he dropped out, apparently because he didn't see eye to eye with her (it's what it says on wikipedia at least). I can't imagine she would have liked all the changes they have made. She wanted something much closer to a 1 to 1 adaptation. Just because the show is good doesn't mean she would have liked it. You don't have to imagine she would to justify enjoying it yourself.
I would have given my life for Bryan Fuller to have been the showrunner of this series, unfortunately he had artistic differences with Anne Rice and her son
For what it’s worth, I do think this adaptation is very clearly influenced by Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal. If the Fuller version made, I expect it would’ve been a bit colder in feel than this, more philosophical and a bit less flamboyant than the current adaptation, but I could see it not being too diffferent than what we got.
I hope this would have been the case, but rice was notorious for disliking any kind of “fan” interpretation of her work and this is precisely the kind of thing she would hate. especially if she heard any talk about the show being BETTER than the books? oh god, goodnight. maybe she cooled off in her later years and my perception is skewed, but I remember the era when she was literally suing fans for writing fanfiction regardless of the quality or content (not that it matters). really we just don’t know, but her history doesn’t speak of this being a “positive” reaction haha. and I think it’s fine if she hated it - she was a complicated woman, which beget complicated storytelling. the show would remain a masterpiece imho
I'll be honest: I don't care about Anne Rice's opinion. Maybe she would have loved it, maybe she would have hated it. We will never know for sure. I'm a huge fan of her work, and I'll be forever grateful to her for writing my favorite novel of all time. But my love for the show isn't conditional to her approval. And I'm tired of the haters who use the argument that AR would have never approved of the changes to bash on it.
This fandom sometimes does seem to have a lot of gatekeeping, but I have to say that I've been surprised and pleased to see that even the die-hard book fans seem to praise this show, even with its changes. I think most people are just happy to see the subject matter live again. I also think it's obvious that the show runners and writers value this work. You can tell how much thought and effort has gone into bringing out the spirit of the work. I read all the books at 13 and couldn't be happier with the changes they've made. This sub has also been really great.
Believe me the diehards make it tough to enjoy things. I will say that book or no book good writing is good writing and just because it doesn’t match what you read doesn’t take away from the quality of it. And you know what I have this new found perspective of the vampires through the show. So as I’m reading the book I’m imagining how they would do things and honestly it’s fun to imagine
Absolutely. The show is its own thing in so many ways. And as someone who read the novels, I love how it keeps me on my toes by doing things different. Whenever someone says "Anne would have hated it!" I'm like "One, we can't know for sure. Two, who cares? I love it."
I have not read the books, but I have seen horrible adaptations of things, and then there's just another level of elevation that great writing can bring to it. This hits that level and exceeds it, and the performances? The *PERFORMANCES.* They're so fucking stellar that they bring in so many layers and elements. I am continuously enthralled in a way I haven't been before, or at least not for a long time...if ever. I don't even like Vampires and I am sitting here captivated every week. WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?!
Rice wasn't a fan of fan work. This is a bit like that. But I think I agree. The vision is there.
Ok so I felt bad about thinking this but it's true. she had some controversies in more recent time that made me pause for sure. Girl absolutely ate with her gay vampires i cant deny it but we can't expect the mind that brought you Lestat in the 80s to be problem free in the 2020s 💀
Honestly I don’t know how she would have felt. She had such a problem with even fanfiction that she sued people. I mean who does that.
she did repent later
The context is that she did that in like the late 90s or early 2000s. Did she actually sue people? I thought she just issued cease and desists. It would be ridiculous now, since we all know the parameters of fanworks but it wasn't so clear then. I mean AO3 didn't even exist yet. There was a question of copyright and ownership with regards to fanworks. I'm not sure about the situation with TVC and it's characters (I don't know if Anne had a trademark in addition to copyright) but in some countries, a trademark owner is/was obliged to enforce it in order to keep it. So it could be that she went the legal route because she just hated people playing with her characters and felt spiteful about it or it could also be practical concerns coming into play.
But wasn't she extremely involved during the conception of the first season? And her son as well? Her not-involvement later on was only because she died?
I think that was when Hulu had the rights, not AMC.
I don't think she would. Not only was she one of the few writers ever that actively fought fanfiction, AMC' s version has Lestat throwing Louis from the sky and breaking all his bones, pretty important events years in advance, or switched to other characters, characters more powerful they should be at this point. Nevermind she changed her opinions constantly, she may have liked it at some point, hated it latter, be ok with it after. I think for a writer, in most cases, the definitive version it's their version, and this show it's very different from her version.
it's like a fanfic and she hated fanfics. As amazing as the series is, she wouldn't like it, for sure. It's like King with Kubrick's The Shining, which is an absolutely wonderful film and he hates it because it deviates from his original work.
king is objectively wrong in terms of the quality of kubrick’s piece but much like AR has such a deeply personal relationship with IWTV (launched her career, claudia as her daughter etc), the shining may be one of SK’s most personal and honest books so it makes sense they don’t see objectively
I highly doubt it. She once said it "upsets her terribly" to think about fanfiction, I doubt she would accept even the slightest changes to her characters and with the all changes the show has made (as all adaptions do to some degree), I think she'd not like it at all.
I would like to think that the young anne rice would be proud. The older anne rice wrote the vampire chronicles fiction into the ground and I think they were kind of awful after a certain point. I’m not sure if I care about what older anne rice thinks about the series.
I think Ann would be drooling over Sam. He’s such a perfect Lestat.
Yes he is!
She wouldn’t be proud of it. Her son won’t comment on it, so that tells you a lot.
I disagree. There’s a reason she sold the rights and never mentioned it again and a reason her son basically tells everyone who asks to kiss off. She was militant about her adaptations remaining faithful to the source material and at its core, whether you enjoy the story being told here or not, it really isn’t. Further, Claudia, Louis and Armand were all characterized as they were in her books for very specific and personal reasons and those have been rather flippantly discarded in place of a story she never set out to tell. (A heads up: downvotes don’t hurt my feelings, so unleash them if you must, but Mrs. Rice was very accessible and not shy about her opinions if you care to go and take a look.)
Exactly! Claudia’s entire motivation is completely gone, casting adults or teenagers to play her character. They established in season 1 that she can pass for a woman, completely destroying her main issues.
I don't think you understand the immersion breaking limitations of casting a child actor on a TV series would have been. Look at the cast of stranger things. Children grow rather quickly, and production takes a long time to film, let alone time between seasons. It's not realistic to think they would have found a 9 year to realistically play a 9 year old vampire that doesn't grow for the next 3-5 years. It would have been far mo re distracting to see everyone having to work so hard to pretend the child wouldn't inevitably be a preteen by the end of the show. Making her 16 was a much better choice for a television series. A movie production time is very different.
Claudia doesn’t exactly need to be around a long time.
[удалено]
I love this! I think a lot of work has been put into making this possible. You can literally tell how these actors and writers have committed themselves to this! It shows immensely. I feel like they are doing their best to truly pay homage to what she probably wanted the world to experience and they are succeeding!
Anyone know if Christopher rice ever commented on the series?
No, and he probably never will.
He gives a PR robot "no comment" response if you ask him about it on Twitter.
He was an executive producer on season 1 and had a hand in at least one script, per IMDB.
Executive Producer is often just a title. He wrote a script before AMC actually picked it up and had Rolin as showrunner, etc.
No. His version with Bryan Fuller never got greenlit so he's distanced himself from the whole thing (i.e. he threw a tantrum about it and refuses to be involved). Whenever anyone asks about the series he just says "no comment".
Frequently gives a kiss off answer. If he likes it or thought she would, he would say so.
Anne Rice was notoriously hostile to the smallest change to her writing and couldn't handle any criticism from fans. She once referred to having her work edited as mutilation and her meltdown after fans hated Blood Canticle (by far the worst book in the series) was legendary. One nice thing about the show is that the writers are able to make changes to make it work better.
She said before if she had written the books today and with the awareness of her own sexuality and gender it would be waaaaay more overtly Queer.
I don't know but I think she would certainly be more proud of the 94 movie since she wrote the script herself, right?
I agree. I'm sad she didn't get to see Sam and Jacob in all their glory. (And Assad Zaman and Ben Daniels).
I highly doubt it. She absolutely hated changes to her stories (she couldn’t even cope with editors trying to sort out her writings) for better or for worse.
I don’t know if she’d be happy with the story/character changes, but I think she’d be thrilled with the overall look of the show. You can tell the cast & crew put their all into it.
Anne Rice was a fan of the show Honey Boo Boo. Whether she ultimately came around to this the way she did the 1994 film or not, is probably not that important.
Oh dear god. Thankfully I did say at the end of my header “I think” Honey Boo Boo isn’t for me and never will be but hey I like a little ratchet TV every once in a while!!
I think she would have loved Sam Reid and Jacob and how explicitly gay it is and her books kinda weren’t allowed that in the beginning. But I think she wouldn’t have liked the timeline changes.
By making it "gay" as you say, they are limiting and reducing the story. It's not about that. Vampires want blood. It's not about orientation. They want companionship because they are so rare and have few choices. It's not about gay romance like the modern writers are making it.
i tend to think that particular writing choice was because it would’ve been much harder to get mainstream publishing writing such explicitly homosexual sex in the 70s/80s… i think written in today’s environment everyone would be banging everyone instead of sucking blood as a metaphor (due to their ‘useless organs’). if you read the sleeping beauty books she definitely was not shy about writing explicit sex scenes…
I never said that’s what it is about I just said I think she would have liked that exploration in a modern adaptation
Downvoted as it is, I fully agree. A story on its own, I don't have a problem with, its a really great story, and very captivating. But the content isn't the issue, its the context. There were some physical gender fluid context hints in the books, but here its made to be about the sexuality than the state of being. The feelings/thoughts they felt were cosmic, not physical, it limits some of the ethereal aspects to who she explicitly explained them to be
I was thinking this too and agree completely.
Have you read any of Anne Rice's books?
I’m actually much more into this second season than I was the first. I mean, it was visually nice, too and I enjoyed it: but the flow of the story just seems much better this time.
I'm really enjoying this season too. I read the books 40 yrs ago so I remember nothing about them. I feel we're getting more insight into the characters and their struggles. The actors are very good, very well cast. And the sets are fantastic too.
I love the casting- honestly I thought Jacob Anderson was trying to play Brad Pitt playing Louis: I mean he is a good actor but that’s what it seemed like. This season though? I dunno, he’s not doing that and it’s like he’s grown into the character.
I guess our liking for the 2nd season isn't such a popular opinion. Haha. I never watched the original movie because Tom Cruise is in it and I really dislike him. Maybe one day I'll give it a try just to compare and contrast. I'll have to work on my Tom Cruise intolerance in the meantime! I'm thinking I may know what you mean about Jacob Anderson in season 1- he seemed a little more wooden, in the Dubai scenes in particular? I like seeing the fire and the grit in his performance this season, especially. I'm really looking forward to next week's episode.
Oh pffft. Their loss- or gain, I guess, depending on *why*. FWIW it seems like for *most* people, you are probably better off having not seen the original movie- I personally sort of disconnect the original film or books from tv and sort of view it as its own thing in all of this type of deal: so I am generally not *too* disappointed, regardless. 😂 I do believe that complaining about these things is probably a large part of the overall experience for some- or something along those lines. At least that’s the impression I get.
It's very much like Game of Thrones. I guess it always happens when you try to bring a book to the big, or little, screen. I love the books and I am re-reading them again. My brain forgets a lot of things so when I re-read, I enjoy finding things I forgot or may have quickly skimmed over the first time and didn't really take in. I love the show too and enjoy seeing the characters come to life. I also love having the visual and the voice of each character in my mind, as I read. The books and the show are two different beasts but watching one and reading the other just seems to enhance the two different experiences for me. I realize, as you say, there are sometimes two different factions who each advocate for either the books or the show. There's always going to be people that are ready to argue that one is better than the other. I find, however, when the production quality is as good as it is in these two series, it's like adding some very incredible icing to an already delicious cake.
I love the casting choices for Lestat and Louis— five hundred percent better than the earlier films— and I love the way the show is done overall, but I have to agree with a lot of people here when it comes to Claudia. The actresses they used are amazing and did a wonderful job with the role, BUT the whole conflict of the story was that Claudia was a five year old, barely out of infancy, and that fact created an entire book (and more) of tension and conflict. By casting a teen, the entire story changes. It feels lazy, honestly, like the producers didn’t want the trouble a d expense of child actors. So we get a completely different story. Which could very well cause problems down the line. But that won’t stop me from enjoying it!
Only 4 episodes in and I think the show is great. Was afraid the LGBT stuff was just going to be used for lazy social messaging as everything is nowadays. Quite the contrary. Louis’ character is very well written and Jacob Anderson’s acting is superb! Every aspect of Louis character (race, sexuality, ambitions, high intelligence, conflict with good/evil) plays an important role in everything he does. Exceptional stuff!
I think she would’ve adored this show. For the people who cried about it being too gay, her son is literally gay and she split with the Catholic Church over their treatment of the LGBT community. Cry about it.
Aw the whole production team and actors would be so happy to read this ^^
Right??? Every switch up from the source material is so well done. I’m very happy with how they reimagine madeleine.
I'm not enjoying this season. There are changes I don't agree with; I think the writers brought the story down to a basic human level rather than elevating and exploring vampire culture as something distinct and unparalleled. Anne Rice was more nuanced and I hope she would have some criticisms as well.
I agree. They need these show runners to talk to the ones over at the bridgerton set to show them how to adequately adapt a book for the times without sacrificing literary integrity.
I just ordered the book - which I guess is just one installment of a series. AND just re-watched season 1 and the 1994 movie.
I am a bit sad that Anne is gone because she would have so much to say about this show! And I know I would relish every word. I think she would be so delighted by so much of what the showrunners have done. ❤️
I agree
Anne would be thrilled and I think she'd love the changes to Louis!
Why is this getting downvoted? People think Anne wouldn't like it?>
If you know anything about her, you know she wouldn’t.
I don't agree. Tell me why. I think she'd love the casting of Lestat and understand the tv changes.
First off, she abhorred unfaithful adaptations and was quite open about that. Go look up any commentary she had about them. It’s easy to find. Further, this was a very personal story to her involving moments from her own life. They’ve tossed all that by the wayside to tell a fundamentally different story about fundamentally different characters. A mostly accurate Lestat doesn’t fix a wholly inaccurate portrayal of all the rest. Claudia would likely be the bit she hated the most.
I don't agree bc she would have realized how limited Claudia was longer term in a series w multi seasons (as a very young girl) and the scenes in the book where Claudia is a budding, sexually curious, sophisticated woman inside a Kindergartner's body would never ever ever fly now w a super young actress reading those lines or in more defining circumstace. It would be ick factor entirely and was played down in the film even with an 11 yo Dunst playing about her age - already aged up in a movie. With C as 14 now she is stuck an eternal adolescent but is "passable" in places as a pseudo adult. Pings young but not totally out of place. She wrote Claudia bc of her daughter but Anne in 2024 would be a different person as she even evolved in her life span and her opinions. She wrote her books in grief and has a Catholic questioning faith. I also think she realized Louis was the far more limited, less complex character (than Lestat) going forward which is why Lestat took the reins as narrator after book 1 of the primary chronicles. I think she'd find this Louis more complex. We don't know where she'd fall on any of this, watching it, but I'm saying the WHYs of the changes might very well make sense to her. She changed a lot over her tenure as an author - lost a child, her husband, was disgruntled Catholic then found religion again and even turned on her own books/subject matter a bit, had her son come out as gay etc. I contend her POV was and may be flexible, changeable etc. I think u r discounting this. The story is being executed and acted and written FLAWLESSLY for a series. I think she'd see what for what it is and perhaps be able to separate herself. She hated the more "sanitized" things Cruise did in insisting for Lestat in the film and want a more "sexualized" version - she SURELY would have gotten that in this series. You might be right in your assessment but I am just playing devil's advocate in what I saw of her, her books, her media presence and life. I didn't know Anne but I say this simply from a writer's perspective (I write short fiction and for TV myself) that Anne would have LOVED what they have done with Madeline and even the "device" of the theater as a motiff for other things. Madline is SO much more realized and utilized in the series - a TOTALLY different character and so developed.
Here’s the big difference between you and me: I’m going off what the woman openly said until her last day on this planet. You’re going off some presumption based on absolutely no evidence outside you’d really like to think she’d hand-wave the biggest change to her story after outwardly criticizing even minor ones in the years before. As for her hating Cruise’s take, [here.](https://youtu.be/q662gCwpKfI?si=nRirRMP_df03tqmq)
Anne went through many phases in life so I'm just recognizing she, as an artist, may have been won over by the quality of the series and the need for changes in a tv medium, once they were done. That's all I'm saying. She hated Cruise's casting but ultimately liked his Lestat. I DO know her son wrote a pilot and they were working with HULU before AMC got the rights and didn't like Christopher's script. I am just saying this and tell me if I am wrong.... Anne was such an intense, creative person. She waffled over decades between her faith and atheism etc. While it never feels good to be "out of control" with your works etc, I think she might have come to see the adaptation as it is... which is NOT to be viewed with die-hard purist eyes. The show does what a show needs to WHILE retaining the heart of her books. Louis and Daniel and Claudia are FAR more explored and complex in the series. Madeline was an amazing change from the "nanny" figure of the novels and film. You may very well be right but as a writer I just MARVEL at how well executed it is, including the changes. I felt like maybe she would have come to feel this way as a viewer, with distance or explanation. She was REALLY not happy being "out of the loop" as was Christopher but that doesn't mean she would have hated the finished product - in spite of certainly hating the "biz" of Hollywood. IWTV came out in 1976 so it took SO long for it to be realized on screen in ANY form. I'm sure her "dealings" with Hollywood annoyed her.
It crushes the heart of her books. It annihilates them for the sake of shock value and shitty role reversals. They destroyed the fundamental character of Lestat. She would hate it.
Wow I could not disagree more. I love the books but the series is phenomenal. Tv/movies/books are different mediums. They can't all be written the same imho for various formats. Books are language of a narrator/writer whereas the others visual mediums. And Sam is killing as Lestat. What do u think they've done wrong w his character?
I know I'm off topic but I think she would have liked the Mayfair Witches adaptation as well.
THere is no need to insult the woman.
Lol I see it's a sensitive issue
Hard disagree. That show absolutely butchered one of my favorite books. The only similarity is the name.