Dracula Untold and The Mummy 2017 are actually the same movie. Instead of accepting Evans success with Dracula Untold WB decided to retell the story with Tom Cruise to kick off the Monsterverse with a more famous actor but the same... and failed. In this essay i will...
Period Drama Appreciation Week 2024
Day: 4 Favorite Relationship
Vlad & Mirena (Mina) in Dracula Untold
I watched Dracula Untold last night, I had been meaning to for months but only got round to it when I saw it on Netflix. But it made me question, and there might be some answer to this, but I don't know, so, if you are turned into a vampire at an old age, say 83, or something, do you think you will forever have knee or hip or back problems? Or does that just magically disappear? I wouldn't think that you got younger, like you can't age as a vampire if you are expected to live for the rest of eternity (if done properly), I guess you could but that would take centuries. But can you imagine being turned, probably by accident, at that area of age and forever having those problems?
Which leads me to my next question, of why do some people think Dracula is old and sometimes ugly? He was 45 when he was turned in 1476, which means he would still look middle age in the mid 1800s, I know that life expectations were little back then, but surely he wouldn't look entirely old.
The whole thing confuses me. But it is a nice debate to have, bearing in mind that these are just my stupid thoughts.
But in the book Dracula de-ages when he drinks blood. So I think you will not be a super duper young men again, but definitely not suffer from hip or back
Mirenas white dress from Dracula Untold designed by Ngila Dickson
In Germany Dracula Untold is Top 7 today
No clue why but that’s what this movie deserves ☺️
But the audacity of this movie showing the skull of a vampire when they ereased Dracula untold out of the Dark Universe canon, so Tom Cruise can kick off the cinamtic universe
Sometimes the world no longer needs a hero. Sometimes what it needs is a monster. DRACULA UNTOLD (2014) dir. Gary Shore
Omg! He is clinging to a tiny red ring the whole time, even after he is turned
The Silver ring is his last connection to his former life, reminding him of humanity and it contains a tiny bit of RED!
I will update that tomorrow 😳
How the change of colors represents Vlads and Mirenas journey through out the movie (Spoilers for the movie of course)
Colors are extremly important in Dracula Untold and they are not only used to look fancy. Everything in this movie centers around three main colors: Black, white and red
Red symbolizes blood, but in a positiv way. Red means: Being alive, being full of life. Black symbolizes the darkness. White symbolizes purity, but also death. No really deep, I have to admit, but the interesting bit is how those colors are used throughout the movie and how Red is the connecting element between Black and White
Let me explain it to you.
This movie starts with a blood red sky. Symbolizing Vlads bloody past, but also indiacting that Red is his color. (Also keep in mind how warm the colors look here. That will be important later on)
Same goes the following scenes. he is dressed entierly in red. A warm gentle red. And he is surronded by warm red colors. (But already notice how he is always dressed in: red + black.)
And also his wife is dressed in the same red. Because she and Vlad share the same life, the same human (!) life and of course love. So it is just logical they are both dressed in Red. It is a little bit hard to see here but Mierna wears red + white. (Also pay attention to how the warm colors are slowly vanishing).
After Dracula makes the decision to be turned we see the coat one last time. Dramatic and it looks like it is flying away from him. And again it is red + black.
After that scene we never see him in his red coat ever again. The red, symbolizing life, is gone, completly, from one moment to the next. From here on, he never wears anything red ever again. We only see him dressed in black from now on. Showing that he isn't human anymore. Belonging completly to the darkness. (Sorry, the movie also looses every color from here on and it was so hard to find scenes where you see that he dressed in all-black).
And now the most interesting bit. His wife is still dressed in red. The same red she is wearing from the beginning onwards, the same red her husband wore before he was turned. because she is still full of life. (Red + white).
But then her story slowly comes to an end. She isn't suddenly killed like Vlad, instead she is slowly drained off life. In her finale scene she is wearing an all white dress. Only inside the sleeves we can see a strong red color, symbolizing being full of life.
But when you look closer that sleeves are not completly red anymore, the red starts to vanish. Aka she moves closer to her death. She leaves her life (red) behind to join the light and purity, aka death (white).
And shortly before Vlad dies, even his extremly red uniform is now black. It only turns red again, shortly before he "dies", and only for a really short moment. because for a short moemnt he is human again, for this short moment he had found peace (i refuse to take a screenhot of this extremly ugly CGI scene).
And then Vlad and Mirena meet again in present time. In front of red and white flowers, the same folowers that surronded them during their first meeting in the garden (deleted scene).
And now Mirena is completly dressed in white and him completly in black. All red is gone.
He has become one with the darkness and she has become a true bride of darkness. She is pure, and she is the light in the darkness and she is a bride. But all red is gone. Because they both died. The life is vanished from both of them. They are both shadows of their former selves, altered, something new. They will never be able to return their former life’s (red).
TL.DR: The symbolism of Red/White/Black is not really deep, but it is consistent and used in a really clever way. One i haven't seen often in other movies yet. The production team really put a second thought into it. The color red is extremely important for Vlads journey.
Bonus:
Them having their finale meeting in front of a HUGE ASS DRAGON picture. The same dragon that was on Vlads uniform!
Actually the dream was, a johnlock/Ineffable Husbands crossover AU dream
Azi (who was also BBC john Watson) joined an evil Buddhistic monk religion. He got more and more evil, constantly reading their „Bible“.
Crowley was good instead. And both couldn’t remember that once the roles where Switched. Instead Azi tried to hunt Crowley down. When Azi found Crowley, Azi said something… idk what exactly… but suddenly Crowley remembered that the roles should be Switched.
And slowly he was turning into a demon again, short hair, red leather jacket, sunglasses. And he grabbed Azi wrist and whispered: „I forgive you“ and then started sucking Azis blood, to suck all the poison of evil out of Azi, and right into himself
So slowly Azi was turned an angel again and Crowley turned into a demon again, taking up all evil inside him
Yeah that’s the result it watching Dracula untold and Good Omens back to back
Mirenas white dress from Dracula Untold designed by Ngila Dickson
*rocking forward and back* Its nearly midnight, i do not need to write a meta on the color concept of Dracula Untold. Its nearly midnight. Its nearly midnight
I honestly love the color concept in Dracula untold so much
Sure it is not groundbreaking but I love that the visual department sat down and said: okay. What colors are representation the character and his journey?“ black, red and white
And then they sticked to that and showed how he is slowly transforming
It’s especially amazingly shown with his wife. In the beginning both Dracula and Mirena are dressed in red. But after Dracula is turned into a vampire he looses all his red, until he is dressed in all black
While Mierna looses all red, until she is only dressed in white during her finale scene, with still little bits of red, inside the dress, showing she slowly is drained of life. They are both drained of life but in opposite directions, him into the darkness, her into the light
and when they finally meet he is dressed completly in black, and she is dressed completly in white
and OMG, i just noticed now that when they meet in modern times again, they meet in front of white and red roses, in front of a huge ass painting of a dragon
I honestly need to write a meta on that!
Still think that it is super unfair that Dracula untold never got a second part just because Tom Cruises Mummy flopped.
Dracula untold was super successful, it shouldn’t feel the consequences of The Mummy 2017 failing
Realizing once again most of my posts make very little sense to people who do not follow me
Because i only has one thought - while making my spoilery ask - and this thought was stuck at the very gay blood sucking scene in Dracula untold 😬 that actual book Dracula adaptations exists was completely beyond my gremlin brain at this point. never gonna be free of this movie honestly
A happy Vlad
