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Castlevania Renewed for Second Season on Netflix, Episodes Doubled

R

RetroGameAudio

Neo Member
There's a very specific reason this first season was only 4 episodes (and also why the second season will be 8 episodes). It wasn't a test run, they're following Warren Ellis' original plan from 10 years ago. Well, slightly modified...

It was originally meant to be a trilogy of films about Castlevania 3. Season 1 was simply the first movie, and season 2 will be parts two and three, which is why it's double the length.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080706142130/http://castlevaniadraculascurse.com/page/2/
Why a trilogy?

I spent a month or more pacing around the central problem of this film. Which is the format. 80 minutes. I knew, coming on board, that this was the format, and I liked it, because it was a technical challenge. But Kevin knew, when I came on board, that I wanted to write a film, not some by-the-numbers videogame adaptation. I wanted it to have some depth to it...

So what, in real terms, does an 80-minute runtime mean? It's a third of THE GODFATHER II. Half a SPIDER-MAN 3. The shortest cut of Woo's THE KILLER is still a hundred minutes or so. It's a hair under two episodes of a standard American network tv drama.

That's not a whole hell of a lot. And while I could have gone balls-out and crammed the beats of the source material into the film, going from introducing Trevor to beating Dracula inside 80 minutes... I don't think it would have made a very good film. In fact, what I found was that stopping a third of the way in, while obviously not telling the entire story within the source material, actually made a better film. Trevor to Sypha to Alucard carries a solid classical three-act structure, in fact, with actual resolution at the end. It's a self-contained film. The film obviously has the intention of a sequel, but doesn't require it to be a whole thing: it resolves its own plots and themes.

A trilogy lets us address the entirety of the source material, the uberplot. Each third of the source material has its own three-part structure lurking inside it.
Click to expand...

edit: Ananaz already touched on this-
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=242904270&postcount=160
 
cripterion

cripterion

Member
Just watched this yesterday I thought it was pretty boring. Not what I imagined it would be.

Also, English VA sucks.
 
A

Ahasverus

Member
jsnepo said:
Yup. Same here.
Click to expand...
I watched it in Spanish and wondered what was the criticism about the voice acting about. Switched to English for a minute.. yep, it's not good. The Spanish dub is God tier though.

I actually dreamed of this show. So good really.
 
S

Shredderi

Member
Just finished it and I want more! I thought it was really good apart from some voice actors. Man why couldn't Berserk be this well animated :/ If there's money in the world to make a well animated Castlevania then you'd think there would be money to make a well animated mother fucking Berserk.

But yeah, I think the meat of the story is just now beginning.
 
K

Kissenkopf

Banned
Watched the first two episodes and it was okay. The story was paper thin and I hope it gets better...the animations were okay but did the job. But in the end it was good enough to want me watch the other episodes too. Sometimes the first episodes don't reflect the whole season but with only 4 episodes I really don't think the story will get any better.
 
Mister Wolf

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
Cyber Caesar said:
I want to buy this so bad. Stop me GAF.
castlevania_simon_belmont_fourth_scale_statue_by_first_4_figures_10.jpg
Click to expand...

It looks awesome. If you have the money to spare go for it.
 
C

cackhyena

Member
Arion said:
Just finished it. The animation was pretty good but the voice acting and story was incredibly boring.
Click to expand...
Opposite for me. The dialogue and voice acting was a cut above most. Kept me interested. Action was good, though. Hilarious to me that people think the English VA is bad.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
cackhyena said:
Opposite for me. The dialogue and voice acting was a cut above most. Kept me interested. Actio. Was god, though. Hilarious to me that people think the English VA is bad.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think there were a few bad line readings and inflections here or there and some random side characfters weren't great but overall I thought it was solid. Same with the dialogue which again had a few off lines here or there but was usually pretty decent, got the job done.
 
Mister Wolf

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
Trevor is such a good character Konami should commission a game for this and have Warren Ellis write it featuring these voice actors. Doesn't even have to be a AAA title just make a 2.5D game to compete against Blood Stained.
 
Mister Wolf

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
cackhyena said:
Opposite for me. The dialogue and voice acting was a cut above most. Kept me interested. Actio. Was god, though. Hilarious to me that people think the English VA is bad.
Click to expand...

When you have a group of people who prefer listening to stuff in languages they don't understand it makes sense.
 
C

cackhyena

Member
HStallion said:
Yeah I think there were a few bad line readings and inflections here or there and some random side characfters weren't great but overall I thought it was solid. Same with the dialogue which again had a few off lines here or there but was usually pretty decent, got the job done.
Click to expand...
I just felt like the dialogue seemed like they wrote it for an actual show. Somewhere along the way it turns to animation and they kept it all in. It was refreshing.

Mister Wolf said:
When you have a group of people who prefer listening to stuff in languages they don't understand it makes sense.
Click to expand...
A small group from a small discussion. I found it perfectly fine. I'd say I'm pretty picky about that stuff too. It's nowhere near as bad as the average anime dub.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
cackhyena said:
I just felt like the dialogue seemed like they wrote it for an actual show. Somewhere along the way it turns to animation and they kept it all in. It was refreshing.
Click to expand...

It was originally supposed to be a set of live action movies.
 
Mister Wolf

Mister Wolf

Gold Member
cackhyena said:
I just felt like the dialogue seemed like they wrote it for an actual show. Somewhere along the way it turns to animation and they kept it all in. It was refreshing.


A small group from a small discussion. I found it perfectly fine. I'd say I'm pretty picky about that stuff too. It's nowhere near as bad as the average anime dub.
Click to expand...

I thought it was great.
 
D

DrROBschiz

Member
On episode 3 and holy mcshit as I breathe

This is the greatest video game adaptation i have ever seen

Unbelievable to have a high quality Castlevania anime that pays such amazing tribute to the source material
 
T

T.Slothrop

Member
Waaayyy better than I expected. I actually thought the voice acting and the writing were far better than they had any right to be.

Animation was decent but not amazing, but the last episode has a really well choreographed fight scene. Anyway, worth the two hours and looking forward to more.
 
D

DrROBschiz

Member
T.Slothrop said:
Waaayyy better than I expected. I actually thought the voice acting and the writing were far better than they had any right to be.

Animation was decent but not amazing, but the last episode has a really well choreographed fight scene. Anyway, worth the two hours and looking forward to more.
Click to expand...

Yeah the animation is the only slight weakness but jeez man

The themes, script and voice acting were out of this world

I love the mature setup as well
 
G

Green Mega Man

Member
One thing to look forward to is that most of the clunky exposition is basically out of the way now for Season Two to dive right into the demon killing. We'll probably get some mopey flashback stuff from Alucard at first, but the stage is basically set for the show to go full-tilt.

And still plenty of time for DaNasty to come riding in on some ghost ship made of fingernails or some shit!
 
W

Weltall Zero

Member
I'm surprised there isn't more love for this, I watched the first three episodes yesterday and I loved it. Sure, it might not be balls to the wall action every second, but hell, well-done exposition is always good; what are we, five year olds?

That said, I watched it with Spanish audio, so that might be the difference...
 
M

Matty77

Member
Put me in the I like it camp. Though that may not be all quality some of it might be the fact there is a serious lack of adult animation from western sources that isn't just trying to be comedy in a race to the bottom to emulate Family Guy.

Also glad to know I am not the only person who thought the term cock tease when the episode four credits rolled.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Kind of feels like it was one film instead of four episodes. Also I hate that they cut the opening from everything but the pilot.

I enjoyed the writing and acting a lot, so I'm hyped for S2.
 
M

Merc_

Member
Brashnir said:
15 mins in. It has actually managed to become worse. This is sub-Troma levels of putrescence. Lloyd Kaufman wouldn't claim this garbage. 80s's kids' cartoons wouldn't claim this shit.
Click to expand...

So basically you've never watched 80s's kids cartoons.
 
D

DrROBschiz

Member
Episode 4 man.... holy shit

Wow

Just wow. Blown away. Clearly whoever made this loved Castlevania

This is the bar. Many they never dip below it
 
K

kc44135

Member
Super happy we're getting more of this! Just finished watching it, and it was honestly pretty good. I thought we were just getting like 80 minutes of Trevor and co. hacking and whipping bad guys while some trashy rock n' roll played in the background. I didn't expect it to actually have something resembling a plot with a bit of depth to it, or that I would actually like any of these characters, but I did.

Acting and writing were much better than I expected, in general. It was like this was a live-action movie or something, and they just decided to animate it instead. Only criticism for me would be the animation quality. It just seemed a little... choppy, I guess? Overall though, I really dug it at the end of the day. Bring on Season 2!
 
R

Red or Alive

Neo Member
I really wish most of the VA cast (with the exception of Trevor, Sypha and Alucard) just kept their native accents. I think that would have improved the overall quality of the VA which descended too often into Dick Van Dyke levels of fake English awfulness.

Matt Frewer' bishop character pulled it off, though. Not entirely satisfied by his character arc, which was thematically appropriate but still weirdly abrupt.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Red or Alive said:
I really wish most of the VA cast (with the exception of Trevor, Sypha and Alucard) just kept their native accents. I think that would have improved the overall quality of the VA which descended too often into Dick Van Dyke levels of fake English awfulness.

Matt Frewer' bishop character pulled it off, though. Not entirely satisfied by his character arc, which was thematically appropriate but still weirdly abrupt.
Click to expand...

Hey at least he got a kiss out of it.
 
cj_iwakura

cj_iwakura

Member
Red or Alive said:
I really wish most of the VA cast (with the exception of Trevor, Sypha and Alucard) just kept their native accents. I think that would have improved the overall quality of the VA which descended too often into Dick Van Dyke levels of fake English awfulness.

Matt Frewer' bishop character pulled it off, though. Not entirely satisfied by his character arc, which was thematically appropriate but still weirdly abrupt.
Click to expand...

Really thought he was being set up
as a series mainstay. Whoooops, lol.
 
MR ARCADE FOREVER

MR ARCADE FOREVER

Member
Just watched the two first episodes and it is pretty good. Only thing that bothered me was the scene where they show
a goblin carrying a baby in his mouth and then the crib full of blood
.. Kind of disturbing from a parent to see that myself =(
 
M

Markitron

Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
Just watched the first 2 episodes, not even a big Castlevania fan but really enjoying it.

Coincidentally I just got SotN in the PSN sale and am starting it tonight, never played it before.
 
D

DrROBschiz

Member
Kazer said:
Same. Might've been expecting too much from the impressions, but it was just OK.
Click to expand...

What?

I thought the main characters were superbly done and honestly there wasnt anything that really took me out of the experience

I mean... there is noticeable jank all around but its all easily forgivable at least in my mind

There is so much to love about it as a whole that I can forgive the cracks in the armor
 
O

OverturePT

Member
Really enjoyed it. Watched the first episode after lunch at my parent's house and my mother was interested enough to ask me to play the second episode. It's pretty well done in my opinion.

Bring on that second season.


And give me a date for that Witcher series.
 
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