#I wasn't like 'oh wow Louis' a little evil isn't he?'

[pirateshelly]

I simply do not vibe with the idea that Louis begging Lestat to make Claudia a vampire was the single worst thing that ever happened to her, and that her fate was sealed from that moment. I just cannot imagine spending two whole seasons getting to know and love Claudia and thinking, maybe it would have been better and less tragic for her if she had just died in that fire at the age of 14. Because in spite of everything there is never any indication that Claudia doesn't still have an immense will and curiosity and desire to live!

And (possibly controversial opinion) I also can't imagine seeing the flashback in 2.07 of Louis on his knees sobbing and begging Lestat to save Claudia and being like "oh wow Louis is more selfish and horrifying than I realized" instead of recognizing that this is Louis at absolute rock bottom and thoroughly out of his mind

[kingdomoftyto]

Uh oh am I liveblogging ANOTHER IwtV thing? Two nights in a row? Yes, yes I am

I'll try to mush this one all into one big readmore post though, to keep it compact.

Anyway time to rewatch the 1994 movie and compare it to the early version of the script from '92! I hear it's got Different Vibes 👀

So first off, in the '92 script, we actually get to see Louis and Daniel meeting outside the bar, which is interesting. Louis confirms he was indeed hunting and that he only spared Daniel because he introduced himself right away.

... Oof, the portrayal of slavery/POC is even more uncomfortable written out than it is onscreen. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

I'm a bit surprised to learn that the detail of Louis having a dead wife and child goes back to this early draft, though I guess it is an easier shorthand for grief than having to explain the brother thing. (For those who don't know: the wife was invented for the movie. Book!Louis was never married, and the AMC show was actually pretty spot on with his family history. He had an extremely religious younger brother named Paul, who was mentally unwell, and who fell to his death in an ambiguous accident/suicide, which Louis' family sort of blamed him for. It was the biggest catalyst for his spiral into depression and self-destruction.)

Speaking of movie!Louis' dead wife:

That's some pretty LOADED metaphor, there, monsieur 👀

I LOVE this. Lestat casually saving him, then just smugly backing out of the room with a shit-eating grin. Also a neat parallel to the cane-sword thing from the AMC show--I wonder if that was a reference to this somehow...? I don't remember book!Louis drawing any weapons before Lestat attacked him although I may have just forgotten.

Then, Louis still has a confrontation with the gambler who draws a pistol on him. A neat detail that got cut is that the guy actually challenges Louis to a duel, but he just laughs and declines. The guy calls him a coward. I like that.

... Oh. Huh. The entire bit with Lestat flying into the air, asking Louis "Do you still want death?", and dropping him into the river is not actually in the draft. He just bites him and then leaves him in the rainy street. Who the heck decided that the Loustat First Bite henceforth needed to include unexplained levitation?? I'm not complaining, mind; I'm just baffled lmfao

Lestat ghostwrote this part

oh sHIT... beta Louis is not here to play games! He continues to be angry for the rest of this scene lmao

... Oh wow, and then as Lestat is trying to sell him on the merits of vampirism, there's a whole dream sequence of them sailing a ship through a dark ocean, riding horses, attending lavish balls... All this while the sound of heartbeats is overlaid on top of his voiceover. Hoo boy.

REALLY giving Lestat more credit than usual here! Interesting indeed. Also love the detail that he's sitting on the bed. Still Not Gay Enough, but doing his best

... OH. Oh holy FUCK. There's a WHOLE SCENE of Lestat convincing Louis to MURDER A WOMAN WITH A KNIFE. It's the woman who tried to poison his drink earlier--I wasn't expecting that to be foreshadowing anything!! God, yeah, okay, I can see why this was cut from the final version but also this would have made a HUGE difference to the story, holy shit. It would have made Louis' tortured guilt over feeding on people more hypocritical later, and it would have shown that Lestat really did go out of his way to get Louis' informed consent on the turning. This is pretty much canon (not a woman, but he does have to assist with a murder), but it happens pretty quickly in the book and isn't brought up nearly enough.

For the sake of the movie I guess they wanted Lestat to be more irredeemably evil, and I don't blame them for that. But damn, this would have been SO different. It was obviously written with Lestat's personality from later in the series in mind, because he goes out of his way to find an "evildoer" as their target for the exercise.

Ohhh boy. Little out of character, but I'll allow it because it's pretty gay

Jesus, okay, so Louis runs to the crypt of his wife and kid, and Lestat taunts him, asking if he'd rather join them. Louis says he deserves to die for killing the tavern girl, and Lestat punches the crypt open so Louis can see the rotting corpses of his dead family

FELLAS, THAT'S GAY

And then Lestat pulls a fakeout and drops him on the ground, says "you can leave now", and ‼️BLOWS HIM A KISS‼️

Louis cries out "No! Give it to me!" and THEN Lestat finally turns him

PHEW, that is a LOT more buildup to the turning and a LOT more seductive Lestat vibes (as opposed to the final movie, where the selling points he provides to convince Louis to join him are basically just that vampires are free from sickness and death, and wouldn't it be cool to live forever?).

Noooooo not the buttons!! 😭 How could they have cut one of my favorite lines from the book again. Still mad that they didn't reference it in the AMC series

Presented without comment

Then Lestat takes Louis hunting and it's book-accurate (a.k.a. Very Uncomfortably Racist)

There's some quick scenes of them showing-not-telling which vampire stereotypes are myths (Louis sees himself in a mirror, etc), but I think it was wise to just have it cut back to Daniel asking Louis directly like it does in the final cut (and in the book).

👀

Anne Rice over here trying to retcon Lestat into a decent person right when he should be at the peak of his assholery lmaoooo

Then we get the scene where Lestat drinks from the other tavern girl ("Teresa" in the script). In the final cut, Louis looks wildly uncomfortable as this takes place, but the original had him "amazed and amused in spite of himself". Then:

WHO IS THIS and WHAT has he done with my Louis

Also fascinating that Louis didn't succumb to temptation in the original but DID in the final cut. Guess they really wanted that super awkward kiss/bite thing to happen. God the final version of this scene is so dumb lmao

(also this has nothing to do with the draft script but I hate the little claw thumb ring thing they gave Lestat in the movie. Just let him cut people with his nails. They're vampires, for god's sake)

There's a whole scene of Lestat teaching Louis this "game" of taking little sips of blood from people without them even noticing. I don't recall this "Little Drink" concept being mentioned in the first three books, so I'm left to assume it's mentioned later on in the series.

(Similarly, I see the word "swoon" used CONSTANTLY in fanfic and at least once already in this very script, but I don't remember it being a thing in the books I've read. I guess it must be a common terminology later in the series, though, for it to be so pervasive in the fandom??)

(Btw it's a little maddening to me that none of the vampires in the series ever seem to question whether they could live off of these nonlethal bites. They try living off animals but it's Not The Same as human blood, so the craving gets overwhelming. But... why can't they just take small amounts of blood from several people instead of killing a whole person? Morality problem solved?? Hello???)

... Okay the script is now diverging significantly from the movie, so my side-by-side comparison isn't going to work as well. The final version of the movie has moved on to the scene where Lestat teaches Louis that they can drink from animals, and then to the party where Lestat realizes Louis can't read minds. They have a conversation about how "evildoers taste better" and Louis fails to kill the poodle lady.

In the SCRIPT, on the other hand, the mind reading and "evildoers taste better" conversation takes place during the "Little Drink" scene I mentioned before, followed by a quick detour of Lestat breaking into some rando's house and stealing some books (???). Louis then presses Lestat on their purpose, what the meaning of it all is, etc, and Lestat gets pissy with him. I think some of this dialogue ended up in the final cut. But THEN:

WHOA, WE'RE REALLY DOING THIS

They duck briefly into a theater where a production of Macbeth is in full swing. Louis won't drop the subject, so:

my GOD

SHE REALLY WANTED TO PUT HIS ENTIRE BACKSTORY IN THIS MOVIE, HOLY SHIT

ANNE NO, IT'S KIND OF IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT THAT LOUIS THOUGHT LESTAT WAS PENNILESS hadsjgkhdsjfhjdsakg

I can't BELIEVE this. Retcon level over 9000

"KINDLY"??? And god, changing this part of the exposition from Louis telling Daniel to a scene of Lestat telling Louis changes SO MUCH. ANNE... ANNE WHAT WERE YOU THINKING

He's so gentle and PATIENT. This is like a fix-it fic for her own damn dysfunctional characters.

Anyway obviously this is where the rat scene happens in the original script.

... AH. Got it now, this line makes WAY more sense in the original context than it does in the final cut lmfao. Also, Lestat's quiet little "yes" in response to Louis specifically admiring the rat gives me some BIG TIME feelings. Flashbacks to newly fledged Lestat plucking a live rat off the floor in front of some mortals to stare in wonder at its wiggly little toes.

Yeah yeah, this is the "explanation" I always assumed--that they crave the death just as much as the blood itself--but I still call bullshit. The only real problem here is that Louis isn't practiced enough to bite without killing. He just needs to learn the restraint first. I'm gonna remain forever salty about this worldbuilding detail sorry lmao

... Ah, okay, and then we move on to the burning of Pointe du Lac. So the poodle lady wasn't in the original script at all. Makes sense lmfao. That does also mean it didn't have the part where Louis attacks Lestat and Lestat gleefully laughs, "Anger! Fury! That's why I chose you!" and claims "Life without me would be even more unbearable."

...

oh WHOA, REALLY?! One of the BEST bits of dialogue in the entire movie was NOT in the original script? The whole iconic part of Lestat throwing a tantrum in the burning mansion ("Perfect! PERFECT!! Just burn the place! Burn everything we own!" / "You thought you could have it all..." / "Shut up, Louis!") was not in the original. Instead, all she wrote was:

Which, yes, is more Loustat flavored, but at the cost of Lestat making a big dramatic scene. No question which version is better lmfao

God, if ONLY Lestat was even a fraction this forthcoming in canon. They could have avoided all their problems entirely if he'd been willing to actually talk these things out

Man, this script is DETERMINED not to let Lestat come across as the bad guy... and also maybe to paint Louis as the bad guy, a little bit. (Yikes. Even if he is undoubtedly in the wrong sometimes: yikes.)

Okay THIS could have stayed though. Alas, too romantic for mortal eyes. 😔

....

OH. HAHA. SERIOUSLY, ANNE RICE??

Okay so that super romantic exchange I screencapped just now was a full-on REPLACEMENT for the scene with the two whores at the inn. You know, the one where Lestat traps the second lady in a coffin and psychologically tortures her while he needles at Louis to kill her? The scene that the final movie rips almost word-for-word from the book??? She tried to CUT THAT SCENE and skip straight from this tame little argument to Louis wandering onto the plague street.

Just WOW.

For the record, that is ANOTHER of the best scenes in the final movie, because Lestat is completely fucking unhinged in it, and it is also equal parts darkly funny and genuinely horrifying. Thank god the AMC show had the sense to adapt it.

......hpfjkfghdJFHJDSGHDJFKLHVJNJFE

I skipped ahead a little to make sure she hadn't just rearranged some scenes before Claudia's turning, and

indeed, the scene with the two whores has been cut entirely

WE GET LESTAT'S ✨ENTIRE✨ BACKSTORY IN THIS SCRIPT. THE WHOOOOLE FUCKING THING. I ONLY CAUGHT GLIMPSES OF IT BUT HE TALKS ABOUT GABRIELLE! ABOUT ARMAND!! DIRECTLY TO LOUIS! HOLY SHIT HOW IS THIS EVEN GOING TO WORK

Mon dieu, I'm less than a quarter of the way through this script and it's after 3:30 a.m. I'm going to have to split this up into multiple posts at some point anyway, so I might as well cut this off here so I can experience Lestat hogging the spotlight in its full glory, when I'm more awake