Comparing Themes in Bram Stoker's Dracula

" Instead of relying on Stoker's classic theme, Coppola chose to create a theme of his own by inserting a heroic backstory to the Dracula character, giving him a way to focus the film on some kind of supernatural love-story. These are no doubt the reasons it has remained a classic of literature. Evidence of this is the sexual behavior of Lucy, the intro scenes explaining Dracula's origins, and the out-of-nowhere romantic encounters between Dracula and Mina. Satan struggle for which the heroes fight on the side of the glory of God.

In any form of storytelling you have a very clear difference between core themes and content. It seems that the preoccupation with the details of vampires is simply the content of the novel and not the core. In the face of sheer evil, every character is shaken to the point where nothing else can guide them but their faith in god. The combination of Coppola's reputation and a famously classic novel like Dracula probably seemed like money in the bank to the film's producers. Perhaps the creators did not want to release a film with such a positive, spiritually uplifiting theme that seemed to contradict the dark, gothic content of the film. She cheered the heroes on as they killed him at the end. At the beginning and the very end of the novel the core message is incredibly uplifting and spiritual. Eventually someone will come along who feels the need to make yet another 'stab' at Dracula on the big screen, and when that time comes, perhaps these persons will be able to convey Stoker's original, intended theme.

Francis Ford Coppola's rendition of Dracula had obvious storyline and character augmentation occuring frequently in a film supposedly most faithfully based in the novel.