For this assignment I choose to compare the movie Blade 2 to the novel Frankenstein. In both a monster is created but the monsters are very different. In Blade 2 the monster that is created is a vampire that is mutilated into a Reaper in an experiment to create the ‘perfect’ vampire. The monster is intended to be stronger and not have the fatal weakness of a regular vampire – death from exposure to sunlight. The Directors/Producers of Blade 2 use several themes from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a template. In a sense their vampire monster is out for revenge on his father/creature but the story has a new twist, I feel.
The monster (Reaper) created in Blade 2 turns out to be not perfect which results in his Father/creator (Eli Damaskinos) lying to him and leaving him out to die similarly to how Victor, in Frankenstein, ran away from his Monster and left it to fend for itself. In Blade 2 there is a scene where the vampire is strapped to a table – just like the Monster in Frankenstein is strapped to the table during its creation (being brought to life). Blade is immune to sunlight’s lethal effect and because of this his blood is being drained so the head vampire can use it and his limbs to make the ultimate breed of vampires that will also be resistant to sunlight. This is almost identical to the creation scene in Frankenstein where Victor has his creation strapped to a table and is bringing him to life with the energy from lightening. The difference is that in Blade 2 the head vampire is taking the blood from Blade to make his new creation. While Blade is in the room that he is soon to be strapped down in, we get to see the new Monsters (who are yellow in small tubes stacked up in the middle of the room) that Eli Damaskinos is planning to make with Blade’s blood. These yellow Monsters could be a cross reference to the lab in Frankenstein where Victor creates his Monster and as its big yellow eyes open it frightens Victor and causes him to run away. Blade is not happy when he sees what Eli Damaskinos is trying to make and what they will ultimately be capable of.
“With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into lifeless thing that lay at my feet.” (p. 53)
This quote from the novel Frankenstein is interpreted in Blade 2 when Blade is strapped down and the needles are sucking his blood with the head vampire watching. I think the movie is translating creating life to taking it away to make a new stronger creature and is not thinking of anyone else – just like when Victor wasn’t thinking and made the monster using dead peoples’ limbs without thinking of the consequences until after he created it.
Eli Damaskinos wasn’t thinking when he transformed his son into a Reaper (Jared Nomak) and sets up a group to hunt him. Towards the end of the movie the Reaper kills his Father (Eli Damaskinos) and his sister Nyssa for payback – just like how the Monster in Frankenstein kills almost all of Victor’s family and friends to make him suffer and then Victor himself dies in the search of the Monster that he vowed to kill after his wife’s death from the Monster.
The movie continues with Blade battling and killing the Reaper (Jared Nomak) by finding his weak spot under his arm by passing the bone around the monsters heart and into it. However, when he is stabbed he says “Strange … It hurts, it hurts no more” (as he pushes the blade in more) because he has gotten his revenge in the killing of both his father and his sister. Again, this has a parallel to when Victor dies in Frankenstein. In “Walton later Writings”, Walton hears the monster justification/remorse for the death of Victor (his father/creature) in the room on the boat that Victor dies in and then exiles himself on the North Pole away from civilization.
Blade 2 interprets some of the text/ideas in the novel Frankenstein, but in it’s own ways that are similar. Even though the Monster is created near the beginning of Frankenstein, just like in the movie Blade 2, we never see the monster actually created in Blade 2 but see the process of trying to make a new and stronger one at the end of the movie. The ending of Blade 2, where Blade is strapped to the table and is getting his blood sucked with the new creatures that Eli Damaskinos is trying to make perfect, I feel is directly linked to when Victor, in Frankenstein, has his Monster strapped down on a table and is putting all the dead limbs together; also towards the middle of the novel when Victor agrees to make a new monster and then decides to and destroy the new monster he is making for his original one.
Blade 2 interprets Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein in many ways – especially the ending. The stories aren’t exactly the same but the strong theme of betrayal and the Monster getting back at his father/creature in Frankenstein are expressed within Blade 2 with a twist of a hero living at the end.
