wordinista | Thoughts on PotO and some quizzes

Well, after sleeping on it, I still enjoyed the movie. Usually, after I see a film, it takes a while for the buzz to wear off, and then I feel rather stupid for being so enthusiastic over something. But, like I said -- I still enjoyed it.

While I was at the movie's site, I peeked a bit at the message boards, and... hmm.

The film is no substitute for the musical. None. Yes, I was a little disappointed in the Phantom's vocals, but I didn't think Christine was all that bad (imagine my surprise to find posts ranting about how terrible Christine's voice was). And even as the film progressed, the Phantom's voice jarred me to a lesser extent. I think it's rather like going to see the musical AFTER having only heard the Original Cast Recording -- you have Crawford and Brightman in your mind, and anything that's NOT them seems... off. (At least, that's been my experience.) But that's not entirely fair to the actors. No, Emmy Rossum isn't going to sound like Sarah Brightman. But then, neither did the actresses who played Christine when I saw it on stage. And none of the Phantoms sounded like Michael Crawford. Because they weren't him. And, yes, I suppose a tiny little shred of me is always marginally disappointed when I see it on stage and the actors don't sound like Crawford and Brightman, but usually, by the end of the mirror scene, I'm so engrossed in everything, I don't care anymore.

By and large, I think they followed the musical exactly. There were a few deviations, of course, but nothing unforgiveable (I thought). A LOT of people are pissed off about the ending (or, rather, I'd call it an epilogue), but it didn't bother me. *shrug* Maybe because it put to film what I'd always suspected. I don't know.

But I think there are some people (like the folks on the message boards I lurked at) who wouldn't have been satisfied, regardless of what Schumacher did. Well, short of bringing Crawford and Brightman back to reprise their roles. *rolls eyes* Ain't gonna happen -- he retired. And, if memory serves me, he retired because the role of the Phantom had put such strain on his voice. Never mind the fact that he's sixty-two. And, besides, Hollywood does that too often already, IMHO (pairing older actors up with hawt young thangs).

Part of the magic of PotO is seeing it on stage, and seeing how they do what they do WITHOUT CG special effects.

A lot of people are saying that the film is "over the top," and to that I just have to shrug. "Le Fantome de L'Opera" is a GOTHIC NOVEL. It's GOING TO BE OVER THE TOP. That's kind of what the Gothic genre is all about. For ALW to make the musical "over the top" and then for Schumacher to do the same... well, that's kind of the way it's supposed to be (speaking genre-wise).

But, really -- I was talking with

evilpuppy for a little while last night, and, yeah, there was some complaining about the movie, which we heard as we were walking out. "It followed the musical too closely," "It didn't follow the musical closely enough," "There was too much singing," "There wasn't enough singing," and so on -- I'm paraphrasing, of course, but you get the idea. I'm not sure what those people were expecting -- and maybe I enjoyed the film so much because I was prepared for it to be Not As Good As The Original (because nothing ever IS as good as the original). I don't think I had low expectations, necessarily -- I've turned my nose up at every single Dracula and Frankenstein adaptation because they weren't at all true to the text (yes, even Coppola's Dracula). PotO was true enough to the text for me (or, rather, I should say true enough to the musical, because the musical deviates quite a bit from the novel -- though there WERE thing in the movie that weren't in the musical, but WERE in the novel -- tiny things).

Of course, the hard-core Phantom purists think that ALW's musical is a total bastardization of the novel, and thus crap. Which just goes to show that for every purist, there's always someone who's even more obsessed with Getting It Right. *grin* ...And then there are the people who think the novel is crap and never should have been adapted into a musical in the first place.

Long story short -- the PotO film fulfilled (and in some parts exceeded) my expectations, and put a smile on my face.

ETA: I nearly forgot -- we were talking about the music on the drive home, and George noticed something I totally didn't expect him to notice in the film's version of the song "The Phantom of the Opera." The film's version of the son uses electric guitar more heavily (it's there in the original version, just hidden a little better). That amused -- and pleased -- me, because I never thought he paid particularly close attention when I played my OCR for him. (I particularly love the Overture and "The Phantom of the Opera" because it reminds me so much of Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D minor, which is, like, my FAVORITE piece of classical music, evar.)

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

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NIAMH
N	is for	Neglected
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Thoughts on PotO and some quizzes

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