xhonzi said:
The movie is different than the play is different than the book.
The musical is VERY different from the book. But the movie is the musical.
I guess the purist in me would rather see a faithful representation of the stag production in movie form.
You can't really film theater well. It isn't the same as going to see it live, something about filming it totally kills the whole thing. While sitting in the seat the whole thing can feel very alive and exciting, somehow the translation to the screen turns it into a bunch of people in too much makeup wearing silly costumes while singing at each other. So I kind of like it when some of these make their way to the big screen. I totally agree with changes like the later one TheBoost mentioned, turning two songs back to back into one long scene. I see no reasons to allow the limitations of stage to dictate the film. In that case you might as well be using limited stage technology instead of modern day effects. No, I am all for adjusting it to the different medium. For some reason the changed placement of that song sticks out to me as a bit senseless.
As for original stage actors and movie actors... I know The Phantom of the Opera is pretty craptastic and sappy and I am no fan of Andrew Llyod Webber. But it has the distinction of being the first musical I ever went to see (original cast too). I was pretty young at the time, the story was really dark, and there was something kind of kinky and wrong about the storyline. My family went as a treat to my older sister and I got drug along, but I actually ended up really loving it. Going to see it again when I was older, I discovered my young prepubescent self filled in a lot of story elements in his head and made it a lot darker, sexier, and less sappy than it actually was. But I still liked it.
That being said, as great as Crawford and Brightman sounded in that live performance, Gerard Bultler and Emmy Rossum are far, far, far more pleasant to look at.
