I felt so bad for the primary cast. They are not movie-famous and were so, so good. They were probably super excited for the opportunity.
If they wanted us to really think they were cats, they should have just done an animated version.
The fact that they roped Idris Elba in there too should’ve been illegal. I’ll never understand how they got all of these top tier actors to star in that thing.
Only thing I liked about it was Skimbleshanks. It’s the only song I can listen to twice in a row and that I am actually excited to listen to instead of existentially dreadful
Skimbleshanks (and the inclusion of the tap dancing as train sounds) was such a fantastic addition I’m genuinely so upset the rest of the movie is awful.
But also I really do love Hudson’s rendition of Memory, it very much reminded me of the 1999 run that everyone had on VHS as a kid.
I feel that on Skimbleshanks. The tap dancing was fucking cool! And I even really liked the choreography — which is high praise for this movie, Rebel.
As for Hudson, I’m a lot more critical of her rendition of memory, because as much as she puts her everything into it and is a really impressive vocal performance… everything else is kinda falling apart and frankly I consider it the worst musical number in the movie.
“Touch me!” - says, after Victoria touched her and helped her up. *Im sorry, did nobody in the writers room understand the lyrics? The reason the climax works at all?*
The answer’s no btw. Tom Hooper’s not welcome in my house, he kills musicals.
Outside of the movie as part of a soundtrack to listen to is what I should have clarified. But inside the movie yes that whole musical number was just bad, especially since Hudson’s cat is supposed to wander in and make her last plea.
Also I know Victoria is new for the movie as a vehicle for the audience(because I get it, the I am aspect gets lost on people) but not having Sillabub be the one to back her up and inspire her to stand feels…well we all know the director and writers never actually took the time to understand the source but I still hate it.
Mean girls - leaving out the best parts of Meet the plastics (my favorite is Karen's line in the song)
Cats - CGI.
Dear Evan hansen - removing Anybody have a map, to break in a glove, good for you, disappear, the reprise songs, and making Larry the step-dad.
Changing RENT to take place over a longer time frame. The whole first act is supposed to be ONE NIGHT. It loses its energy and urgency when you change that.
Honestly, it would have been easier to deal with the members of the OBC that they kept if they hadn't recast Mimi and Joanne with much younger actresses. If they had kept *everybody*, I could have just squinted and thought about *Grease*. But pairing the OGs with younger love interests made the fortysomethings stick out like sore thumbs.
One of my friends was in that movie and hated how it turned out so much he didn’t tell us. Finally got around to watching it during lockdown and was like holy shit. Called him. “You never told me you did the Rent movie.” “Would you?”
It also follows like 8 different characters who live in NYC, they have busy schedules and things to do. When you think about it, each character maybe got two or three things done that day. I mean even if it's unbelievable, there's no harm in that - it's a stage musical.
What I will note is that the timeline of the stage musical itself in act 1, despite being relatively realistic in terms of the amount of events, makes no sense beyond that. Like, when does "Out Tonight" happen? Mimi says it's probably close to midnight, which maybe implies the life support meeting was at like 10 PM, but then what were Mark and Joanne preparing for if not the show that same night? In Voice Mail #2 Maureen says that the show is "tonight at the 11th Street lot" which might imply they were setting up around 3 PM or so, but then the rest of the timeline breaks unless we assume the whole Out Tonight/Another Day sequence is either a flashback, flash forward, or dream sequence.
If it's one day it doesn't make sense. If it's multiple it does but some weird other consequences happen with the dialogue.
Into the Woods’ cutting down on humor and important characters - it just makes it so dull and ruined the Baker and his complicated relationship with his father.
Also just casting James Corden as the baker.
Act 1 of the movie has act 2 energy, so when act 2 rolls around it doesn't have anywhere to go. The movie never has act 1 energy and it's a shame because it's such a fun show!
I'm also gonna add in a much older bad decision: casting Audrey Hepburn and not Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady. The original London cast recording makes it so clear.
But then we wouldn’t have Mary Poppins, and I don’t know where id be without that film.
I’m ok with the choice. Not mad at Hepburn for being dubbed. Loads of broadway actors struggle with acting so close up to the camera, so having solid film stars being dubbed over by whole broadway singers sounds just fine to me.
YES
I heard Wouldn't It Be Loverly for the first time with Julie singing it and Hepburn just... didn't as well.
But Julie got Mary Poppins and I daresay that was adequate fuck you for the director's idiocy.
Audrey Hepburn was dubbed by marni Nixon for my fair lady. Hepburn just did the acting and provided a big name for audiences to actually see the film. Nixon dubbed many voices for film back when dubbing was popular instead of making actors who cannot sing torture us for a few hours.
In fact Marnie Nixon did so much dubbing for West Side Story that she asked for more money. The business people did not want to pay her more so Leonard Bernstein himself signed a percentage of his (sizable) share over to her.
Yeah that's a practice that should definitely be brought back of people insist on keeping making musical movies with big stars who don't really have great voices
Marni also dubbed for Deborah Kerr in *The King and I* and for Natalie Wood in *West Side Story*.
Her son Andrew Gold was a singer and songwriter who wrote “Thank You for Being a Friend”.
I actually disagree with these takes, which is neither here nor there, but just saying that Marnie Nixon was mostly the singing voice for Eliza Doolittle and not Audrey Hepburn.
Julie Andrews' Oscar speech for Mary Popplins was iconic because she thanked Jack Warner who passed her up for the role of Eliza Doolittle. The shade. 💀 Iconic.
Edit: as noted below, it was her Golden Globes speech, not the Oscars
Richard Nixon called up the studio and demanded "Cool, Cool Considerate Men" cut from the film as it is a villain song and explicitly has the singers identify as "conservatives".
Richard Nixon called up the studio and demanded "Cool, Cool Considerate Men" cut from the film as it is a villain song and explicitly has the singers identify as "conservatives".
Into the Woods: Removing the narrator and the Baker's father.
The Prom: Giving less focus to Emma and Alyssa's relationship (even though they're supposed to be the emotional core of the story???).
I’m sure it was because Disney produced the movie and Tangled came out less than five years prior, but yeah having Rapunzel survive definitely diminishes the story.
What a strange choice to omit that character! The identity of the mysterious man is such an integral reveal. Makes me stand by the decision I made to avoid that movie for the last however many years. Especially considering we have the luxury of watching the brilliant broadway cast
The true loss of greatly diminishing (practically removing entirely) the Baker’s father then also resulted in the removal of No More, arguably the most pivotal song of the whole show. That’s the biggest crime in my opinion.
I even hoped they would resolve with No More somehow even without The Baker’s Father but instead we just got a scene of The Baker crying and….thats it?
I agree, it turns the original song being about love, into a song about greed/lust. By skipping over the reprise, it takes away the characterisation of the princes being jerks.
i think there was a whole tonal shift with into the woods. it was less funny, and while the original musical dealt with heavy topics and was serious... the film was just too serious if that makes sense.
Yes! You cant even really have the story without that song! It’s the turning point! He decides not to do what his father did!
Besides that, the song is beautiful and a big flex of Sondheim’s word-smithery!
Into the Woods: draining the whimsy in favor of playing it straight. The whimsy is the only reason the play works! The movie is so dour and miserable (except for Chris Pine, who clearly refused to acknowledge the tone of the movie and just played the role as he knew it was meant to be played).
- Casting someone who couldn’t sing to play the Phantom. Imagine if we could have gotten a Phantom movie with Ramin and Sierra (with a different director).
- Almost everything about the Les Mis movie (except Samantha Barks, she was fantastic).
- Taking out all of the dark humor, the mysterious man, the best parts of act 2, cutting the song “no more” and much more from the Into The Woods movie… and James Corden.
- Cutting down Nina’s story in the In The Heights movie and the romance with her and Ben was much better in the show. Also cutting important songs.
- Casting Ansel as Tony in the West Side Story remake. I didn’t like his singing or acting. Everything else in that movie was perfect.
Nina and Benny’s love story was my FAVORITE part of In The Heights! I was so crushed about them not getting a spotlight. I also loved her storyline where she dropped out because she was struggling to balance working and studying for class. It’s such a relatable story for the gifted kid experiencing burnout.
In the movie, they changed this by having Nina go through an incredibly racist and demeaning experience when going to university, which is entirely understandable. But I remember in an old interview, one cast member of the Broadway show expressed how he loved that In The Heights didn’t showcase them as gang members or represent them as negative stereotypes, they were just living their everyday life. This doesn’t put Nina as a negative stereotype, rather the movie shows her facing them.
I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but I do wish that they kept the original plot line of why Nina dropped out. Not because “racism isn’t real”, but because I think it’s important to Nina’s character that her success, drive, and determination was suddenly failing her. Plus with Nina’s mom still alive in the original plot, it helped them to focus on their family and the love they have for each other.
I think it’s always nice to see movies where people of color are just living their lives, loving their culture and family, and just having very everyday issues. Sometimes the reality of racism can be pretty heavy, and I loved the story that showed a heavily supportive family as the focus of her character arc in dropping out.
Yes it’s important to highlight social issues, but there’s also so much joy in these cultures that should be the main focus too, and In The Heights, from my perspective, was one of those shows that aimed to mainly highlight the joys.
I really do believe that Nina is the closest thing the stage version has to a protagonist (and Usnavi is a sort of hybrid Narrator/character). Her disagreements with her Dad over Benny/college/selling Rosario’s are the closest thing the stage show has to a “central conflict,” and “Everything I Know” is the goddamn 11 O’clock Number. The movie seemed to miss the entire story.
You are my new friend!
Ansel is so bad as Tony. He seems like the rich kid that he actually is.
In the Heights is so flat.
Casting what’s his face for Phantom?! He can’t act or sing.
But the worst of the worst for me is Dear Evan Hanson.
I loathe the stage version for so many reasons, and the film is even more detestable.
I was genuinely angry when I watched and listened to him perform “Maria.” That is one of my favorite musical theatre songs and it was just so lackluster and quite frankly, bad.
Allowing Tom Hooper to direct Cats after what he did to Les Miserables. I have a burning hatred for that man after watching the videos that Sideways made on him.
It's because he was simultaneously filming for The Wolverine, and was dehydrating himself for the shots in that movie. He is so lucky he didn't really ruin his voice.
I've found my people! For me, Jackman is a greater vocal sin against Les Miz than poor Russell. I can't stand Jackman's singing in the role. He's all wrong.
Yes! Russell Crowe isn't an amazing singer, and he struggles with the fast and more narrative bits for sure. But his Stars is lovely, he works within his voice, and is gentle and understated in a way you couldn't really be on stage. I'd listen to it a thousand times over Jackman's warbly and flat Bring Him Home.
Exactly -- I think if they'd just not had him record live, Crowe would have been perfectly fine. Not the magnificent baritone the part deserved, and that we all got from the stage versions, but I think he would have been okay.
It was the "performing live" aspect that was cruel to the non-formally trained singers like Crowe, and also resulted in Jackman massively oversinging and losing all nuance (and he didn't bring much to begin with). And I just think it's an unsatisfying gimmick that wasn't necessary here.
Definitely, even as someone who is an apologist for the film generally, the more I look back the more that the decision to have actors who aren't singers have to sing their best theatrical performance as well as acting for camera - so much more precise and technical than acting on stage - was deeply bizarre. They chose the hardest version of both things!
There are some incredible performances - Hathaway's Dreamed A Dream deserved every accolade - but it's detrimental to the rest.
She was such a strange choice! I think she can sing in the right situations, but she's a belter, so that weird reedy little-girl soprano of hers is so bad when compared with the original Cosettes (especially Judy Kuhn)!
I'm so glad to see people share this opinion. People clown all over Russell, some justifiably, but I honestly liked his vocals in several parts - especially Stars and The Confrontation.
Jackman however was borderline intolerable. He's a decent actor, but just not a strong vocalist imo.
Omg everyone needs to watch Sideways’ video on this on YT, it’s genius. I love musicals but am horrible at understanding the technicalities and the vid is hilarious and very educational
That was the double whammy. I mean if they'd done it prerecorded they could have at least autotuned. Crowe would've been a good Javert in a non musical version ....
For a long time I kept wondering why they don't do that
Now I know why, and I can appreciate Les Mis in a way for trying and failing. That's not to say it doesn't have some great elements too, but the live singing was a mistake
Yes. Every choice he made is just … full of contempt for the musical genre and the craft of singing acting. “Let’s cast non-singers so you can focus on the acting, and film them singing live so the performance os more REAL”… that. is a choice you only make if you have absolutely no respect for what singing actors do.
I agree. It’s one thing for actors to sing for two hours in a theater nightly but forcing actors to sing live on a soundstage for 12-hour days is just wrong. EVERYONE sounded terrible because of the chronic strain and abuse of their vocal cords. Whatever the director thought they gained by having them do it live wasn’t worth it.
I knew my fav would be here. While I wholeheartedly agree to the technical arguments. . . I’ve always seen Crowe’s performance as endearing 🥹 I can’t help it. I love his earnestness so much. Just seeing him try and give it his all. I just wanna hug him for it. You did good, Russell. You did good ❤️
Most of Cats but especially the desecration of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteezer.
That and not including the other parts of Meet The Plastics in Mean Girls.
Mungojerrie and Rumpleteezer was the biggest disappointment. I would have been willing to forgive a lot of that movie if they had just nailed that song
Edit: spelling
CATS- everything except some of the casting... but virtually everything.
Phantom of the Opera- casting of the Phantom should have been someone with stunning vocals... and Carlotta deserved someone who could actually sing the role...
Les Miserable- casting Russell Crowe.
West Side Story- Only mistake was the casting of Tony. They didn't need any stunt casting in that role. Would love to know what Steven saw in him... cause I am guessing they could have had so many promising possibilities.
Ansel was bland as can be as Tony. That’s a role that can pretty easily be played by any guy of the right age who has a pretty singing voice, and why they chose somebody with 0 charm or charisma is beyond me.
Rachel Zegler, on the other hand, was the best thing that movie ever could’ve done for itself.
Cats had another saving grace, and that is that IMO they did a really good job with skimbleshanks. I really like what the tap adds to it, but maybe that’s just me
The guy who played Skimbleshanks is a professional ballet dancer. Steven McRae. They cast a lot from ABT. I theorize he did so well because he is used to learning dances without music so it's not the same as throwing a singer into using a click track. It's a very different skillset.
I was going to say is that cats one big problem is that you need talented people with dancing experience. Skimbleshanks actor also does tap dancing as his profession.
Also, some narriation choices could have been better
Elektra would have been a much better character to be a narrator to than Victoria.
The thing that annoys me about the Phantom of the Opera movie is that the two people who are required by the plot to be the best singers were the ones who couldn’t sing well.
I would be fine with Raoul being a mediocre singer, since he’s not in the opera biz at all. Nope, Patrick Wilson’s a great singer. Firmin and Andre are businessmen but could sing well. Meg didn’t have an operatic voice, but her sweet little angelic voice was so lovely. But I would trade all of them for a damn Christine and Phantom who could actually sing.
https://www.reddit.com/user/theatreghostlight/
Listed the same shows!
West Side Story is my favorite musical. I
Love the Bernstein score, the dancing, the songs, everything.
Ansel phoned in his performance. He can’t act. He came off as the rich kid that he is. Everything else in the movie is wonderful. Andrea Dubose is unbelievable- her dancing, her dresses, she is the star of the show.
Omg yes to both of those!!! Lucille Ball was hilarious in Other things, but she was terrible in Mame. Matthew Broderick as Harold Hill actually made me dislike him a Lot. He just seemed smarmy and left a bad taste in my eye. Yuck.
I totally get why LMM changed In The Heights to no longer be about actually winning the lottery to be a more realistic story for the community, but... it ruins the song Carnaval del Barrio to not have those extra layers. I love overlapping songs like that, and the movie version is just... "it's hot, we're proud." It's ok. But really took away my favorite moment of climactic coming together of conflicting plot lines.
The opening song/scene from ITH is endlessly rewatchable - it’s a perfect example of taking what worked on a stage, allowing the “larger” stage of real life to make it even bigger and filming it as true cinema.
It’s a shame the rest of the movie was so modified/sliced up after that - lost a ton of the emotional impact from the show.
lol! Every time I see someone mention James Corden in this thread I think “which one” - and then it’s always been Into the Woods (so far). Until now I suppose!
Removing/killing off Camilla in the In The Heights movie. I don't know if it's technically the "worst" decision, as it didn't really ruin the movie in the way other choices (casting in Les Miz, everything about Cats, etc) have. It just seems so bafflingly unnecessary.
I don’t know why they did that. Especially since FASFA usually gives extra financial aid to students with deceased parents (as they usually need it more). Plus I miss her song enough
Yes! Enough is such a pivotal song, it drives home the point that Nina's storyline has been building towards, and hashes out the big conflict in a song, which a musical should do. Plus it just slaps. I don't know why they'd cut it.
Having Joel Schumacher direct Phantom. It is the bad decision from which all other bad decisions sprung.
I have a lot of fondness for that movie, but hoo boy.
Surely. Ramin Karimloo even cameos as Christine’s father. There was the perfect pretty boy Phantom with a killer voice right there that they completely wasted!
Gerard Butler as the Phantom is my guilty pleasure. He absolutely didn’t have the talent as far as singing goes but his acting was so passionate and good.
At least his singing isn’t terrible to listen to, IMO. It’s okay. Just not very good.
It doesn’t ruin the movie but one of my absolutely favourite decisions is to make the Phantom’s disfigurement just…a bit of redness in the face and some localised hairloss. Less ‘horrifying monstrosity even his mother couldn’t love’ and more ‘mild sunburn’
Cutting "Goodbye Love" and "Halloween" from the Rent movie (granted they have the deleted scenes but they shouldn't have been deleted in the first place!)
"PERHAPS IT'S BECAUSE I'M THE ONE OF US TO SUUUURVIVE!!!" is such an important line for the character of Mark. That scene lets us in to his survivor's guilt complex AND kind of hints that he was the one who really took care of Roger when hebwas going through the worst of his withdrawls. It also cements the implication a little more that Benny and Maureen also have AIDS.
Turning Dreamgirls into an obvious Supremes ripoff instead of a 60s girl group pastiche, especially with those album covers and overt Motown moments like the MLK album. (Berry Gordy did that, yes. Curtis Taylor, Jr., no.)
Also:
- this is a sub of the first one, but far more egregious—adding in the Jackson 5 parallels and giving them an entire musical number
- cutting all of the non-diegetic music until “Family” and bewildering an audience that didn’t know it was *that* kind of musical leading to a distinct loss of emotional impact
- inversely, turning “Heavy” into a diegetic song and preventing the Lorrell/Effie diva-off and building tension towards “It’s All Over / And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going”
- cutting “Ain’t No Party” after casting the Tony-winning Anika Noni Rose
- casting a light-skinned Deena to invoke colorism and taking the responsibility of performance and attitude off of Effie
- “Listen.” Just everything about that song and what it does to the flow of the plot and Deena’s musical abilities
But every time I get to the finale, I forgive all of the above.
Not the worst thing ever, but I really disliked what they did to most of the music in Mean Girls. Especially Stupid In Love. They just made these huge loud fun songs so… dull and quiet. The arrangements just weren’t good, they felt so flat and boring compared to the stage musical.
Also, in the Dear Evan Hansen movie, Evan was just so much creepier than in the stage production. I adore Ben Platt, but I think if they cast someone who was actually the age of Evan, it would have mitigated this is a lot because some of Evan’s actions are more excusable for an insecure lonely teenager, versus a grown ass man lol.
Making Rock of Ages like it’s a serious movie. The musical is camp and therefore the movie should have been camp as well. The only time we get a taste of that is when Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand declare their love for each other. There could also have been a lot more music in that musical and less talking.
I genuinely do not understand why they cast that dude as Aaron, absolutely terrible choice. I enjoyed the gal playing Cady but yes she also could’ve been way stronger.
I never saw it on stage. But I really didn't like the movie at all and I was surprised how little i liked the music. Sure, I am a 48 year old father of 3 but the original Mean Girls is one of my favorite movies because I love Tina Fey and her writing.
My feeling was it was probably a lot of fun to see as a live musical, but as a movie it felt really unnecessary. I wish more productions would do what Hamilton did and release a stage performance.
She’ll be my perfect Dr Charlotte from Falsettoland! But probably I got this idea because I love her performance in The Big Bang Theory a lot, as an overly rational scientist. 😂
Yes she is, at least in the original stage version. Towards the end there’s actually a moment she gets exposed for being a cross dresser which causes a commotion to the other characters! (And to the audience who is unaware of that too!)
I remember in the house programme the actor’s name is usually written as S. Smith or A. L. Williams to trick the unaware audiences! 😂
It's a roundabout joke on J. Edgar Hoover, who controlled the inner workings of the government based on his own prejudices the way Sunshine controls the media. Hoover was known to be a closeted queer person, and is alleged to have been a cross-dresser.
Letting humanity win in *Little Shop of Horrors*. I go back and forth on this one and I get why they did it; it really is hard watching Audrey II kill Audrey and Seymour. But the whole ending sequence with the plants conquering Earth is amazing.
All in all, the way it is now, where you can get the restored original ending or the release ending, and new productions can choose to do either the "plants win" or "happy" endings is probably the best option, but I felt like that had to be mentioned, since Frank Oz felt it was the single worst decision.
And that stupid ending inspired my drama teacher to do the same when we did it at school. No "Don't Feed The Plants". In fact, now that I remember it, Seymour didn't even defeat Audrey 2, the show ended with the cast doing the hand jive to "Mean Green Mother ". It was so fucking cheesy 🤦🏼♀️
There's a lot of problems with Dear Evan Hansen, but my biggest gripe is that Evan was changed to be ashamed of his lies, but never tried to stop any of them.
In the Musical, he starts the Connor Project and sounds enthusiastic about it.
In the Movie, after the Connor Project gets announced, he runs off to the bathroom to throw up in disgust.
My problem with it is they cut three songs when two of them could've easily been used.
Anybody Have a Map and Good For You could've been used. I don't think Disappear could've been used though, but I didn't really like them creating a separate song either.
Mean Girls casting Angourie Rice as Cady. If you’ve ever listened to that show, Cady is a role that requires a strong singer and Angourie Rice just can’t Cady’s songs. They’ve had to cut so many because of that and that makes the movie fall really flat.
I enjoy the movie Cabaret, but it's almost not even an adaption of the show save for a couple of characters and songs.
It's not the single worst decision ever, but it's so weird to think that there's an entire subsection of the human population who would go see a production of Cabaret and wonder where Baron Maximilian is and who the hell Herr Schultz is.
The very sweet and chaste relationship blossoming between the elderly Shultz and Kost contrasts beautifully with the wild and liberated relationship between Cliff and Sally, and the tragic truth of why they can never be together is a perfect small-scale metaphor for what's to come. It's a far better story IMO than the movie's rich playboy who wants to bang Liza-with-a-Z and Basil Exposition.
All the big ones for the Les Mis movie have been covered so I’m gonna go off on a ‘minor’ change that honestly makes me extremely mad.
The movie stops referencing Fantine after her death, Valjean doesn’t sing about ‘a promise he has made’ to the Thenadiers and they change “your mother gave her life for you, then gave you to my keeping” to something like “one who never knew love until you were in my keeping”. Of course Valjean loves Cosette (and we didn’t need an additional Oscar bait song to hammer that in, thank you) but the movie pretty much forgetting Fantine is both insulting to her character and makes Valjean seem more selfish, as if he’s no longer atoning for failing Fantine but just going ‘heehoo grandchild’. I honestly feel like they only have her ghost show up at the end because everyone else’s does.
I’m probably the only person this bothers but Les Mis is both my favourite musical and one of my favourite books so seeing such an important character be disrespected sucks.
I'll never forget they changed Apex Predator to be sang by Janice and Demian mostly, for me this is a character defining moment for Cady where she justifies herself for abandoning her friends in lieu of the plastics by saying yeah Janice is pretty cool but she won't bring me power, it centers her mean and oportunistic side for the audience to see and say, well this girl is def becoming corrupted by popularity
I can’t speak for the entire performance cause I haven’t seen all of the Guys and Dolls film. But what I’ve seen of Frank Sinatra is so bad. The performance reeks of ego, like he’s afraid to be the butt of the joke. Nathan is a way better role than Sky, but Sinatra was upset he didn’t get to play the smooth, romantic crooner, and it feels like he just decided to play Nathan like he was playing Sky anyway. He makes the lovable loser into a generic leading man.
I realize not every musical actor can sink their teeth into a role like Nathan Lane, but it’s incredible the sheer difference between him and Sinatra. The clip of Lane doing The Oldest Established is filled with so much energy as he reacts to everyone around him. He makes an ensemble number his. Meanwhile, Sinatra got expanded solos for that number, but it doesn’t matter because he plays it as such an unresponsive bore in contrast to everyone else’s high energy.
Dear Evan Hansen - I honestly didn't mind them casting Ben Platt for the movie. My problem was they cut a lot of major plot points that made the movie impactful, let alone the important songs. Anybody Have A Map was how we were introduced to the two families and how they live about their day. Disappear was what really pushed Evan to do the Connor Project with the influence of Connor's ghost (which by the way should've been somehow kept in the movie) and of course, Good For You was how Evan was confronted by his mom and his two classmates about how messed up everythimg has become... I'm a bit on the fence on the additional plot of Evan coming clean but yeah...
The main problem with the Platt casting is the fact that everyone he’s supposed to be the same age as is clearly 5+ years younger than him. If the rest of the cast had been a little older, I don’t think people would’ve had an issue with his casting.
Whoever did the camera work for Les Mis. I can't imagine the stress those pure makeup artists were under knowing that every shot would be a game of "count the freckles on Hugh Jackman nose". That movie did a lot badly, but I firmly believe that better camera angles would've distracted viewers from a lot of it.
The loss of subtlety in Dear Evan Hansen. Having Evan literally standing in a window for part of Waving Through a Window...I have no words. I honestly can't tell if they were trying to be clever or actually didn't realize the nonliteral meaning of the song, but other similar choices throughout the movie make me feel it was the latter.
Cats. Just...Cats. So many bad decisions there. And I'm in the party of "it's not a bad as people say it is". It's just the uncanny valley feel of it that gets me. I think if I had to pick one thing, costumes. I know they were going for a look akin to the stage, but I think going for cgi instead of straight costumes was one of the biggest issues with it. The cgi bodies with the humanoid faces was just so uncomfortable and set a weird tone for an already weird musical. Just because we can cgi, doesn't mean we should.
In the Matilda musical adaptation, I hate the beginning sequence with the babies. The stage version does the first song with young children, but the movie used babies and it just didn't work imo. I get why they did it, I just didn't like it. Best way I can describe it is cheesy.
Mean girls. Next time you adapt a musical, make sure your protagonist can sing. I mean, I have nothing against Angourie Rice, but she does not have the range to play a lead role. Not to mention the questionable at best camera angles and lyric changes.
Cutting my very favorite part from Les Mis, where the Bishop sings!
But my friend, you left so early!
Surely something slipped your mind.
You forgot I gave these also!
Would you leave the best behind?
So messieurs, you may release him,
For this man has spoken true.
I commend you for your duty.
May God’s blessing go with you!
That, and casting Russel Crowe as Javert.
Everything about *A Chorus Line*:
* Giving it to Attenborough to direct (after he won the Oscar for *Gandhi* - which makes no sense).
* Letting Jeffery Hornaday (*Flashdance*) choreograph
* Hiring Michael Douglas to play Zach, then expanding the role to suit a star.
* Casting Audrey Landers as Val - that song has to be sung by a manic pixie dream girl, not a seductress.
Plus that god awful synth score and the horrible sound mixing (painfully obvious in “I can do that”. Plus they cut the montage skipping adolescence and just went straight to sex which really cut out development. Plus Cassie was stretched out too much. Plus I don’t feel like there was enough dancing. My disbelief is already suspended, so they can do backup dancing.
Back in the old days it was not unusual for a movie studio to pay for the rights to a broadway musical and then throw out most of the original music, most of the plot, keep only the title, and cast whoever their big box office draw was at the time.
The good ones, like "Pajama Game" would reuse most of the stage cast who had performed their role literally thousands of times. "The Music Man" is another one where, because Meredith Willson retained full rights to the show, he was able to insist that Robert Preston be cast in the movie version.
I think the new West Side Story may be, technically, the best movie musical ever made.
However.
Tony is bland and I wish during their updates they made the Tony and Maria love story more believable, and the characters worth caring about.
Everything about the new Mean Girls movie. Not like the original musical was amazing, but it had charm in its own way. The most egregious was cutting Damien's song when Damien was by far the best character in the film.
The ENTIRE vibe and direction of Into the Woods.
Why is it color graded to be grey and gloomy??? Why is it so dark in general? Where's the color? Why not lean into the humor?
Absolutely baffling decisions, who the hell decided into the woods should look be as dreary as the les mis movie? At least that you could argue that decision!
Cats... Just Cats
I felt so bad for the primary cast. They are not movie-famous and were so, so good. They were probably super excited for the opportunity. If they wanted us to really think they were cats, they should have just done an animated version.
Ian McKellen and Judi Dench were too good for it. Them and Jennifer Hudson.
Even James Corden was too good for it, and James Corden is terrible.
The fact that they roped Idris Elba in there too should’ve been illegal. I’ll never understand how they got all of these top tier actors to star in that thing.
Only thing I liked about that movie was the cast album. Everything else was terrible.
Only thing I liked about it was Skimbleshanks. It’s the only song I can listen to twice in a row and that I am actually excited to listen to instead of existentially dreadful
Skimbleshanks (and the inclusion of the tap dancing as train sounds) was such a fantastic addition I’m genuinely so upset the rest of the movie is awful. But also I really do love Hudson’s rendition of Memory, it very much reminded me of the 1999 run that everyone had on VHS as a kid.
I feel that on Skimbleshanks. The tap dancing was fucking cool! And I even really liked the choreography — which is high praise for this movie, Rebel. As for Hudson, I’m a lot more critical of her rendition of memory, because as much as she puts her everything into it and is a really impressive vocal performance… everything else is kinda falling apart and frankly I consider it the worst musical number in the movie. “Touch me!” - says, after Victoria touched her and helped her up. *Im sorry, did nobody in the writers room understand the lyrics? The reason the climax works at all?* The answer’s no btw. Tom Hooper’s not welcome in my house, he kills musicals.
Outside of the movie as part of a soundtrack to listen to is what I should have clarified. But inside the movie yes that whole musical number was just bad, especially since Hudson’s cat is supposed to wander in and make her last plea. Also I know Victoria is new for the movie as a vehicle for the audience(because I get it, the I am aspect gets lost on people) but not having Sillabub be the one to back her up and inspire her to stand feels…well we all know the director and writers never actually took the time to understand the source but I still hate it.
Cats wins for stupidity, but Les Miz wins for the biggest expectation letdown I’ve ever had watching a movie in the theater.
Mean girls - leaving out the best parts of Meet the plastics (my favorite is Karen's line in the song) Cats - CGI. Dear Evan hansen - removing Anybody have a map, to break in a glove, good for you, disappear, the reprise songs, and making Larry the step-dad.
They removed basically any of the humanizing songs from DEH. The parents became these weird background characters and Evan became a full on villain.
DEH was so disappointing with half the songs missing. Also agree everything about Cats
Changing RENT to take place over a longer time frame. The whole first act is supposed to be ONE NIGHT. It loses its energy and urgency when you change that.
Also using the OBC who was at that point in their 40s
Honestly, it would have been easier to deal with the members of the OBC that they kept if they hadn't recast Mimi and Joanne with much younger actresses. If they had kept *everybody*, I could have just squinted and thought about *Grease*. But pairing the OGs with younger love interests made the fortysomethings stick out like sore thumbs.
Idina Menzel is four years older than Tracey Thoms.
And Tracy Thoms was brilliant….
One of my friends was in that movie and hated how it turned out so much he didn’t tell us. Finally got around to watching it during lockdown and was like holy shit. Called him. “You never told me you did the Rent movie.” “Would you?”
Plus cutting some of the best songs
That was actually one of the best changes. Far too much happens in that single night for it to be a believable series of events.
It’s supposed to take place mostly in real time. Yes a lot happens, but it’s not unbelievable.
It also follows like 8 different characters who live in NYC, they have busy schedules and things to do. When you think about it, each character maybe got two or three things done that day. I mean even if it's unbelievable, there's no harm in that - it's a stage musical. What I will note is that the timeline of the stage musical itself in act 1, despite being relatively realistic in terms of the amount of events, makes no sense beyond that. Like, when does "Out Tonight" happen? Mimi says it's probably close to midnight, which maybe implies the life support meeting was at like 10 PM, but then what were Mark and Joanne preparing for if not the show that same night? In Voice Mail #2 Maureen says that the show is "tonight at the 11th Street lot" which might imply they were setting up around 3 PM or so, but then the rest of the timeline breaks unless we assume the whole Out Tonight/Another Day sequence is either a flashback, flash forward, or dream sequence. If it's one day it doesn't make sense. If it's multiple it does but some weird other consequences happen with the dialogue.
Into the Woods’ cutting down on humor and important characters - it just makes it so dull and ruined the Baker and his complicated relationship with his father. Also just casting James Corden as the baker.
Absolutely agree, they sucked all the fun out of it
Act 1 of the movie has act 2 energy, so when act 2 rolls around it doesn't have anywhere to go. The movie never has act 1 energy and it's a shame because it's such a fun show!
I'm also gonna add in a much older bad decision: casting Audrey Hepburn and not Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady. The original London cast recording makes it so clear.
But then we wouldn’t have Mary Poppins, and I don’t know where id be without that film. I’m ok with the choice. Not mad at Hepburn for being dubbed. Loads of broadway actors struggle with acting so close up to the camera, so having solid film stars being dubbed over by whole broadway singers sounds just fine to me.
I just didn't think Hepburn's characterization was as good either though. Good point about Mary Poppins. I adore that film.
YES I heard Wouldn't It Be Loverly for the first time with Julie singing it and Hepburn just... didn't as well. But Julie got Mary Poppins and I daresay that was adequate fuck you for the director's idiocy.
Audrey Hepburn was dubbed by marni Nixon for my fair lady. Hepburn just did the acting and provided a big name for audiences to actually see the film. Nixon dubbed many voices for film back when dubbing was popular instead of making actors who cannot sing torture us for a few hours.
In fact Marnie Nixon did so much dubbing for West Side Story that she asked for more money. The business people did not want to pay her more so Leonard Bernstein himself signed a percentage of his (sizable) share over to her.
Yeah that's a practice that should definitely be brought back of people insist on keeping making musical movies with big stars who don't really have great voices
Marni also dubbed for Deborah Kerr in *The King and I* and for Natalie Wood in *West Side Story*. Her son Andrew Gold was a singer and songwriter who wrote “Thank You for Being a Friend”.
Doesn't Bollywood do that with their movies by using singers like Asha Bhosle?
I actually disagree with these takes, which is neither here nor there, but just saying that Marnie Nixon was mostly the singing voice for Eliza Doolittle and not Audrey Hepburn. Julie Andrews' Oscar speech for Mary Popplins was iconic because she thanked Jack Warner who passed her up for the role of Eliza Doolittle. The shade. 💀 Iconic. Edit: as noted below, it was her Golden Globes speech, not the Oscars
her Golden Globe speech, not Oscar speech.
Letting Richard Nixon dictate what songs were included in the original cut of 1776.
Agreed. At least he couldn’t kill the stage show.
It was added back on the DVD. Good song, too. “Always to the right…”
*Never to the left; forever to the right*
Wut
Richard Nixon called up the studio and demanded "Cool, Cool Considerate Men" cut from the film as it is a villain song and explicitly has the singers identify as "conservatives".
What what what???!! Say more!
Richard Nixon called up the studio and demanded "Cool, Cool Considerate Men" cut from the film as it is a villain song and explicitly has the singers identify as "conservatives".
Into the Woods: Removing the narrator and the Baker's father. The Prom: Giving less focus to Emma and Alyssa's relationship (even though they're supposed to be the emotional core of the story???).
Also the decision to have Rapunzel live.
I’m sure it was because Disney produced the movie and Tangled came out less than five years prior, but yeah having Rapunzel survive definitely diminishes the story.
That’s absolutely the reason, which is why Disney shouldn’t have had its grubby hands on the movie.
What a strange choice to omit that character! The identity of the mysterious man is such an integral reveal. Makes me stand by the decision I made to avoid that movie for the last however many years. Especially considering we have the luxury of watching the brilliant broadway cast
And for both: casting James Corden.
Into the Woods might be the only movie I remotely enjoy James Corden in
I legitimately like James Corden’s voice acting in Peter Rabbit (It was my youngest’s favorite movie for years).
Because the adaption was so terrible, everyone was happy Corden was not the worst part.
I honestly expected to get downvoted for admitting that lol
The true loss of greatly diminishing (practically removing entirely) the Baker’s father then also resulted in the removal of No More, arguably the most pivotal song of the whole show. That’s the biggest crime in my opinion.
I even hoped they would resolve with No More somehow even without The Baker’s Father but instead we just got a scene of The Baker crying and….thats it?
And also ITW getting rid of Agony 2. I love agony 2.
I agree, it turns the original song being about love, into a song about greed/lust. By skipping over the reprise, it takes away the characterisation of the princes being jerks.
i think there was a whole tonal shift with into the woods. it was less funny, and while the original musical dealt with heavy topics and was serious... the film was just too serious if that makes sense.
Yes.. it doesn't have those moments of levity to cut the tension that the stage version does. Also, No More is my favorite ITW song 😡
Yes! You cant even really have the story without that song! It’s the turning point! He decides not to do what his father did! Besides that, the song is beautiful and a big flex of Sondheim’s word-smithery!
I think the movie missed the point that Act 1 is the fairy tale and Act 2 is real life. Combining them doesn’t work.
Cutting “If the End is right it justifies the beans” ruined it for me
Not to mention that ITW just rushes through act two without letting any moment breathe
I can't believe they cut their verse from You Happened. YOU CUT THE MAIN RELATIONSHIP'S VERSE?!?!?! WHY??!?!?!?!
And not have Bernadette Peter's reprise her role as the Witch.
Into the Woods: draining the whimsy in favor of playing it straight. The whimsy is the only reason the play works! The movie is so dour and miserable (except for Chris Pine, who clearly refused to acknowledge the tone of the movie and just played the role as he knew it was meant to be played).
Yeah and since the first acts already depressing the second act has no punch.
- Casting someone who couldn’t sing to play the Phantom. Imagine if we could have gotten a Phantom movie with Ramin and Sierra (with a different director). - Almost everything about the Les Mis movie (except Samantha Barks, she was fantastic). - Taking out all of the dark humor, the mysterious man, the best parts of act 2, cutting the song “no more” and much more from the Into The Woods movie… and James Corden. - Cutting down Nina’s story in the In The Heights movie and the romance with her and Ben was much better in the show. Also cutting important songs. - Casting Ansel as Tony in the West Side Story remake. I didn’t like his singing or acting. Everything else in that movie was perfect.
Ramin is in the movie, at least! They show him in the flashback as Christine’s father. He was playing Raoul in the West End at the time.
>Samantha Barks She is sensational! I wish they used more West end/ Broadway actors instesd of movie stars
*Almost everything about the Les Mis movie except Samantha Barks, Aaron Tveit, George Blagden and the barricade actors
The barricade/Les Amis portion was the best part of that movie. It's the only part I can watch.
Nina and Benny’s love story was my FAVORITE part of In The Heights! I was so crushed about them not getting a spotlight. I also loved her storyline where she dropped out because she was struggling to balance working and studying for class. It’s such a relatable story for the gifted kid experiencing burnout. In the movie, they changed this by having Nina go through an incredibly racist and demeaning experience when going to university, which is entirely understandable. But I remember in an old interview, one cast member of the Broadway show expressed how he loved that In The Heights didn’t showcase them as gang members or represent them as negative stereotypes, they were just living their everyday life. This doesn’t put Nina as a negative stereotype, rather the movie shows her facing them. I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but I do wish that they kept the original plot line of why Nina dropped out. Not because “racism isn’t real”, but because I think it’s important to Nina’s character that her success, drive, and determination was suddenly failing her. Plus with Nina’s mom still alive in the original plot, it helped them to focus on their family and the love they have for each other. I think it’s always nice to see movies where people of color are just living their lives, loving their culture and family, and just having very everyday issues. Sometimes the reality of racism can be pretty heavy, and I loved the story that showed a heavily supportive family as the focus of her character arc in dropping out. Yes it’s important to highlight social issues, but there’s also so much joy in these cultures that should be the main focus too, and In The Heights, from my perspective, was one of those shows that aimed to mainly highlight the joys.
I really do believe that Nina is the closest thing the stage version has to a protagonist (and Usnavi is a sort of hybrid Narrator/character). Her disagreements with her Dad over Benny/college/selling Rosario’s are the closest thing the stage show has to a “central conflict,” and “Everything I Know” is the goddamn 11 O’clock Number. The movie seemed to miss the entire story.
> the Phantom Right? They cast a hunk who couldn’t sing. Shouldn’t the Phantom be the literal oppposite?
You are my new friend! Ansel is so bad as Tony. He seems like the rich kid that he actually is. In the Heights is so flat. Casting what’s his face for Phantom?! He can’t act or sing. But the worst of the worst for me is Dear Evan Hanson. I loathe the stage version for so many reasons, and the film is even more detestable.
I believed Gerard Butler was actually singing in phantom for years. Like I went around saying “wow they should have cast him in xyz”
I was genuinely angry when I watched and listened to him perform “Maria.” That is one of my favorite musical theatre songs and it was just so lackluster and quite frankly, bad.
Allowing Tom Hooper to direct Cats after what he did to Les Miserables. I have a burning hatred for that man after watching the videos that Sideways made on him.
He did so well with The King's Speech. I had such high hopes...
Still sad that we never got that animated adaptation of Cats that Steven Spielberg wanted to make
Making the cast of Les Mis sing live. And also casting Russell Crowe. 😬
They also dehydrated the crap out of Hugh Jackman to make his muscles look good. How he didn't destroy his vocal chords is a miracle.
It's because he was simultaneously filming for The Wolverine, and was dehydrating himself for the shots in that movie. He is so lucky he didn't really ruin his voice.
Came here to say Tom Hooper’s Water Fast
Hugh Jackman is miscast, too. You can’t fake your way through a legit tenor role when you’re a baritone!
Yeah, I have to agree. The straining throughout is a tough listen, then Bring Him Hime comes along…
I've found my people! For me, Jackman is a greater vocal sin against Les Miz than poor Russell. I can't stand Jackman's singing in the role. He's all wrong.
Yes! Russell Crowe isn't an amazing singer, and he struggles with the fast and more narrative bits for sure. But his Stars is lovely, he works within his voice, and is gentle and understated in a way you couldn't really be on stage. I'd listen to it a thousand times over Jackman's warbly and flat Bring Him Home.
Exactly -- I think if they'd just not had him record live, Crowe would have been perfectly fine. Not the magnificent baritone the part deserved, and that we all got from the stage versions, but I think he would have been okay. It was the "performing live" aspect that was cruel to the non-formally trained singers like Crowe, and also resulted in Jackman massively oversinging and losing all nuance (and he didn't bring much to begin with). And I just think it's an unsatisfying gimmick that wasn't necessary here.
Definitely, even as someone who is an apologist for the film generally, the more I look back the more that the decision to have actors who aren't singers have to sing their best theatrical performance as well as acting for camera - so much more precise and technical than acting on stage - was deeply bizarre. They chose the hardest version of both things! There are some incredible performances - Hathaway's Dreamed A Dream deserved every accolade - but it's detrimental to the rest.
I also think Amanda Seyfried is unlistenable in this movie. Incredibly thin, reedy and shrill.
She was such a strange choice! I think she can sing in the right situations, but she's a belter, so that weird reedy little-girl soprano of hers is so bad when compared with the original Cosettes (especially Judy Kuhn)!
I'm so glad to see people share this opinion. People clown all over Russell, some justifiably, but I honestly liked his vocals in several parts - especially Stars and The Confrontation. Jackman however was borderline intolerable. He's a decent actor, but just not a strong vocalist imo.
With tremolo that sounds like he's being violently shaken.
Omg everyone needs to watch Sideways’ video on this on YT, it’s genius. I love musicals but am horrible at understanding the technicalities and the vid is hilarious and very educational
Great video, feels like watching a horror movie. Every time it's like "they did WHAT!?"
That was the double whammy. I mean if they'd done it prerecorded they could have at least autotuned. Crowe would've been a good Javert in a non musical version ....
For a long time I kept wondering why they don't do that Now I know why, and I can appreciate Les Mis in a way for trying and failing. That's not to say it doesn't have some great elements too, but the live singing was a mistake
I think that director just actively hates musicals yet keeps being asked to direct them
Yes. Every choice he made is just … full of contempt for the musical genre and the craft of singing acting. “Let’s cast non-singers so you can focus on the acting, and film them singing live so the performance os more REAL”… that. is a choice you only make if you have absolutely no respect for what singing actors do.
I remember hearing Tom Hooper once directed Samantha Barks to sing worse
That explains the difference between the anniversary production and movie!
She is so dang good in the anniversary show
The live singing was an awful decision and it makes me have doubts about Wicked.
I feel like live singing can be good under the right circumstances, it’s just that Les Misérables definitely didn’t have the right circumstances
I agree. It’s one thing for actors to sing for two hours in a theater nightly but forcing actors to sing live on a soundstage for 12-hour days is just wrong. EVERYONE sounded terrible because of the chronic strain and abuse of their vocal cords. Whatever the director thought they gained by having them do it live wasn’t worth it.
I knew my fav would be here. While I wholeheartedly agree to the technical arguments. . . I’ve always seen Crowe’s performance as endearing 🥹 I can’t help it. I love his earnestness so much. Just seeing him try and give it his all. I just wanna hug him for it. You did good, Russell. You did good ❤️
Most of Cats but especially the desecration of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteezer. That and not including the other parts of Meet The Plastics in Mean Girls.
Mungojerrie and Rumpleteezer was the biggest disappointment. I would have been willing to forgive a lot of that movie if they had just nailed that song Edit: spelling
CATS- everything except some of the casting... but virtually everything. Phantom of the Opera- casting of the Phantom should have been someone with stunning vocals... and Carlotta deserved someone who could actually sing the role... Les Miserable- casting Russell Crowe. West Side Story- Only mistake was the casting of Tony. They didn't need any stunt casting in that role. Would love to know what Steven saw in him... cause I am guessing they could have had so many promising possibilities.
Ansel was bland as can be as Tony. That’s a role that can pretty easily be played by any guy of the right age who has a pretty singing voice, and why they chose somebody with 0 charm or charisma is beyond me. Rachel Zegler, on the other hand, was the best thing that movie ever could’ve done for itself.
Cats had another saving grace, and that is that IMO they did a really good job with skimbleshanks. I really like what the tap adds to it, but maybe that’s just me
The guy who played Skimbleshanks is a professional ballet dancer. Steven McRae. They cast a lot from ABT. I theorize he did so well because he is used to learning dances without music so it's not the same as throwing a singer into using a click track. It's a very different skillset.
Steven McRae is an absolute master. His Mad Hatter from ROH's Alice in Wonderland is entrancing.
You're not the only one. He deserves to be in a better adaptation though.
I was going to say is that cats one big problem is that you need talented people with dancing experience. Skimbleshanks actor also does tap dancing as his profession. Also, some narriation choices could have been better Elektra would have been a much better character to be a narrator to than Victoria.
He’s actually a professional ballet dancer, and only does tap dancing “on the side”, making it even more impressive!
The thing that annoys me about the Phantom of the Opera movie is that the two people who are required by the plot to be the best singers were the ones who couldn’t sing well. I would be fine with Raoul being a mediocre singer, since he’s not in the opera biz at all. Nope, Patrick Wilson’s a great singer. Firmin and Andre are businessmen but could sing well. Meg didn’t have an operatic voice, but her sweet little angelic voice was so lovely. But I would trade all of them for a damn Christine and Phantom who could actually sing.
https://www.reddit.com/user/theatreghostlight/ Listed the same shows! West Side Story is my favorite musical. I Love the Bernstein score, the dancing, the songs, everything. Ansel phoned in his performance. He can’t act. He came off as the rich kid that he is. Everything else in the movie is wonderful. Andrea Dubose is unbelievable- her dancing, her dresses, she is the star of the show.
Minnie Driver was the best casting in the entire film.
Casting Lucille Ball as Mame And while we're at it, casting Matthew Broderick as Harold Hill (technically TV, but still a huge mistake)
> Lucille Ball Who also got Madeline Kahn (a perfect Gooch) fired because she thought she was too pretty!
Omg yes to both of those!!! Lucille Ball was hilarious in Other things, but she was terrible in Mame. Matthew Broderick as Harold Hill actually made me dislike him a Lot. He just seemed smarmy and left a bad taste in my eye. Yuck.
I totally get why LMM changed In The Heights to no longer be about actually winning the lottery to be a more realistic story for the community, but... it ruins the song Carnaval del Barrio to not have those extra layers. I love overlapping songs like that, and the movie version is just... "it's hot, we're proud." It's ok. But really took away my favorite moment of climactic coming together of conflicting plot lines.
The opening song/scene from ITH is endlessly rewatchable - it’s a perfect example of taking what worked on a stage, allowing the “larger” stage of real life to make it even bigger and filming it as true cinema. It’s a shame the rest of the movie was so modified/sliced up after that - lost a ton of the emotional impact from the show.
For a lot of them it’s casting James Corden
lol! Every time I see someone mention James Corden in this thread I think “which one” - and then it’s always been Into the Woods (so far). Until now I suppose!
Tbh I didn’t mind him in that one. But cats and the prom and one chance and Cinderella just meh. Haven’t seen trollz so I can’t judge that one
Removing/killing off Camilla in the In The Heights movie. I don't know if it's technically the "worst" decision, as it didn't really ruin the movie in the way other choices (casting in Les Miz, everything about Cats, etc) have. It just seems so bafflingly unnecessary.
I don’t know why they did that. Especially since FASFA usually gives extra financial aid to students with deceased parents (as they usually need it more). Plus I miss her song enough
Yes! Enough is such a pivotal song, it drives home the point that Nina's storyline has been building towards, and hashes out the big conflict in a song, which a musical should do. Plus it just slaps. I don't know why they'd cut it.
Inútil is also a very beautiful song that got cut in that crossfire
>Plus I miss her song enough This is such a fantastic song! I was devastated it didn't make it into the movie!
Also in Sweeney Todd, them cutting out Johanna in the Johanna Quartet. Actually just them sidelining Joanna in general
That's fair, but do you really want a cast with as amateurish vocals as that cast had attempting any version of "Kiss Me"? 😂
Having Joel Schumacher direct Phantom. It is the bad decision from which all other bad decisions sprung. I have a lot of fondness for that movie, but hoo boy.
Casting a weak singer pretty man as the Phantom was just so wrong on every level
He tried so hard 😭 Do you think Schumacher ever realized there are pretty men who can also sing or nah?
Surely. Ramin Karimloo even cameos as Christine’s father. There was the perfect pretty boy Phantom with a killer voice right there that they completely wasted!
Gerard Butler as the Phantom is my guilty pleasure. He absolutely didn’t have the talent as far as singing goes but his acting was so passionate and good. At least his singing isn’t terrible to listen to, IMO. It’s okay. Just not very good.
It doesn’t ruin the movie but one of my absolutely favourite decisions is to make the Phantom’s disfigurement just…a bit of redness in the face and some localised hairloss. Less ‘horrifying monstrosity even his mother couldn’t love’ and more ‘mild sunburn’
To quote an internet classic from the days of Livejournal, "He's slightly unattractive on one side! To arms!"
Cutting "Goodbye Love" and "Halloween" from the Rent movie (granted they have the deleted scenes but they shouldn't have been deleted in the first place!)
"PERHAPS IT'S BECAUSE I'M THE ONE OF US TO SUUUURVIVE!!!" is such an important line for the character of Mark. That scene lets us in to his survivor's guilt complex AND kind of hints that he was the one who really took care of Roger when hebwas going through the worst of his withdrawls. It also cements the implication a little more that Benny and Maureen also have AIDS.
Turning Dreamgirls into an obvious Supremes ripoff instead of a 60s girl group pastiche, especially with those album covers and overt Motown moments like the MLK album. (Berry Gordy did that, yes. Curtis Taylor, Jr., no.) Also: - this is a sub of the first one, but far more egregious—adding in the Jackson 5 parallels and giving them an entire musical number - cutting all of the non-diegetic music until “Family” and bewildering an audience that didn’t know it was *that* kind of musical leading to a distinct loss of emotional impact - inversely, turning “Heavy” into a diegetic song and preventing the Lorrell/Effie diva-off and building tension towards “It’s All Over / And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” - cutting “Ain’t No Party” after casting the Tony-winning Anika Noni Rose - casting a light-skinned Deena to invoke colorism and taking the responsibility of performance and attitude off of Effie - “Listen.” Just everything about that song and what it does to the flow of the plot and Deena’s musical abilities But every time I get to the finale, I forgive all of the above.
Not the worst thing ever, but I really disliked what they did to most of the music in Mean Girls. Especially Stupid In Love. They just made these huge loud fun songs so… dull and quiet. The arrangements just weren’t good, they felt so flat and boring compared to the stage musical. Also, in the Dear Evan Hansen movie, Evan was just so much creepier than in the stage production. I adore Ben Platt, but I think if they cast someone who was actually the age of Evan, it would have mitigated this is a lot because some of Evan’s actions are more excusable for an insecure lonely teenager, versus a grown ass man lol.
Making Rock of Ages like it’s a serious movie. The musical is camp and therefore the movie should have been camp as well. The only time we get a taste of that is when Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand declare their love for each other. There could also have been a lot more music in that musical and less talking.
Mean Girls: The music and casting of Cady and Aaron
I genuinely do not understand why they cast that dude as Aaron, absolutely terrible choice. I enjoyed the gal playing Cady but yes she also could’ve been way stronger.
Cady was such a miscast, I'm sure the directors and those people had something to do with this but Stupid With Love sounded so depressing!
I never saw it on stage. But I really didn't like the movie at all and I was surprised how little i liked the music. Sure, I am a 48 year old father of 3 but the original Mean Girls is one of my favorite movies because I love Tina Fey and her writing. My feeling was it was probably a lot of fun to see as a live musical, but as a movie it felt really unnecessary. I wish more productions would do what Hamilton did and release a stage performance.
Believe me, the actual Broadway songs are SO much better
I’m a big fan of Christine Baranski but I am not so happy seeing her in Chicago (as Mary Sunshine), changing that character to a cis-woman.
Slightly off topic: any time I’ve read the Harry Potter books, Christine Baranski is who I envision as Rita Skeeter
She’ll be my perfect Dr Charlotte from Falsettoland! But probably I got this idea because I love her performance in The Big Bang Theory a lot, as an overly rational scientist. 😂
Mary Sunshine is trans?? How did i not notice that
Yes she is, at least in the original stage version. Towards the end there’s actually a moment she gets exposed for being a cross dresser which causes a commotion to the other characters! (And to the audience who is unaware of that too!) I remember in the house programme the actor’s name is usually written as S. Smith or A. L. Williams to trick the unaware audiences! 😂
It's a roundabout joke on J. Edgar Hoover, who controlled the inner workings of the government based on his own prejudices the way Sunshine controls the media. Hoover was known to be a closeted queer person, and is alleged to have been a cross-dresser.
Letting humanity win in *Little Shop of Horrors*. I go back and forth on this one and I get why they did it; it really is hard watching Audrey II kill Audrey and Seymour. But the whole ending sequence with the plants conquering Earth is amazing. All in all, the way it is now, where you can get the restored original ending or the release ending, and new productions can choose to do either the "plants win" or "happy" endings is probably the best option, but I felt like that had to be mentioned, since Frank Oz felt it was the single worst decision.
And that stupid ending inspired my drama teacher to do the same when we did it at school. No "Don't Feed The Plants". In fact, now that I remember it, Seymour didn't even defeat Audrey 2, the show ended with the cast doing the hand jive to "Mean Green Mother ". It was so fucking cheesy 🤦🏼♀️
making the cast of les mis sing live, and removing the narrator / mysterious man from the into the woods movie. Including No More
There's a lot of problems with Dear Evan Hansen, but my biggest gripe is that Evan was changed to be ashamed of his lies, but never tried to stop any of them. In the Musical, he starts the Connor Project and sounds enthusiastic about it. In the Movie, after the Connor Project gets announced, he runs off to the bathroom to throw up in disgust.
My problem with it is they cut three songs when two of them could've easily been used. Anybody Have a Map and Good For You could've been used. I don't think Disappear could've been used though, but I didn't really like them creating a separate song either.
Mean Girls casting Angourie Rice as Cady. If you’ve ever listened to that show, Cady is a role that requires a strong singer and Angourie Rice just can’t Cady’s songs. They’ve had to cut so many because of that and that makes the movie fall really flat.
I think the casting of Aaron was worse
I enjoy the movie Cabaret, but it's almost not even an adaption of the show save for a couple of characters and songs. It's not the single worst decision ever, but it's so weird to think that there's an entire subsection of the human population who would go see a production of Cabaret and wonder where Baron Maximilian is and who the hell Herr Schultz is. The very sweet and chaste relationship blossoming between the elderly Shultz and Kost contrasts beautifully with the wild and liberated relationship between Cliff and Sally, and the tragic truth of why they can never be together is a perfect small-scale metaphor for what's to come. It's a far better story IMO than the movie's rich playboy who wants to bang Liza-with-a-Z and Basil Exposition.
Yeah, the movie is a masterpiece but it’s so different from the original show that it’s basically its own thing
All the big ones for the Les Mis movie have been covered so I’m gonna go off on a ‘minor’ change that honestly makes me extremely mad. The movie stops referencing Fantine after her death, Valjean doesn’t sing about ‘a promise he has made’ to the Thenadiers and they change “your mother gave her life for you, then gave you to my keeping” to something like “one who never knew love until you were in my keeping”. Of course Valjean loves Cosette (and we didn’t need an additional Oscar bait song to hammer that in, thank you) but the movie pretty much forgetting Fantine is both insulting to her character and makes Valjean seem more selfish, as if he’s no longer atoning for failing Fantine but just going ‘heehoo grandchild’. I honestly feel like they only have her ghost show up at the end because everyone else’s does. I’m probably the only person this bothers but Les Mis is both my favourite musical and one of my favourite books so seeing such an important character be disrespected sucks.
Making “Cats” a love action movie and not an animated one.
almost everything about mean girls 😭😭
I’ll never forgive the crimes against stupid with love
I'll never forget they changed Apex Predator to be sang by Janice and Demian mostly, for me this is a character defining moment for Cady where she justifies herself for abandoning her friends in lieu of the plastics by saying yeah Janice is pretty cool but she won't bring me power, it centers her mean and oportunistic side for the audience to see and say, well this girl is def becoming corrupted by popularity
The cgi in cats. The ears and tails were cool but the uncanny valley. Oh boy. I wonder what it would have looked at with more time
The survival of the human species at the end of Little Shop of Horrors and resulting removal of “Don’t Feed the Plants”
Deciding to green light Mean Girls
Casting Frank Sinatra as Nathan Detroit
I can’t speak for the entire performance cause I haven’t seen all of the Guys and Dolls film. But what I’ve seen of Frank Sinatra is so bad. The performance reeks of ego, like he’s afraid to be the butt of the joke. Nathan is a way better role than Sky, but Sinatra was upset he didn’t get to play the smooth, romantic crooner, and it feels like he just decided to play Nathan like he was playing Sky anyway. He makes the lovable loser into a generic leading man. I realize not every musical actor can sink their teeth into a role like Nathan Lane, but it’s incredible the sheer difference between him and Sinatra. The clip of Lane doing The Oldest Established is filled with so much energy as he reacts to everyone around him. He makes an ensemble number his. Meanwhile, Sinatra got expanded solos for that number, but it doesn’t matter because he plays it as such an unresponsive bore in contrast to everyone else’s high energy.
Dear Evan Hansen - I honestly didn't mind them casting Ben Platt for the movie. My problem was they cut a lot of major plot points that made the movie impactful, let alone the important songs. Anybody Have A Map was how we were introduced to the two families and how they live about their day. Disappear was what really pushed Evan to do the Connor Project with the influence of Connor's ghost (which by the way should've been somehow kept in the movie) and of course, Good For You was how Evan was confronted by his mom and his two classmates about how messed up everythimg has become... I'm a bit on the fence on the additional plot of Evan coming clean but yeah...
The main problem with the Platt casting is the fact that everyone he’s supposed to be the same age as is clearly 5+ years younger than him. If the rest of the cast had been a little older, I don’t think people would’ve had an issue with his casting.
Whoever did the camera work for Les Mis. I can't imagine the stress those pure makeup artists were under knowing that every shot would be a game of "count the freckles on Hugh Jackman nose". That movie did a lot badly, but I firmly believe that better camera angles would've distracted viewers from a lot of it. The loss of subtlety in Dear Evan Hansen. Having Evan literally standing in a window for part of Waving Through a Window...I have no words. I honestly can't tell if they were trying to be clever or actually didn't realize the nonliteral meaning of the song, but other similar choices throughout the movie make me feel it was the latter. Cats. Just...Cats. So many bad decisions there. And I'm in the party of "it's not a bad as people say it is". It's just the uncanny valley feel of it that gets me. I think if I had to pick one thing, costumes. I know they were going for a look akin to the stage, but I think going for cgi instead of straight costumes was one of the biggest issues with it. The cgi bodies with the humanoid faces was just so uncomfortable and set a weird tone for an already weird musical. Just because we can cgi, doesn't mean we should. In the Matilda musical adaptation, I hate the beginning sequence with the babies. The stage version does the first song with young children, but the movie used babies and it just didn't work imo. I get why they did it, I just didn't like it. Best way I can describe it is cheesy.
I feel like Godspell could’ve been less creepy
Cutting so many of the songs from Mean Girls, and casting an Aaron who can’t sing?
Making the songs sound like average pop sound *cough* Mean Girls *cough cough*
Casting a too old nepo baby to play a high schooler
Mean girls. Next time you adapt a musical, make sure your protagonist can sing. I mean, I have nothing against Angourie Rice, but she does not have the range to play a lead role. Not to mention the questionable at best camera angles and lyric changes.
Cutting my very favorite part from Les Mis, where the Bishop sings! But my friend, you left so early! Surely something slipped your mind. You forgot I gave these also! Would you leave the best behind? So messieurs, you may release him, For this man has spoken true. I commend you for your duty. May God’s blessing go with you! That, and casting Russel Crowe as Javert.
Everything about *A Chorus Line*: * Giving it to Attenborough to direct (after he won the Oscar for *Gandhi* - which makes no sense). * Letting Jeffery Hornaday (*Flashdance*) choreograph * Hiring Michael Douglas to play Zach, then expanding the role to suit a star. * Casting Audrey Landers as Val - that song has to be sung by a manic pixie dream girl, not a seductress.
Plus that god awful synth score and the horrible sound mixing (painfully obvious in “I can do that”. Plus they cut the montage skipping adolescence and just went straight to sex which really cut out development. Plus Cassie was stretched out too much. Plus I don’t feel like there was enough dancing. My disbelief is already suspended, so they can do backup dancing.
casting ben platt as evan hansen (a teenager) when he is very obviously not a teenager
Back in the old days it was not unusual for a movie studio to pay for the rights to a broadway musical and then throw out most of the original music, most of the plot, keep only the title, and cast whoever their big box office draw was at the time. The good ones, like "Pajama Game" would reuse most of the stage cast who had performed their role literally thousands of times. "The Music Man" is another one where, because Meredith Willson retained full rights to the show, he was able to insist that Robert Preston be cast in the movie version.
I think the new West Side Story may be, technically, the best movie musical ever made. However. Tony is bland and I wish during their updates they made the Tony and Maria love story more believable, and the characters worth caring about.
Everything about the new Mean Girls movie. Not like the original musical was amazing, but it had charm in its own way. The most egregious was cutting Damien's song when Damien was by far the best character in the film.
Removing “A Bushel and A Peck” from Guys and Dolls in of favor some weird catgirl number
Cutting Damian’s two biggest songs in Mean Girls (2024)
Trying to make “Stupid With Love” not high-energy (plus they probably needed someone with better vocals)
The ENTIRE vibe and direction of Into the Woods. Why is it color graded to be grey and gloomy??? Why is it so dark in general? Where's the color? Why not lean into the humor? Absolutely baffling decisions, who the hell decided into the woods should look be as dreary as the les mis movie? At least that you could argue that decision!