It's Official: Nothing is Sacred!

[Pleading Eyes]

I'll admit it, despite the many glaring problems in the 2004 movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" (Joel Schumacher being the biggest problem), I still enjoyed the movie. The actors did their part, the music was still beautiful, but javascript:add(' ')
:zulala:most of all, despite even the more jarring changes, the story still retained itself for the most part.

But it seems making a mediocre movie out of the "Greatest Musical of All Time" wasn't enough to satisfy Sir Webber.

www.playbill.com/news/article/119528.html

That's right, everyone.

A SEQUEL TO THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!?!?!?!?

While this may, in a deep secret part of every phan, be a dream come true, let's list what we know so far about the movie.

Erik is now running a freak show in New York, and has a Christine dummy as a lover. (WHAAAT!?) He supposedly also is living in New York now, building rides for Coney Island for a living.

Raoul is now a drunkard who has squandered his family's fortune. That's right, the sweet, brave, kind, and simple childhood friend is now the bad guy. Is this a bad fanfic?

Christine doesn't know the father of her child. (HUH!?)

And Meg has dropped off the face of the Earth, appearing only to play Sue!friend to Christine when necessary.

And here's the real kicker. ALW is aiming to have this catastrophe of a sequel REPLACE Phantom in the theatre in London. BUT THAT'S WHERE IT ALL BEGAN! Noooooooo!

In short, this sequel is shaping up to be:



Does anyone else have the sudden urge to bring down a chandelier?

[username]

*points and laughs from the Jesus Christ Superstar end of the Webber fandom*


I actually think there's nothing wrong with it. PotO isn't as sacred as its phans like to think it is, and it's a sequel by the guy who made the original anyway. Let's say Joel Schumacher wanted to do it, that's a bad idea.

[bagpipe turtle]

Wow... Phantom of the Opera is the kind of thing that shouldn't have a sequel.

This plot seems like a bad fanfic. DX

[beautyfr.pain]

Eh, I won't judge until I see it, but yeah, it DOES scream bad fanfic. It doesn't sound anything like the book either.

[Pleading Eyes]

See, I think we *should* judge.

There's just some things that you can't do without ruining the integrity of the original.

Christine doesn't know if her child's father is Raoul or the Phantom. What does that mean!? He never HAD any sort of physical relationship, he explicitly says so in the Final Lair scene. "This fate which condemns me to wallow in blood, has also denied me the joys of the flesh..."

This also ruins the impact of the kiss. The whole point is that the Phantom had never been kissed, scarecely ever touched save for being beaten. That's why it had such a tremendous impact, why a thing which most people take for granted meant enough for him to release the woman he loved and her fiancee. You can't go and change this fact without RUINING the emotional impact of the final scene!

And Raoul, let's not forget, as much as the phandom picks on him, is not some drunkard, fortune squandering, Christine beater/neglecter. He's the GOOD guy. The PHANTOM is the bad guy, as much as he is also a victim. It's exactly what makes him INTERESTING, the fact that we are made to sympathize with him despite him being the one running around making threats, killing people, and kidnapping little girls.

And why, WHY would Erik be running a freak show now!? Wasn't he horribly mistreated in one? Isn't that the whole reason Madame Giry had to "rescue" him? Wasn't that a big part of why he had to hide himself in a sewer, despite his genius? So he just woke up one morning and thought, "What the heck! I'll move to the good ol US of A and start a freak show of my own!"

Is it too much that Andrew Lloyd Webber actually go and read Leroux's novel again? It's obviously been too many years since he's picked it up. Heck, I'll settle for him skimming Kay's novel.

And don't even bring up "The Phantom of Manhattan." That Wikipedia article does not even BEGIN to describe how horrible that was.

[Tungsten]

Sweet I can add this movie in my collection of Disney sequels I keep in the trash bin

[Pleading Eyes]

Aug 19, 2008 0:01:28 GMT -5 Tungsten said:

Sweet I can add this movie in my collection of Disney sequels I keep in the trash bin

Tung, don't you dare buy that movie and give the creators any sort of profit!

...please?

[Tungsten]

Not even to give it to these guys?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8H29jU8Wrs

[Pleading Eyes]

Aug 19, 2008 0:16:55 GMT -5 Tungsten said:

Not even to give it to these guys?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8H29jU8Wrs

No! Contribute nothing to this movie!

You may, however, buy a bootlegged version from China and blend that.

[username]

Phantom isn't quite the holy unsequelable godsend all the fans seem to think it is. If this was some completely new musical people would look forward to it, but instead it's automatically bad because it's a sequel to the best musical evaaaar. Last I checked this was being done by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the guy PotO fans are inherently fans of.

[Pleading Eyes]

Kaneda, this isn't about me thinking that POTO is "OMG Unsequeble ForEVAR!!?!11".

It's the very CONTENT that we're being told will be IN the sequel. It goes against everything that was established about the characters in the first one. Like a horribly written fanfic!

And Andrew Lloyd Webber... well, just because he wrote Phantom does not make him some kind of infallible god. After all, he did approve that awful Phantom of Manhattan book. He also was the one who hired Joel Schumacher to direct the movie.

I love The Phantom of the Opera, this doesn't mean I like *all* of Andrew Lloyd Webber's work. Far from it, even.

It's less me hating on this sequel just because its a sequel, and more me being upset over the premise of the sequel, because it seems to ruin the integrity of the first one.

It's like someone took a really crappy fanfic of Howl's Moving Castle, and then decided to make a sequel out of it! I'm sure you'd be upset, not because Howl's Moving Castle "OMG BEST ANIMU EVAR!", but simply because you love the first movie for what it is and you don't want the sequel to ruin the integrity of the first one.

[Zukosfire5]

I've never been a fan of PotO, but...ouch.

What were they on when they made up that plot?

[Chibi Chan-o]

A sequel to a musical? What has the world come to?

[asian malaysian]

It could be worse. Imagine if M&B decided to do a musical version of Avatar.

[Chibi Chan-o]

M&B aren't stupid like that, though. It takes a special kind of stupid to come up with this idea.