The Folk Prophet

@mordorbund have you seen the Big Bang Theory where Amy "ruins" Indiana Jones for them? And then Sheldon spends all his effort and time trying to pic apart stuff she loves to ruin. That's you and me and our relationship moving forward!

Thanks for ruining Tangled for me! Jerk.

I just want to throw out two of my other favorite movie musicals that haven't been mentioned for anyone to agree with or debate. Man of La Mancha Scrooge

I can buy this...sort of... By the "sort of" part I mean...yes...they made more and so they knew how to handle them better. And...yes...they made so many that we only remember the cream on top. But...alternatively...moving making in general has come SO far. And it's not hard, if one is going to make a movie musical, to study the greats and consider why they worked well. But really the problem is that they're hiring people to do musicals that don't love or understand musicals. Tom Hooper, clearly, did not LOVE Les Miz the stage play or he wouldn't have butchered all that was beloved about it. Of course the same could be said of some Star Wars directors. So...it's a Hollywood epidemic. Edit: Oh...and note -- the greats were also great stage plays beforehand. Original great movie musicals are few and far between across the board. Adapting a great play to be a great movie with good movie making skills should not be that hard.

People write essays on Stephen Sondheim's musical and lyrical genius. I think they're (the essays) mostly garbage. But...I walk the line between liking Sondheim a lot and kind of hating him. I can't decide. Into the Woods is one of his more accessible works. But overall Sondheim is a musical snob.

I wish he'd gone full death metal on the chorus instead of the pseudo growling/singing. It would have been cooler too just go to straight growling. Haha.

But....what about the Simpson's version of Planet of the Apes...or Streetcar? You haven't truly experienced musicals if you haven't experienced those!

Haha. Ebert is spot on though for most AWL musicals. It's one of the things that really set Phantom apart. More than one hit number. I am interested in this. Is that plot point that they didn't kill off Eugene? Because boy howdy that would have been SO much more powerful. I love Tangled. And it isn't destroyed by that Disney choice. But man the power it could have had if he'd actually given his life for her. I think you're missing the reason Moana is so good. Perfect? No. I agree with your critiques. But they don't ruin what is, at it's core, to me a very powerful and solid show. And the slow motion singing scene.... HOW DID THAT WORK?!?! It was SO cool! I'll acquiesce to these points. But I agree with @LDSGator who said that Phantom lives or dies on the Phantom's voice. And why the stink didn't they just use Michael Crawford?!

Of course I did post this before and it seemed to be okay: So here's my youtube channel link. Mods...if this is inappropriate let me know and I'll remove it...or you can remove it, or whatever's best. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrAik2zq2hrmBY0M6jrGMrQ/videos

Seems like there was a rule against self promotion. Since a youtube channel is a potential money maker I'm just not sure.

I don't know if I fully agree...but something along those lines would be interesting.

I'm not sure doing that is allowed. @pam??

Another comment on the "gay" thing for for clarities sake. I do not hate gays. I've known and worked with and have in extended family many of them. I like many of them, dislike some of them, and love a few. Their sexual interest in people of their own sex is unrelated to my like or dislike of any of them. I maintain my moral position on homosexuality, but it's unrelated to liking or disliking someone who is gay. But.... I despise the (note the quotes) "gay" play-acting persona. The guy who speaks, walks, and moves his hands normally, then comes out, and then next day speaks with a lisp, walks with a swivel in his hips, and waves his hands around limp-wristedly in an animated way as he speaks. It's extremely distasteful. I also had distaste for the time the one guy came to school dressed like a "cowboy" and started speaking with a drawl and saying "y'all" to everyone. The affectation of stereo-typical behavior to assume an identity is annoying as all get out to me. That doesn't even mean I dislike everyone who does such things. I had a guy who was our "house help" back when the did that thing in the Philippines on my mission who was just like that. Annoying. Yes. But I liked him. He was a pretty cool guy. (Yes, we found out later that he was opening our mail, reading it, and then burning it in the backyard...because apparently he was also a creeper weirdo...but....that's another story....). But the idea that deciding your a cowboy and putting on an extra tight pair of boot cut wranglers with an oversized belt-buckle is being true to yourself? It was bad enough in high-school, but at least moderately understandable for dumb kids to do. But really... very silly.

I very much agree.

I'm not sure it did. Why I see it as the hit is because I've seen so many people singing it in various situations. It just seems to be the song that resonates with most people. The first. I could explain in detail, but the short end of it is this...I got tired of being a starving artist. So it's hobby now with the outside sort-of hope that some day I'll still catch my "big break". But getting a musical on Broadway (my real goal in that regard) is hard enough even if you live in New York go the right schools, hang with the right crowds, etc., etc. I do none of that. So my plan now is Youtube, and if eventually I can build a big enough following who knows. Maybe an opportunity will arrive. Probably not. But maybe. I say orchestration is what I do because that's what I keep having to do. I keep orchestrating other people's shows out of the goodness of my heart. Mostly stake musicals and the like. But my true love is composing and writing musicals of my own (orchestrating them as well, of course). I think there's money to be made as a composer or orchestrator. But consistent good money? That's super hard. And, more importantly, I found that when I did professional work I had to constantly compromise my vision of things, which I did not care for. I want to do what I want to do more than I want to be successful at it. If it catches and becomes successful, awesome. But I'd rather never have renown than write things I don't actually like because some executive decision is made by some know-nothing. In summary, I didn't enjoy work-for-hire music composition and I couldn't make good money easily enough doing it.

So to threadjack my own thread a bit...this is actually an interesting concept. But I find this to be more the modus operandi of the gay crowd. I can't tell you how many times I've seen them claim something as theirs because of the "gay undertones" and been like, "What?!?" One I saw recently was the 60s/70s show Bewitched. Because, you know, she had to hide who she really was. Therefore...gay. Right? I grew up on bewitched and enjoy it well enough that we've actually purchased the series. I've never felt it had gay undertones or any other undertones. But....well...they're claiming it. When I joke about Wicked being "gay" I'm really joking. But I think the sense of that, even in the joke, just stems from seeing effeminate boys singing along to Defying Gravity. It's not because of undertones. I suspect...now that I think about it...that the wicked witch being who she really is but having to hide it and then "coming out" as "wicked" could, very easily, be seen as a gay undertone. I actually hadn't even thought about that until this very moment. But I would guess the gay crowd has already thought of that and already claimed it as their own. Because they coopt everything they can that way. I think the idea that a show about being who you really are inside equates to "gay" is stupid. For example, I love Moana. By far my favorite Disney animated show. But I could easily see someone getting "gay" undertones from it if they interpreted Moana's inner voice and the idea to be who you really are as a gay message. I don't interpret it that way. I figure a gay message would be a person who actually comes out as....you know....gay. The latest is this Luca show from Pixar which has been claimed by the trans and/or gay community as an undertone message of that. I haven't seen it yet. But......

Haha. No. I was intrigued when I first heard about Wicked. So I want to be clear that I'm mostly kidding. It's hard to actually articulate what bothers me about it. But riffing on the manliness status of it...picture this: A dude singing -- "... I will never rest 'til then. This I swear! This I swear by....the stars!" And now picture a dude singing: "I think I'll try defying gravity...." And maybe that'll give you a sense of it. Haha. Okay...yes....defying gravity is a song written for a female to sing...so not fair. But the show just isn't..... manly. Like...at all. But honestly that's probably me just projecting ideas onto it to try and explain what about it I dislike. It's probably not accurate at all. I just don't care for it. When I hear defying gravity I think...bleh. Back on a fully serious note though.... I am, at my most core, skill-wise...an orchestrator. I understand orchestration and techniques in that regard more than anything else (except, perhaps the gospel). It's what I do. And I HATE the orchestration behind Defying Gravity. I don't like the way they did it. I won't go into the details of that. I think it'd bore most. And a lot of it is totally subjective. But I don't like that. I honestly think I could orchestrate that song so I'd like it. But I really dislike that part of it. I also particularly dislike Idina Menzel's voice. She's like the worst example of belting just to belt. But even if she didn't overdo that, I'm just not a fan of her voice overall. So there's a lot of strikes there. I know I'm talking a lot about that song...and that's probably the core of why I feel I dislike Wicked, because I recognize that's "the hit" from the show...and when I listen to the rest of the album nothing moves me. So....... I could write a novel on the problems I have with certain composing styles, orchestration styles, lyric approaches, etc. and why things work and don't work. But when push comes to shove...it's just not my taste in music.

This particular dance choreography in West Side Story 3:37 to 3:41 may well be the coolest thing I've ever seen:

Okay. I understand and see your point. I guess I always took it as a moderately accurate representation of cultural Jewishness rather than an over-the-top caricature of that. I assume that, I think, because it hasn't been lambasted by the Jewish community (as far as I know) as inappropriate or anything. (Maybe I'm wrong...but I don't think so.) But I understand now what you mean and can even see how that might be off-putting to someone. On the other hand... (heheh...if you don't get my chuckle, watch Fiddler again....)..... West Side Story starts out with people snapping to be cool and they call each other daddy-o and buddy-boy and stuff. So...caricatures? Dated ones, yes. But....

Okay. I understand and see your point. I guess I always took it as a moderately accurate representation of cultural Jewishness rather than an over-the-top caricature of that. I assume that, I think, because it hasn't been lambasted by the Jewish community (as far as I know) as inappropriate or anything. (Maybe I'm wrong...but I don't think so.) But I understand now what you mean and can even see how that might be off-putting to someone.

Well, there are thousands of them and I haven't seen most. So who knows. Of what I have seen...I'll tell you what... I've been on a musical kick for the last few weeks and on Vudu I noticed that Flower Drum Song was free to watch with ads. I'd never seen it, though I sort of knew the music (My mom had the record when I was a kid. Not one listened to a ton, but still, I'd heard it). But I do generally love Rogers and Hammerstein. So I watched it. TERRIBLE! But that's really a hard question.

@clbent04 I edited the above post after initially posting it, so if you saw the original, take a look at the edit.

With this I mostly agree (not on the melodramatic thing)*. Though as I said in the opening post...it's a very thin line for me between the two, even on the enjoyment factor. *Musicals ARE melodramatic. But Fiddler is way more down to earth than West Side Story. Compare the love song Do You Love Me to Tonight. Fiddler more melodramatic? I think not. Actually I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. What did you find melodramatic in Fiddler? I'm thinking maybe you're using the term slightly wrong. But maybe not. Can you expound?

Got my first shot on Monday. Dang it made my arm sore!

We discussed Wicked. See above. Oliver I've seen the movie, which I never much liked, but then the Cameron Mackintosh reboot cast recording....yes...loved it. The difference....the orchestrations. Overall not my favorite musical. But... I pretty much totally disagree on the storyline being better in West Side Story. The story in West Side Story is moderately shallow. It improves upon the Shakespeare it's based on (Romeo and Juliet...Shakespeare's worst work). But it's still moderately shallow...relatively. Not entirely, of course. But relatively. Fiddler, on the other hand, might have the most depth of story line of any musical ever. And now that I have a daughter of my own... the last time I watched it last week I bawled my eyes out. So heart wrenching -- particularly from a conservative religious point of view AND a modern point of view. Fiddler is an incredible meaningful and deep story that really leaves you thinking. West Side Story is a simplistic idea. Hate is bad. Well duh West Side Story.