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LOTR to Become a London Musical
PenguinRadio writes "Sky is reporting that Lord of the Rings will become 'the most expensive musical ever seen in London', sporting a price tag of 8 million pounds and a running time of nearly 3 and 1/2 hours."
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How long before people start having a backlash against LOTRs?
4000 recent awards, the actors are plastered on every talk show, multiple console games, 3 recent highly pushed movies --shouldn't they just take a breather?
Wouldn't waiting a few years and then bringing the story back in a different format be refreshing for the story?
Davak
Now I'm no musical afficionado, having only been to one London musical - We Will Rock You - but there's a certain magic (no pun intended) I experienced that can not be acheived through film (that's not to say films are inferior, it's more of an apples and oranges comparison). With a big budget like that, I'm sure the stage props, effects and costumes will be fantastic and will portray the LOTR trilogy through yet another medium. Sure, the purists might complain that Bombadil's left foot was uncharacteristically two inches too far to the right, but for the fans that actually see natural light, then they'll be in for a treat.
What's next, a ten part HBO miniseries?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Adapting LotR to anything is a bold undertaking. Peter Jackson took the enormous risk to turn it into a movie trilogy, and succeeded, IMO, in the sense that apparently most avoid Tolkien fans seem to approve of his work, even though there are concerns about "streamlining" or "cutting corners" here and there. And I think Jackson deserves an enormous amount of credit for this.
Now, 10 hours of movies are yet quite different from 3 hours of musical. To bring this to the stage in a successful manner, a lot of streamlining and cutting will have to be done, with a tremendous risk of falling short of the original. I will admit that I was sceptical about the movies, and Jackson proved me wrong. I am even more sceptical here.
There are times where it's wise not to tempt fate, and pass on some challenges, instead of taking your shot at it and fail. Come up with your own original story and knockyourself out, no problem. But taint the work of Tolkien with a failed attempt of an adaptation, and people will remember you for a long time...
I think I speak for everyone here when I say "That's the worst idea I've ever heard, and I don't want to play."
i hear you and agree. i mean, it was a large enough leap to turn such glorious stories loose with Peter Jackson (i'm not bashing him, hear me out) to make a movie. When i first heard about the movies being made, i was, honestly, afraid. Afraid of how bad they might fuck those wonderful stories up, ruining all the images i'd created of those worlds in my head.
All in all, i must say Peter Jackson did a great job, but this? Wow, i've got the same feelings again, but much, MUCH more so. i 've never liked this type of reproduction at all, but i just don't see LOTR working this way.
i'm afraid they are going to ruin it...and horribly so.
Why? To be politically correct? The reason they wanted to use full size actors is because hobbits were supposed to look like 'normal' people but with small stature. Most humans who suffer from dwarfism to not look like miniature normal human beings. The proportions, etc., wouldn't look right for most depictions I've seen of hobbits.
3.5h? Don't kid. The movies already suffered from six books (The Hobbit plus the five-books, usually three-volumes The Lord of The Rings) being too condensed.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
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I once read an interview with comic book author Alan Moore in which the interviewer asked him how he felt about his comics being "ruined" by dismal, piece-of-crap movie adaptations (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the like).
He responded. "Ruined my books? No, they're fine, they're right over there on the shelf."
I feel the same way about this. Certainly it has every chance of being a dismal, laughable production, but the original source material has survived worse lambasting already at the hands of the Harvard Lampoon and a thousand poor imitators writing ten-book doorstop epics in homage to Tolkien. The original LOTR material is going to be just fine.
...Jackson is doing King Kong instead of "The Hobbit" or whatnot (apart from some legal issue as well)? You can't really go "wrong" with it, the story is known, people don't expect a deep story into the magic Middle Earth, and there's no need to change the plot that much, as it's already a movie and not a huge book.
It's basicly a breather - because no matter how it turns out, everybody will be concerned with what he has done and will be doing "Welcome to this press conference about King Kong" "When will we see 'The Hobbit' in cinemas??" "Um, this is about King Kong..." "Who cares, now tell us what do you plan to do next?"
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Actually, I think Gollum would be the most adaptive to a musical. Have his voice play out something like a duet - representing the two parts of his personality. I'm more worried over how much they'd have to cut out of the story - already the movies are a summary of the book, now they're going to make a summary of the summary?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The problem is that, for the most part, really epic stories are simply not endemic to the musical theatre art form. How many have there been? And, of those, how many have truly been successful? Even theatre epics, like Show Boat or Les Miserables are still pretty small in scope when compared to something The Lord of the Rings because they focus pretty pointedly on people, whereas LOTR is about big events, big stakes, and even larger plot points.
Shrinking the story down to where it would it would on the musical stage, and still leave room for the things every play needs (exposition, characterization, and, probably most importantly, songs) would be almost impossible under the best circumstances, and most of the people involved simply aren't of the proven calibre necessary to pull all this off. Sure, A.R. Rahman had some kind of a success with Bombay Dreams, but what in Matthew Warchus's resume suggests he's even remotely qualified to handle something on this scale? He's talented, yes, but not with material of this size. His solution to staging one of Broadway's most traditionally opulent musicals--Follies--on Broadway in 2001 was to strip away everything that made it so oversized and, in its original production, so thrilling. If you do that with The Lord of the Rings, what's left?
So, while I wish them the best of luck, they're really facing a difficult struggle, and I'm not sure they will be able to pull it off. Under most circumstances, I would suggest that they rework the idea as an opera, or perhaps a series of operas, but of course, Richard Wagner already did that with Der Ring des Nibeluengen, and the less comparison The Lord of the Rings has with that, the better, I think. It will be unavoidable in any case, but critics (and audiences) will have their knives sharpened going into this, and it will have to be even that much better to win them over. I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy the challenges facing the creators of this musical.
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
Had I not seen the theatrical production of the Lion King, I might agree with you. That production really set the standard as far as creating imaginitive animals on stage. Granted, it was put together by Julie Taymor who is quite a talented artist. But let me tell you, watching the production - you could see both children and adults captivated by the sheer spectacle in front of them.
But don't get me wrong. I have the same level of interest at viewing this play as any ordinary joe who is morbidly fascinated by observing the twisted metal aftermath of car accidents.