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LOTR Jumps the Shark
eggoeater writes "The latest incarnation of The Lord of the Rings is here in the form of musical theater and, as reported by Yahoo News, the reviews are not good. The Toronto production puts less emphasis on plot, character, and music, and concentrates more on hi-tech theatrics. The production uses a 40-ton, computer controlled stage with 17 elevators and the cast of 55 goes through 500 costumes in the 3 hour performance. Despite this, the same critics say it will be a big money-maker."
It sounds to me that they're trying to cash in on the films, rather than make a fitting tribute to the books themselves...
well, when it jumps the Watcher in the Water, it'll have more than bad reviews to worry about
+1 fashionably cynical
Shouldn't it be... "LOTR Jumps the Watcher in the Water"?
Back in 1977, 1978 or so...around the time of the Bakshi film, they had a seven page "Lord Of The Rings Musical", noting that since the books had been made into everything else, a musical was inevitable. It's taken 30 years, but reality has outpaced satire. IIRC, it was entitled "The Ring And I".
And I bet the songs in the MAD version were better.
Peter Jackson had to cut huge chunks out of the trilogy to fit it into 10 hours or so of film. How much of the content could possibly be retained in a stage show that runs about a quarter as long, and made interesting and comprehensible to a general audience?
FRODO: Hi there, I'm Frodo.
GANDALF: Here, take this ring and chuck it.
FRODO: Okay!
BLACK RIDERS: Grrrr!
FRODO: *chuck*
CAST: Yay!
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It's been done before, and by no less than Leonard "Spock" Nimoy and a chorus of overly-wholesome '70s fly-girls
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
the show based on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic trilogy drew only one standing ovation in more than three hours
Wow - it must have really sucked.
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...despite enjoying the films as standalone lumps of entertainment think that the films jumped the shark first. Dwarf tossing, shield surfing, and various other things that annoy the picky fanboy in me. Don't get me wrong, I love the films, but... dwarf tossing? Seriously, dude!
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Maybe they need a stunt turkey to jump through a ring of fire between acts!
Yeah, that's the ticket!
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Hmmm... what could it look like?
First we get the hobbit party (first 2 songs, "let there be friends" and "it's good to be a Hobbit"). Then the big key scene where Frodo gets the ring and has to leave (big ballade, "Why me?"). They leave and get hunted by the nazguls (a little ballet filler there), pick up Aragorn somehow (not a lot of time, just a brief song "Once a king's son").
Legolas and Gimli come into the fold at the king's court (no time for a long why the king is sick or whatnot, just a quick meeting and the big key ballade "Fellowship of the ring", whole ensemble including the nazguls dancing).
Then a quick battle at helm's deep, where Legolas and Gimli sing a duet instead of fighting and finally Frodo singing a duet with Gollum akin to the one between Jean Valjean and Javert in Les Miserables, "My precious".
Oh yeah, I can already see me watch this...
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Lord of the Rings did not jump the shark. Let's be specific here... the Toronto playhouse's vision of LOTR is what is lacking here... JRR Tolkien wrote a masterpiece of literature, and any interpretation of that literature is what should be examined, not the literature itself.
My dear Sam, you cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do. Your part in this story will go on. Please write produce a massive stage performance that noone will ever forget.
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My first thought was "I'd never pay to see that!"
Then I re-read the line:
40-ton, computer controlled stage with 17 elevators and the cast of 55
My second thought was, "Hmmm. I wonder if they use MSWindows, on a wireless network?" It might be worth going to see after all.
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...when Gandalf whapped Denethor with his staff.
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Saw the LOTR musical on Wednesday...
It wasn't *bad*
Which is really the best I can say about it.
It may be that I'm just not a "musical" kind of guy.
Here's my take
I wasn't impressed by the songs,
I thought nearly all of the costumes were pretty weak,
Some set pieces were really bad (Bag End was a wicker slinky).
The special effects were overdone, leading to a completely frantic feeling for the entire production,
They rushed through important plot points, and lingered over fluff,
Gandalf looked like a thirty year old, 110lb guy in a fake beard, and was far too weak for the role,
The "Scouring of the Shire" was rushed to the point where they should have left it out,
Arowyn kept showing up and singing at the strangest times,
The dancing trees were a little too minimalist to come across,
What the HELL did Galadriel have on her head, Cthulu?.
But...
Saurman was an excellent actor, and I dug his costume/makeup,
The high-tech stage was kind of nifty, and only slightly overused,
I think Gollum will be very good once the amphetamines wear off... the scene where he is fighting with himself was great,
The Black Rider's costumes were awesome,
I liked the stage vines creeping out towards you, it is a neat effect,
the pre-show firefly scenes were amusing,
The first 5 minutes of the Prancing Pony song were great, then it started to drag as they repeated it over and over again,
Gimli was well acted, as was Sam.
If I've not listed it above I've either forgotten about it, or found it thoroughly mediocre.
Unrelated to the show, the seats were horrible, Westjet's cheapest has significantly more leg room, maybe that's just up in the balcony, but I was pretty sore by the time it was all over.
All and all, I'd say that if you get free tickets, by all means go. Otherwise, let them polish it up for a while.
The Boston Globe gave an overall favorable review ... especially if you are a LOTR fan... the casual fan may be put off by the length and missing information (opposing forces)
Boston Globe Review
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Meh.
I'm getting pretty disgusted with modern theatre. I remember thinking while watching the The Lion King when they came to Los Angeles, "this is all spectacle -- there's no friggin' PLOT." And dare I say it, Phantom of the Opera wasn't much better (and I saw it with Michael Crawford).
Is it too much to ask to have, oh I dunno, maybe a STORY when I go to the theatre? Shakespeare is rolling in his grave at the self-important state of the stage. It's all about the performers instead of the performance.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I never could understand this. My wife and I saw Ishtar when it came out, and found it hilariously funny. Casting Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman directly contrary to their "usual" types made it all the funnier. Did most people who saw it not have the intelligence to see that it was all tongue-in-cheek?
Sometimes I really wonder about the comments people make about movies and books.
I've seen a discussion about possible future movie versions of the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia, where somebody said that they need to get rid of all the religious allusions.
I saw a discussion of a science fiction novel by Lois McMaster Bujold (I forget the title right now), whose entire THEME was coincidences and whether they were somehow manifestations of supernatural intervention, whose plot hinged on these coincidences and how unlikely they were, yet how they all fit together, and some bright person commented about how he liked the book, but he felt that it just seemed like too much of a coincidence that (some event) and (some other event) both happened to the same person. Well, DUH!
Along the same line, one of my problems with, say, movie adaptations of books, is that sometimes the screenwriter or director or somebody, I don't know who, don't really understand some aspect of the book. There are some changes that need to be made, because movies do much better at portraying things visually, whereas they are much worse than books at other things. For instance, the air raid scene at the beginning of LWW was excellent, and gave background that would not have been necessary in the book. Gollum was great in LOTR. The ideas were preserved, yet presented in perhaps different forms. There are other changes that seem to be made for dramatic effect, yet seem to betray a lack of understanding of the original: In LOTR, the scene where Faramir is tempted by the ring, yet he resists the temptation, commenting about how Frodo is lucky that he is not that kind of person, gets changed in the movie so that Faramir in fact does NOT resist the temptation, and is only stopped by external events. This makes the whole contrast between the characters of the two brothers not make any sense (as it is no longer a contrast), and it makes their father's different feelings about the two of them not make any sense either. So you end up changing what is both an adventure story and a psychological drama into just an adventure story -- you lose a whole level of meaning, unnecessarily.
I can think of more examples, but I think I'd better stop here. Some of the examples that spring to mind, of people missing the whole POINT of something, would be wildly off topic (although, after all, this IS Slashdot) and/or controversial.