We took Ariel and Caroline to see the newly opened “Little Mermaid,” the musical that’s been crucified by just about every NY critic. It seems there’s no element of the show that they haven’t found bìŧçh-wørŧhÿ.
We loved it.
Personally, I think that for a show like this, critics should be required to take a small child with them so they can see it through their eyes.
Caroline was literally on the edge of her seat, goggle-eyed at the splendor of it all. Ariel (my daughter, not the mermaid) was likewise entranced. I thought it was a lot of fun.
The theater was packed beyond all belief. I’m hoping that people vote with their feet and wallets.
PAD
• 
http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2008/01/10/tune-thursday-there-s-big-fun-to-be-had-at-the-little-mermaid.aspx
Now THAT’S a good review of the Little Mermaid musical. Fair, critical while also praising.
Just thought i’d share.
roger Tang suggests that “My Fair Lady” is superior to “Pygmalion” – and I must disagree. The score is beautiful, of course, and there have been a number of excellent Eliza Doolittles and Henry Higginses over the years. What “My Fair Lady” is missing is Shaw’s original ending. Happy endings are excellent for ticket sales but this one is completely unjustified. Lost opportunities and realizations which come too late intrigue me (no personal speculations, please) more than they do some, but the important point is that Shaw saw fit to end his play differently from Alan J. Lerner’s revision. He’d been dead for six years when the adaptation premiered, so I doubt Lerner and Loewe and company were able to run that one by him. It’s a fine musical, but I prefer the original play. In “Pygmalion,” Eliza’s triumph is having her mind unleashed and being free to experience the world. In “My Fair Lady,” it is to become the wife of an overbearing linguist – her character and mind improved enough to belong to him.
Just a note: At the end of “Pygmalion” Eliza marries Freddie. Whether or not that is better than being married to Higgins is a matter of personal preference. 🙂
Henry Higgins seems a bit more overbearing than Freddie – who seems disinclined to rule Eliza. The Fourth Act breakup between Henry and Eliza is triggered by his treatment of her as a servant to retrieve his slippers. In subsequent writings Shaw made it very clear that Eliza Doolittle could never be allowed to marry Henry Higgins, or the themes of the play would be defeated. Freddie loved her before he knew who and what she was, while Higgins had always known, shaped and ruled her.
I have to admit, I was never wild about Shaw’s ending. I always thought the best ending was something that an actress playing Eliza in “My Fair Lady” came up with. Higgins demanded to know where his slippers were, and the actress–admittedly a bit of a diva–ad libbed, “Fetch your own bleeding slippers.” Higgins’, or rather the actor playing Higgins, reacted with such genuine shock that it brought the house down. The producers kept it.
PAD
Yeah. Freddie never struck me as an equal to Eliza–more like a puppy dog Nice Guy. Eliza clawed her way up to respectability; that struggle informs her character, and I’m not sure she’d accept or be fulfilled by that unconditional affection. Someone who challenged her would be more suitable (though perhaps Higgins is not the best match)
Well, it’s nice to hear you had a good time, PAD. Personally, I just went to see Spamalot when it came to Proctors in Schenectady and had a blast. I even came away from it with a pair of souvenir coconut halves (though, I’ll probably never spend that much on empty nut shells again).
What matters is what you liked. It all comes down to our own judgement in the end.
Now, as an oral storyteller who’s made use of various old folk and fairy tales, I can tell you that it’s within the nature of a storyteller to make a story their own. It helps make a storyteller feel comfortable within the story. And it’s within Disney’s nature to make stories bouncy and enjoyable for the whole family with catchy songs. Hating Disney for making story adaptations that are bouncy and catchy is like hating a mosquito for buzzing in your ears or hating a scorpion for stinging. It’s who they are and what they do. You can dislike their product, but you shouldn’t hate Disney for being itself. I had a Children’s Literature professor in college who had that same grudge against Disney. I could never hate Disney like that. The truth is the same as PAD said. They can lead you to the original if you let it. I know I would have never read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes if it hadn’t been for the Disney version of Tarzan. I probably wouldn’t also have copies of Peter Pan, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Jungle Book or The Arabian Nights if it weren’t for some of the adaptations I’ve seen. I even managed to read the original version of One Hundred and One Dalmations recently. The key is to not let Disney or whoever be the end of things and to go out and find the stories.
The Disney version of “Tarzan” was actually closer to the original than a lot of other Hollywood adaptations. And the follow-up animated television series drew all manner of characters and stories from the ERB canon that has never been mined, ranging from the Waziri tribe to La of Opar.
PAD
AdamYJ:
“You can dislike their product, but you shouldn’t hate Disney for being itself.”
I don’t get this. If not for itself, then for what shall one hate Disney? I may have taken your statement totally wrong, but isn’t that exactly why we should hate something?
I mean I don’t hate a mosquito because it’s not a free pizza. I hate it because it’s a dámņ mosquito!
Look, it feeds on my blood, leaves itchy bumps upon my person, and on occasion buzzes in my ear as I’m trying to sleep. I hate it precisely BECAUSE it’s being itself.
But, hey, I am fair about it. I don’t hate all mosquitos. Just the ones I’ve had contact with. I try to judge them as individuals.
As for Disney, at least they mix it up every once in a while. Tron, the Pirate movies, etc…
But if it’s animated there dámņ well will be anthropomorphized animals/furniture that sing, a mother figure that is either evil or absent, and then the critics will have more to carp about.
That wasn’t my point!
M
I really liked the Disney version of Tarzan. And I liked the music, I’d much rather have background music with lyrics than characters bursting into song. I’m not much on musicals.
“Which begs the question: How does one “better” the original, when the producer is not the creator of the work? Despite knowing that fiction/creative works can always be better, who but the originator of that work is to say what is and is not “better” than the published version?”
I don’t know if you can “better” things, but you can sure make them more enjoyable. Usually an original book is far better than a movie – Harry Potter being prime examples – but there are a few exceptions where I’ve found the adapted movie to be far more enjoyable than the book – Poseidon Adventure, for one, Planet of the Apes for another. I’m still waiting for that Broadway adaption of POTA that the Simpsons promised us!
PAD is right that the ad libbed ending is more satisfying to many people, but it isn’t Shaw. Suppose one of the illustrators of one of his stories (make it one of his creator-owned ones, so there’s minimal complication) had just not liked one of his plot developments and replaced it with another. There is a small chance it would be more satisfying to the reader, but even if it were, it would still be unfaithful to his intent. I don’t know PAD (for which he surely thanks God) well enough to speak for him, but if it were my own material I would be offended. Some people don’t like that Hamlet dies at the end of Shakespeare’s play. Shall we rewrite it so he is wearing full-body Kevlar, prevails, and brings Ophelia out of a soap opera-style coma to rule Denmark alongside him? No one is obligated to like an author’s intentions, but neither should anyone be entitled to change them and call the result by its original name. Many super-heroic tales leave me unconvinced. Mostly these are not the stories PAD has told, although they certainly could be sometimes. If I were the creator or teller of many of them, I would tell them differently – but I’m not. It isn’t mine. If I were telling the Superman story, for example, when the Kents told Clark he could never use his powers for his own benefit, he’d say something like “Why not? Why should I pretend to be a weaker, smaller, more foolish species? I like my dog, and would never want to hurt him, but would never want to be a dog, either. I’m a Kryptonian, Father, and you disappoint me!” I think that is truer psychology, but it isn’t Superman – It’s “Supreme” with a better first 40 scripts.
Posted by: Peter David
The Disney version of “Tarzan” was actually closer to the original than a lot of other Hollywood adaptations.
And the Disney “Return to Oz” was a lot closer to the spirit of baum than almost anything done previously.
And got slagged by a lot of people because it “wasn’t like the original”. (It didn’t help, of course, that, as Harlan has claimed, Disney management were apparently intentionally trying to kill it, as it had been greenlighted by the previous management…)
It didn’t even have *songs*…
Posted by: Jeffrey S. Frawley
If I were telling the Superman story, for example, when the Kents told Clark he could never use his powers for his own benefit, he’d say something like “Why not? Why should I pretend to be a weaker, smaller, more foolish species? I like my dog, and would never want to hurt him, but would never want to be a dog, either. I’m a Kryptonian, Father, and you disappoint me!” I think that is truer psychology, but it isn’t Superman – It’s “Supreme” with a better first 40 scripts.
Well, here’s the thing about that – i’ve always seen Superman as the alternate identity that Clark Kent uses to keep people from bothering him and attacking his friends, but i see Bruce Wayne as the false front that the Batman uses to give him freedom to move among us unseen. (In some ways, i really sometimes feel as if Bruice Wayne is no more “real” than Matches Malone.)
Twenty years on a Kansas farm, learning by example from the Kents, pretty well set Clark in the “not-for-my-own-selfish-ends” mindset *without* any real need for them to overtly tell him, i’d say.
Mike Weber – The thing is that there are a lot of humans raised on Kansas farms by nice people, but hardly any of them are as inhumanly self-controlled as Clark Kent. It’s easy to see why the writers and editors have almost always played him that way. Godlike powers are far easier to abuse than to use responsibly (if the level of detachment from responsibility for mankind Superman displays really is the most responsible thing…). It might not make for exciting scenes, but I think one of the most under-explored aspects of the Clark Kent guise is how difficult it would be to be convincingly weak and vulnerable. We approach doors with the apprehension of them offering resistance; We avoid bumping into objects even more because they could injure us than because we prefer not to knock them over; We run with the greater part of our strength and so on. Being the mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent would be a much more challenging acting job for Kal El than pretending to be a silly playboy would be for Batman: Every step, touch and gesture would have to be preplanned by that Super-Brain. Every human criminal captured unmaimed would be an accomplishment equal to you or I picking up wet tissue paper with tweezers without tearing it – not impossible, but a matter of concentration. Every government policy left unchallenged would be a decision. We don’t like murderers, rapists and thieves going uncaptured; We chafe under legal requirements for warrants and probable cause; We want to be safe walking the streets. If he chooses, the Superman can give that and much more; If he does not, that is a choice, and people will suffer directly from it. There’s material for a good novel here, but it’s probably too non-visual and slow-moving to work well on 22 pages of a comic. It’s good business to maintain the 70 year old character as a relatively uncomplicated heroic icon, but it’s not the whole, or only story. (Dream sequences, time travel and mystical reality resets are pretty useful sometimes.)
Regarding Batman, I think you are entirely correct. The obsessive, driven child did not become a careless playboy, but rather a grim predator who pretends to be one when it serves his obsession.
PAD said:
“The Disney version of ‘Tarzan’ was actually closer to the original than a lot of other Hollywood adaptations. And the follow-up animated television series drew all manner of characters and stories from the ERB canon that has never been mined, ranging from the Waziri tribe to La of Opar.”
True. When I read the books, I was actually impressed with Disney in the fact that it seemed evident that they had actually read it. There were definitely changes, but a lot of things were there that I wouldn’t have expected. The thing is that Tarzan is one of those “icons” that is so ingrained in people’s minds that everyone thinks they know the story when they don’t actually know the story. You ask anyone about Tarzan and they’ll tell you the same thing. Africa. Jungle man. Raised by apes. Jane. They may even do a Weismuller inspired impression and the trademark “Tarzan yell”. And I bet they would believe it’s possible to put together a movie based on that little bit of info, too. :p
Mitch Evans:
“I don’t get this. If not for itself, then for what shall one hate Disney? I may have taken your statement totally wrong, but isn’t that exactly why we should hate something?”
Well, I try not to hate anyone or anything at all. I’ve hated some experiences I’ve been in, but not the people or institutions that were also involved in those situations. And this applies to certain mouse ear wearing multi-national companies too.
Oh, and I should note that there are some adaptations of classic stories where I like the adaptations just a little more than the originals. Treasure Island for instance. I’ve read the original book and I’ve seen a couple different adaptations (including the Muppet one and Treasure Planet). While the book is a nice little adventure yarn, the way that the adaptations play the relationship between Jim Hawkins and Silver as being a sort of surrogate father/son relationship adds a whole lot more to the story and characters. Their relationship is almost non-existent in the book. It just adds a little something extra to it.
The talk of Tarzan reminds me of another terrible adaptation. The Tarzan TV series for the WB. “It’s Tarzan, but he’s never in the jungle, only in the city! And he solves crimes!”
It was one of those adaptations that changed so much that it feels like a different product, plus is low quality in general. Like the Flash Gordon series on Sci-Fi.
Most folks know that West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet, updated so that it resonates more with a modern audience. Problem is, Juliet doesn’t die in the end. Granted, she’s probably arrested, and her “life” as we’ve seen it during the play is over, but it’s a pretty large divergence from the original.
I rarely hear people complain about that. Maybe it’s because the title has been changed. The thing of it is, a title is only a label. Calling it West Side Story doesn’t make it any less a version of Romeo and Juliet than calling it Tony and Maria would have. Calling Hulk Incredible or otherwise doesn’t change the fact that he’s a derivative of Hyde. Would calling it The Incredible Hyde have made it less palatable?
I know people put a lot of weight into titles and labels, too much by my estimation. But clearly, marketing literally banks on titles.
Jeffrey, your Superman thoughts overlook many things. The moral background of the Kents as alluded to by Mike W, for instance. Your line is spoken by a Kryptonian born and raised, not by the Kryptonian orphan raised by hunble Kansas farmers. Unless your Kal-El has had his Kryptonian heritage and ego transmatted into his brain, no Kansas farm boy would say that to his dad.
Also, your strength issue overlooks many things. For example, I used to be the 140 pound skinny weakling. Over the course of years, of working out and doing more sports and such, I got stronger…developed shoulders, muscle. I was never huge, but I did get a lot stronger over time. The thing is, lifting didn’t get any easier…I was just able to do more. But as I got stronger, I didn’t find that I had to compensate. In other words, I never lost the fine motor control needed to, say, use a tissue or pick a flower.
Now, granted, I’m not Superman. I can’t lift mountains. But then again, assuming Superman didn’t just wake up on his 25th birthday and suddenly found himself with all that power, he’d have spent a lifetime learning to control the fine motor skills that come with his power. Would that require some brain activity? Certainly…but why does that seem like such a difficult thing? Every day, we all walk through a world composed of things that we can easily break if we want to, or are careless. Glass, plants, pets, children, even each other. Sure, some thing take more effort, but others don’t. And while in some instances we exert more concentration than normal, most of the time we just do, rather than think, our way through these situations.
I imagine it’s pretty much the same for any super-powerd individual. They’ve spent enough time learning to control their power, when dealing with normal individuals, they just naturally hold back. I’ve seen many times where such a character comes across another super-strength character, and thinks “I don’t have to hold back with this one.”
John Byrne’s Next Men featured a character that had super-dense muscles, granting him super strength and toughness. But that character specifically lacked the ability to excercise fine motor control over his ability, and had to wear a restraining harness. I don’t think that’s necessarily realistic.
What I think would be more difficult than fine motor control (which I do think would pose more of a problem than bobb alfred allows) is the assumption of typical human behaviors. At about 6’2″ and 190-something pounds I am more than strong enough to open any door I have encountered, but for a particularly heavy one there is some effort involved, and it shows. When I walk in the dark, I can’t see every obstacle, and I grope to avoid bumping into anything that can hurt me. In many things, there is a tangible effort visible in watching the muscles. To appear to be like everyone else, a superman would have to make constant gestures to pretend strain, weakness and apprehension. The modern era stories in which Superman comes into his powers gradually make much better sense than those in which there was a Superbaby: How could an infant ever learn to walk when he could fly, or move what he could smash? I’ll admit that with effort and a superior mind one could eventually learn to feign human limitations, but there would be a steep learning curve, and continuous effort to keep up the illusion. I’ll accept that bobb is rather strong, but challenge him to imagine the challenges of being billions of times more so. Larry Niven once wrote that for a Superbaby there might be no concept of surfaces, as he could see through all objects with X-ray vision. (He also raised some issues involving hygiene and adolescence which can be set aside for now.)
A great deal of “normal human behavior” is an adjustment to and acknowledgement of limitations a Superman would not have. Even if I try, I cannot launch myself into orbit with my legs, and each step I take indicates some amount of effort; It’s difficult to imagine anything beyond isometrics which would present Superman with resistance or effort. I’ve often wondered about how the almost infinitely powerful Silver Age Superman could have even passed his skin off as human – it would be only minimally compressible or ductile, and he might well be experienced as a real “Man of Steel.” Whatever struck or made contact with his body would react as if it had struck an infinitely hard and dense surface, or at best a lightly cushioned plate of cobalt steel.
West Side Story is directly based on Romeo and Juliet, but indirectly it isn’t. Shakespeare based Romeo and Juliet on a much older story, so he didn’t come up with the basic plot either. If you remove all of his Shakespearian speech and make a new movie based on the plot, then you’re not really using any of Shakespeare’s work.
If Leonard Bernstein had said “This is William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet'” there would be a problem, but he didn’t. That Robert Wise selected a Slavic Maria who couldn’t sing – that’s also a problem, but one of a different kind.
Bill Mulligan said:
“About the only critic I trust is Ebert because I’ve read him long enough to tell when he is disliking a film I’ll like.”
=====
I feel the same way. Siskel and Ebert reviewed movies because they liked movies. Many reviewers today review because they want the attention their words bring them, especially that useless **** who became Ebert’s new partner.
It just came to me that Ebert’s new partner is similar to a troll.
JERRY CHANDLER!
Thanks for the info that Maz and Mike are back (at least to me). A local radio station used to carry them, but no longer.
I could listen to Max all day. Absolutely love her raspy voice. Max, if you’re reading this, call me!
The character in the Terminator show indeed was deliberately named James Ellison, a reference to James Cameron and Harlan Ellison. It was reported a the Ellison site that the writer of the show is a fan of both.
Interesting remarks today from Roger Ebert:
A reader comments
How is it you can throw one star and a bedpan at a movie like “The Bucket List,” and yet after reading your darn review, I wanna see it?
Ebert responds
I have succeeded. Any review, whether positive or negative, should give the reader a fair idea of what it would be like to see it themselves. I refer you to an actual conversation I once had on the phone:
Caller: “We live near the Wilmette Theatre, which is showing ‘Cries and Whispers.’ What can you tell us about it?”
Self: “I think it is the best film of the year.”
Caller: “Oh, that doesn’t sound like anything we’d want to see!”
Coming in late here (but not all THAT late for a change), so I just wanted to add a couple of things.
First, a question to PAD: do you think TLM would be a good first Broadway show for a preschooler? I know Caroline loved it, but (a) she’s 5, and (b) you’ve taken her to bunches of shows before. Katherine’s 3 1/2, and while she’s gone to the occasional kid-centered show locally (mostly HS stuff), she hasn’t been to Broadway. She loves the film and has named lots of dolls Ariel recently, so would certainly be well suited on that score, but I’m just not sure. Any thoughts?
Now a few other musings:
PAD:
One of the funniest “criticisms” of a film I ever saw was Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as a cheerleader movie reviewer on an old SNL “Weekend Update.” Apparently, despite all logic, she had JUST seen “The Wizard of Oz” and was dismissing it as being a rip off of “Star Wars.”
True story: back when my wife and I were at Cornell, an anime adaptation of Lensman came out and lots of students went. Several less-than-informed people came out saying it was a Star Wars ripoff — it fell to the more informed people to get the timeline straightened out. 🙂
Rick:
From May 1994 to Oct. 1995 I wrote a weekly movie review column for a local newspaper…
If someone is going to review (or criticize, if you prefer that term) a movie, play, book, concert, Broadway show, whatever, I believe he or she should state why he or she likes or dislikes it. Beyond the obvious fact that just saying either “it’s fantastic!” or “it stinks!” and not elaborating is a cop-out, it gives readers/listeners/viewers an honest review, and also provides them with a point of comparison. If you know a reviewer absolutely hates, say westerns, then you can take his ripping apart of 3:10 from Yuma with a grain of salt. On the other hand, if he sings its praises, despite hating westerns, then it might be worth seeing.
Abso-bloody-lutely. I reviewed TNG and DS9 episodes online for over a decade, and briefly had a paying gig for Britain’s _TV Zone_ reviewing novels. It always confused a certain segment of Usenet when I mentioned that the numerical 1-10 rating was what I devoted the least amount of thought to: what mattered was the commentary I put in beforehand explaining what worked and what didn’t.
Most people seemed to like that I provided that level of background. Some folks didn’t.
AdamYJ:
You ask anyone about Tarzan and they’ll tell you the same thing. Africa. Jungle man. Raised by apes. Jane. They may even do a Weismuller inspired impression and the trademark “Tarzan yell”. And I bet they would believe it’s possible to put together a movie based on that little bit of info, too. :p
[producer] And hey, throw in a naked Bo Derek and it’s a sure thing! [/producer]
TWL
Abso-bloody-lutely. I reviewed TNG and DS9 episodes online for over a decade, and briefly had a paying gig for Britain’s _TV Zone_ reviewing novels. Most people seemed to like that I provided that level of background. Some folks didn’t.
———
I always enjoyed your reviews on Usenet, Tim, and there’s one thing I want to complement you on. With Voyager and Enterprise, you started reviewing them but, since, if I remember right, you didn’t care much for them and decided to stop reviewing them. And you did. And that was that. Unlike some you weren’t the type who week after week would talk about how bad the show was and would say things like “I can’t understand why you people are watching such a crappy show.” You didn’t like it, you stopped discussing it, end of story. And that was a refreshing change.
David
Thanks, David. I appreciate.
In VOY’s case, I could tell about halfway through the second season that it wasn’t going to be remotely the show I wanted to be watching or reviewing, so I held out until the end of the season for completeness’ sake and then ended my reviewing and said why. (From the online reaction, you’d think I’d gone out and shot a lot of fans’ pets.)
In ENT’s case, it was primarily a lack of time — I’d been regularly late with the reviews and they were turning into a chore, so I stopped that time for other reasons. (Not that I was enchanted with ENT during season two, but it wasn’t the same sort of dislike that I had with VOY.)
In any case, I’m glad you thought I handled it well. I certainly tried to.
TWL
Whoops. That should be “I appreciate it,” not “I appreciate.”
I iz a riter. Reely.
TWL
True story: back when my wife and I were at Cornell, an anime adaptation of Lensman came out and lots of students went. Several less-than-informed people came out saying it was a Star Wars ripoff — it fell to the more informed people to get the timeline straightened out. 🙂
Well, to be fair, the Lensman anime is kind of a ripoff of Star Wars; or, at least, it’s been run through a heavy filter to be more Star Wars-like, rather than an accurate adaptation of the books. I don’t recall the original books having a cute R2-D2-like robot or Mentor being a Yoda-like gnome.
Tim, did you ever bother to watch the rest of Voyager after you stopped reviewing it?
I couldn’t get into the show at all until around the time 7 of 9 showed up. Not that the show was all that and a plate of shrimp even then but it was able to keep me mostly watching up till the end.
My stepson has gotten into the repeats lately seeing some of the first episodes reminded me why I stayed away for 3 or 3 years. But I’m curious to see if you thought the show got better after Jeri Ryan showed up or if it just got sexier.
Doug — okay, fair point.
Bill — I saw most of the third season, because I was involved in writing questions for a CD-ROM trivia game and needed material. I’ve only ever seen about half a dozen episodes from the Jeri Ryan era. Ryan herself was fun — a decent actress (which I knew from her short stint on _Dark Skies_) and of course easy on the eyes — but I can’t say that the series itself grabbed me any more than it had previously.
On the other hand, Jeri Ryan can be indirectly credited for the rise of Barack Obama, so I suppose I owe her some debt for that. 🙂
TWL