Chapter Twenty-Six: In Which We Examine Why So Many People Thought Love Never Dies Was An Abomination:
Hello again! Soprano again!
WARNING: This is another not-chapter...I'm sorry! This is the last one, I promise! But I believe that my readers should know as much back-round as possible before they fully judge LND... And I may or may not be stalling because I still don't know how to parody Till' I Hear You Sing :/
Anywho, I personally love LND, mostly because of the music, and if you like it, I agree with you. If you hated it, I agree even more with you. LND had some really good music, but it had the plot-line of a really bad soap opera... or AWL's life after Sarah Brightman divorced him
Most people blame AWL for that, but there are so many reasons LND wasn't as good. I will be listing out some popular complaints/ arguments:
1) "The Phantom doesn't write that kind of music. It's not his style!" Submitted by my friend:
Right you are! The music in LND is a lot less dark than it was in POTO, and most people think that's Webber's fault. But it's not fully his fault... It's also Disney's.
Yep, I just said that. Disney helped write LND.
No wonder people didn't like it.
Not Alan Menken, who actually has written at least two successful Broadway musicals, (Beauty and the Beast+ Hunchback of Notre Dame) and the music for Frozen, Tangled, and Princess and the Frog. No definitely not him. I'm talking about two Disney executives who I never knew existed writing this, which explains the "Look With Your Heart" song.
And with Disney, we all know their regulations:
-Violence: Must be bloodless, and limited.
-No adult content.
-No swearing.
-No mind diseases, mental problems, or physical disabilities will be included.
-The princess or female protagonist no matter what ethnicity, must always fall in love with a white dude. (Mulan doesn't count. Argument: Princess and the Frog and Aladdin had non-white guys! At the beginning of Aladdin, he looked Middle-Eastern. But by the end, he looked white. And Prince Naveen was not black. How do you know? If you can put pale skin and blonde hair on any non-white Disney character and they look the same, then they's white.)
Disney stinks at racial diversity.
-Villains must be foppy, fat, old, a witch, or all of the above (Ursula) and must die by falling off of something, getting stabbed, shot, sinking into something, getting sucked into hell, and it, again, must be bloodless.
-ATTRACTIVE GUY FRIENDS ARE BANNED! Unless they are evil
-NO PORKING!
-No innduendo of any kind. (Hunchback doesn't count)
-And no dark themes (Again Hunchback doesn't count)
This probably affected the characters and the song lyrics a whole lot. Phantom had some swearing, induendo, violence (do I really have to say?), hinting at rape, a sociopath, a two stalkers, mentioning of schizophrenia, and an entire song dedicated to banging.
If there was a Disney movie like this then I would totally watch it. But Disney's "all about the children" so they made the Phantom a lot mellower, Christine stayed pretty stupid, Meg went nuts, Raoul is a drinker, Gustave is perfect, and Madame Giry became a Ten Long Years broken record.
Other than that the songs lined up with AWL's gothic style... some actually overlap:
-The Intro song: Till I Hear You Sing, and Prologue.
-The Overture: The Overture, and the Coney Island Waltz
-The Show-Your- Hidden- Talent- That's- Not- Really Hidden song: Beautiful and Think of Me.
-The Show inside a Show: Only For You, Hannibal, and Think of Me
-The After-The- Show song: Angel of Music and Ten Long Years
-The Reunion song: Little Lottie and Dear Old Friends
-The I- Don't- Understand- The -Meaning- Of -Stranger Danger Song: The Mirror, Mother, Please I'm Scared, and The Aeyrie (a.k.a Intro to Beautiful with the Trio)
-The Rock Intro Duet: The Beauty Underneath, and the Phantom of the Opera
-The Song Everyone Likes: Music of the Night, and Till I Hear You Sing
-The Unmasking Song: End of The Beauty Underneath or Finale, and Stranger Than You Dreamt It.
- The Song that takes a really long time to memorize: Notes, and to a lesser extent, Dear Old Friends.
-The Boost- Your- Ego- Song: Prima Donna, and sort of Devil Take The Hindmost (phantom gets an ego boost)
-The Second Show inside a Show: Only For You, and II Muto
- The Love Song: Love Never Dies, and All I Ask of You.
- The "Violence is the Answer" song: All I Ask Of You Reprise, and the Finale
-The Catchy Party Song with Bizarre Costumes: Masquerade, and Coney Island Waltz
-The Song That Shoves The Moral Down Your Throat: Masquerade and Look With Your Heart.
-The I Want This, and I Will Kill For It Song: Why So Silent, and the Phantom Blackmails Christine.
- The Explanation of Past Events Song: Why So Silent for Madame Giry, Ten Long Years, Beneath a Moonless Sky, Once Upon Another Time, Ten Long Years Reprise, Devil Take The Hindmost, Ah Christine, Dear Old Friends, Finale, Ten Long Years of Yearning, What a Dreadful Town and THE ENTIRE MUSICAL!
-The Complaining Song: What a Dreadful Town, and Notes Reprise.
-The "I'm Not Sure What To Do" Song: Twisted Every Way, Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again, and The Dressing Room.
-The "I Will Tell You What To Do" Song: The Dressing Room, Phantom Blackmails Christine, and Wandering Child.
-The Second Show inside a Show: Don Juan Triumphant and Bathing Beauty
-The Third Show inside a Show: Love Never Dies and Past the Point of No Return
-The Kidnap Song: Down Once More, Oh Christine, Little Lotte, and that scene before the Finale.
-The Song that literally reprises every other song that has been played through the entire musical: Finale and Finale Lair Scene
-The Song that makes everyone with a soul cry: Final Lair Scene and Finale.
2) Why did all the characters change?
DISNEY!
Except Meg changing into musical theatre's Miley Cyrus... I dunno?
3) Why did Andrew Lloydd Webber write a sequel? How do people even like it? It's the worst sequel that ever existed.
One) Its not the worst sequel. Grease 2 is. My God, what where they thinking?!
Two) Why did he write a sequel? Why did he write a musical about Jesus? We don't know.
But I think he wrote it for us.
For the fans.
Because most of us didn't like the ending and BAM! Fanfiction. Instant 10,000+ ways for Erik and Christine to hook up. We are all guilty of writing our ow Love Never Dies.
Even I am.
For those who said he wanted to milk out more money... No, he didn't. I am like, the one person out of the seven in my middle school who has seen it, out of 300 kids.
Our school is small. But that's a lot of money. Webber doesn't need more money. He's set for life, and Joseph, his other musical is getting its own movie
And y'know how so many people love it?
Come in closer, I'm gonna tell you a really big secret...
They ignore the first one.
Yah! Magic, ain't it?
That's pretty much the only way you're gonna get through it, because otherwise you will hate it... Like a lot. I was actually shocked at the amount of hate it got.
This is my question. Would you rather watch 2004 POTO or LND?
The Choice is Yours. Winter is Coming. Heaven On Their Minds. A Lannister Always Pays His Debts. Expelliamus-
What am I doing?
Next Chapter will be LND I promise!
Please R&R,
Soprano