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A Few Words About While we wait for A few words about...™ Fox's live broadcast of Grease -- in Blu-ray(?) (1 Viewer)

Virgoan

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I sorely missed "Hoplessly Devoted to You" that was such a smash in the film. Since the live presentation was not completely slavish to the original book -- and made many concessions to ape the movie -- it seems like it was a major oversight not to include it.

But I really enjoyed the presentation and the performances.
 

Mike Frezon

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I sorely missed "Hoplessly Devoted to You" that was such a smash in the film. Since the live presentation was not completely slavish to the original book -- and made many concessions to ape the movie -- it seems like it was a major oversight not to include it.

But I really enjoyed the presentation and the performances.

It was in the East Coast broadcast...

They had some audio problems with it. I wonder if they cut it from the West Coast feed? Although I saw an entertainment show on TV say they had fixed the audio during Hopelessly Devoted.
 

Lord Dalek

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I can understand why they'd go with the film version of Grease as its gradually overwritten the original in pop culture, especially in the last decade with the 2007 production being based entirely off the movie.
 

Matt Hough

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Here's the funny thing. I had read that there was static that blotted out "Hopelessly Devoted to You" on the East Coast live broadcast, but when I watched Grease Monday afternoon, there was no static, and I heard the song sung without interruption. (Julianne had a bit of trouble negotiating from her chest to her head voice but it was otherwise fine.)
 

Mike Frezon

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Here's the funny thing. I had read that there was static that blotted out "Hopelessly Devoted to You" on the East Coast live broadcast, but when I watched Grease Monday afternoon, there was no static, and I heard the song sung without interruption. (Julianne had a bit of trouble negotiating from her chest to her head voice but it was otherwise fine.)

During Born to Hand Jive, there was a complete audio drop out (for maybe 15 to 20 seconds). From that point until the commercial break the audio went to just my center channel and there was very noticeable static in my front L/R speakers. That stretch included Hopelessly Devoted.

One of the syndicated entertainment shows (I was watching on the elliptical machine at the gym so I don't remember which) did a segment on the broadcast and mentioned the audio difficulties. They played segments of Hopelessly Devoted from the east coast feed (with the static) and then from the west coast feed (nice and clean).
 

cinemiracle

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Actually, it wasn't really a live audience - they paid people to be there and that's different. They were told how to react, pre-show. The odd thing is that none of the book scenes had any audience reaction whatsoever, so there was a disconnect between those and the musical numbers. Also, whatever sound issues happened, they were fixed by the time the West Coast got it - which kind of negates the "live" part. But that's the thing - it never really seemed live to me.

This is typical with television shows that have a live audience.They are told how to react before the show is recorded. Just watch any game show and you will notice that the audiences always react on cue..If a contestant only wins ten dollars ,the audience go wild with applause. It is all so phony.Canned laughter is another idea that is overdone and I shrug every time that I hear it.Commercial television is such a fake medium.The home viewers are regarded as being idiots.
 

Dave MJ

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I also really enjoyed it, much to my surprise. I DVR'd it and only started watching to see how terrible it probably was and ended up staying up late to watch the whole thing. I thought the new song was out of place and Beauty School Dropout was kinda flat, but otherwise it was very entertaining and well done.

As for a blu-ray, I'm still waiting for Paramount to include the original soundtrack on an HD release of the movie (instead of the dreadful 1998 remix) so I'm not holding my breath for this.
 

Kenneth_C

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I sorely missed "Hoplessly Devoted to You" that was such a smash in the film.

I don't know what broadcast you watched, but it was definitely shown in the West Coast. And with the East Coast audio problems fixed, too.
 

Virgoan

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Doh! Heeding all your comments, I went back to my DVR and re-watched the musical numbers. I had recorded it and scanned through several times watching various numbers. I had always scanned over "Hopelessly Devoted to You", apparently, but it's there between two commercial breaks. Really enjoyed it and thanks for insisting I look again.
 

MatthewA

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I watched it on HULU and "Hopelessly Devoted" was there with no technical problems. Unfortunately, it also had chunks of the audio portion of "Born to Hand Jive" missing.

I agreed with everybody who said it was better than the NBC musicals, yet the two men who made them seem determined to take credit for this show's success even though they had nothing to do with it.

Also, I was pleased to see that they're calling it "Paramount Television" again, just like they did in the 1970s. This must be a new company since what used to be Paramount Television—the successor-in-interest to Desilu—is now CBS Television Studios, who had nothing to do with it.

And as for the "dragon wagon" replacement, it just made me think, "a new Pete's Dragon, a new Grease, a new Wiz, and a new Star Wars. Is it 1978 again?"

As for a blu-ray, I'm still waiting for Paramount to include the original soundtrack on an HD release of the movie (instead of the dreadful 1998 remix) so I'm not holding my breath for this.

It's been almost a decade since the Blu-ray came out. A better transfer (with the original Paramount logo and the music that came with it) and an original sound track option could get me to double dip.
 

Noel Aguirre

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Absolutely dreadful. If I wanted to watch a reenactment of the movie I'd rather just watch the movie. Even the clothes were copies. And politically correct to boot with integrated 50s schools? And the actor playing Danny looked ridiculous as he was obviously 30ish
The show was completely stripped of its original grit.
 

Marco S

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Finally finished and erased the show from my DVR. Meh. It seems the actors were having all the fun. I thought it was way over produced and inconsistent. I personally thought Julianne Hough was playing Olivia Newton-John and not Sandy. I will stick with the movie.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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I agreed with everybody who said it was better than the NBC musicals, yet the two men who made them seem determined to take credit for this show's success even though they had nothing to do with it.
I think it's fair to say that without "Sound of Music Live!", there wouldn't have been "Grease Live!". They deserve a lot of credit for reigniting the live television musical. Beyond that, it just seemed like they had admiration for what the Fox production accomplished.

I do hope they learn from it, though, for future NBC musicals.
 

Robert Harris

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I think it's fair to say that without "Sound of Music Live!", there wouldn't have been "Grease Live!". They deserve a lot of credit for reigniting the live television musical. Beyond that, it just seemed like they had admiration for what the Fox production accomplished.

I do hope they learn from it, though, for future NBC musicals.

For me, Grease was almost less about the show, and more about the sheer ebullience and, for lack of a better word, total chutzpah, of destroying that fourth wall

Just brilliant!
 

Mike Frezon

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For me, Grease was almost less about the show, and more about the sheer ebullience and, for lack of a better word, total chutzpah, of destroying that fourth wall

Just brilliant!

And if only Fox agreed with your assessment and thought their own broadcast was worthy of an HD release on Blu-ray.

The DVD of the broadcast comes out this coming Tuesday. :(
 

Neil Middlemiss

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I recently interviewed Didi Conn (Frenchie from the Grease film) and she spoke fondly of the cast and the sheer scale of the production. The logistics involved boggle my mind. I hope to have that interview up this weekend.
 

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