Musicals: From Stage & Film to Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Ejanss]

Speaking of Peter Pan, it was just announced that Peter Pan is confirmed as the next live NBC production. Good thing/bad thing, as I state that it doesn't excite me much seeing as it's been done for television already, more than once. And more PC Indians, I guess...

I'll add a few more Z's, as NBC still clearly couldn't think outside the Mary Martin (and 80's-rerun) box, not to mention that Cathy Rigby already pretty much retired the musical for modern TV versions.
A much more convincing "boy" Peter than most female Broadway stars will ever be (that's the advantage of being a skinny underfed gymnast ), more "Olympic" movies in the wire-flying scenes, and Indians that manage to be "real" in the musical context without being as overly-PC as most recent movie versions.

Even trotting out one more King & I would have been a step up, although I'd have rather seen new territory.
Heck, I'd even take their doing the Leonard Bernstein Peter Pan, at this point, since the Mia Farrow/Danny Kaye version seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

 

[Matt Hough]

Speaking of Peter Pan, it was just announced that Peter Pan is confirmed as the next live NBC production. Good thing/bad thing, as I state that it doesn't excite me much seeing as it's been done for television already, more than once. And more PC Indians, I guess...

Yes, I have to say I'm disappointed with this decision. I'm sure they'll do a fine job with it, but we do have both the Martin and Rigby versions on disc and one would like something that wasn't available in a staged for TV version.

 

[schan1269]

Maybe one day the US gets out of the dark ages and we get Equus! The Musical.If course, preempted with "change the channel if you don't want to see it".Worked for Schindler's List...

 

[Doug Bull]

What happened to Hugh Jackman's "Carousel"?

I was really looking forward to that.

 

[Everett S.]

With its 30th anniversary soon upon us, I think it's high time they started work on Annie for bluray. But somebody tell me what the deal is with the bizarro world soundtrack on that film. That movie always sounded extra funky to me. The ambient sound seems to be on a different recording style than the music and dialogue. And when there's dozens of orphans, their omnies (all looped) sometimes sound clearer than the stuff you're supposed to be listening to, not to mention that the girls sound like they're in a different room. Just some really bizarro looping and ADR here and there, especially in the street scenes. But this is the way that film has always sounded to me on home video; not just the current dvd. I guess a better balance with today's technology could fix all that (if it was a goof back in '82 and wasn't due to some weird filmmaking purpose). Well, I would guess that most of those omnies exist because the studio didn't want to pay a lot of onscreen actors to say them (it's cheaper to hire voice-over artists than to pay the extras Sag wages to say the lines on-camera). But the recording style and the fact that no lips are moving make for some awkward moments in that flick.

On Comcast on demand all the vocals come out of my right speaker. It's been like that for almost a year!!! .

 

[JohnMor]

Peter Pan is the most uninspired choice they could have made. What a wasted opportunity.

 

[Tom Clark]

NBC is saying they want to cast a male actor as Peter, so that will be something different.

However, if he's much older than 12, we'll still have to kick in with that "willing suspension of disbelief" Coleridge talked about. It's hard to buy a boy who never grew up if he has five o'clock shadow.

 

[Matt Hough]

Yes, but they've got to have a name. Wonder if Chris Colfer or Darren Criss has an exclusive performing contract with Fox as long as Glee runs?

 

[Rick Thompson]

Another Peter Pan. As Miss Piggy would say, B-o-o-o-r-r-r-i-i-i-n-n-n-g-g-g!

We can only assume NBC programmers thought, "A program that wins the time period and the demographics? We can't have that ! Let's figure a way to kill it off!"

I am so not watching.

 

[Ethan Riley]

On Comcast on demand all the vocals come out of my right speaker. It's been like that for almost a year!!! .

The bluray has the best sound balance I've ever heard for that film. Get it if you see a copy. Highly recommended by me.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Yes, but they've got to have a name. Wonder if Chris Colfer or Darren Criss has an exclusive performing contract with Fox as long as Glee runs?

That's actually not the worst idea I've ever heard; IF they take it seriously and don't make it a camp fest. Chris in particular would be fine in that role, and he's popular with kids, but it might just come across as something gayer than hell and the Right Wing would freak out. I'd tune in though....

 

[JohnMor]

Ah, I smell Justin Bieber in the role! And it stinks worse than Limburger!

 

[Aaron Silverman]

We can only assume NBC programmers thought, "A program that wins the time period and the demographics? We can't have that ! Let's figure a way to kill it off!"

You know, based on past performance, that is not such a big assumption.

 

[Matt Hough]

Ah, I smell Justin Bieber in the role! And it stinks worse than Limburger!

It's a live show. I am confident the producers won't tempt fate by hiring someone who is so volatile and unpredictable. Another website I go to suggested Daniel Radcliffe. I could certainly see that.

 

[Jim*Tod]

Another vote here for Jackman in CAROUSEL. NBC wants to do something more kid friendly.

 

[MatthewA]

Speaking of Peter Pan, it was just announced that Peter Pan is confirmed as the next live NBC production. Good thing/bad thing, as I state that it doesn't excite me much seeing as it's been done for television already, more than once. And more PC Indians, I guess...

Another safe choice from Zadan/Meron, the Kings of Safe Choices.

If they keep "Ugg-a-Wug," though, I'll be surprised. It's a dreadful song, honestly, and even "What Makes The Red Man Red" from the Disney version was less offensive (and more memorable) in comparison.

The 1967 NBC Ethel Merman Annie Get Your Gun is no longer in existence. The story goes that in 1972, an NBC executive, in an economy move, erased all of NBC's tapes of everything so they could be reused.

Then I guess we should be extremely grateful the 1960 version of Peter Pan didn't end up being one of the many, many, MANY tapes NBC wiped.

 

[Ejanss]

If they keep "Ugg-a-Wug," though, I'll be surprised. It's a dreadful song, honestly, and even "What Makes The Red Man Red" from the Disney version was less offensive (and more memorable) in comparison.

Musically, it's pretty bad, although, again, it survived the 90's Rigby version fairly respectably with a tolerable dose of PC (at least taking it away from the hideously-cute flower-hippie version of the color Mary Martin version):

Spoiler

Although, in defense of (the more musical) Disney, Neverland Indians aren't supposed to be real Indians, you know.

But seriously, there's just so much It's Been Done about NBC's version. Even the "We have a boy this time!" just brings back the nightmare of that off-book '03 movie version of the story.
(We're already having to deprogram an entire generation who grew up with THAT version as their first exposure, and now think that it can do no wrong...)

 

[Ethan Riley]

I saw a live production that nearly did away with the silly lyrics and made it into more of a dance number... same with that Ugga Wugga Meatball lyric and such.

 

[MatthewA]

Z&M had their eyes on Peter Pan for years. They wanted to do it as a TV-movie for ABC when they were still on working terms with Disney instead of another Monday-morning-quarterback remake.

What went wrong with the 2003 version? That couldn't possibly have been that bad, considering the alleged movie version of The Cat in the Hat came out the same year.

 

[Ejanss]

What went wrong with the 2003 version? That couldn't possibly have been that bad, considering the alleged movie version of The Cat in the Hat came out the same year.

If you mean the '03 Peter Pan, no, it wasn't Cat in the Hat bad, more like Tim Burton's Alice or Narnia-sequel bad--Where they take a seemingly screenwriter-proof classic, get full of their own big budget, decide to "cure" the classic for a popcorn audience with the usual screenwriter embellishments of big action scenes and easy laffs, and start embarrassingly futzing with the original to points where the author would turn over in his grave.

(Wendy did NOT have an "Aunt Millicent" to say un-PC Victorian things and make her feel burgeoning feminism...Peter did NOT have a "romantic subplot" with Wendy, quite the reverse in fact...Saying the "I don't believe" words does NOT kill specific fairies on contact like Raid...Yes, Nana was a St. Bernard, but NOT Beethoven out of the John Hughes movies...And call it a minor nitpick, but in the final battle, Hook did NOT freakin' fly. And I know I'm forgetting at least half a dozen other cringe-worthy heresies, but I don't want to go back and look at it again just to make a list.)