Into the Woods (2014)

Seems like Corden and Blunt have pretty good chemistry.

> Oh, there's still a narrator. It's just that he's (spoiler).

Interesting thought: That actually ties in to the ending of the stage play. The film version could then be considered a direct sequel to the stage version.

(I'm optimistic. I'm uncertian about the supposed changes and I'll really miss "No More" but seeing the clip of Meryl Streep performing "Stay With Me" gave me shivers and rocketed this to "must see" for me, and I don't see anything suggesting that the actors aren't going to nail their roles and singing parts.)

edited 16th Dec '14 11:15:24 PM by Elle

How important is narrator to the story? I know the change they make, and I'm just wondering if it's going drastically alter the rest of the movie. I mean I feel like, as pivotal a character as he is, the Narrator would work in the film about as well the chorus in Sweeney Todd would have worked. Which is not very well at all IMO.

From what I've seen of the show (which includes all of his parts), I'd say it won't be that big a deal.

Are you kidding? They kill him off! The other characters Break the Fourth Wall and give the Narrator to the Giant. The other characters are responsible for no longer knowing how the story ends, and are now on their own. While there may have been a few darker moments here and there before now, killing the Narrator is where everything goes to pot. So, while you don't need that moment, you do lose some of the thematic elements of the story by removing it. Though I can understand why they took it out; such a moment, while great on stage, just might not fly for a film.

edited 17th Dec '14 12:13:20 PM by kkhohoho

They could have just had the Narrator walking through the scenes and none of the characters ever acknowledge that he's there. Then, suddenly, they all turn to look at him.

The Narrator isn't a massive loss. They lost one of my favorite moments of the show, but I can understand it because showing/telling and etc.

I am pissed that the Mysterious Man has been, pretty much, completely cut.

You can have a narrator in a movie, but having the narrator be an actual character who shows up physically and doesn't otherwise appear to have much to do with the plot at first is an extremely obvious indicator that something's going to happen to him. Because otherwise, why would they have him appear physically when that would be absolutely unnecessary for a normal movie narrator?

Or, they could have had him just be a VO at first, until finally, when it's time to off him, the other characters, as the narrator continues to narrate, begin to hear the narrator's voice, and slowly look over to the left; the camera slowly pans over to the left as well, revealing that there was actually a physical narrator all along. Not only would it keep that great moment in, but I imagine it'd be pretty darn funny.

edited 18th Dec '14 8:06:03 AM by kkhohoho

Oh, now I'm thinking about that Dave The Barbarian show. There's an episode where the Narrator gets kidnapped by the villain and he's replaced by a 30s-style space serial narrator.

I was thinking something akin to Derek Jacobi in Henry V, where he's casually strolling through the scenes but no one takes notice of him. Or he's a voice always coming off screen, until that pivotal scene where the characters yank him out of the fourth wall.

I could see it working. The narrator doesn't need to be physically present to be crushed by the giant, especially if they play a little with an Interactive Narrator. It wouldn't be the first time a narrator was dragged into the plot without being omnipotent.

I think the reason they scrapped it is because they're going for something a little grittier, and the Interactive Narrator trope is really whimsical, even in serious movies. I just like the idea of the classic narration over a classic fairy tale for the first half.

Gritty may not be the best thing to focus on? Sure, Into the Woods can be a brutal deconstruction at times, but part of the fun of it is that slides all across the scale of idealism and cynicism like someone trying to spark a fire.

I don't think it looks gritty. They were probably just thinking of ways to simplify the story and keep the movie from being too long.

Saw it.

Mini review: Nailed it.

Considering that all I really care about in a musical adaptation is that they do justice to the source material, I would say they exceeded expectations.

Point by point:

• The visuals are fantastic across the board. There are dark spots where appropriate but also lots of beauty. The lighting and effects are very theatrical in a cool way but they also made great use of movie visuals and fantasy style CGI.
• I found no flaw with the cast. Everyone was at the top of their game with their roles and sang at least as well as the OBC.
• Johnny Depp can, in fact, sing. The suggestiveness is less overt but not entirely absent.
• "I Know Things Now" as a Disney Acid Sequence...drug overtones rather than (in addition to?) sex overtones?
• Did I mention that Meryl Streep nailed The Witch? Bernadette Peters' shoes were the biggest ones to fill and she rose to it.
• Call it sacralige but...I kinda liked movie Rapunzel's fate better. Her going psycho in the stage version has rubbed me the wrong way and now I know why: it was angst for the sake of angst. You can make valid arguments to the contrary but this was more satisfying to me.
• The Baker's father: He does appear as flashback and as a ghost near the end. The baker resenting him is played up in dialogue and affects his sense of inadequacy. It works but I wouldn't call it an improvement. So, "No More": the setup was the same. The scene was played through dialogue. The song is played instrumentaly as the Baker takes a moment to mourn. I think they could have afforded to go the extra step of putting the song in. I am biased though.
• Most of the compression made sense. No More was the only cut I missed badly. (And any case where they shortened a song was jarring but it would be no matter what.)
• Thematically, Disney did shave off a lot of side themes and subtext but the core remained intact. I think they would have been better served by extending the run time a bit more. To me, Into The Woods is a coming of age tale: Reality Ensues, actions have consequences, villians are not black and white, life has no script, happy endings must be earned.
• What was missimg in complexity was maybe made up for in raw emotional punch. There were many tears.

edited 27th Dec '14 6:52:29 PM by Elle

Ok, "Agony." My theater lost its shit. I was choking on my diet coke. I nearly bawled when I realized they'd cut the reprise, but with Rapunzel's fate changing I guess it couldn't have been avoided. Speaking of which...

I didn't think Rapunzel's trauma and PPD came out of nowhere. I don't have any real qualm they removed it though, except to me it made the Witch's desperation at the end make a little less sense. It'd be nice to see the film again though; it might not stick out to me as much.

The growling in parts of Johnny Depp's song was really hot . Damn creepy wolfie hobo should not be that sexy.

Oh, some of the arrangement choices were interesting. "The Last Midnight" had a really neat buildup toward the end.

edited 28th Dec '14 9:01:42 AM by Phoenixflame

I haven't seen the movie yet, (hopefully next weekend,) but in the meantime, I've been scouring Rotten Tomatoes, and the reactions to the flik seem... mixed, to say the least. Some are praising the film, others have mixed opinions, and others still didn't seem to even know it was a musical beforehand and thus gave it 1/2-0 stars. Tough crowd.

But aside from the obligatory ' MUSICALSSUK!1! ' complaints, the main thing people seem to have a problem with is the second act. They like the first two-thirds, (at least among those who like it,) which mainly just amount to humorous retellings of various fairy-tales on their own, but when it comes to the last third — the part that, in my opinion, makes the play — people seem to think it is unnecessary, and could either have been transitioned into better, or even done away with altogether.

Now, when I've seen the film, I'll be able to see if any of this is true for myself, but I think the problem some people have with the transition into the second act is that, well, there was really no transition to begin with. In the play, the first act wrapped up, you got an intermission, (and thus a break,) and then the second act just did it's thing. There was no transition because there wasn't a need for one. But for a film, without that intermission, it might have been best to figure out a better way to segway into what should be the heart and soul of the story, instead of the audience thinking otherwise. Maybe it'll get a better reception on DVD, when you can just pause the film in between if you feel the need, but I don't know if that will really help.

edited 28th Dec '14 6:53:35 PM by kkhohoho

Yeah, I watched this with my family for the holiday, and was totally unaware it was an adaptation of a play. I could still tell it was at least structured like a play, with distinct scenes and such, but even then, the break point for the second act came out of nowhere for me. All in all, I think the film stood well enough on its own, but that transition (or lack thereof) was definitely a bit jarring for me.

If I understand summaries of the play correctly, they should have preserved the time skip between the two acts. The deconstructive aspects of the play would then make a little more sense, since it would more naturally show that the happily ever after the characters think they wanted aren't actually all that great.

/ General non-specific spoilers...In the stage musical, there's a passage of time between the acts. Act I ends with "happily ever after," with the plotlines resolved in funny ways—tra la la, through hard work and some magic, our heroes got their wishes. Some time later, Act II shows the consequences of what they did to get their wishes, how happiness doesn't change one's nature, and what they have to fall back on when fairytale logic bites them in the ass. Without Act II, it's a totally different show. It might be fine for a middle school musical, but the end of Act I is totally subverted by Act II.

The film's Act II gets whittled down to bare bones. I'm not against cutting songs—not a peep from me when the chorus was cut from Sweeney Todd—but the elements that got cut made other things seem random. Like, (subplot spoiler) Cinderella ends up with her prince. She enchanted him because she ran from the ball. He married her thinking once he "caught her," he'd be satisfied, but maybe a year into their marriage and he's fascinated by another "unattainable princess," and briefly one of the other main characters. Meanwhile, Cinderella's grown sick of the constrictive court life and is sneaking out just to breathe. In the film, there's no time between him marrying her and the events of Act II (and no Sleeping Beauty mention), so it feels like he never even had time to lose his fascination with her, or for Cinderella to realize she disliked being a princess. Not saying he's excused in the stage version, but it makes more sense than "met the girl of my dreams yesterday, hiiiii new sexy peasant lady!"

Also, a plot change introduced a plot hole. (subplot spoilers) Rapunzel finally gets with her Prince. In the stage version, she has twins, but because of her life beforehand and PPD, she's a wreck and her Prince is basically "I did not sign up for this!" She dies and that has a huge effect on another character. In the film, she chews out that character and rides off with her prince, and that's it. I don't care if they changed her story, but to me it made another character's actions a bit less understandable, and it's like, ok, so Rapunzel and her Prince DID get a happy ending because they got the hell outta Dodge? We never see what happens...it would've been nice just to get a quick scene of what happened. As it was it felt like a gaping cut.

All that bellyaching aside (geez I'm sounding like an ASOIAF book purist!), I still really liked it. Top-notch casting and some really neat design choices. Plus, "Agony" and "Stay With Me" are worth the ticket alone.

edited 28th Dec '14 9:18:27 PM by Phoenixflame

I haven't seen the movie. I tried to go see it but it was completely sold out. And BOTH of my back up films were too. That's new.

Anyway, at the moment, No More is my BIG issue. Its so structurally detrimental to the heart of this film and its core messages that its removal seems confusing and a massive headscratcher for me. I can see several other songs that are far less important to character development and themes that could have been removed instead for time.

Why remove the mysterious man at all anyway? Bah. I'll never understand why you remove things like that.

Like, I can understand changing Rapunzel's ending now. Arguably, it gives a lot more closure to it in my opinion. And is less annoying than 'I'm going to scream like a maniac and then right directly into a 100ft tall giant'. I always felt there wasn't much character there. She was an object of two people's love rather than a character. Here, or at least what I've read from the script, it has a more relateable conclusion; being similar to a child detesting their parental's abusive relationship and running away from it.

It makes sense.

I don't see why you would cut the Mysterious Man at all. It saves, what? 10 mins of screen time? Its already a two hour film.

I find it funny that, what we initially thought was botched production, turned out relatively fine and the real issues are something else entirely. We were worried about LRRH and 'Moments in the Wood' but they seemingly have turned out fine anyway, but then No More is entirely axed. : /

Saw the movie.

They did remove "No More," but they did keep the Baker's confrontation with his father. It's just that the father kinda only shows up in that one scene and not as a "Mysterious Man." Oh, and the music's still there. Just as background music and not as a song.

All in all, it was a solid adaptation (if a somewhat flawed movie) that stays as faithful to the show as one could realistically hope for, given the circumstances. Cast was excellent.

edited 28th Dec '14 11:25:09 PM by Pannic

You made me reassess my thoughts on the Rapunzel storyline. As I said, changing it doesn't bother me, but the structuring could've been smoother. It's very truncated...boom, confrontation, "leave me alone mom!", galloping off, the Witch has a quick sad. You're spot on about it being an abused child leaving her abusive parent though—"Stay With Me" is realllllly good because of Streep's wide range of emotion. There's heartache, overprotectiveness, emotional manipulation, and an edge of cray cray.

"No More" took me by surprise because it seemed like they were building up to it. I wonder if it was filmed but later cut. That factors into the second act being pretty sparse.

Normally I wouldn't care about the "Agony" reprise being cut, but the first one was so damn good and ridiculous that I was uber we didn't get a followup.

"It Takes Too" is adorable. Goofy and sweet and sincere. Plus, using Rapunzel's hair like a boa .

The actor playing Jack was Gavroche in the Les Miserables movie. Damn he got lanky! Really cute acting though.

edited 28th Dec '14 11:24:25 PM by Phoenixflame

Viewing comments on imdb and RT. Rolling my eyes at people who say the movie should have ended at the fake-out.

It's also kind of a bummer they cut "Rainbows." I just listened to the 1995 demo recording and it's a very pretty song. But ah well. Some things just ain't meant to happen.

edited 29th Dec '14 1:12:05 PM by Pannic

Fans of the stage version would have disowned the film if they cut the second act, and the publicity plays up Sondheim's involvement so he probably had at least some say. I think they should have given the run time another 10 or 15 minutes, two of those minutes being No More, maybe a couple given to Cinderella cause we get her status as a throwaway line, maybe a couple to the Witch and something with the group to fill the hole left by the Narrator's absence.

I think the script was done by the same person who did the stage book, I would say he did as well as he was able with the time constraint, but the second act did feel rushed.

I saw this today. Keep in mind, I've never seen the stage play. I thought it was pretty good, but yeah, the last third of the movie just kind of lurches in without any warning. The actors were great, with Meryl Streep taking the crown, and it was interesting to see the stories weave and intertwine the way they did.

The thing though, and this is completely subjective, that I kind of missed was that there wasn't really a big crowd song, since I love those. And I saw Memphis over Christmas in London which has a bunch of them, so yeah.

There are a lot of people on imdb who really didn't like the film's last act. I'm actually kind of surprised.