Into the Woods (2014)

So, what, they just wanted it to be a tounge-in-cheek fairy-tale comedy? Although considering that the film version was made by Disney, and most people going into it were expecting Disney... (And I know about the transition problems, but still.)

Really, it seems that the only way for most people to 'get' the second act at this point would be to just see the stage-play, which just so happens to be on Netflix, so there's really no excuse not to.

edited 31st Dec '14 8:20:26 AM by kkhohoho

It's mostly just the switch between the acts is really awkward and comes right out of nowhere. In the movie, it literally interrupts the narrator.

Not on Canadian Netflix.

edited 31st Dec '14 9:34:56 AM by Zendervai

well, you would think it'd make more sense to timeskip like its supposed to..but the cynical part of me says movie audiences want happy endings, not people having to deal with consequences.

Case in point. The Little Shop of Horrors movie.

edited 31st Dec '14 5:53:39 PM by midgetsnowman

Finally saw it. Went with a BIG Group that did Into the Woods as a High School show.

We un-apologetically sang in a hushed voice to every song. The crabby old ladies in front of us were getting pissed off, but we didn't really care. We were enjoying ourselves too much.

Surprisingly, I came out liking it A LOT more than I expected.

Casting was perfect, pretty much.

Agony was probably EVERYONE'S favorite number. I couldn't stop laughing. I was in AGONY! FAR MORE PAINFUL THAN YOURS! after that.

I do think some of the cuts were a bit painful. The Mysterious Man should never have been cut and neither should No More. However, I think they pulled off the best they could without that song there. Though, I also didn't like how it wasn't all that subtle what they were doing; 'Aren't you making the same mistake I did?' and stuff. Whatever. I did like that The Baker does sit down and just sob into the scarf. I've never liked how, in films, we have men being 'pretty crying' and always having to look attractive regardless of the pain. Him just mourning his wife and sobbing was perfect and heart wrenching.

Speaking of him, The Baker was SURPRISINGLY attractive. He was ok looking in the stage versions I've seen, but James Corden was DAMN! He's no Chris Pine but... Maybe its that the movie really showed him genuinely being a nice and loving person? It Takes Two was absolutely cute and... Idk. He was attractive.

Yeah, I have no idea why they skipped the time skip. Act 2 feels too rushed for it. Cinderella and the Prince have been married for LESS than a day and they're BOTH disillusioned with each other. We needed the skip to give them time to regret their wishes. Act 2 in general felt rushed. The giant attacks during the wedding, the Baker and his wife instantly leave, and then 5 mins later, the Royal Family is escaping the castle that was apparently destroyed. I turned to my friend and went 'Well, That was quick'.

I can't remember. Did Jack's Mother have her final lines??? I remember the Baker's Wife sitting down and holding her hand, but I don't remember them getting back to that. I might have just stopped paying attention for a few moments and missed it though. I only realized that I might have missed it later during No One Is Alone.

I still don't understand The Wolf's Zoot Suit... I don't know why. I just don't.

I may sound negative, but I truly did love it. We were all singing and laughing the entire time remembering our production. I also started sobbing around No More and No One Is Alone.

I haven't seen the stage play, and I thought it was fantastic. Given that - from the discussion here and the content of the songs - Red's story was clearly supposed to have sexual overtones (downplayed due to the youth of her actress), I don't know why they didn't simply cast an older actress. Especially as Red's actress wasn't fantastic. She wasn't bad, but she had this tendency to shout her lines and over-enunciate things, which can be common among young actors. "Giants in the Sky" is also not as good as the other musical numbers. It's something I can accept, given that it's hard enough to find kids who can act, much less sing and act.

Emily Blunt as the Baker's Wife was excellent, and the Baker was very good as well.

I thought the 'second act' worked fairly well, in that it was about actions having consequences. Jack can't just kill the giant and live happily ever after; he's killed the husband of the nice lady who hid him and she's now, rather understandably, angry. The Witch loved her 'daughter' but abused her, and now she's lost her. The prince may be charming, but that doesn't mean he's loyal (and it's clear even in the first act that the Baker's Wife has caught his eye); the appeal of Cinderella is that he hasn't got her, and once he's got her the relationship's less interesting for him. It's noticeable that Red doesn't really have much of a story in the second act compared to the others, though.

A longer "act break" / Time Skip would have felt weird because it raises the question of why it took the giantess so long to respond to her husband's death. Her attacking shortly after he died makes more intuitive sense.

I liked the ending, with the Baker in a sense becoming the new narrator, and the last song "Children Will Listen" being about the kind of fairy tales we tell and the effect they have.

In short, I enjoyed it, and I'd like to see the stage musical if I ever get a chance. Les Mis is the only one I've seen (twice!) and will always be my favourite, but this one's going on my list of things to see, probably in third place after Phantom Of The Opera.

edited 2nd Jan '15 9:02:08 AM by WarriorEowyn

Except you didn't even need a kid in the role in the first place. In the early 90's Playhouse production, Jack was played by a young man which, for the most part, seemed to work. The only problem is in the end when Red Hiding Hood says, 'I'll be your mother now!', which is much less endearing when she's saying it to a young man instead of a young boy, and is instead... weird at best. But aside from that, Adolescent!Jack otherwise worked fine.

EDIT:

And you've got it. If you live in America, you can get it on Netflix.

edited 2nd Jan '15 6:19:55 PM by kkhohoho

I'm in Canada.

Oh. Sorry about that. Well, you can try anyway. Maybe it's there too. Or you could just buy it off Amazon.

edited 2nd Jan '15 9:40:54 AM by kkhohoho

I believe there are two staged productions that have been filmed. The first is the original Broadway cast, and the second is the 2010 Regent Park production.

You know... they did the same thing with Jack that they did with Tobias in Sweeney Todd. In the stage version they're generally played by boyish tenors (or at least men who can pass for boyish - Ken Jennings was like 40 when he played Toby on Broadway), but in the film versions they cast kids in the roles.

The original Broadway cast is the one I've seen. Never heard of the Regent Parks one, but if a filmed version exists, I can't seem to find it on Amazon.

Actually, the time skip for the giant not initially taking retribution until about a year or more later is explained. The first stalk was made from 5 Magic Beans forming a single stalk which it created over night. The second one for Act 2 was made from a single bean. Its implied that the more beans, the quicker they grow.

Ta-da!

Does that one work with American currency?

No idea.

Finally saw the film today, and, for the most part, it was brilliant. Just about everything from the play was there, and it had an excellent cast. All of that said, it wasn't perfect. On a personal level, there were various things that they either removed or changed from the play that I'm a bit miffed about, such as the father not being alive in the first half, to the lack of that 1-year time-skip, to the removal of the freaking narrator getting killed off. Though I can sort of see why they made those changes; the father may have been removed for time, they wanted a continuous narrative instead of a time-skip interrupting the narrative's flow without an intermission, and having an on-screen narrator might be a bit too much for the average film audience. (Much less killing him off.)

Objectively, I can see why some people who have never seen the stage version aren't giving the film much praise. Aside from the obligatory, ' MUSIKALSUCKS!1!1! ' complaints, the second half of the movie does just sort of crash into the film, right when it seems like things are about to come to a happy end. Now, I personally don't have a problem with that. We saw the second beanstalk start to grow in the first half for one thing, but aside from that, the way in which the second half of the film begins — the castle crashing down — is like life. Life can go higgly-piggly when you least expect it, and the castle crashing right during Cinderella's wedding ceremony represents that. Life ain't a fairy-tale, which is part of what the story as a whole is about.

Unfortunately, many people seem to be either unaware or ignorant of this, and would prefer to just get a happy ending and let that be that. Perhaps because of that, they don't see the beginning of the second half the same way I do, and just see it as sudden and rushed. And I'll admit, the beginning of the second half, after the castle crashed in, still did feel a bit rushed, but I think it helped get across the chaos and confusion of the situation.

All in all, I still prefer the Original Cast Stage Production, but as stage-to-film adaptions go, this is still a darn good one.

Okay, saw this last night. Here we go.

The first act was quite good. Johnny Depp was still as bizarre and awkward as the photos of him made him look, but his saving grace is that his part was still as small as it was supposed to be.

They really, really nailed Last Midnight and they more than nailed Agony. Honestly, Agony alone makes up for half of the movie's flaws. Though, speaking of Last Midnight, Your Fault was not nearly quick enough. It felt drudging. I guess they were trying to make it possible for people to actually follow what the characters were saying, but the song was hurt in the process. I was excited for that one, too.

It feels odd that they removed No More but kept the entire scene where No More would have been. It would have helped the pacing of Act Two a lot to give the Baker his big inner monologue. I also don't quite get why Rapunzel's story was changed, but I don't really care that much about her so I guess it doesn't matter.

I understand now why there was so much confusion around the infidelity scene. It's still there but there isn't any sex. Removing the time skip and the Agony reprise makes the prince's actions confusing and awkward, since we're at no point given the understanding that he's bored with Cinderella.

Anyway, I liked it, especially the first act. The acting was good and the movie had that great fairy tale atmosphere. There are a bunch of scenes I enjoyed that I hope get on youtube eventually so I can rewatch them.

Oh, and I appreciate that little extra explanation they gave to the witch's back story. I never really understood her.

As an aside about the play, there's a neat bit of foreshadowing in It Takes Two that I never noticed before where she calls the baker "passionate, charming, considerate, clever." That was pretty cool.

To people who complain about Depp's Wolf being bizarre, I'm not sure it's quantifiably more or less bizarre than the original◊. A different bizarre, a bit more "pimp", but not that much different from the origin.

Likewise, to the few critics I've seen complain that Meryl Streep overdid the scenery chewing, it's probably better if they erred on the side of overacting than underacting. Case in point: Vanessa Williams in the 2002 revival cast. (For side by side Last Midnight action: Meryl Streep, Bernadette Peters). Williams is a strong performer in her own right but it takes exceptional strength and at least a little bit of ham to pull the Witch's numbers off with that intangible spime-tingle-ness.

edited 8th Jan '15 12:29:31 AM by Elle

I'll admit that I haven't seen the stage version, but if anything being a creepy guy in a wolf themed zoot suit over traditional wolf makeup really emphasizes the pedophilic overtones of the song.

It's hard to see in the low resolution picture, but the stage Wolf has no pants and a visible package.

But yeah, the production guys for the film were aware they had a fine line to walk and there's been a lot written about it. Depp's costume was apparently heavily inspired by Tex Avery animation, a la Red Hot Riding Hood. So they didn't aim to take the innuendo away entirely but they were trying to have it be more Parental Bonus than face value.

edited 8th Jan '15 1:08:28 AM by Elle

I've read that too. I just feel the reference is out of place when most of the costumes are relativly fitting of the setting (ranging from Victorian to Dark Ages) where as the Zoot Suit is something you'd expect of 1920s New York. Parental Bonus maybe, but it doesn't make it any less glaringly out of place.

Maybe or maybe not. I think the innuendo and the general theme of the scene is already blatant enough that the costume being an adult suit or not wouldn't make much of a difference.

The costume doesn't wig me out because of the comparison between it and the stage version, it wigs me out because of the comparison between it and everything else in the movie.

In old movies and plays, they don't have the special effects to make our imaginations come to life. They can't really show the witch transforming from beautiful to ugly, they can't really bring a cow onto the stage, they can't really show the giant or the birds, etc., and they can't bring a real wolf onto the stage and make it act, so they use a costume. We accept that because we have to. But they can do all of these things in a modern movie, and for all but one they do. Everything is a realistic depiction of what we'd imagine of the fairy tales in our heads except that weird-ass wolf costume. And, like said, it is really out of place. He's wearing a fedora, for goodness sake.

I liked the Into the Woods movie, already knew it was a play so I was happy to see it come to life with special effects. My favourite character was Jack and I laughed hard when they said "And they lived happily ever after-" before the second act began. I can't get this song out of my head now

It was pretty lame and poorly paced, especially the songs, which tended to go on for too long.

It became a less predictable, less padded, more enjoyable movie in the so called "second act". Really would have benefited from a time skip, as the characters and kingdom came off pretty flat, though there was one positive thematically to doing an immediate transition. It made "The Last Midnight" make more sense, as everything really did hinge on a midnight. That also gives one the feeling these guys are going to really be feeling the effects of sleep deprivation later, which can't be good with a newborn to watch.

Well, it was a stage musical first, so both that, as well as the fact that this is an adaption, probably had something to do with it. I don't really get the songs being 'too long', though. I thought most of them were just 3-4 minutes, which I think is just right; some were even shorter. If a song were 5-7 minutes, than that would just be too long, IMO.

As far as I'm aware, only one song goes over 4-5 mins and that's the Opening number which is 14 mins in length.