What works on Broadway doesn't always work as a movie, though. Again, Cats is relatively plotless and on stage it works as a song and dance revue. You are much more willing to sit down to a plotless musical when there are actual singers and dancers right in front of you.
But a movie makes everything just a bit more removed. A movie, thus, requires a bit more plot. Hell, they even added more plot to the CGI monstrosity by making Victoria — a background cat in the musical — into the POV character with a sympathetic backstory. None of that was in the stage musical.
Unfortunately, "POV character" doesn't equal "plot that people will understand." And I don't think it was the fans clamoring for a super-faithful adaptation — I highly doubt the fans wanted it adapted — but rather Andrew Lloyd Webber himself. The article about the previous animated tries with Spielberg talked about how the writers tried to rewrite the play to add a plot, but Webber resisted everything that didn't include basically all of his songs (which, again, are just cats introducing themselves one after another, no plot). Webber is terribly picky about adaptations of his musicals — hell, look at the adaptation of Phantom of the Opera, which was co-written and produced by Webber himself and you'll see that he basically changed nothing. And what worked on stage didn't work on screen.
Edited by alliterator on Dec 30th 2019 at 8:35:37 AM
As a big time fan of the theatre version I will say that while I saw it I disliked a lot of it.
Some of that is Purism on my part (I like particular songs and characters the way I know them) but I’d say they also failed to capture parts of what makes the music so good. The attempt at making a plot just felt silly, the fact that the first two songs (well almost 3) got regular interruptions for fat jokes meant I couldn’t enjoy the songs and the look of the cats wasn’t anywhere near as good as just having humans in stage costumes.
From a theatre fan perspective, it was at its best when I could zone the plot and the jokes out and focus on the singing and dancing, but such moments were few and far between.
That’s going to be part of why it’s a failure, it’s turned away regular people by being inherently absurd and nonsensical and it’s turned away theatre people by attempting to normalise it and add in screwball comedy.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranAn idea for a... "plottification" of Cats, that occurred to me just earlier:
Make it a "great journey" plot, thus allowing the protagonist to bump into or hear about various cats along the way—hence all the introductions.
So, for example, one might have part of the journey take place on a train, producing the "cat of the railway" song. On the train itself, the protagonist might (in the dining car perhaps) meet the old actor-cat, regaling all with the exploits of his youth.
(I would also be inclined to keep Macavity entirely or almost entirely in the background—after all, he's the "Mystery Cat", and "when they reach the scene of crime, Macavity's not there".)
It might also allow for some neat set-pieces: Cutting through a park, our protagonist might be stopped by and witness to the battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles. And boating down the Thames, they might hear about and then see the finale of Growltiger's Last Stand. (I don't know that either of those have songs in Cats; such songs could be made if not, perhaps.)
As to where the protagonist is going, I'm not sure. Perhaps they're a young Jellicle (here conforming to the description in the song/poem), on their way to the Jellicle Ball.
Of course, this would arguably be less an adaptation of Cats than of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, in all fairness.
Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Dec 30th 2019 at 12:55:25 PM
My Games and Asset PacksI just want to remind everyone that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend already made a plot out of Cats: it was Rebecca's journey to get laid.
Not planning to see it yet, but I found this meme.
Reasonably funny, though the LGBT point is wrong, as a lot of theatre fans saw Rum Tum and Mistoffelees as a gay couple, but the film removed all their interaction and created a relationship between Mistoffelees and Victoria.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranRum Tum Tugger comes up a fair amount. At least, I had heard the name and didn't know it was associated with Cats until now.
Boyle from Brooklyn Nine-Nine tries to use it as a Call Sign at some point, at least.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
(x5)
Victoria's a Launcher of a Thousand Ships. She gets shipped with everyone.
It's a shame the film didn't use the fanon that Victoria's deaf. Oh well.
Well, now that it's known what kind of movie it is, bring the Bile Fascination crew.
Wake me up at your own risk.... you guys know it's available on streaming, right?
Like it's weird that this thread was bumped to complain about there not being a home release on the day of a home release.
No physical release yet, however. That's April 7. Which usually means no streaming rentals, sadly. Generally studios don't let you rent until physical copies come out.
Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 18th 2020 at 9:42:56 AM
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.Okay, it's just a rumor but this is funny
.
Ordinarily I'd just say this was a joke, but given how weird the release version was... who knows? Poe's Law has taken over everything.

P. T. Barnum is god damn repulsive man and they made a glee styled musical about his life.
Edited by Ultimatum on Dec 30th 2019 at 3:43:20 PM
have a listen and have a link to my discord server