Super-crazy Phantom of the Opera post
Now that I've got lots of free time to wallow in my own misery I thought, hey, why not wallow in a fictional character's misery? So I've been watching/reading a lot of Phantom of the Opera goodness. I thought I'd share some funny/interesting vids/pics I've found and yakk a bit about my thoughts on the shows here. :)
1. The 25th Anniversary Phantom of the Opera Blu-ray. Gasp! At long last, an actual recording of the live show! I haven't seen the live show, uh, LIVE (I'm hoping I'll get to see it this year in Vegas before it closes), so this was awesome. I gotta say, when I first watched the vid below a long while ago I thought casting Ramin Karimloo as the Phantom was absolute balls. I thought "Great, another super-hot dude as the Phantom!" Yeah, that's supposed to be sarcastic.
I really didn't think a pasty, deformed, super-skinny French dude should be played by a muscly, tan, super-hot Iranian dude, but anyway, the point is that Ramin sure shut me up as he is perfect in the role. He somehow tones down his hotness to a point where he's nearly unrecognizable, and his Phantom is both batshit crazy and yet sort of sweet (though he's got Asperger's, apparently?). The whole cast is amazing.
I can't find a trailer with the actual cast, WTF.
I have one small fangirlish confession about this show: I love this little thing that happens at the end of the post-musical show... Ramin/Erik is waving to the audience on the stage as they're all leaving and Sierra/Christine suddenly comes from behind (lol Leroux) and wraps her arms around him. He LOLs and picks her up and leaves the stage with her in his arms. *Evil heart melting* DAMMIT, SHOW!
These are crap because my good camera ran out of battery.
2. "Phantom", by Susan Kay. I bought this book ages ago and forgot to read it until now. I was so impressed! After much discussion and analysis by a team of specialists, I've concluded that this is the only published Phantom story worth reading aside from Leroux's. I can't even call it fanfic. It's a bona-fide novel. It's so well-researched and written so elegantly... and for the most part it's incredibly faithful to Leroux's POTO. Okay, so it sort of becomes fic towards the very end, but only at the end! And there's no grasshopper/scorpion choice. There's no Phillippe de Chagny or Mama Victoire or whatever her name is, either, so it's not like 100% faithful, but it's close enough for me. I'm glad I didn't read the bad reviews on Amazon before buying this, because I probably would've missed it. There's nothing bad about "Phantom" except the ending, IMHO. (Poor Raoul. He's basically a freaking Disney prince, why does he always get the shaft in fic? XD ) The characterization of Erik is spot-on. In my head canon, Erik's (heart?) disease in this novel explains Ramin's odd ticks in the musical. I refuse to believe every genius character ever has Asperger's. Just no. Check out this in-depth hilarious review. Some spoilers, though not many if you've read the Leroux novel. This is basically a prequel, for the most part:
So yeah, READ THE LEROUX NOVEL TOO. It's pretty good, and it's free!
Another thing about "Phantom" is that it's impossible to imagine Gerard Butler in the title role. He's just too fucking beautiful; it's a goddamn slap on the face. Here's everyone's reactions to this fiasco:
So in light of this, some really cool phans made a few manips to correct the situation. The result:
This one is by meowgirl, I think. Apologies if I'm messing up. Certainly a lot more gruesome than in the actual movie. But even more horrible: Leroux Erik!
By NoOneWouldListen. Now THAT is what I call a Death Head. Well done, madam (sir?). And he, of course, would wear a mask like this:
By marienoire at DA. I got the others from the phantomoftheopera.com forums.
I really wish he looked like a starving piranha ate his face in the movie. Also it would've been awesome if he had been dubbed by Ramin Karimloo. Ramin was right there, but instead of letting him sing they just used his mug for papa Daae's picture. *groan*
Waste of good Ramin.
3. Love Never Dies. Holy stuffed mackerel, I did the unthinkable: I succumbed to temptation and finally watched this. And surprise! I liked it! I can't get enough of a couple of songs from this. When I first heard Till I Hear You Sing it bored me to death, but in context it's a lot better. A lot! Except when you find out stuff afterwards, then you roll your eyes and try to take it out of context again. Beneath a Moonless Sky is beautiful. It's too bad it's basically a smut-fic with music. Oh, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, why couldn't you stick to your own canon? If you wanted Erik/Christine smut, couldn't you have put it in your first musical, so it would be consistent? Ah, but that would've ruined the kick-ass Lerouxy ending, wouldn't it? Newsflash: It still does!
(I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the embedding so I'll just link it. Fast-forward to 6:30 for Beneath a Moonless Sky. Don't miss the song with the changed lyrics, it's insanely funny. Watch the whole thing at http://blip.tv/phantomreviews).
If anyone ever reads this and is interested in the plot, here's a great synopsis by a phan on YouTube (a bit harsh but very funny. And true):
Anyway, my opinion on Love Never Dies is this: Almost everything in it is perfect and beautiful and breathtaking. I love two songs, really like another three; the costumes, the sets, the lightning, the performances... for the most part gorgeous. There's just one thing that's utter shit, and unfortunately it's kind of important: The story. My god, the story. It's like if you took this bag of garbage and dressed it in designer clothes and put expensive jewelry on it. Then you showed it to people and they all said it was crap. So you decided to dress the bag of crap in better clothing and MORE expensive jewelry, and you even had it wear the finest perfumes and went to show it to people and told them you had fixed it. And they all said, NO.
Seriously, you don't spend 5.5 million pounds on your badfic, no matter how much you love it. If you're gonna spend that kind of cash, you better hire a real writer. So yeah, the plot is the most ridiculous, soap-opera-ish, juvenile fangirlish badfic you can imagine. That's why some people hate this so much. Personally I wish I could have it in Chinese or Hungarian or something. I genuinely believe I'd enjoy it a lot more if I didn't understand what was being said. I watched the Australian recording, BTW. Ben Lewis is HILARIOUS. I'm sorry, he's got a great voice, but acting-wise, could he be more of a scene-chewer? Doesn't he know he's being recorded in high-def? Can't he tell he's getting close-ups? I thought I was watching Hank Azaria in a mask doing funny faces the whole time.
Ridiculous happy phantoms. You can mask any pic at the Vegas Phantom site.
Anna O'Byrne as Christine was better than I thought. Feistier than Sierra, as far as I can tell from the London cast soundtrack. I liked that. Why didn't they fly over Ramin and Sierra for the recording, though? I would've bought the blu-ray for continuity. That's right, I would've paid money for this beautiful schlock.
4. The Phantom Reviewer channel. Well, I've already posted a couple of his reviews. These are hands down the funniest I've seen since RedLetterMedia's. Brilliantly funny reviews of every Phantom-related thing EVER by a guy with a great (and Britishly accented) Phantom voice that forces "Christine" (and "Maria"?) to watch every crappy Phantom movie ever made with him. Here's his epic review of the infamous Argento Phantom movie:
YouTube Channel
Blip.tv channel
Official forums
I think I've now officially wasted 13+ hours of my life watching all his reviews. No regrets.
5. Random funny/awesome Phantom vids. Let's start with awesome. I'm gonna cheat and rec something that Phantom Reviewer recc'd first:
Nick Pitera's One Man POTO: AMAZING.
And here are a couple of great LND parody songs by DarthxErik, who has plenty of great vids:
"Till I Write a Brand New Score"
"Christine Can't..." Uh, spoilers. Let's just say it's "Love Never Dies" with new lyrics. :)
Here's another one from DarthxErik, but this one is a Charles Dance POTO fanvid with LND music. It fits so well. I love Charles Dance Phantom. In fact, this is all his fault. Stupid, impressionable little girls shouldn't be exposed to POTO. It messes you up. You grow up thinking you wouldn't have freaked out like Christine, and then you realize you were the Phantom all along. XD
I wanted to post a pic of a Phantom backpack I used back in college. It was a black backpack a friend gave me as a birthday present. It had red skulls all over it (Red Death!), so I put a Phantom mask on it. Unfortunately I can't go look for it because my fibula is shot to hell ATM, so I shall end this post with this brilliant illustration of the 1925 film by Martin Ansin. It's so beautiful! Check out close-ups of this and more of his work here.
There's more Phantom stuff, a LOT more, but right now I'm gonna leave it at that. Let this post forever remind me of my great Phantom Craze of 2012.
1. The 25th Anniversary Phantom of the Opera Blu-ray. Gasp! At long last, an actual recording of the live show! I haven't seen the live show, uh, LIVE (I'm hoping I'll get to see it this year in Vegas before it closes), so this was awesome. I gotta say, when I first watched the vid below a long while ago I thought casting Ramin Karimloo as the Phantom was absolute balls. I thought "Great, another super-hot dude as the Phantom!" Yeah, that's supposed to be sarcastic.
Click to viewI really didn't think a pasty, deformed, super-skinny French dude should be played by a muscly, tan, super-hot Iranian dude, but anyway, the point is that Ramin sure shut me up as he is perfect in the role. He somehow tones down his hotness to a point where he's nearly unrecognizable, and his Phantom is both batshit crazy and yet sort of sweet (though he's got Asperger's, apparently?). The whole cast is amazing.
I can't find a trailer with the actual cast, WTF.
I have one small fangirlish confession about this show: I love this little thing that happens at the end of the post-musical show... Ramin/Erik is waving to the audience on the stage as they're all leaving and Sierra/Christine suddenly comes from behind (lol Leroux) and wraps her arms around him. He LOLs and picks her up and leaves the stage with her in his arms. *Evil heart melting* DAMMIT, SHOW!
These are crap because my good camera ran out of battery.
2. "Phantom", by Susan Kay. I bought this book ages ago and forgot to read it until now. I was so impressed! After much discussion and analysis by a team of specialists, I've concluded that this is the only published Phantom story worth reading aside from Leroux's. I can't even call it fanfic. It's a bona-fide novel. It's so well-researched and written so elegantly... and for the most part it's incredibly faithful to Leroux's POTO. Okay, so it sort of becomes fic towards the very end, but only at the end! And there's no grasshopper/scorpion choice. There's no Phillippe de Chagny or Mama Victoire or whatever her name is, either, so it's not like 100% faithful, but it's close enough for me. I'm glad I didn't read the bad reviews on Amazon before buying this, because I probably would've missed it. There's nothing bad about "Phantom" except the ending, IMHO. (Poor Raoul. He's basically a freaking Disney prince, why does he always get the shaft in fic? XD ) The characterization of Erik is spot-on. In my head canon, Erik's (heart?) disease in this novel explains Ramin's odd ticks in the musical. I refuse to believe every genius character ever has Asperger's. Just no. Check out this in-depth hilarious review. Some spoilers, though not many if you've read the Leroux novel. This is basically a prequel, for the most part:
So yeah, READ THE LEROUX NOVEL TOO. It's pretty good, and it's free!
Another thing about "Phantom" is that it's impossible to imagine Gerard Butler in the title role. He's just too fucking beautiful; it's a goddamn slap on the face. Here's everyone's reactions to this fiasco:
So in light of this, some really cool phans made a few manips to correct the situation. The result:
This one is by meowgirl, I think. Apologies if I'm messing up. Certainly a lot more gruesome than in the actual movie. But even more horrible: Leroux Erik!
By NoOneWouldListen. Now THAT is what I call a Death Head. Well done, madam (sir?). And he, of course, would wear a mask like this:
By marienoire at DA. I got the others from the phantomoftheopera.com forums.
I really wish he looked like a starving piranha ate his face in the movie. Also it would've been awesome if he had been dubbed by Ramin Karimloo. Ramin was right there, but instead of letting him sing they just used his mug for papa Daae's picture. *groan*
Waste of good Ramin.
3. Love Never Dies. Holy stuffed mackerel, I did the unthinkable: I succumbed to temptation and finally watched this. And surprise! I liked it! I can't get enough of a couple of songs from this. When I first heard Till I Hear You Sing it bored me to death, but in context it's a lot better. A lot! Except when you find out stuff afterwards, then you roll your eyes and try to take it out of context again. Beneath a Moonless Sky is beautiful. It's too bad it's basically a smut-fic with music. Oh, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, why couldn't you stick to your own canon? If you wanted Erik/Christine smut, couldn't you have put it in your first musical, so it would be consistent? Ah, but that would've ruined the kick-ass Lerouxy ending, wouldn't it? Newsflash: It still does!
(I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the embedding so I'll just link it. Fast-forward to 6:30 for Beneath a Moonless Sky. Don't miss the song with the changed lyrics, it's insanely funny. Watch the whole thing at http://blip.tv/phantomreviews).
If anyone ever reads this and is interested in the plot, here's a great synopsis by a phan on YouTube (a bit harsh but very funny. And true):
Anyway, my opinion on Love Never Dies is this: Almost everything in it is perfect and beautiful and breathtaking. I love two songs, really like another three; the costumes, the sets, the lightning, the performances... for the most part gorgeous. There's just one thing that's utter shit, and unfortunately it's kind of important: The story. My god, the story. It's like if you took this bag of garbage and dressed it in designer clothes and put expensive jewelry on it. Then you showed it to people and they all said it was crap. So you decided to dress the bag of crap in better clothing and MORE expensive jewelry, and you even had it wear the finest perfumes and went to show it to people and told them you had fixed it. And they all said, NO.
Seriously, you don't spend 5.5 million pounds on your badfic, no matter how much you love it. If you're gonna spend that kind of cash, you better hire a real writer. So yeah, the plot is the most ridiculous, soap-opera-ish, juvenile fangirlish badfic you can imagine. That's why some people hate this so much. Personally I wish I could have it in Chinese or Hungarian or something. I genuinely believe I'd enjoy it a lot more if I didn't understand what was being said. I watched the Australian recording, BTW. Ben Lewis is HILARIOUS. I'm sorry, he's got a great voice, but acting-wise, could he be more of a scene-chewer? Doesn't he know he's being recorded in high-def? Can't he tell he's getting close-ups? I thought I was watching Hank Azaria in a mask doing funny faces the whole time.
Ridiculous happy phantoms. You can mask any pic at the Vegas Phantom site.
Anna O'Byrne as Christine was better than I thought. Feistier than Sierra, as far as I can tell from the London cast soundtrack. I liked that. Why didn't they fly over Ramin and Sierra for the recording, though? I would've bought the blu-ray for continuity. That's right, I would've paid money for this beautiful schlock.
4. The Phantom Reviewer channel. Well, I've already posted a couple of his reviews. These are hands down the funniest I've seen since RedLetterMedia's. Brilliantly funny reviews of every Phantom-related thing EVER by a guy with a great (and Britishly accented) Phantom voice that forces "Christine" (and "Maria"?) to watch every crappy Phantom movie ever made with him. Here's his epic review of the infamous Argento Phantom movie:
YouTube Channel
Blip.tv channel
Official forums
I think I've now officially wasted 13+ hours of my life watching all his reviews. No regrets.
5. Random funny/awesome Phantom vids. Let's start with awesome. I'm gonna cheat and rec something that Phantom Reviewer recc'd first:
Nick Pitera's One Man POTO: AMAZING.
And here are a couple of great LND parody songs by DarthxErik, who has plenty of great vids:
"Till I Write a Brand New Score"
"Christine Can't..." Uh, spoilers. Let's just say it's "Love Never Dies" with new lyrics. :)
Here's another one from DarthxErik, but this one is a Charles Dance POTO fanvid with LND music. It fits so well. I love Charles Dance Phantom. In fact, this is all his fault. Stupid, impressionable little girls shouldn't be exposed to POTO. It messes you up. You grow up thinking you wouldn't have freaked out like Christine, and then you realize you were the Phantom all along. XD
I wanted to post a pic of a Phantom backpack I used back in college. It was a black backpack a friend gave me as a birthday present. It had red skulls all over it (Red Death!), so I put a Phantom mask on it. Unfortunately I can't go look for it because my fibula is shot to hell ATM, so I shall end this post with this brilliant illustration of the 1925 film by Martin Ansin. It's so beautiful! Check out close-ups of this and more of his work here.
There's more Phantom stuff, a LOT more, but right now I'm gonna leave it at that. Let this post forever remind me of my great Phantom Craze of 2012.