Multifandom review tiem!
Welp, I've finally finished slogging through the rest of Phantom, and I saw Hunger Games today, and I never wrote up my impressions of POTO proper, so I figured I'd go ahead and knock everything out in one post.
First things first, the original Phantom of the Opera novel, which I actually read ages and ages ago at this point. I think the thing that struck me most about this, going in to it, was the structure. As I read it right after having seen the stage show, I was sort of operating on the assumption that ALW's masterstroke was inverting the narrative by keeping the Phantom in the background for such a long time and instead focusing on how his disruptions and demands affect the secondary characters. I was actually looking forward to reading the linear version, where Christine comes to the Opera House, sings to an empty auditorium, and begins hearing a Voice.
Imagine my surprise, then, upon finding that ALW actually changed nothing at all. In fact, you could say he removed more of the mystery than he put into it. Which is not a criticism, obviously, but it wasn't what I was expecting at all. Fact is, the book has just the same structure, and for the most part I liked it a lot. Yes, there's quite a lot about several unimportant people before the real conflict begins, but it doesn't drag at all. (Or at least, it didn't drag much for me.) Everything with the managers was even more hilarious in the book, and watching everyone try to puzzle out this mystery of the Opera Ghost while trying to go about their business was great.
Eventually, though, we must get to the story, which is told largely from Raoul's perspective. I suppose my one big gripe was not getting to peek inside the heads of the two leads at all. Well, no - it's really best if you never get to see what Erik was thinking, it makes his madness all the more powerful. But I really would have liked to know what was going on with Christine and how it all appeared to her, because I have such a hard time buying her side of things. Not her fault, the poor girl, and lord knows she gave enough disclaimers to Raoul that she knew it was a bit far-fetched how she could have been taken in so, but I still wanted to know her thoughts.
However, my personal feelings aside, I admit that leaving the perspective with Raoul instead of with Christine or Erik is very much the stronger choice, and I'm glad it went the way it did. Raoul was a bit of a dear, at least, and boy did he ever cry those manly tears! He was regrettably hot-headed, though, and I can't forgive him calling Christine a whore just because he was upset with her. I also can't forgive him being dumb enough to think that Philippe would do anything like what the policeman said he did. I know the boy was fretting about his lady love, but come the fuck on, Raoul. Think for once in your life!
Fortunately, his dumb to noble ratio was just the right amount to keep you from hating him, so you can't really begrudge him his happy ending. Christine I liked very much, as there was something quite sly about her that materialized in odd ways. Gullible enough to be taken in by a Voice agreeing to be called an Angel, but clever and manipulative enough to lie for her freedom. She would not answer Raoul's question of whether she would love Erik if he had been handsome, and she attempted to kill herself when she was captured. There was always much much more going on with her beneath the surface, more than I think even Raoul was allowed to see.
And then there was Erik. Poor, unhappy Erik! Generally you only hear him second-hand in someone else's narrative, but my god, is he ever wonderful. His strange trappings of being a gentleman, his towering rages, his quiet severity, his dog-like cowering, his unquenchable hope, and his complete and utter madness once he loses it completely, all combine to form a really incredible character. I'm not as conflicted over him as I am with the Phantom of the musical, who you can't possibly like but can't help doing just that. Erik's not someone you can root for at all, but the pity and sympathy are impossible to deny. His stunned assertion at the end that Christine kissed him and did not die was truly heartbreaking, and I loved how his tears made everyone else cry as well. He was a right old crazypants who'd done awful, awful things in his life, but you still have to feel sorry for him with the final line.
Outside of the characters, there was also some lovely writing at work. I know a lot of that comes from the translation, but I'm sure it generally held true to the original. I think my favorite line was the bit describing how Papa Daae would tell Christine and Raoul the stories about Little Lotte with her blue eyes and golden hair, and while Christine would gaze into the distance thinking about the Angel of Music, Raoul looked at Christine with her blue eyes and golden hair and fell quite hopelessly in love. (The actual line is: "While the old man told this story, Raoul looked at Christine's blue eyes and golden hair; and Christine thought that Lotte was very lucky to hear the Angel of Music when she went to sleep." so maybe I'm guilty of romanticizing it a bit. But the pervading atmosphere is just so beautiful.)
But there were other great things. The storytelling involved in detailing the managers' increasing consternation, Raoul's thought about how dangerous the situation was for a girl raised on her father's stories and an old woman's superstitions, the white domino following the black, the growing sense of unease every time the Persian mentioned those rosy hours of Mazandaran, and everything about the way Erik spoke. For every slightly unnecessary passage about how Leroux-in-his-book went about investigating these things, or about the history of Paris and the Opera House, there was some really wonderful writing or character play or something going on that made up for it. I found it a nicely balanced novel and a fun read besides, though I'm obviously not without bias where the story is concerned. If I'd never seen the stage show, would I have been interested in this strange tale about a strange man? Hard to say, but all in all I highly enjoyed this book.
Now on to Phantom. For anyone unfamiliar, this is essentially Susan Kay's fanfic that she wrote because she wanted Erik and Christine to bone. And bone they did! But fortunately not for the better part of the novel, so by the time it happens you only have a few pages left to be horrified.
But I get ahead of myself. This book was interesting. Not always in a good way. Rather heavy-handed at times, I often found it tiring to get through and would leave it alone for days at a time because I just could not deal with any more of it. I think, upon reflection, that the Persia chapters were really the only ones I liked. The stuff with his mom was too full of her being awful and all that weird, psuedo-incestuous stuff that made me uncomfortable, and then OF COURSE the guy keeping him captive after that has to be a gay pedo rapist, and then OF COURSE the perfectly wonderful father figure ends up betraying him because there is ~a girl~ involved, and it's all laid on so thick that by the time you finally get to Persia it's a relief if only because you already know from POTO that there was only awesomely sadistic homicide going on, so there's less of a chance for overwrought horrible things.
And then of course there is all the Christine stuff. I'd really hoped that this would end with the first time he hears her voice and then BOOM, end of the book, you know what happens next, etc. etc. Would've been more like a prequel that way. But no, Kay feels she has to rewrite the whole sordid thing, and her Christine is just a mess. I suppose the fandom has made me a bit defensive of Raoul on the whole, but my god, she wasn't even trying to be neutral. I can't even get into it, it's all too annoying. I'll just say that the only thing I liked about any of it was when Nadir would randomly pop up and tell Erik that he's a horrible person and make him cry. Which kind of tells you a lot, I think.
To be honest, Erik and Nadir's friendship was absolutely my favorite thing in the whole book, so really everything after Persia was a bit of a letdown for me. The Opera House was fine and everything, but there were so many things in Erik's thought processes that made no sense and were clearly only there because Leroux had already made it so. It was all quite stupid, to be honest, and while I can forgive some of this stuff in fic it makes me angry to see such laziness in a text which is considered by many people to be canon.
So I didn't really get anything out of reading this except that now when someone makes references to Kerik or scenes that only exist here, I know what they're talking about. I will shamelessly use all the Persia stuff to feed my E/N headcanon when I want to daydream about them, but I don't think it's worth any more consideration or contemplation than that. Kay's Erik has some hints of being an interesting person, but at the end it's so convoluted that it just makes me angry, and I'd rather the original or the Phantom instead of this.
Finally, THG. Now, it occurs to me that I never actually posted about the books, since I was still in my twitter haze or whatever, and that's really quite a shame because I had a lot of ~thoughts about them. Perhaps one day I'll rectify this.
But for now, the movie. First off, I was never terribly excited about this thing, truth be told. I got a bit interested in the casting back when that was being announced, but as the buildup's been happening over the past few months I've just sorta let it pass me by. Which is not to say I have anything against the movie, just that I was not super super into all the anticipation and whatnot.
So, having no expectations as I did, I was reasonably impressed with the things they managed to get across in this different medium, and some parts I really enjoyed as an added aspect to the story. It was not a favorite, though, and I'm not sure I'd watch it again, the biggest reason being that the fucking shaky cam in the first half hour or so was on the verge of giving me a headache. I get people's defense of the shaky cam at the cornucopia, but there was really no need for it in District 12. Yes, it's nice to give a bit of Katniss's perspective, but the effect was overdone and unnecessary.
Also unnecessary: President Snow's rose garden. I quite enjoyed seeing the gamemakers at work, because it added a new level while reinforcing the entertainment angle of the whole thing and simultaneously providing a workaround for how boring Katniss's trek through the woods would have been otherwise. The scenes with Snow and Seneca, however, added nothing of value that I could see. (Although on a similar note, I loved how they had Haymitch being the one to insinuate that plot twist into the game, and I loved that they showed that moment between him and Seneca to us.)
I felt that in general they did a good job keeping the import of major scenes in tact. It was the minor things that often felt off to me. The opening with Gale and Katniss, for example. I can't put my finger on what exactly it was, but it just didn't strike the right tone with me. Same with when Cinna and Katniss first met. I was really looking forward to watching her utter loathing be broken down by the first genuinely decent person she meets in the Capitol, and instead there seemed to be a measure of trust and goodwill from the very start. It's fine and all, but it didn't sit well with me.
Perhaps the thing that I missed the most was the reactions of Katniss and Peeta upon being told that only one victor will be allowed after all. In the book, there's that moment where Katniss turns and draws an arrow on Peeta, who is in the process of dropping his knife. Idk, I just loooooove that moment, where he's all quizzically "what, you thought I was gonna stab you? seriously?" and she's kind of appalled by her lack of faith, even after everything, and it was such a wonderful demonstration of how no matter what, her survival instincts come first. I was so looking forward to that, to seeing that look on Peeta's face on the big screen, and it just wasn't there. Maybe I'm making too much of something that wasn't supposed to be a big deal, but that moment really resonated with me and I was sad that it wasn't in the film at all.
This is all sounding a bit negative, though, and I don't want it to seem like there was nothing I liked about this movie. Clove was AMAZING. I just loved her and her face so fucking much. Even during her and Katniss's fight where you really have to suspend your disbelief that she'd keep taunting Katniss for 5 minutes instead of killing her, I just loved her. I thought she was spot on. Especially when it showed that everyone else had their weapons beside them as they slept and she still had her knife in hand. Perfect. Cato was thisclose to being great, but I was very disappointed that they didn't include his full-on breakdown after Katniss blew the supplies up. He was supposed to be ranting and raving and literally tearing the hair out of his head, not just being one-note angry. For me, that scene always served to underscore what an unhinged little sociopath he was, so I felt that his death scene in the movie wasn't as powerful as it could have been. (On that scene, though, the way they shot the part where Peeta 'tells' Katniss to shoot his hand was absolute perfection. They'd had a couple other times where they had to try and show Katniss's train of thought while she figures things out, but this was the only one that really, truly worked for me. I thought it was wonderful.)
What else, what else. Of course they cut out myriad things that a lot of people seem upset about, including the bread from District 11 and Haymitch being at the reaping, but I was surprised and pleased by how many of the little details they kept in. Prim's duck tail, for instance, would have been the work of a moment to cut out, as it had no real bearing on anything, but they kept it in and made it work. I thought the tension between Katniss and her mom felt very real, too; there was that tinge of awkwardness whenever Katniss had to acknowledge her and it was just excellent, even if they didn't do the best job of explaining why their relationship was as bad as it was.
Hmm, I think I'm actually going to stop here. Not sure what else I can say. I could probably go through the movie scene by scene and talk about what I thought of it, but obviously that ain't gonna happen. I think I hit all the main points I wanted to make, at least, and while I kind of want to talk about which visuals matched up with the ones in my head and which ones didn't, that's not actually too important and might be better suited to a post about the books anyway.
So in conclusion, I think the movie's fine. Probably not something I need to see again, but I liked it for what it was. Good for Collins for raking in the millions, I'll of course watch Catching Fire when it comes out, and my god do I want to reread the books again now! I did finally decided to start on ASoIaF as of...this morning, but I can find time for THG too.
All right, I think that's more than enough for today, haha. I've got an annoying training session at work tomorrow but otherwise the week shouldn't be too bad, which is great because I've got a lot of ISU webpage refreshing to look forward to. That's right, Worlds starts this week! And while I'll only be able to watch the final day (maybe some of the morning sessions if I feel like swinging it) I'm still incredibly excited. Crazy to think this is the end of the second season of figure skating that I've followed. Hopefully a year from now I'll be in Canada gearing up for the QRs and such.
...
Well, a girl can dream, right?
First things first, the original Phantom of the Opera novel, which I actually read ages and ages ago at this point. I think the thing that struck me most about this, going in to it, was the structure. As I read it right after having seen the stage show, I was sort of operating on the assumption that ALW's masterstroke was inverting the narrative by keeping the Phantom in the background for such a long time and instead focusing on how his disruptions and demands affect the secondary characters. I was actually looking forward to reading the linear version, where Christine comes to the Opera House, sings to an empty auditorium, and begins hearing a Voice.
Imagine my surprise, then, upon finding that ALW actually changed nothing at all. In fact, you could say he removed more of the mystery than he put into it. Which is not a criticism, obviously, but it wasn't what I was expecting at all. Fact is, the book has just the same structure, and for the most part I liked it a lot. Yes, there's quite a lot about several unimportant people before the real conflict begins, but it doesn't drag at all. (Or at least, it didn't drag much for me.) Everything with the managers was even more hilarious in the book, and watching everyone try to puzzle out this mystery of the Opera Ghost while trying to go about their business was great.
Eventually, though, we must get to the story, which is told largely from Raoul's perspective. I suppose my one big gripe was not getting to peek inside the heads of the two leads at all. Well, no - it's really best if you never get to see what Erik was thinking, it makes his madness all the more powerful. But I really would have liked to know what was going on with Christine and how it all appeared to her, because I have such a hard time buying her side of things. Not her fault, the poor girl, and lord knows she gave enough disclaimers to Raoul that she knew it was a bit far-fetched how she could have been taken in so, but I still wanted to know her thoughts.
However, my personal feelings aside, I admit that leaving the perspective with Raoul instead of with Christine or Erik is very much the stronger choice, and I'm glad it went the way it did. Raoul was a bit of a dear, at least, and boy did he ever cry those manly tears! He was regrettably hot-headed, though, and I can't forgive him calling Christine a whore just because he was upset with her. I also can't forgive him being dumb enough to think that Philippe would do anything like what the policeman said he did. I know the boy was fretting about his lady love, but come the fuck on, Raoul. Think for once in your life!
Fortunately, his dumb to noble ratio was just the right amount to keep you from hating him, so you can't really begrudge him his happy ending. Christine I liked very much, as there was something quite sly about her that materialized in odd ways. Gullible enough to be taken in by a Voice agreeing to be called an Angel, but clever and manipulative enough to lie for her freedom. She would not answer Raoul's question of whether she would love Erik if he had been handsome, and she attempted to kill herself when she was captured. There was always much much more going on with her beneath the surface, more than I think even Raoul was allowed to see.
And then there was Erik. Poor, unhappy Erik! Generally you only hear him second-hand in someone else's narrative, but my god, is he ever wonderful. His strange trappings of being a gentleman, his towering rages, his quiet severity, his dog-like cowering, his unquenchable hope, and his complete and utter madness once he loses it completely, all combine to form a really incredible character. I'm not as conflicted over him as I am with the Phantom of the musical, who you can't possibly like but can't help doing just that. Erik's not someone you can root for at all, but the pity and sympathy are impossible to deny. His stunned assertion at the end that Christine kissed him and did not die was truly heartbreaking, and I loved how his tears made everyone else cry as well. He was a right old crazypants who'd done awful, awful things in his life, but you still have to feel sorry for him with the final line.
Outside of the characters, there was also some lovely writing at work. I know a lot of that comes from the translation, but I'm sure it generally held true to the original. I think my favorite line was the bit describing how Papa Daae would tell Christine and Raoul the stories about Little Lotte with her blue eyes and golden hair, and while Christine would gaze into the distance thinking about the Angel of Music, Raoul looked at Christine with her blue eyes and golden hair and fell quite hopelessly in love. (The actual line is: "While the old man told this story, Raoul looked at Christine's blue eyes and golden hair; and Christine thought that Lotte was very lucky to hear the Angel of Music when she went to sleep." so maybe I'm guilty of romanticizing it a bit. But the pervading atmosphere is just so beautiful.)
But there were other great things. The storytelling involved in detailing the managers' increasing consternation, Raoul's thought about how dangerous the situation was for a girl raised on her father's stories and an old woman's superstitions, the white domino following the black, the growing sense of unease every time the Persian mentioned those rosy hours of Mazandaran, and everything about the way Erik spoke. For every slightly unnecessary passage about how Leroux-in-his-book went about investigating these things, or about the history of Paris and the Opera House, there was some really wonderful writing or character play or something going on that made up for it. I found it a nicely balanced novel and a fun read besides, though I'm obviously not without bias where the story is concerned. If I'd never seen the stage show, would I have been interested in this strange tale about a strange man? Hard to say, but all in all I highly enjoyed this book.
Now on to Phantom. For anyone unfamiliar, this is essentially Susan Kay's fanfic that she wrote because she wanted Erik and Christine to bone. And bone they did! But fortunately not for the better part of the novel, so by the time it happens you only have a few pages left to be horrified.
But I get ahead of myself. This book was interesting. Not always in a good way. Rather heavy-handed at times, I often found it tiring to get through and would leave it alone for days at a time because I just could not deal with any more of it. I think, upon reflection, that the Persia chapters were really the only ones I liked. The stuff with his mom was too full of her being awful and all that weird, psuedo-incestuous stuff that made me uncomfortable, and then OF COURSE the guy keeping him captive after that has to be a gay pedo rapist, and then OF COURSE the perfectly wonderful father figure ends up betraying him because there is ~a girl~ involved, and it's all laid on so thick that by the time you finally get to Persia it's a relief if only because you already know from POTO that there was only awesomely sadistic homicide going on, so there's less of a chance for overwrought horrible things.
And then of course there is all the Christine stuff. I'd really hoped that this would end with the first time he hears her voice and then BOOM, end of the book, you know what happens next, etc. etc. Would've been more like a prequel that way. But no, Kay feels she has to rewrite the whole sordid thing, and her Christine is just a mess. I suppose the fandom has made me a bit defensive of Raoul on the whole, but my god, she wasn't even trying to be neutral. I can't even get into it, it's all too annoying. I'll just say that the only thing I liked about any of it was when Nadir would randomly pop up and tell Erik that he's a horrible person and make him cry. Which kind of tells you a lot, I think.
To be honest, Erik and Nadir's friendship was absolutely my favorite thing in the whole book, so really everything after Persia was a bit of a letdown for me. The Opera House was fine and everything, but there were so many things in Erik's thought processes that made no sense and were clearly only there because Leroux had already made it so. It was all quite stupid, to be honest, and while I can forgive some of this stuff in fic it makes me angry to see such laziness in a text which is considered by many people to be canon.
So I didn't really get anything out of reading this except that now when someone makes references to Kerik or scenes that only exist here, I know what they're talking about. I will shamelessly use all the Persia stuff to feed my E/N headcanon when I want to daydream about them, but I don't think it's worth any more consideration or contemplation than that. Kay's Erik has some hints of being an interesting person, but at the end it's so convoluted that it just makes me angry, and I'd rather the original or the Phantom instead of this.
Finally, THG. Now, it occurs to me that I never actually posted about the books, since I was still in my twitter haze or whatever, and that's really quite a shame because I had a lot of ~thoughts about them. Perhaps one day I'll rectify this.
But for now, the movie. First off, I was never terribly excited about this thing, truth be told. I got a bit interested in the casting back when that was being announced, but as the buildup's been happening over the past few months I've just sorta let it pass me by. Which is not to say I have anything against the movie, just that I was not super super into all the anticipation and whatnot.
So, having no expectations as I did, I was reasonably impressed with the things they managed to get across in this different medium, and some parts I really enjoyed as an added aspect to the story. It was not a favorite, though, and I'm not sure I'd watch it again, the biggest reason being that the fucking shaky cam in the first half hour or so was on the verge of giving me a headache. I get people's defense of the shaky cam at the cornucopia, but there was really no need for it in District 12. Yes, it's nice to give a bit of Katniss's perspective, but the effect was overdone and unnecessary.
Also unnecessary: President Snow's rose garden. I quite enjoyed seeing the gamemakers at work, because it added a new level while reinforcing the entertainment angle of the whole thing and simultaneously providing a workaround for how boring Katniss's trek through the woods would have been otherwise. The scenes with Snow and Seneca, however, added nothing of value that I could see. (Although on a similar note, I loved how they had Haymitch being the one to insinuate that plot twist into the game, and I loved that they showed that moment between him and Seneca to us.)
I felt that in general they did a good job keeping the import of major scenes in tact. It was the minor things that often felt off to me. The opening with Gale and Katniss, for example. I can't put my finger on what exactly it was, but it just didn't strike the right tone with me. Same with when Cinna and Katniss first met. I was really looking forward to watching her utter loathing be broken down by the first genuinely decent person she meets in the Capitol, and instead there seemed to be a measure of trust and goodwill from the very start. It's fine and all, but it didn't sit well with me.
Perhaps the thing that I missed the most was the reactions of Katniss and Peeta upon being told that only one victor will be allowed after all. In the book, there's that moment where Katniss turns and draws an arrow on Peeta, who is in the process of dropping his knife. Idk, I just loooooove that moment, where he's all quizzically "what, you thought I was gonna stab you? seriously?" and she's kind of appalled by her lack of faith, even after everything, and it was such a wonderful demonstration of how no matter what, her survival instincts come first. I was so looking forward to that, to seeing that look on Peeta's face on the big screen, and it just wasn't there. Maybe I'm making too much of something that wasn't supposed to be a big deal, but that moment really resonated with me and I was sad that it wasn't in the film at all.
This is all sounding a bit negative, though, and I don't want it to seem like there was nothing I liked about this movie. Clove was AMAZING. I just loved her and her face so fucking much. Even during her and Katniss's fight where you really have to suspend your disbelief that she'd keep taunting Katniss for 5 minutes instead of killing her, I just loved her. I thought she was spot on. Especially when it showed that everyone else had their weapons beside them as they slept and she still had her knife in hand. Perfect. Cato was thisclose to being great, but I was very disappointed that they didn't include his full-on breakdown after Katniss blew the supplies up. He was supposed to be ranting and raving and literally tearing the hair out of his head, not just being one-note angry. For me, that scene always served to underscore what an unhinged little sociopath he was, so I felt that his death scene in the movie wasn't as powerful as it could have been. (On that scene, though, the way they shot the part where Peeta 'tells' Katniss to shoot his hand was absolute perfection. They'd had a couple other times where they had to try and show Katniss's train of thought while she figures things out, but this was the only one that really, truly worked for me. I thought it was wonderful.)
What else, what else. Of course they cut out myriad things that a lot of people seem upset about, including the bread from District 11 and Haymitch being at the reaping, but I was surprised and pleased by how many of the little details they kept in. Prim's duck tail, for instance, would have been the work of a moment to cut out, as it had no real bearing on anything, but they kept it in and made it work. I thought the tension between Katniss and her mom felt very real, too; there was that tinge of awkwardness whenever Katniss had to acknowledge her and it was just excellent, even if they didn't do the best job of explaining why their relationship was as bad as it was.
Hmm, I think I'm actually going to stop here. Not sure what else I can say. I could probably go through the movie scene by scene and talk about what I thought of it, but obviously that ain't gonna happen. I think I hit all the main points I wanted to make, at least, and while I kind of want to talk about which visuals matched up with the ones in my head and which ones didn't, that's not actually too important and might be better suited to a post about the books anyway.
So in conclusion, I think the movie's fine. Probably not something I need to see again, but I liked it for what it was. Good for Collins for raking in the millions, I'll of course watch Catching Fire when it comes out, and my god do I want to reread the books again now! I did finally decided to start on ASoIaF as of...this morning, but I can find time for THG too.
All right, I think that's more than enough for today, haha. I've got an annoying training session at work tomorrow but otherwise the week shouldn't be too bad, which is great because I've got a lot of ISU webpage refreshing to look forward to. That's right, Worlds starts this week! And while I'll only be able to watch the final day (maybe some of the morning sessions if I feel like swinging it) I'm still incredibly excited. Crazy to think this is the end of the second season of figure skating that I've followed. Hopefully a year from now I'll be in Canada gearing up for the QRs and such.
...
Well, a girl can dream, right?