Okay, so I watched this over the weekend, mainly due to reading this thread and looking forward to laughing at a crazy-ass train wreck. To my surprise, it wasn't as horrible as I felt was depicted by this thread. I don't think it was GOOD. But it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I actually enjoyed some of the fleshing out of some characters and their relationships, especially with Baby's family, who were so peripheral to the story, you can't even recall them having names (but we'll never forget her sister's bangs). The bit about hiring Johnny for dance lessons didn't really work and it's a wonder how that scene with her father singing ever made it onto the screen. Other changes in the story were not really necessary and the whole flashback bookended scenes were weird and ultimately pointless, but inoffensive. I thought it was kind of fun to see a new take on the story as a remake, instead of a literal remake of the original.
As for the complaints about Breslin not being a dancer and not looking like a dancer in the end, it didn't bother me at all. In fact, it really did make more sense in a Sally Bowles-ish kind of way. The fun of the original was the fairy-tale aspect of the thing that only pretends to dig into emotions without ever scratching any surface of reality. In this version, they seemed to want to explore with adding a dimension or two to many other characters, so why not an average girl with an average body and leverage the popularity of Dancing With the Stars? It's not as if American audiences voted Emmett Smith as the winner of season 3 because he miraculously transformed into Fred Astaire. Breslin did okay and okay seemed to be the heights this event was aiming for, anyway.
Oh, and the true star of the evening was Katey Sagal. She really deserves to be on Broadway.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
