If Netflix had adapted Into the Woods

Not sure it matters since,if Part 1 is good,most people will watch Part 2 immediately after...a mini-binge.

rattleNwoolypenguin said: "Sure, but the point is Act One and Act Two can be experienced as separate entities if they are separate episodes unlike the movie which tried to merge them awkwardly without a time jump."



I understand what you are saying but i feel the entire piece should be seen in one sitting. For me, a part of the beauty of the show was the switch in tone when returning from intermission and having gone through it all in one evening of theatre.

I thought the film was quite good.

Second to Chicago only in terms of movie adaptations of shows from the 80s on.. I mean 70s on

Updated On: 11/4/18 at 07:32 AM

GeorgeandDot said: "The film has 0 style. That's one of the big problems with it. It's a theatrical musical and it should've been a theatrical film, but they just went the boring route. I would've loved to have seen someone like Wes Anderson do Into the Woods. Just someone that would've made some bold choices. The film totallu needed an old fashioned intermission, but Disney probably felt that, that was too risky. Disney, unfortunately, got their grubby little hands on Into the Woods."

^ The above exactly.

What really fascinated me about the movie adaptation is that the original stage version seems much more commercial than the screen adaptation that followed it.

The script and the original production, in particular has a real dry humour that makes it not disimilar to movies like ‘Shrek’ or ‘Tangled’. The original production was really, really funny. The whole thing has an off centre feel, like the aforementioned movies. Why remove all of that? So much of the humour was jettisoned for the movie, when it would surely have helped it?

I’m intrigued to know how much this was Disney and how much was Sondheim/Lapine. Sondheim is not always at his best when let loose on his own past works. His own taste is often for the relentlessly bleak and dark and as much of a genius as the man is, he tends to prefer productions of his own work more when everyone else in the audience can’t find a glimmer of light within them.

rattleNwoolypenguin said: "Sure, but the point is Act One and Act Two can be experienced as separate entities if they are separate episodes unlike the movie which tried to merge them awkwardly without a time jump."

That requires the assumption that the intermission serves an artistic purpose and not a practical one.

The real question is: if you want your film adaptation to be so faithful to the stage show that you'd prefer that each act got its own installment, then why not just watch the filmed version of the Broadway show?

Agreed Kad, the film version that was going to be made in the 90's was reportedly so different from it's source material that it was an extremely family friendly, watered down, version of the stage show. Especially sparring the Baker's Wife and with her having a happy ending with her husband and child. Talk about missing the point of the musical entirely.

I for one am very grateful for the film that we got despite it's changes. Plus I think Rob Marshall is really good director on his own terms; IMO, his only black mark in a very fine resume is his ill-fated adaptation of Nine but that's something else entirely.

Fosse76 said: "rattleNwoolypenguin said: "Sure, but the point is Act One and Act Two can be experienced as separate entities if they are separate episodes unlike the movie which tried to merge them awkwardly without a time jump."

That requires theassumption that the intermission serves an artistic purpose and not a practical one.

"

^exactly

a gap is not important. What’s important to the story is that we feel there has been a passage of time, which is totally doable without an intermission.

The way the movie stitches the two acts together, is really neat and tidy and as a glue job works well. At that moment, it doesn’t feel like a hack job, the issue is that you have repercussions.

It’s inportant that the majority of the characters we think of as the heroes (another important point) have reached what they have imagined their ‘happy ever after’.

Having Cinderella marry the Prince and then spend and undisclosed amount of time, sitting around in a palace - whilst he is away on ‘royal duty’ as the show does, means the character herself is allowed to grow dissatisfied and she herself realises that this really isn’t the life she dreamt off because in fact, she never really knew what she wanted (as she states repeatedly in the song) it’s only after getting what feels like a perfect ending, which with it brings a lot of time alone with no chores to do, with which she can think, that she begins to realise this.

Not only is that one of the overall messages of the film but without it, Cinderella’s actions make much less sense. If the giant ‘attack’ happens the day of the wedding, then she’s still a virgin who has spent little to no time with her husband and decides to leave him based on the hearsay that he is a philanderer - which he doesn’t disagree with. When did this affair take place? They’ve been married for five minutes. And again this is a character who struggles making her own discussions - the passage of time is what allows her growth and without it, the characters arc is lessened.

Same with the Baker’s Wife. The character needs time to realise that having a baby is not the answer to fixing her marriage. In the movie, she has barely given birth before she has an affair.

And the Witch - in the show, she doesn’t immediately look for Rapunzel. One imagines that she is enjoying living with her beauty and whatever that might mean...The fact she leaves Rapunzel wandering the desert for a period of time whilst enjoying the fruits of her ‘beautiful garden’ makes her all the more interesting. And all the more flawed. It also makes ‘Children Will Listen’ more of a moment of revelation for her.

You didn't read the script, though. Simply put: oy.

Loopin’theloop said: "a gap is not important. What’s important to the story is that we feel there has been a passage of time, which is totally doable without an intermission."

Which also kills the notion of Netflix solving this problem, since they seemingly give you all of four seconds before automatically playing the next episode.