Into the Woods Official Movie Thread — Page 195

BUT Cinderella's prince from the animated film and her prince from ITW are different characters. Ditto Rapunzel's prince. He's not Flynn Rider - he's a completely different character.

I'll bet if you put some cosplayers in WDW or Disneyland dressed like the princes in ITW, they'd be popular. They'd be asked to sing "Agony" every 5 seconds...but I can guarantee you they'd get attention. And it's not like their costumes are similar or anything. I'd LOVE to see them do that!

Great question, Magical.

Perhaps it's that when one is presented with two options, nightmare or dream, neither seeming right or real, that the best strategy is to keep all options open.

In the traditional Cinderella story, the heroine has always let others decide her fate.
Here at least, acknowledging that she doesn't know what she wants, and perhaps finding that acknowledgement somewhat liberating, Cinderella makes a choice of leaving her and all of us in suspense. She leaves the Prince a clue.
It's not much of an exercise of empowerment - and it's far from the complete lesson Cinderella learns in Into the Woods: that she wants neither nightmare nor dream but something in-between - but it's a turn in her story.

Updated On: 1/6/15 at 08:40 PM

It should be noted that not every person who saw the film went and put their thoughts on RottenTomatoes. It's very likely that only those who were thoroughly displeased will seek out to write reviews on it.

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^By that logic, wouldn't ALL films on RT get low numbers?

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Wow! Final album sales are in, and the soundtrack is still projected for #3 on billboard! Official numbers will be out Thursday. Amazing.

http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/sales/salescht.cgi

and I love how BWW keeps stealing my information and misrepresenting it in their articles.

Updated On: 1/6/15 at 11:27 PM

Maybe this isn’t bothering many people, but I’ve seen it brought up here and on IMDb as a criticism or an example of sloppy storytelling or whatever, and so it was on my mind the last time I went to see the movie.

If the witch can teleport, why does she climb Rapunzel’s hair?

Her teleportations are violent and disruptive to her surrounding environment, and Rapunzel’s room in the tower is not only small, but rather tightly packed with furniture and objects. I’d guess her teleporting in and out of there would seriously mess things up.

So, that’s my answer to that question. It’s not a huge deal, but I like to think the creatives think these things out. Details like this begin to nag at me the more I watch a movie if they seem genuinely “wrong” or can’t be justified somehow.

It was tough being a LOST fan.

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"I'm from the school of "I like what I like" regardless of whether the film got a 57% "like" on Rotten Tomatoes or a 2.1 rating on imdb.com. It's ridiculous that people use the ratings on these websites to justify their like and/or dislike about a film."

So am I.

I'll see whatever. But if I'm on the fence and the audience and the critics are panning it...I will not be seeing. Not going to chance disliking it. I would if my taste were so drastic in the other direction that if the audience or critics hated it that I would LOVE IT...but that rarely happens.

When it starts to dip below 50% Rotten Tomatoes and below 60 for audience, I question if I want to waste my time.

I saw Into the Woods before the dip in audience ratings, but even if it had before I went I'd still go. That one is immune to that because I wanted to see it.

I was supposed to go see this tomorrow with a friend- but now she's sick. Ugh. I'm tired of waiting. *returns to soundtrack CD*

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"Based on the response here, it seems theatre fans might have had stronger reactions than the general public?"

You mean just like the stage show always has?

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As far as entrance to Rapunzel's tower, I suggested earlier that the Witch put a spell on it, and the only way to enter this tower was by saying "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair to me!" which they all do, and then by climbing her hair.

Just like the cave of wonders in Aladdin ("open sesame!") there is no other way to enter the place.

So the Witch, or anyone else, can't just teleport into it.

This would also explain why Rapunzel herself hasn't used her own hair (after cutting it off) as a rope to escape years ago.

Of course none of that is stated in the script, but it would have taken one crisp sentence to explain it.

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It's also an exquisite use of manipulation...making your captive your co-conspirator. Rapunzel has to be part of the process of allowing her 'mother' to visit so that the emotional domination is insidious, subtle and complete.

Oooh girl...I'm apparently having some dark thoughts today.

There is obviously also some kind of psychological symbolism to Rapunzel's hair and the bond it creates between she and the Witch (the basis for the sometimes used "Our Little World" duet) which as Kad wisely states, in 'fairy tale ideology" over-rides traditional logic.

I'm unsatisfied by fairy-tale logic in this situation. If you invent a character who's all-powerful and then introduce things they can't do, that's a problem, fairy tale or not. The witch isn't said to be all-powerful either on stage or in the movie (the Baker says, "She's a witch; she can do anything," but he's making that assumption on his own; obviously her powers are finite, or she wouldn't have the problems she has), so the powers she's shown to have must be chosen carefully.

I completely agree with Michael Bennett about the power of the symbolic act of climbing her hair, and I like Robbie's explanation of it being a deliberate manipulation, but I'm not satisfied with no explanation just because it's a fairy tale.

As bestie says, it's not addressed anywhere in the script explicitly, so I'm happy to take what is given and weave my own explanation out of it.

IT MAKES ME HAPPY, KAD.

And for the record, it's always been a minor sticking point for me in the show, too, but this is the first time I've put serious thought into it because movies.

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Updated On: 1/7/15 at 12:55 PM