"Into the Woods" Movie Changes
"Into the Woods" Movie Changes
LucyEth
Stand-by Joined: 8/23/12
#1"Into the Woods" Movie Changes
Posted: 6/18/14 at 12:28pm
#2With A Young Little Red...
Posted: 6/18/14 at 12:56pmis anyone really surprised they made content changes? They are going to try and market it as a family film. And realistically when they cast a very young girl as Little Red this seemed inevitable.
#2"Into the Woods" Movie Changes
Posted: 6/18/14 at 12:58pmI am not sure how I feel about the change. I feel like Disney knew the plot and for them to change the fact that the Prince slept with the Baker's Wife changes another "lesson" of the show. I feel that is more important than the relationship with the wolf and Little Red. I don't know...I hope that the changes are only made to the stage version in the JR version, if not done so already-which I know is only act one- and that the "real version".
Queen of the Night
Featured Actor Joined: 6/12/07
#3With A Young Little Red...
Posted: 6/18/14 at 12:58pmI kind of knew something like this would happen with Disney doing the movie. They have to sanitize it and make it palatable as family entertainment. While I understand that, I do feel that it changes the material from what Sondheim and Lapine intended it to be. It's going to just be a mash-up of fairy tales without any of the darker, edgier social commentary that the stage show has. The original show was a brilliant explanation of what happens when "happily ever after" doesn't really happen and it keeps the darkness of some of Grimm's fairy tales. I hope that kids who see this G rated version someday get to see the film of the original Broadway production so that they can experience "Into the Woods" as it was meant to be and understand the effects of censorship and why the changes were made. The original is a great allegory about dreams and reality in our world and I think both versions could be used as great teaching tools and fodder for mature discussion.
#4"Into the Woods" movie changes
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:02pmI posted about these spoilers nearly a year ago when Sondheim dropped them in a talk, but it didn't really get discussed...
#5Re.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:12pm
Disappointing, but I understand why they want to market this as a family film. There's more money to be made there. But I wish they had set their sights at a slightly older audience. It's has certainly worked for them with ONCE UPON A TIME, which takes basically the whole Disney animated canon to very dark places. I think the OUAT audience should have been their target demographic because cutting out these crucial plot points completely changes the musical.
The fact that INTO THE WOODS, JR. got approved prepared me somewhat for this film to be a de-fanged version of the musical.
Updated On: 6/18/14 at 01:12 PM
LucyEth
Stand-by Joined: 8/23/12
#6Future Prods.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:12pmIt will be interesting to see how these changes impact future productions. If communities decide to mount the original show based on the film, they'll be in for some rude shocks. Unless, of course, Sondheim and Lapine allow similar changes to the stage version. I'm assuming that the one-act "high school" version of the show already drops the Little Red/Wolf subtext, no?
#7Future Prods.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:24pmI don't think it alters the text between Little Red and the Wolf at all. It's all subtext - it can be downplayed or downright ignored.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
#8Future Prods.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:26pmSondheim is such a pushover!
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
#9Future Prods.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:26pmSondheim is such a pushover!
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra
Salve, Salve Regina
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Eva
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
O clemens O pia
Broadway Star Joined: 12/31/69
#11Future Prods.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:33pmI don't care about Rapunzel not dying, but having the Baker's Wife and the Prince not sleep together...that's...unacceptable.
LucyEth
Stand-by Joined: 8/23/12
#12Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:35pm
Sondheim: "Censorship is part of our puritanical ethics, and it's something that they're going to have to deal with. There has to be a point at which you don't compromise anymore, but that may mean that you won't get anyone to sell your painting or perform your musical. You have to deal with reality."
Sounds like something the Act One Franklin Shepard might say...
Roscoe
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#13Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 1:50pmThis film was doomed the minute Rob Marshall signed the contract. A song here and a song there won't make a damn bit of difference.
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Thomas Pynchon, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
My blog: http://www.roscoewrites.blogspot.com/
#14Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:15pmDisney should never had been chosen to produce this. And I'm a Disney fan.
#15Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:17pm
Ugh. Rupunzel doesn't die? Then I wonder if the Lament has been cut, which would really be a travesty.
"You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!" - Betty Parris to Abigail Williams in Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Updated On: 6/18/14 at 02:17 PM
dreaming
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/24/09
#16Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:25pm
This is ridiculous. None of the characters will have any motivation for anything. The Witch is really one dimensional now. (You feel pretty bad for her when her daughter dies.) And the Baker's Wife dying has a little less impact than it did. She's supposed to be a little dissatisfied...and wondering what else is out there.
And the Witch's anger/hurt is really meaningless now. (Even "Last Midnight" has less meaning-she is such a mixture of emotions at this point and the one thing she had keeping her in the mortal world if you will was her daughter-and she's gone.)
Generic Disney boo boos. Where was Harvey Weinstein?? (I never thought I'd say that.)
This is not family fare-and never should have been marketed as such.
Updated On: 6/18/14 at 02:25 PM
#17Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:25pm
Disney should never had been chosen to produce this. And I'm a Disney fan.
Chosen? I don't think it had anything to do with choosing. I highly doubt major studios were clamoring for the opportunity to produce this movie.
Disney felt they could do something with the property as long as they had bonafide stars attached, so they picked it up.
I think we should just be glad that we're getting the friggin' movie at all.
"I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about." - Oscar Wilde
#18Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:26pmI think lament is still there and leads into a new song.
Liza's Headband
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/28/13
#19Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:26pm
Disney was not "chosen" to do anything. That's the most asinine comment I've read on here since at least this morning...
They bought the movie rights to produce it. They were not "chosen" by Sondheim and Lapine.
#20Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:27pm
This just in: these changes will retroactively be made to original Broadway production!
In all seriousness: ladies, leggo your pearls.
A film is being made of a musical that is not a megahit (or even really a hit), not adapted from a recognizable film - AND the musical is a live-action fantasy.
The fact the property is getting this level of exposure with this caliber of people involved is incredible. It's a financial gamble no matter how you look at it.
The film is NOT the stage property. It's a different reality entirely.
You want the film to be a success, commercially and critically? It has to appeal to a broader audience than New York theatregoers.
"...everyone finally shut up, and the audience could enjoy the beginning of the Anatevka Pogram in peace."
Updated On: 6/18/14 at 02:27 PM
beautywickedlover
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/07
#21Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:44pm
"Ugh. Rupunzel doesn't die?"
It's not the first time Disney decided not to kill a princess in a fairy tale movie.
Original source material.
New ending
#22Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:47pmNone of us knew that Bambi's mother had just been to a stag party.
#23Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:47pm
I have it on VERY good authority that "Any Moment" and "Moments in the Woods" were in the first cut of the movie that screened last month. However it's made clear that the Baker's Wife and Cinderella's Prince don't sleep together - they only kiss. Rapunzel does not die and her abandonment of the Witch leads into the new song.
Updated On: 6/18/14 at 02:47 PM
#24Stephen Sondheim Inc.
Posted: 6/18/14 at 2:50pmIsn't it only implied that they sleep together though? We see them kiss and then it blacks out. I'm sure if they just kiss in the movie it can be implied to the older audience that they sleep together. That would probably go over the heads of kids.
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