The Search for the Next Elle Woods: The Spoiler thread — Page 45

Personally, I prefer the jokes in the musical to the movie. They were just funnier to me, imo. When I first watched the Chip On Your Shoulder scene in the musical, I was taken aback, and a little turned off, that they had Emmett prompt Elle to prove everyone wrong. There was also no need for him to be in the scene with Elle, Paulette, and her ex. I love how they expanded the Emmett role-I always felt it should have been more explored in the movie, but they could have expanded his role without taking away her drive.

For example, they could have had Emmett bump into Elle after the Harvard party, sing the same first verse telling her about himself and telling her to get a chip on her shoulder, then have Elle go back to her room by herself determined to study and prove everyone wrong, with Paulette assisting her by asking her questions off the que cards. Emmett could then come in like the way the scene is now and give Elle her Christmas present, Warner walks in, and Elle realizes on her own that she acts like an idiot when he comes around and needs to get it together. Then have Elle go to class and impress both Callahan and Emmett, ending the scene with Emmett saying how proud he was of her. Sorry for rambling, but that would have been a good way to develop their friendship, while still having her be more independent.

With that being said, throughout the course of the musical I developed a crush on Christian Borle, so obviously Heather's evil plan worked, lol.

Btw, I think the biggest issue with LB is not the book, but the music. For a musical, the songs aren't strong enough, and none of them really stick out as memorable expect Omigod You Guys and So Much Better. Compare LB's music, to Hairspray. Definite difference. Is LB's music annoying catchy? Yes, but in the same way High School Musical is catchy(don't judge me). Fluffy, light songs that get stuck in your head because you hear them all the time when being pimped on TV.

See, and I think the score is great, but the book is abominable. I think the light, bouncy nature of it works great for the material (this isn't Medea, after all). And the songs are ridiculously catchy...I always find myself humming Omigod You Guys, What You Want, So Much Better, the title song, and especially Positive. Combine the music with Jerry Mitchell's great choreography, and you have what should have been a great, fun show. But then there is Hack's book, which brings things to a grinding halt. Aside from the numerous holes in the plot we've already discussed here, she threw in really cheesy lines that even Judi Dench would have a hard time making credible.

But, this all goes back to something I said during the show itself...Hack claims to "know the character of Elle Woods better than anyone" (I think Telsey actually said that), but in writing her as a complete idiot, dependent on Emmett for everything, she showed she really doesn't know Elle at all. Kate Shindle, in her brief segment on the reality show, showed that she knew more about Elle Woods than Heather Hack did. They should let Shindle rewrite the book.

Hmm I've never listened to Good Boy
But I agree, I really do not like Blood in the Water. Whenever I rewatch the MTV taping I skip that number.

They should get rid of Blood in the Water and give Kate like 2 maybe 3 more songs =D

Why do people like the slow songs in shows, Blood in The Water, Sentimental Man, etc... I personally love them.

Ireland is very stupid...I always FF through that, but I must say Take It Like A Man is one of my favorite parts of the whole show.

Hello all. :)

read the previous posts. interesting discussion about the LB book and its percieved "flaws". It actually reminds me of a similar conversation regarding the "flaws" in the Wicked book.

So I'm asking... do you actually believe there are "flaws" in the book? or are you just doing a side by side comparison of the musical book and the movie and refering to any differences as "flaws"?

enlighten me? :)

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I actually think that the musical had a great chance to improve upon the movie. The movie is good, but it has flaws as well. The musical tried to address some of the flaws and fix them, but their attempts at solutions only proved to worsen the problems (IMO).

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Updated On: 5/3/09 at 03:02 AM

Austengirl, you need to take a rest, really just take a rest now!

Wow, it's nice to see that this discussion is still going!

Regarding the flaws in the book, yeah the movie has flaws as well but like SporkGoddess said, the musical just exacerbated those flaws and even created new ones. By trying to bring the Elle/Emmett relationship to the fore as well as writing Elle into nearly every scene, they abandoned any chance of developing the other characters. The result is that Warner, Vivienne, and to some extent Paulette come off as little more than just caricatures of the people we saw in the movie.

And yes, I think "Ireland" is an extremely dumb song. It really brings the action to a halt. Why is Paulette suddenly singing about Ireland in the middle of a hair salon? I know that Paulette needs a song, but I wish she had gotten a better one. I'm going to see if I can find "Good Boy" somewhere so I can hear how that sounds.

The score for LB is ok. It doesn't compare to Hairspray's score, but it's serviceable. But whenever I listen to LB on my Ipod, I always skip over "Serious", "The Harvard Variations", "Blood In The Water", "Ireland" (and it's reprise), and "Take It Like a Man".

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Nothing to do with the current discussion, but I just thought it was funny to note that Celina and Bailey are now roommates. They just seemed so different.
Life After Legally Blonde

IF you like Good Boy better than Ireland, blame the producers. They are the ones who nixed Good Boy for Ireland.

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I'm not taking the time to post a long answer austengirl, you figure it out. I might go to the evening performance, if I do I will post a my thoughts.