h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I do realise I'm in the minority here - it's a massively successful musical, and the recently released film version looks set to be a box office and Oscars darling.

So I've done a bit of "what is it I don't like?"

1. The music. Sorry, I just find most of the tunes to be variations on Baa Baa Black Sheep.

2. The lyrics. The repetitive nature of them (I dreamed a dream , flies fly around cos they're flies). And fact that at the very start, the lyrics go look Down, while the music goes up.

3. The time-scale. Jean Valjean (more repetition) is a prisoner for 19 years (so when he's released he's what 39, 40?) He then tears up his ID documents, but somehow manages 8 years later to be the mayor of a town. He then looks after Cosette (another 10 years?) until they end up in Paris.

4. The horrible "comic turns". The Thenardiers are really unpleasant people, and the bawdy "up yer arse" songs just leave me cold. "Li'le People", comple'e wiv compulsory glo'al stop, must be my most hated song evurrrr.


5. The emotionally overblown performances. I suspect this may be because I still have trouble engaging with my own emotions, but I find performances that are hand-wringingly tear-jerkingly over-wrought very hard to appreciate.


Am I alone?

Well, you are certainly the antithesis of this lady, at least: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-20969174


Geggs

Haha, good for you I saw the trailers when I went to see Skyfall and I guffawed at Russell Crowe singing.


On a similar theme, can I point out that David Bowie's new song is bodawful?

>>1. The music. Sorry, I just find most of the tunes to be variations on Baa Baa Black Sheep.

I won't be going to see it, because I hate musicals. Except that I don't, I just hate the sort of crass music that usually features in musicals; I really love West Side Story, for example.

#5 for me. I am simply not entertained by misery.

Actually I love musicals! I have no problem with characters bursting into song, or expressing emotions through the medium of dance.


More problems with les mis- the underlying theme is the downtrodden masses, them against us, the solidarity of the working classes. So why do the factory girls turn against fantine and seal her fate to be fired, rather than close ranks and protect her?

Shit, no, you're not alone.

There's a difference between "sentiment" and "sentimentality" *. The tear jerking in Les Mis has far more of the latter than the former.

The lyrics - Yes! The dialogue/monologue pieces don't have the ring of truth. There are so many facepalm moments where I think "no, that's not what the character would have said. Ever."

The comic turns - Actually, what you said about the Threnardiers' comic turns leaving you cold makes me view it in a slightly better light. The characters Victor Hugo created are the least comic characters I could imagine. If people don't did it funny, then the musical has got something right. Even if it happened accidentally.

* With all due apologies for the repetition

I totally disagree with you, I found it absolutely astonishingly brilliant, but I'm not sure whether to bother saying why, because your viewpoint is perfectly valid.
1 & 2. I can't disagree with you, because I remember hearing the main songs as a child and I still find them heart-wrenching, stirring, all the right emotions in the right places. And repetition, for me, is a standard lyrical device.
3 & 5. They've made some improvements on this in the movie. I'll take your word that it was 8 years until he was mayor of the town in the stage version, it's 15 years in the film. The acting is also rather different: because they had the capability to film in close-up, the actors were freed from the need to project to the back of the auditorium, so overblown performance was replaced by powerful acting. I tend to feel that this kind of thing is not for you to try and appreciate, it's for the film to sweep you up in. I was totally swept up, but if you weren't, that's got to be seen as the film's fault, not yours.
4. For me, one of the very few slight mis-steps of the film was the lack of clarity in the singing during the comic songs, meaning some of the comedy lyrics got lost. Or I think they did, as obviously I don't know what they were saying so I don't know whether it was a punch-line or not. Anyway, I don't think being amused by those characters reduces their repulsiveness. I commend the film for portraying a few harsh realities and moral nuances: the scum always survive, for instance. The same goes for the factory workers forcing Fantine away out of fear for themselves.

I decided that I don't mind my heart-strings being pulled on this occasion, because it's done with such skill. Also, as a fan of heavy metal, I am used to going to music for the big, powerful emotions. I *want* my music to grab me by the guts and drag me down the street, specifically because I *don't* get to experience those emotions in everyday life. Or at least, not without the stress and anguish of having something to feel them *about*.

I've never like Les Mis, or indeed the vast majority of musicals.

THIS, however, is little short of genius...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp5JtF7I6j0

B

I've always hated the music of Les Mis, but I've never seen the show, so I'm not getting it in context. Perhaps I should go to the movie, to change my mind or convince myself I'm right.

I liked Once More, with Feeling (Buffy)

I'll just add, the key thing that impressed me most about Les Mis was that it had me holding back tears at times. That never happens to me in a movie. EVER. That earns the film some serious kudos in my book.

Haven't seen the show or the film. Wouldn't know any of the songs. But I will join in with the spirit of this thread by saying that I found the book mind-buggeringly tedious. Sorry.

I should make clear, I haven't seen the film either. I was talking about the stage show.

I've been dragged to the stage show twice. As stage musicals go it's one of the best, but this may not be saying a lot.

I've seen both the stage version and the film, but haven't read the book.

I like musicals.

To add some positives about the film, it's very well done, the sense of place in the cinematography is excellent. I still don't like the song, but Anne Hathaway's "Dreamed a Dream" was touching and believable, and is probably now my favourite version of it. And I almost cried at Marius (Eddie Redmayne?) Empty Chairs - largely because the delivery wasn't belted out, but was reflective and almost whispered, but mainly because that "futility of war, is it all worth it" message is one that I do relate to.

Helena B-C is the go-to actress for the personification of "grotesque", but Sacha B-C's accent was a bit Allo Allo (no-one else in the movie affected a French accent).

And MuBeta, thank you so much for that South Park link!

At the beginning of the movie I wanted to resist, but little by little my resistance was overcome, and I went out thinking it was the best movie of the year. I wept in some spots. I thought the movie version was much better than the concert version I saw on TV, mainly because Hugh Jackman and Ann Hathaway made singing seem efforless. Previous versions that I had heard starred singers who were straining to get the high notes. That's a *huge* distraction which changes the way the song is received. Well, Russell Crowe wasn't very comfortable singing, but he didn't try to force. Maybe they transposed the music down to a key that was easy for him to sing. The young revolutionaries sang well.

The "Song of Angry Men" was very derivative. There were snatches of "Turkey in the straw" and "Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are marching" in it. That is not a fault of the movie per se. If it hadn't included the song, fans of the musical would have objected.

Here's a confesssion: I have never read the original book by Victor Hugo. I probably should have, as I majored in French in college. However, my choice of a 19th century French literature course
went to drama rather than prose. Maybe it's just ad well. A friend of mine, who teaches French, says that Victor Hugo's writing was awfully bloated. "Les Miserables" was more than 1,000 pages long, but could have been condensed to maybe 200 pages without losing much.

Nineteenth century literature isn't to everyone's taste. Nevertheless, popular culture often embraces the previous century as it begins to get tired of the current one. This was true with the Bach revival in the mid-19th century, 100 years after Bach died. The late 20th century leap backwards seems to have started with "Sweeney Todd" in 1979, and gained momentum with "Phantom of the Opera." Since then, we have had musical versions of "Wuthering Heights," "Jane Eyre," "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and [of course] "Les Miserables." This regression to the 19th century has given the English language a new word, "Emo," and reanimated the word "Gothic."

>>This regression to the 19th century has given the English language a new word, "Emo,"

I don't understand, what has that word got to do with the 19th century?

Ah, THAT'S what Awix was talking about when he mentioned Russell Crowe singing. Oh, shudder.

I haven't seen 'Les Mis', probably won't, but I liked Hugo's novel as a kid, so there. There's a (BBC?) film version I quite enjoyed, with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush. Good job, I thought. But I'm more parti'clar about musicals. They need to have better songs.

I won't watch 'Phantom of the Opera', because people keep singing 'Music of the Night', or whatever it is. The tune sounds like 'When We Were a Couple of Kids', from 1907:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i76i7NN0Ag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5dhyiqhR7Y

See?

I got ticked off at Hugo for the novel 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' everyone died in the story except for the goat and a bad poet. As a teenager,I thought that that was a BIG waste of time. I am not sure what Disney did to it but even that jerk could only have improved it!