Phantom- Love Never Dies

[Wyliefan]

Isn't there an urban legend that ALW's cat deleted his work halfway through? Insinuating SOME form of fate was trying to save us from it...

The cat is my hero. He should have listened to it!

Well, the first one took some liberties, but more or less stuck halfway close to the original novel

I know. I meant that, in creating the sequel, ALW took his own work -- the story he and his team created based on the novel -- and then undid everything he himself had done with it.

I would like to read one of those Sherlock Holmes crossovers sometime.

I always hated the book because Christine is just a dumb little twit.

Funny you should say that about the book -- she was way stronger in the book than in the show. (Although even in the show I think she's stronger than people give her credit for.) In the book, it seemed like Raoul was this noble but naive mama's boy type, and Christine was practically leading him around by the hand to keep him out of trouble.

[danceronice]

In comparing it to Les Miz, it's only fair to remember that the source material is light-years apart. Le Fantome.. is a dime novel basically written for a quick buck. OTOH, while it might SEEM like Hugo was getting paid by the word, Les Miserables is...well, based on a magnum opus by Victor Hugo. They had a lot more to work with. (And I have to confess, I enjoy Phantom more, simply because except for Valjean, Javert, and the Thenadiers I hate EVERYONE in Les Mis and want them all to die, the sooner, the better.* Music's good, though. Phantom is cheesy gothic lit with extra cheese and I'm not EXPECTED to take anyone seriously, so I can just enjoy the bombast.)

In the book, Raoul is just kind of...a nonentity. And Christine is definitely less of a moron than she comes across in many adaptations. (In fact one might argue a good part of their problems in the book is Raoul cannot pick up on her subtle hints. She apparently needed to spell everything out in small words.) Structurally you have to lose a lot of that in ALW's version just because it's a lot of talking (and I'm kind of sad he ditched the Persian and gave much of his function to Madame Giry, but again, I get why.)

And I want to send that cat some fresh nip. He was trying to tell us something.

*Well, not the Bishop. He's not around long enough one way or the other.