Hello.
So last June on my yearly
trip to Ashland, Oregon for the Shakespeare festival, I had the pleasure of
seeing the musical Into the Woods, a mashup of several different fairytales
into a cautionary tale about wishes and the consequences that can happen from them
coming true. It was a delightful
experience, one of the highlights of the trip.
Well, I soon found out
Disney was bringing the musical to the big screen with some big names. My curiosity was piqued. I was wondering how they were going to bring
a 3 or so hour musical to the silver screen; what would be cut, what would be
changed, etc. Well, after seeing it, I
can now tell you. I in general will keep
it as vague as possible for those who have seen neither.
If I had to describe the
film with one word it would be this:
condensed. I will give them
credit; more was kept than I thought would be.
And to be fair, the condensation actually helped the story in a few
parts, particularly in regards to the Baker and his wife’s story arc. But even with this they still had to cut, and
while some you don’t notice, more of it suffers due to it.
First, they cut out the
story arc of the Narrator. Yes, it is
still narrated, but the fourth wall breaking that concerns him is no longer in
existence, which was a pity since beside narration, the Narrator was there to
show that no one was safe in the story.
Also, they cut almost all of the Baker’s father role in the film
too. This at first seems wise since he
wasn’t a main character and most of his actions could be given to other
individuals. The problem is they kind of
forgot to do that for some of what he did, which led to some questions, mainly
in the first part of the tale, particularly when it came to the cow and how the
Baker ended up with the corn. (Not
spoiling anything here to say the Father (in disguise) gives the Baker the corn
to help find the cow after she wanders off.
Seems trivial at first, but the corn becomes very important in the
story…)
Two other characters whose
story arcs are truncated are the second prince and Rapunzel. The second prince I can kind of understand,
since most of his story arc could be accomplished with the main prince, since
they end up about the same, although because of this some rather humorous
scenes are omitted which is a pity. But
Rapunzel’s arc was drastically changed and her purpose in the story altered as
well. It’s kind of hard to talk about
this without revealing anything, so I will just say this: she was in to ultimately be a condemnation of
the Witch, which in both versions are accomplished, but it was done in the
movie in such a way that defied a lot of the themes the musical was trying to
tell.
The third biggest change,
and the one least noticeable, was with the Big Bad Wolf and Red Riding
Hood. Disney being Disney, they couldn’t
have the sequence appear TOO unseemly, so they removed a lot of the sexual
undertones out. While sad, it’s not
something to important for the tale, so not a big deal in the end. There are other changes as well, but you
wouldn’t notice them if you have never seen the musical.
So would I recommend this
film to others to see? You know, I
would. It’s not a bad effort, just that
if you go into without some foreknowledge it may seem a bit of a whirlwind. It does what it is supposed to do, it is just
tightly packed. It becomes a bit
difficult to sort out what is happening, and some scenes are not as well done
as others, which can lead to some confusion.
But ultimately it’s not a bad film, and it passes the time nicely
enough.
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