nypost.com: Disney has been hammering away at “Hercules” for eons.
And more often than not, the show has toppled over like the Colossus of Rhodes.
The Public put on a nice enough production of the 1997 Alan Menken and David Zippel cartoon musical back in 2019 in Central Park, but it was a one-off amusement that included hundreds of members of local community groups. Still, I saw promise in it.
9 comments:
I'm always interested in seeing how films translate to stage. Unfortunately, animation is a lot harder to translate to live performance or live action. There is a level of suspension of disbelief that is more easily given and readily available for animation and film in general. There are also camera tricks and gimmicks that are just not achievable in a live format. I’m intrigued with the need to lengthen, when so often they are looking for ways to cut down. This leaves me wondering where in Hercules the story starts. A show that takes on fantasy beasts and has a host of locations often does better when spectacle is scaled down and realism is limited. This review leaves no hope for future iterations of Hercules as Crockett has painted it as a futile effort to try to keep improving as they have managed to make it worse with each attempt. Sometimes it seems the House of Mouse has too much money and doesn’t know when to stop themselves before they go too far in the wrong direction.
This is somewhat disappointing to read as I was really hoping that Hercules would find its place in the musical theater repertoire of shows between the US and London runs, but ultimately this does not feel super surprising. I think to me this is one of those examples of something that is best done in animation, and that trying to transfer it to another medium strips it of the very charm that makes it wonderful. I think if this were to work, they may have to divert farther from the source material and make it feel like a new retelling of a story we know versus a true adaptation of the movie Hercules. Though I see how that is probably not a possibility when dealing with the Disney IP. I hope this show finds its footing at some point, or they bring in other media that would thrive better on stage than it may have in theaters!
First seeing the title of this article, I couldn’t help but let myself sort of believe it. Disney for a while now has been releasing flops and, dare I say, trash over and over again. They’ve been continuously running into this wall for years now, and I was fully ready to believe that they had messed up another rendition of one of their stories. However, as I read through the article, I began to pick up on incredibly emotionally-charged, harsh, and critical language. This is to be expected when someone is truly disappointed by a production or very passionate about their opinion. I tend to write similarly when I myself am very passionate about not liking something. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I would not take the information in this writing as fact. Some of their points seem to fall flat in the face of the very pictures they use in their article. Clearly, the author is very biased and that bleeds into their work. So, while I am more inclined to believe that this production of “Hercules” wasn’t great due to Disney’s recent tendencies and work, I wouldn’t be able to say for sure until I saw the production myself or saw even more writings and ratings saying it wasn’t good.
Disney seems to be rushing shows out far too quickly these days. Although, based on the images in the article, it seems to be visually stunning, evidently the overall show has fallen short. The article makes the show seem as if it’s too flat, with little story substance. Which is quite unfortunate, as the original film should have given the creatives a lot to work with, both in terms of music and memorable moments. The statement that the ‘Go the Distance’ feels flat is particularly surprising, as Disney is usually able to nail those moments particularly well. Newsies, The Little Mermaid, and Frozen all contain examples of this. Perhaps the reason ‘Go the Distance’ no longer works has to do with another point the author brought up: Hercules’ character arc is flattened. In the film, we see him go through an entire arc as he develops from a farmhand to a hero capable of facing the malevolent Hades. The lack of that storyline certainly would weaken the musical, if not doom it.
When I read the title at first, I wasn’t surprised at all. I feel Disney makes so much as it is and as of late, it hasn’t been as good as it used to be. Maybe it’s because I’m growing up, but the quality of their works the past few years just has not peaked any of my interest. However, I did enjoy the animated movie, I thought it was a really well written story. But after reading about how this version of the show is portraying it, it disappoints me. The writer mentions that the visuals are great, however, their new music and changes to the story is what’s bringing it down, all just to have a longer run time. There was nothing wrong with the movie’s original run time at all, not all shows need to be at least two hours long. I believe that if Disney wants this show to be a success, they need to stop this production and make the necessary changes to improve the show’s overall quality.
Translating IPs like Hercules, where they are set in worlds that exist by drawings rather than practical sets, seems to be one of the biggest challenges. It’s very disappointing to see Disney wasn't able to do this with Hercules. It’s going to be very interesting seeing if we get a Broadway version of this, but it doesn't seem so. I feel like audience likes it more when things are exact to the original script. We saw that case recently with Snow White vs How to train your Dragon live action adaptation. While Snow White changed a lot, How to train your Dragon stuck to the exact script, and as a result, Dragon got a lot higher box office sales. I’m very pleased knowing that the visuals are great, but its unfortunate to hear it couldn't save the show like how good visuals saves Harry Potter. It’s going to be very interesting seeing what they do next, they do have enough money for extensions because of the mouse, but it might go to the chopping block.
As unfortunate as this is (I am a big Hercules fan) I am absolutely not surprised by this as an outcome. Even from the pictures, it seems that there is not a clear artistic vision, and that seems to be the least of their problems with this productions. I think even considering the source material, there was so much that could have been done, but they chose to go such a traditional route. Despite the articles comments, I really cannot fault the actors for their roles, as they are just working with the material they have been given. Saying this, I will fault the groups of people in charge of adapting the show from the movie, then carrying it on towards designing the show and making the artistic choices that contributed to the final project. There is so much that could have been done, and yet they chose to do none of this, which is rather disappointing.
As a kid I loved this movie so much and I always wanted to see it live on stage. I could imagine the costumes and set translating to the theater and imagine all the effects coming together beautifully, I guess in actuality its harder then it was in my head as a child. After reading this article I am disappointed because I dreamed so much for this show being on stage and to see this is the representation saddens me.
Its so upsetting that this musical didn't turn out to be good. far to often when adaptations or remakes get made we lose some of the things that were special about the original in the first place. looking at the production photos, there is definitely potential in many of the design choices; however I think they have gone way to far in some places and have created a superficial and exaggerated version of what could have been cool. Some of it reads like a bad halloween costume, or a tourist trap museum in the middle of nowhere. I really like the idea of using projections or a video wall to create animated mosaics, it could be so cool, but it seems like they relied on this aspect way to much and it kind of lost its power. Its such a good movie and it really is a shame that every stage adaptation of it, including this one has been so bad.
Post a Comment