His Don Juan rocks! (And they killed the Raoul-ish charactor!((J/K!)) )

The time travel stuff was a little weird, but it was still pretty good!

Oh, I love that Raoul/Richard, was killed.!!!!

Wooo Hoooo!

I really hate how they changed his name to Richard. Not that I would normally care, but it feels so weird.

From recent posts I have read, I wasnt sure if some of you realized that it is Robert who is playing the violin. It is someone else, which is part of the reason why they hide his face. That isnt just dramatic effect.



Does anyone else particularly love the part where Robert is running through the sewers in the red death costume?

Do you realize because of your avatar I now have to change mine so the two won't clash?!? I did love the scene where he was in the sewers. Too bad his costume got dirty, I cried.

Yeah, I think when they moved the story to London, names like Daae got changed to Day and Raoul to Richard to seem less... ethnic???

Less foreign?

Like they thought American audiences would just focus on the funny names? Something like that. I think Hollywood assumes we're stupid.

Also, I had to comment on you two with the same avatar cause the other day I was reading thru a random thread and was like "I said WHAT!?", but I realized she just had the same avatar. It was funny tho cause whatever she said, her opinion is like the complete opposite of mine... which is no big deal but I thought I was crazy, maybe drunken posting stuff!

Anyways I don't think I *LOVE* that Richard/Raoul was killed.... but he didn't impress me. So I didn't care. Like the relationship between he and Christine seemed so bland.

Like they just "loved" each other for convenience - both young, having fun. She never seems as passionate with him as she is when she sings or talks about the night she performs Marguerite in Faust.

In other versions you can really see she loves "Raoul". In this movie she's just like "Yeah, he's my boyfriend. Whatever. Let's sing!"

Upon viewing the movie a tenth time, I believe I've discovered the reason of the seemingly random time travel sequence. I have two theories:

1. The directors and screenplay writers are not at all creative and decided to leave it to the people to figure it out.(I bet that's why it made no money, people didn't want to think so much)

2. Erik Destler was at the audition and he saw that Christine didn't remember him because she was singing the music as if it were just some random piece. He, after his deal with the devil, had gained some magical powers. Therefore, he decided to use those magic powers and make her remember the passion they shared so long ago. But he was unable to control how much she remembered and she found out about him being the serial killer, who killed her true love three times. He also didn't count on her overlooking the fact that he could now help her make A LOT of money and get REALLY famous, so she kills him again just in case.

Killed her true love three times???

I know he killed Raoul/Richard... but now I'm confused. I'm sure once you tell me I'll feel stupid. Maybe my mind is fuzzy tonight.

I didn't get to watch all of it but to me it was a peice of junk. Remember before you start throwing tomatoes at me that we are all entitled to our own opinions. It was a bit confusing for me and when I first ordered it Mom was the first to see it and she freaked out saying " I swear there's a demon on the cover of this video and it should be burnt, Savannah!!!"


But I did like Christine's voice in this movie.

It's okay that you didn't like it! It's not for everyone. And it's gory which turns off alot of people. So I can understand not liking it.

However, for me I like so much of the rest of the movie's themes that I can look past the gore.

Actually, I remember HATING it the first time I saw it but I was very young. I only bought the DVD to add to my PotO collection and watched it for the heck of it. It was way more enjoyable since then.

EDIT ~~ By the way, Viscountess - I agree with the reasoning you gave before. I forgot to mention that in my last post. Erik TOTALLY did not count on her saying no to the fame and money being with him (in "present day" aka 1980's) would bring.

Quote:He stabbed him, set him on fire, tossed him over a cliff into the water.

Heh.

Okay... I see now.

Didn't TECHNICALLY kill him THREE TIMES. Just did 3 horrible things in order to kill him. But now it all makes sense.

What'd you think of my theory?

The music in this film is lovely. I love the graveyard scene but this Erik really repulses me, he's seriously creepy and threatening. He's a true psycopath.

You know, the reviews to this movie were really bad, but I liked it.

If you want to see the movie yourself here are the links to see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7jOHYCsmOs&mode=related&search= 1989 part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIjKRGf6mEQ&mode=related&search= part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EGfJoAzt6E&mode=related&search= part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnUtZHGT4k4&mode=related&search= part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW5bmVwyW_M&mode=related&search= part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edtDTzb9mHo&mode=related&search= part 6

In this version you really think of him as a true murder which I don't like. Plus what happens to the classic Erik with his punjab? And what about a mask? No he skins people and puts their skin on his face, which trully is gross. Although they did have one good qoute in it "Only love and music are forever."

Personally, I thought the movie wasn't all that good. I was bored one night, so I ran up to blockbuster and rented it. Of course, seeing that it said phantom on it, I had to! =] so I watched it. Well it pretty much just freaked me out!! I didn't like how they made him kill people, skin them and use their skin for his face. But I'm also not too big on movies like this anyhow. There were however, some good scenes as well, when he wasn't killing someone. And I also think that the acting wasn't all that great either, The girl who played Christine didn't do that well of a job but she did alright. Robert wouldn't have been a good "real" phantom, but if you wanted a phantom who skinned people i guess he was good enough.

I think this one was actually pretty good for three reasons:

- It knows what it wants to do and does it very well. They obviously went for a horror slaher while making it and that's what they delivered.

- The mask made of skin is a really inventive way of solving a very annoying problem. You can't have a guy walking around with a mask that covers his whole face for the entirety of the movie. That makes it really hard to portray emotion and act. The skin-mask dealt with that in a very creative way. He hides his face, yet he is allowed full freedom to act. Bravo to whoever thought this one up.

- Christine knocks Erik over the head! She actually has a spine! When I saw that, I was all like "YOU GO GIRL!". No, I really was!

Well, for those too grossed out by the goriest of the movie I made a video using the 1989 Don Juan Triumphant using clips from 2004 PONR... it's not terribly creative but I made it very late last night (so please forgive it's imperfections) and since this version got brought up again I thought I'd post it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08Ybsky8pF4

Those who have seen the 1989 movie know that Erik's Don Juan is not finished and we only ever hear that small verse from it so I had to kind of work to extend to video & music that way it wasn't like a 30 second vid!

I know the plot of the movie was that the opera was INCOMPLETE, but I had wished on the soundtrack they actually wrote a whole SONG, but they didn't. So the only sung part is...

"Your eyes see but my shadow; My heart is over-flowing; There's so much you could come to love; You've got my heart glowing; Tenderly you could see my soul..."

As I've said in another thread, I wish the "heart glowing" line was actually "But you're content not knowing..."

But I was like 6 when the movie was made, so they didn't ask me. I want to find sheet music so I can sing it for short auditions and then I'll change the line cause they won't know any better!

Quote:


Actually Richard wasn't Raoul. Richard in the novel was one of the managers. Raoul wasn't mentioned in the moive at all.

Quote:

In the Gaston Leroux book, Firmin Richard is a manager. You'll notice in the ALW musical they reverse it. But in the book Richard is his LAST name.

In this movie, one of the manager's name is RICHARD DUTTON. So no matter what they've changed the name.

However... this "Richard" is Christine's love interest. They speak of marriage and everything. So I'd say the movie's "Richard Dutton" is morely closely based on Leroux's "Raoul de Chagny" character than Leroux's "Firmin Richard" character.

And so... to simplify things - I'd have to agree with Masked_Maestro and also say "...they changed Raoul's name to Richard".

It's just that they gave him a JOB as opposed to a noble title. And a more "British" sounding name since this story takes place in London, not France. You'll notice to american-ize (???) Christine they changed her from 'Swedish Christine Daae' to some 'Ethnically Ambiguous Christine Day'.

In the movie, Raoul is never mentioned because Richard IS Raoul.

But couldn't be taken both ways since "Richard" is a co-owner of the opera house and during that time it was commonplace and what-not to sleep with the managers if you were the struggling star?

Maybe they just combined both of the charcters into one.

I have no doubt that besides renaming, they ALSO COMBINED the characters. But I think the "Raoul/Love Traingle" aspect of the story is more important than the "Second Opera Manager" aspect of the story.

So I still stick with the "Richard Dutton" character being more Leroux's "Raoul de Chagny" character than Opera Manager.

Richard doesn't even want Christine to keep singing, the dinner after her performance she can talk about nothing but how exhilarated she feels from being on stage and all he wants to talk about is when she'll quit and they're gonna get married. You'd think if she was sleeping with him to get ahead (even if that's only a SMALL reason and she really loves him) she wouldn't try to cool things off about the marriage.

He was okay with her wanting to keep singing. I wonder if they changed the story so much for copyright purposes? Does Phantom of the Opera have a copyright on how the characters are used? Maybe that's why all the movies have changed the story so much.