Why I Hate Musicals (from Bridges Burnt)

Why a Heathers musical has to exist (along with a series I'm refusing to look at), I have no idea. I understand the musical has to have context for non fans, but reading over the plot line on Wikipedia, after skipping through an animatic of the opening number (which seems to interlace slightly more modern insults) I'm constantly saying out loud "that's not what that meant" or "that didn't happen that way" or "this is shit". All the stuff I would've been muttering obnoxiously if you'd ever taken me to the production of this. AND OH JESUS THEY MADE KURT AND RAM'S DADS GAY THAT IS STUPID. The whole point of that scene was to illustrate the "reaction to a limp wrist with a pulse" argument had Kurt actually lived. And the joke about loving your dead gay son. It's ironic enough on its own without that shit. JD barely suggests offing Heather Duke, he never tells Veronica he loves her until he thinks she's dead. Unless this is all based on the draft which I have read but can't find, (and I know damn well two gay dads aren't a part of this you've done this to make homosexuality seem like it was accepted when in the movie, it's barely accepted by the protagonists because THE EIGHTIES. But you making this NOW means you have to fluff it up- and Kurt and Ram's death is "okay" because everyone became more tolerant. THAT WAS THE PUNCHLINE: NOBODY DID).

Oh and apparently Veronica gives JD an ultimatum to give up the violence, instead of just breaking it off when he shoots a radio. You couldn't shoot a radio in a musical?? Oh and HE AGREES. AND MARTHA SUSPECTS JD MURDERED KURT AND RAM WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT. And there's a West End version that differs from the off-broadway one so if you can't even have a single narrative in a musical why butcher a movie and make it into what you THOUGHT the movie SHOULD be? Martha "mourning" Ram and throwing herself off a bridge but surviving is ridiculous. Theatre trick: one sound effect of screeching tyres  after she's walked off stage should be enough because THAT'S HOW THEY DID IT IN THE MOVIE. And her motive to be like the cool kids WAS ENOUGH. And WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO BETTY FINN?? You had NOTHING for her? No song about how she'd miss her own birthday for a date? Oh she gotten eaten by Martha. No shit they just blended the two characters and decided Martha was more integral, which she is, but there's room for Betty in there somewhere FFS. Or maybe not because this thing actually seems more bloated than the film, and the original shooting script was pretty bloated. JD chooses to take the bomb Veronica can't diffuse, making his act look more noble than it was. She diffused it, he didn't have to die. He was just offing himself in the most appropriate way and Veronica knew it was the right thing. But, again, the argument this movie might be advocating suicide at all would be more apparent in some idiot's interpretation of this scene. Other dross: Veronica CONFESSES at Flem's love in only to be laughed at and Heather Chandler's ghost haunts Veronica persistently. Because the audience would've been confused about the main Heather not really being in the show. And the antagonists get killed off early to be replaced by JD. That's the other punchline. You're not on JD's side once Veronica shuns him.

Someone recently put the blame of 4chan users and incels on the movie. Like it has a lot to answer for when it was more poignant and cutting than the John Hughes movies. It didn't sanitise anything or condescend, it proved the media was to blame for glorifying suicide. "Nobody's going to care about exact handwriting". The gritty details don't matter. Virgin Suicides was probably the only other film to prove this. Christian Slater taking too many "disaffected bad boy roles" didn't really mean much when Fight Club became a thing and Tyler Durden replaced him. JD Salinger didn't want his book in this movie, kids. Moby Dick was the replacement text/subtext. Oh and Doris Day refused to have her version of Que Sera Sera in the movie so we got Syd Straw (who tried to rewrite the history of They Might Be Giants) and Sly and the Family Stone. I want someone to drive me around for hours with this playing while I lay in the back. Anyway, I don't think Heathers is to blame.

They even made a watered down high school PG 13 version for kids to perform. The critics mostly didn't appreciate the bubblegum nature of it. Yeah, two gay dads at their not gay sons' funeral isn't enlightened or progressive, it's camp and kitschy. Oh, LIKE MUSICALS. I see why.

This is trash and I don't see the point of it. OK I was too young for this movie even when I finally watched it, (And I didn't want to because I was a 90210 fan and didn't want to see a movie where Shannon Doherty was killed- I think this was before I got over this and was a cynical bitch 12 year old who ate the movie up with a spoon) but the fans of this would've come in way after the fact. Having a younger audience who's only been exposed to Glee and can't afford to actually go to broadway musicals much, or theatre arts students who are generally effusive and colourful, doesn't prop this up as a legitimate thing or mean it'll be enjoyed by everyone. But it has its fan base. Some people just eat this shit up. I'm not one of them. I might like the odd song from Lestat and I'd still like to see the Book of Mormon one day. But I probably won't. And this isn't a rock show. It's fucking musical theatre. The girl playing Veronica was right for the part by audition but was bagged for being overweight and unattractive. She played against a guy who looked a little too milquetoast - they looked like theatre arts students. It just isn't going to work for me. But the person right for the part should get it, in most cases. It makes no difference to me, I'll never see it and I'm clearly taking out my moderate frustration on this musical. It's better than being mad at the other shit I've trashed lately.

I placed this here also because I've been going over the shooting draft from the writer, who contributed to the musical, and seeing the words "mythic bitch" in the script, which weren't in the film but added to the musical, I'm now wondering how much of the new adaptation was what the writer wanted. Of course, there's the famous prom in heaven scene based on JD's ideologies that we'll all get along when we're dead. This is where JD falls down as a character to me. He seems to hate humanity but wants to be loved. He does act sort of tortured but there's a subtlety to Slater's performance that really sells it. I can't see another actor really pulling it off. But him saying he'd kill everyone because no one loves him, that was where I always thought, did you really care? Veronica never says she loves him either, she's just in over her head.  The movie actually does a better job of you believing Heather Chandler is genuinely more fucked up and put upon just in a couple of scenes. You know she's being used by college guys and it makes it more convincing, along with JD's assessment of the magazines in her room, that she was completely suicidal. The musical just makes her haunt Veronica. It's fantastic the movie doesn't resort to this and only uses one dream sequence.

The polling montage also does enough without the added dialogue from the script. I think there's a lot in there that works in the writer's mind but not on screen. Oh, and there's a throwaway line about the Breakfast Club, but I think the movie didn't want to besmirch John Hughes at the height of his career.  And the line about Veronica "having a sense of humour" implies she was also a bitch all along and now it's gone sour, while the musical (rightly so I guess) has to prove Veronica was a good girl gone bad trying to be good again. She's called out for dumping Betty once she knows she's hot, but again, all we ever know is she wanted to be one of the Heathers and now she doesn't. Giving that any more weight is unnecessary. You see the photobooth shots of Heather C and Veronica. It holds up.

Really, she's more a lost soul. The picture of her and Betty as witch and angel respectively says a lot more. Veronica's disillusioned with her life, she's a genius who's wasted her talents and has no direction. She has to go to college but you have no idea what for and it has to be Ivy League. It spoke to more of a sense of ennui and restlessness coupled with resentment and a fear of being ousted. (The lost line about her not having anyone to eat lunch with still didn't ring with me. I honestly wasn't that scared of being rejected in high school unless I'd grown too attached for the most part I drifted and needed to be alone). There's more than enough motivation shown there for her to fear being rejected by Heather. The script also cuts a lot from Heather Chandler initially, Veronica's essentially the main character but you're not losing anything in Heather's lines. She's quipy in the script but so much of it's cut.

Side note: convenient-speak sounds way better than 7-11 Speak. Brands didn't want to be associated with the movie any more than Sallinger and Day did.

Another clue (I feel like I'm live reviewing the script now) Betty's described as overweight, which could explain them lumping her into Martha's character in the musical. I love the 50s look they go with for Betty too. It's so her. Oh yeah I forgot Veronica also had a cat called JKF. And you think JD's heavy with the life and death stuff but he equates a condom full of spunk to a dead baby saying it's not hard to end a life. I think you get enough of JD's world view without this, and yeah again you can see producers shaking their head at this stuff. But it doesn't mention JD doing a poor effort of trying to stop Veronica taking the wrong cup, so I feel like this is something clever not considered until later. And Heather's "affection for regurgitation" never struck me as an insult but she's clearly not on her game by then. Or throwing up at a frat is the worst thing you can do so you deserve to be destroyed. There's a reverse kind of Porky's shower scene after Veronica takes a fully clothed shower, where the girls all join in and the guys are pissed and confused they're not seeing nudity.

I think I'm not reading the script I found (I seem to remember Veronica's favourite meal was something Hawaiian ) Oh and I forgot about a creepy scene of the mortician kissing Heather's brow. Betty also gives a nice Christian prayer to Heather we never see. And JD has weird accessories like a Rebel Without a Cause lunchbox and a helmet saying "The Real Killer" on it like the actual gun he owns and the coat don't speak to his persona enough. He has a lot more lines that kinda make him more chipper and excitable than that as well. Some of it really is adult doing what they think kids say. Again, Slater has so much swagger they don't sound right, or they were edited out. Oh, and Veronica almost kills her cat as a joke after JD goes into more explanation over the "I'm Lying" bullets. There's enough there again you can drop the explanation. I was a dumb kid and didn't get the joke that JD's scamming her but it's obvious enough.

You're also missing a throwaway line where one of the cops questions the delay between the two shots, but they're scene to be dutching up their car so them being stoned is translated. And it's a commentary on lazy 80s cops who steal evidence anyway. What irritated me about the musical was Veronica's confession. The movie sells everyone buying the suicides so well you can totally believe the lack of suspicion. The teachers reconvening includes the English teacher tutting the bad spelling in Kurt's note compared to her praise of Heather's. I like there isn't too much call back shit in this too.

Instead of "Everybody's sad but it's a weird kind of sad", we traded good for weird. And she brings God into it saying it's him vs JD. I vaguely remember the line but it doesn't fit. Religion's kinda glossed over. And there's not a lot of harping on about the media coverage compared to the script. (The one thing that drives me nuts about the copies I have of the movie was for some reason, the kid yelling from offscreen "fuck you" to Flem telling them to lock their paws isn't in my version. I have it on the VHS one but not the DVD. I think I gave someone another DVD copy I had so I'm actually considering hunting down the region 4 version to see if it's different PS I have two versions of the Last Unicorn for ironically this very reason - can't say damn in cartoons. PPS as of now since I found this on streaming services, same line's cut out, like was there someone who hated the editor for leaving it in because it's so perfectly timed).

Another difference I didn't pick up was Veronica sees Flem's publicity stunt as something good and there's a moment the cliques are told to get together by Flemming to prove peer pressure is dead at Westerburg (fun fact two: school's named after Paul Westerburg) whereas in the movie she's immediately cynical and calls it chaos. JD's argument they're scaring people into not being assholes holds up more against Veronica believing Flem has the answer. She even tries to convince JD going with Flem's way is the better way (the our way is not "our way" thing actually didn't hit me until way later). Big Fun's video doesn't make it into the movie, JD seems to think there's some celebrity and acclaim coming his way from it but the radio scene is a lot less cornier. The script really tries to sell the anti-media angle too. JD even throws the "You used to have a sense of humor" line at her and Veronica wants to side with Flem when the movie makes it clear she hates it.

Catcher makes more sense when JD's convincing Heather Duke of a hostile take over, but Moby Dick still sort of works too. Sort of. I bet the writer was pissed for having to make that change with a public domain book. Guess the lesson is never reference living authors. And Heather Duke is spooked by JD's offer more than suspicious of it and she has a more mystical transformation than the movie sells it as. Heather Chandler's dead and she's instantly more confident. Seeing her with the scrunchy and her stealing the keys is adequate. I feel like the writer's kind of assuming he's too smart and the audience won't get it.

Veronica really tries to work Flem's angle I guess to show a dichotomy between JDs way and hers, but I'm glad they scrapped it and made her more critical of it. And there's a delightful scene where Veronica's trying to apologise to Heather Duke to salvage the friendship like they can survive this while Heather's sucking David from Remmington's cock. I don't get croquet enough to get Veronica knocking Betty out anyway. The script makes it like a resignation. Betty's right. She'll always finish last. Veronica and Heather have a fight over the TV special they're organising, all this BS would've dragged the movie down to a fucking snail's pace. I think I'm reading a different version to the one I had too, I don't remember a lot of this at all, certainly not a televised picnic. It's all geared to get the school publicity but again it's bogus and kind of reads like a weird dream sequence. I thought I'd copied this version but I don't think it's the one I read now. It moves back to an opening scene where Veronica's running down the street and again there's no mention of her standing in for a croquet hoop. I'm sure the script I read had a similar scene where they're just playing. Yeah I found it. The shooting script was much different. But it's not the one with the different favourite meal. I actually wish I could find the copy I had now.

I could do a side by side comparison of these two drafts all on its own right now. The shooting draft has a more cynical Veronica. There's no mention of the picnic, it's "doing Chinese at the Food Fair" (12 year old me took that as making Chinese food at an actual school food fair) I think the TV show thing makes Heather Dukes funeral make more sense with the armbands and 3D glasses. I like the movie toned all this shit down.

I know the script I had ended with the prom scene. I read an article discussing it, I don't know what I did with it. Which is weird considering how much I've salvaged from high school. I started this post to prove things the musical got wrong may have had more to do with the original author but I've gotten sidetracked. I didn't think Heather M had to be in the final scene of the musical with Martha and Veronica. But I think the musical doesn't have Heather's attempted suicide, which is a beautifully shot scene in the movie. The ethereal lighting and colours of the film just seem so unique compared to movies out at the time. Even the Heathers not being conventionally dressed you could still buy the preppy shoulder pad look and how they all made it look sexy and convincing. And it works when they look overdressed for the frat party. There really aren't many movies that pulled off the content and subject matter that well. The homages are fine, you can put up with a line showing up in Gilmore Girls I guess. But the musical? I won't go near the TV show knowing how badly half a song from the movie pissed me off.

It's a sacred text. A sequel would've sucked so hard but Ryder wanted it badly once her career was flagging. I don't know. I rant too much these days and it's late. I should go to bed. This week has been weird.

Whenever I find a movie I like has been made into a musical, I'm going to come here and rant myself to death in protest. Why? Fucking why? I'm serious about this. Not every single movie needs to be one, and if you see a hole in the market, it seems like people will just make unofficial musicals anyway. The idea of a stage play version isn't anywhere near as bad, especially for the Breakfast Club (I looked it up because my list of favourite movies turning into musicals is growing) being nearly a bottle movie confined to one massive room you could easily turn into a full stage. But Benny and Joon? Why have a song about raisins? One of the pieces on the soundtrack is called Raisins. The score's quite lovely and well produced, it suits the quirkiness and the drama, so why a musical? Who is this genuinely for? Have we stopped writing musicals from nothing? Did Hamilton make you feel sad because you can't rap and your musical theatre chums aren't getting work, so you'll reimagine a movie as a musical? For who? Who IS THIS FOR?