> Wow all this for a movie. I personally think Butler did a great job and I
> thought the movie brought out more to the book than the stage production.
> However, it may be that most people have not actually picked up the
> classic novel and read it so you have no way to compare. The whole impact
> of the book and movie were to make you feel for the phantom. In the end
> you are suppose to cheer for the phantom and empathize with his plight, to
> actually see him as a man and not a poor creature disfigured. The madness
> came from being shunned not who he really was. As much and I loved
> Crawford and Brightman there is no taking away from the powerful
> performance of "The point of no return". The ability of Joel
> Schumacher to incorportate a feeling of the stage performance was
> magnificent. Also, keeping the signifigance of the rose and incorporting
> the trap and keeping your hand at the level of your eyes. Again one must
> have an appreciation for the exceptional piece of litirature and to
> understand how you pull those feelings out of the novel and into a
> brilliant movie. Maybe I am just being a female and seeing the overall.

if you are suggesting that this movie is close to the novel....i have no clue of where you are coming from. the face...downplayed instead of "...with the four black holes of its eyes, its nose, and its mouth, the extreme anger, the mighty fury of a demon; and not a ray of light from the sockets, for, as i learned later, you cannot see his blazing eyes except in the dark" there is a bad sunburn that really doesn't look that terrible unless you look at it in a certain light. instead of "And, when I turned away my head and begged for mercy, he drew it to him, brutally, twisting his dead fingers into my hair...Then he hissed at me. 'Ah, I frighten you, do I?...I dare say!...Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this...this...my head is a mask? Well,' he roared, 'tear it off as you did the other! Come! Come along! I insist! Your hands! Your hands! Give me your hands!' And he seized my hands and dug them into his awful face. He tore his flesh with my nails, tore his terrible dead flesh with my nails!" he just knocks some candles over and calls christine a few names and then sits down and talks a bit (or sings rather...as is typical of him:). may i say that in the book he falls over sobbing hysterically and saying he's sorry over and over and over and then crawls away into his room and starts banging out don juan on his organ (which...incidently...is never performed). they left out faust. they left out the torture chamber which takes up a good 4 chapters in the book. the left out the scorpion and the grasshopper (i found that amusing). they changed the name of the managers...never even mentioned erik's name...changed buquet's death and the role of madame giry (who is only a boxkeeper who knows a bit more than most about erik). they left out the whole graveyard resurrection of lazarus and raoul seeing the "death's head" and the hand. changed christine's personality. took out the fact that raoul was desperately trying to find out about erik and christine telling him no leave me alone leave him alone i can't tell you. and the whole secret meeting at the masked ball. and then erik telling her wear this ring you're not allowed to marry or see anyone else. and the whole christine going a bit mad and her having huge shadows around her eyes. the ENTIRE CHARACTER of the persion...who is a main character in the last thrid to half of the book. again the torture chamber. the gunpowerder and erik losing it when he swears that he'll blow up the whole opera and this half of paris and then the whole "the grasshopper! the grashopper! be careful of the grasshopper! a grasshopper not only turns it hops! it hops! and it hops jolly high!" and "the wedding mass or the requiem mass?" and all that insane erikness. leaves out the fact that HE DIES.
many of these things (hackhackpersianhackhack) are incredibly important. the now let's think about the movie...managers different names...think of me and that whole "christine daae could sing it" out of the blue...they did put in little lotte but forgot about the red scarf (which they did have in the musical at some point i believe...took it out...canadian cast maybe? i dono) the whole thing that meg followed in has nothing to do with anything...they did put cesar in there...but forgot about him being stolen from the stables...the lair...wow let's not even go there...the book has christine's room erik's room the louis-philippe room and all that jazz. then the whole "carlotta's leaving" thing...yeah. then there's il muto (never happened) and then buquet dying..al wrong. the rooftop...she didn't tell him all about the weird stuff (that never really happened) and didn't explain that she was bound to him. but that was one of the most accurate scenes (it did show that erik was there). then madame giry's story is completely invented. then the whole don juan triumphant...it was never performed. there was this whole thing about erik having been composing it all his life and taking two weeks at a time to just compose and not eat or sleep or anything and that when he finished it he would take it into his coffin-bed with him (which wasn't in the movie) and never wake up. so yes then raoul falling in the water...that must have been some sort of torture chamber appearance that was VERY poorly done if it was supposed to be incorporating the book. then the way that erik let them go was also completely different and THERE WAS NO PERSIAN. and then at the end it shows raoul returning to christine's grave and finding the rose and the ring. christine and raoul ran away and were never seen again so there would be no grave for them most likely and certainly not in paris. and more importantly...erik died soon after christine left him and so there would be no way for him to put the rose and ring there. that was a big deal...that he died of unrequited love. and then leroux was telling us that yes we should pity him because all he ever wanted was to be a normal man that takes his wife out on sundays and all the jazz.
now that i've rambled on for forever...i must say what my point it. it's not that the musical is not good. it's not that they should have incorporated more of the book or stayed true to it. it's not that excluding any of this makes it bad. it IS that since so much of this in entirely different...you cannot choose the movie being closer to the book as your arguement because...yeah read the above. now if you're saying that the movie is closer to the book THAN THE MUSICAL it still makes no difference because many of the lines from the musical that drew you back to the novel were excluded and anything they added (raoul falling into the water...the horse) is so small that it is basically irrelevant and many of the references were incorrect anyway. so yes. there is my point. choose a different arguement.
i have a distinct feeling that if gaston leroux were to see this movie (or the musical for that matter), he would have a heart attack.