Basing Love Never Dies On Phantom Of Manhattan

[ErikaLeroux]

This thread is for the discussion of the book that Love Never Dies is based on.

I'll start it off by saying that Andrew Lloyd Webber should have seen all this coming when he decided to base Love Never Dies on a book that a large group of the Phantom community can not stand. I have read the book and would love to know what Andrew Lloyd Webber was thinking when he decided to base LND on that book because as far as I'm concerned that book, even as a sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of the Phantom of the Opera instead of the original, is the worst Phantom related book I have ever read. If it were written differently and stayed far far away from the Leroux novel instead of bashing the original in its preface after leading you to believe this book is pro Leroux I might not hate it nearly as much as I do now. Would I read it again? Depends on how well written it was.

Here's a quote from Arthur Laurents to think about before replying: "The book must always come first. A good score cannot survive a bad book."

No matter how great the music, sets, costumes, and etc, are if the book/plot stinks the show will go no where.

Thoughts?

[phantomstudent]

Actually, I've never read the book, so I can't comment. How much different though is the sequel on stage from the book? Does it follow it closely? Is it just the idea of going to Coney Island, etc., the turn off? From what I've heard, it doesn't follow it that closely, but since I haven't read it, I can't say. Can someone chime in on that point?

[TransylvanianRose]

I have not read the book either, but if this is plot of POM... oh dear! Story is so dull, characters so totally destroyed... what on Earth was ALW thinking?!

[ErikaLeroux]

phantomstudent It doesn't follow it to a T but it doesn't majorly deviate. There are some things that I think somehow managed to be handled better in the book then the sequel { Did I just compliment PoM? *shudders* } and vice versa. I highly recommend reading it so you can have your own opinion on it instead of one based on hearsay but avoid the wine or you might get plastered { unless you like Love Never Dies than maybe you wouln't get plastered }. I think if someone were to sit here and disect every little difference between the book and the stage version you would be here for a while reading their post and I really have no interest in reading the book again just to do that { though I may read it again later for an in depth youtube review/rant }.

TransylvanianRose I don't know. I just don't know. I do recommend reading the book though { I read it as part of my never ending { the Aussie version is next } research on Love Never Dies } after all you might run out of firewood and need something to burn in your fireplace. And now that I've said that little line of "nasty" about PoM I would like to clarify that no I will not hate you if you like PoM. We may have differing opinions on the book but that doesn't mean I'm going to treat you like any less of a human being because of it.

[bricabrac]

I've read Phantom of Manhattan and have a copy I use for reference. I am among those who think it was NOT a very good novel and as a sequel to any Phantom of the Opera stories, it's not as good as some fan fiction sequels I've read. Forsyth and ALW collaborated on the story and Forsyth wrote the book, which deservedly made its way quickly to the remainder tables in book stores. Forsyth went back to writing the kind of book he does well.

Lloyd Webber, unfortunately from my point of view, never gave up completely on the story, and eventually when Ben Elton suggested that he omit all of Forsyth's original characters and focus on the major characters from POTO, he took Forsyth's four page plot synopsis and came up with the story/show book for LND. Others contributed, but I am pretty sure the main concept and writing was ALW's. Elton wrote no more than the synopsis.

Besides leaving out Forsyth's characters, the LND story keeps Madame Giry alive (she dies in the novel) and makes Raoul a drunk and a gambler. Forsyth wrote him as a man who had been wounded and was incapable of fathering a child---but raised Christine's son as his own. He was a good guy in Phantom of Manhattan. In a death-bed letter, Giry tells the Phantom that he has a son.

It's been a while since I read the book, but I think there was NONE of the Meg-goes-mad subplot. Christine was shot by an evil Forsyth character, Darius, not Meg. As I recall, Darius was trying to shoot Christine's son for reasons having something to do with preventing the Phantom from deserting Darius and the worship of Mammon (...right...), and Christine takes the bullet. I found the whole Darius/Mammon worship part of the story distasteful and tedious.

Incredibly, the son chooses to stay with his blood father whom he has hardly met, let alone gotten to know in any way, rather than going back to France with the only man he has known as a father. LND at least gives him some reason to see the Phantom as his father (I'm sure that making Raoul a drunk/gambler was a plot device ALW thought necessary to make the boy's staying with the Phantom more plausible as well as making Christine look less of a wanton woman), and "The Beauty Underneath" is supposed to show a link between the two.

The Phantom arranges for Christine to see and hear a Monkey Music box so that she knows who is around and then traps her in a House of Mirrors . He asks her to stay with him, but she say she can't; she loves Raoul. Then he reveals that he knows about his son and wants her to give the boy to him. She says she will let the boy decide when he is 18. Phantom agrees, and in gratitude, she says she will sing for him.

In Forsyth, the Phantom had built an opera house an written an opera. She sings in it, and he, heavily disguised, joins her. Afterward, as the Chagny family is about to leave for Paris, Darius attacks, Christine dies, the kid stays with the Phantom, and Raoul goes back to Paris.

[ErikaLeroux]

Thanks Bricabrac!

I'm of the mentality that PoM as a sequel to Leroux is just plain absurd { considering that the Phantom dies at the end of the original book }. As a sequel to the Lloyd Webber version it's slightly better { mostly because it isn't really confirmed at the end of the ALW version that the Phantom dies } but it's still absurd. At least in PoM neither Meg nor Raoul go off the deep end { though Meg becomes Christine's maid -__- } and in PoM when Christine hears the music box she practically has a coronary and goes flying into the room like a madwoman and it's pretty safe to say she isn't happy to see the Phantom in this book for the most part { unlike LND where she practically orgasms herself into oblivion the moment he enters the room *vomits* }. As far as major character rapeage is concerned the Phantom and even Madame Giry in a way are the ones who get the most character raping in PoM. Then there's Darius who's supposed to be the equivalent of the Daroga from the original novel but Forsyth uses the Daroga's servant's name { I had kind of thought the name Darius sounded familiar and it majorly ticked me off once I read the Leroux again and was reminded why Forsyth!Darius' name sounded so familiar } which means that Darius is not only major character raping of one person but TWO! GAH!!! Needless to say I abhor this book and in my opinion it is one of the worst things to happen to POTO. Do I hate those that like the book? NO!! Don't expect me to hide my opinion of the book from them though because I wouln't just like I don't think they should lie to me about whether they like the book or not. Phantom of Manhattan has some things that are handled in it better then in Love Never Dies but then again Love Never Dies has some things that are handled in it better than Phantom of Manhattan. Just because something is handled better in one of those two version doesn't mean it's any good but yeah....

[droney]

I read Phantom of Manhattan a while back (before Love Never Dies was around), and read it again when news leaked out that the sequel was going to be based on that book.

I have no problem with sequels, really. Heaven knows I've written my fair share of them for Phantom of the Opera (even to Love Never Dies!). As an avid writer, I don't want to discourage people from putting their ideas about how Phantom should have ended, could have ended, or would have ended if _______, because I think that's severely limiting the human's capacity for creativity. And I love creativity.

However, I do have my opinions on things. Just because I say something is bad doesn't really mean it's bad; it's just that I think it is. And while I won't go as far as to say "Phantom of Manhattan was a very bad book", it certainly isn't among my favorites.

Love Never Dies is clearly based on, or got most of its plot from, Phantom of Manhattan. However, I think Phantom of Manhattan was better in some areas than Love Never Dies, and I think Love Never Dies is better in some areas. I have to admit that I like the idea of just focusing on the major characters from PotO. Honestly, I don't think I would have been able to follow a musical that had so many subplots and added characters into it. I'm glad a lot of things were cut out (i.e the entire Darius/Mammon thing. Ew!).

However, I think Raoul in Phantom of Manhattan was better. In PoM, he's merely wounded in a sensitive area and is unable to have children. But yet, he treats Christine's son as his own. That is a loving husband, and a loving father. To me, Raoul is an amazing guy in the original Phantom of the Opera (for willing to risk his life to save Christine) and in Phantom of Manhattan (for raising Christine and the Phantom's son as his own and not being terribly angry at Christine). But in Love Never Dies, he's a drunk. An angry drunk who just gets angrier and more drunk as the show progresses, until finally, the climax arrives and he apologizes to Christine for everything he's done to hurt her.

I give Phantom of Manhattan 5 out of 10 stars. It's not my favorite book, but it's not a completely terrible one.

[ErikaLeroux]

I don't have a problem with a sequel either. IDK if I mentioned it before anywhere else on this thread but when I first heard about Love Never Dies { long before it was on stage } I was excited { more Phantomy goodness? Yay! } BUT I was also a little apprehensive { what if the plot is crap? } so obviously I'm not anti any kind of sequel to the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage show but if you give the sequel a crappy plot I'm not going to like the sequel either.

The added characters in PoM were kind of annoying especially the "is the pope Catholic?" guy. GAH!!! *slaps him* Having the sequel focus more on the main characters with very few added people to the plot { the trio are really the only ones added and they don't take over the sequel they just move it along } is definitely an improvement on LND's part. I am so glad they didn't do the whole Darius/Mammon thing because that plot line pissed me off. I'm definitely a Daroga Phangirl so you mess with the Daroga { like Forsyth did } and you don't get any points with me.

PoM!Raoul is MUCH better than LND!Raoul. While he isn't a huge character in the book per se at least he still has more personality than a doorknob unlike in LND where his character is raped beyond recognition. It's nice to see him still marry Christine even though the kid she's expecting isn't his but that doesn't mean I like the plot point of having the Phantom be Pierre's { PoM equivelant to Gustave } dad. I'm sorry but even if the Phantom and Christine ended up together I could much faster see them adopt a kid than have Christine give birth to a kid { mostly because the Phantom would be paranoid that his deformity might be passed down if they have a kid instead of adopting a kid }.

I suppose PoM could be worse { at least Christine doesn't turn into a Mary Sue } but it could be waaaaay better and that is why I don't think LND should have been based on that book. When a huge chunk of the Phantom community absolutely loathes the existence of that book once it was published and everyone read it you would think ALW would realize that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't base his sequel on PoM.

[droney]

I'm not even against the Phantom and Christine having a child together. I've read a lot of fan fiction that had that particular plot line in it, and the stories still turned out to be amazing. In fact, if you're going to have any sort of E/C sequel, I think it's important to have some sort of thing like that happen.

However.

I would have liked to seen it done differently, instead of Christine cheating on Raoul before they were even married, having a one-night stand with the Phantom, and then lying about Gustave's existence. Instead of it being something done out of extreme love for each other (how a child should come into this world, in my humble opinion), it was done out of a spur-of-the-moment one night stand; a major flaw to Christine's character.

I'm definitely glad that they stuck to the main characters and just added the trio. I had totally forgotten about the "is the Pope Catholic?" guy!! *laughs hysterically* I wouldn't be able to follow LND if it had way too many extra characters and small, intricate "background" plots like PoM does. That's the thing you get when you base a stage show off of the book; it has to be condensed, fewer main characters, and fewer background plots in order to make it on stage.

[bricabrac]

I don't have any problem with fan fiction sequels to Leroux or to ALW's Phantom of the Opera, nor do I care how many professional writers produce sequels to either of the two versions, the original or the musical. I can take them or leave them. Read them or ignore them. Several year ago, when I was reading everything connected with Phantom I could find, I read some good ones, fair ones, bad ones.

I see a stage musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber as a sequel to his Phantom of the Opera as a whole different matter. LND is a show that the composer has put his official imprimatur on, and it takes one version of what could come after the end of POTO and makes it the official version. Ignore it if you can. I can't.

When I first heard that ALW was writing a sequel and heard Kiri Te Kanawa sing "The Heart Is Slow To Learn," my first thought was that it was an exciting idea. BUT when I found out that the sequel was to be based on Phantom of Manhattan and read the book, I was not only appalled at the story but thought more seriously about the idea of a stage musical sequel of any kind based on any source material. My conclusion, which has only become more firm as time has passed, is that the original stage musical ends so excellently and beautifully that any official follow-up detracts from that ending and from the musical that I love.

I can't think I would like any sequel they might have come up with, but one based on the plot points taken from Phantom of Manhattan just made it worse.