Ugh. How on earth did Lloyd Webber lose the plot so completely?
That was pretty much the response of a lot of the fandom at the time ;-p Including at least one faction of Erik/Christine shippers whose reaction was 'if we'd known that this was what we were going to get after wishing all those years for an E/C sequel, we would rather not have had our wishes granted!'
Basically the plot tramples all over the Phantom's prior redemption (instead of choosing to let Christine go of his own free will, we are now informed that it was she who inexcusably chose to abandon him) and presents him as a thoroughly unadmirable character whom we are told that we must like, because characters who disagree with him are culpable and Bad. (When Raoul snaps at Gustave for demanding his attention, this is presented as Raoul being unreasonable. When the Phantom snaps at Meg for demanding his attention, that is presented as *Meg* being unreasonable!)
So there were devoted fans who hated the show for giving Erik his happy ending and then snatching it away, there were fans who hated it for turning Christine into a mere reward to be passed around and then killing her off, there were fans who hated it for giving Raoul a complete personality transplant, and there were even a small but dedicated band of Giry-fans who hated it for what it does to Meg and her mother. And, to be fair, there were fans who loved it because it Proves that Christine Really Loved Erik All Along, and because it was The Return of Our Beloved Phantom, and because Erik gets a son (even if at the cost of the death of the boy's mother).
I think the non-fandom critics without an emotional axe to grind generally concurred on 'some good music but a weak storyline' (Guardian review: "Although Lloyd Webber's score is full of gems, in the end a musical is only as good as its book").
For my part I *wasn't* a massive "Phantom" fan when I came across "Love Never Dies" -- in fact, I'd only ever heard the big hit numbers from "Phantom of the Opera" and generally gathered the gist of the plot and characters from those -- and all I could remember of those original LND production reviews was that the show had run for a short time in London and been adjudged a general flop. I knew in advance that the fans hated it "because Christine dies", so that aspect didn't exactly come as a shock. And I did like a great deal what little I'd heard of the music -- if I hadn't, I'd never have bothered to go looking in the first place.
Even so, I found that the storyline felt horribly forced and just didn't make sense in terms of the characters' behaviour: the whole supposed big climax of 'Christine gets to choose again, and choose *right* this time' doesn't deliver as intended, because Christine hasn't the faintest idea what is going on behind her back, and is given no opportunity to make any decision, either by the author or by the two men who are using her as a pawn in their argument. In fact the musical has to take care to kill her off before she can find out the truth; she is never given a chance to ask inconvenient questions!
no subject
That was pretty much the response of a lot of the fandom at the time ;-p
Including at least one faction of Erik/Christine shippers whose reaction was 'if we'd known that this was what we were going to get after wishing all those years for an E/C sequel, we would rather not have had our wishes granted!'
Basically the plot tramples all over the Phantom's prior redemption (instead of choosing to let Christine go of his own free will, we are now informed that it was she who inexcusably chose to abandon him) and presents him as a thoroughly unadmirable character whom we are told that we must like, because characters who disagree with him are culpable and Bad. (When Raoul snaps at Gustave for demanding his attention, this is presented as Raoul being unreasonable. When the Phantom snaps at Meg for demanding his attention, that is presented as *Meg* being unreasonable!)
So there were devoted fans who hated the show for giving Erik his happy ending and then snatching it away, there were fans who hated it for turning Christine into a mere reward to be passed around and then killing her off, there were fans who hated it for giving Raoul a complete personality transplant, and there were even a small but dedicated band of Giry-fans who hated it for what it does to Meg and her mother. And, to be fair, there were fans who loved it because it Proves that Christine Really Loved Erik All Along, and because it was The Return of Our Beloved Phantom, and because Erik gets a son (even if at the cost of the death of the boy's mother).
I think the non-fandom critics without an emotional axe to grind generally concurred on 'some good music but a weak storyline' (Guardian review: "Although Lloyd Webber's score is full of gems, in the end a musical is only as good as its book").
For my part I *wasn't* a massive "Phantom" fan when I came across "Love Never Dies" -- in fact, I'd only ever heard the big hit numbers from "Phantom of the Opera" and generally gathered the gist of the plot and characters from those -- and all I could remember of those original LND production reviews was that the show had run for a short time in London and been adjudged a general flop. I knew in advance that the fans hated it "because Christine dies", so that aspect didn't exactly come as a shock. And I did like a great deal what little I'd heard of the music -- if I hadn't, I'd never have bothered to go looking in the first place.
Even so, I found that the storyline felt horribly forced and just didn't make sense in terms of the characters' behaviour: the whole supposed big climax of 'Christine gets to choose again, and choose *right* this time' doesn't deliver as intended, because Christine hasn't the faintest idea what is going on behind her back, and is given no opportunity to make any decision, either by the author or by the two men who are using her as a pawn in their argument. In fact the musical has to take care to kill her off before she can find out the truth; she is never given a chance to ask inconvenient questions!