I can't imagine a big intersection of sci-fi and musical fans.
Why not? God knows I'm a big fan of both.
Nothing says that a person can't be a fan of both. I like both as well. However, in terms of percentages, the dominant demographics are different, so there figures to be some limit to the intersection of the two sets. It's not like "watches football" and "drinks beer".
I've never heard of "Into the Woods" before.
I'll have to check that out one day. At this point I think I've seen most Hollywood musicals.
Hollywood hasn't done
Into the Woods yet. The Broadway production that AdmDave mentioned having taped is available on DVD. You might consider putting it on your Netflix queue.
It's a lot of fun. It stitches together several very familar fairy tales (and one new one) into one crossover universe. The thing is, the "happily ever after" point that we all remember happens at the end of the first act (intermission), not at the end.
Other than "Cats". That soundtrack doesn't thrill me. Although hearing "Memories" would be cool, that is a nice song.
I like some attempt at a vague plot in my musicals.
I guess that's why "All that Jazz" also disappointed me a bit.
To my knowledge, Hollywood hasn't attempted
Cats, either. I have never gotten around to seeing
Cats.
I did really like
All That jazz, though. It is basically a character study, but there is an arc involved for that central character. It never struck me as being a plot-free movie.
You must have hated
A Chorus Line. Now, *that* had no plot. Of course, I still loved it. That is, I loved the stage version when I saw a national touring company perform it way back when (circa 1980). The movie version, on the other hand, I dispised. I suspect that I would have thought it was OK if I hadn't seen the stage version first. However, the movie destroyed everything that was great about the original, aside from some of the music. Even with the music that they kept, though, there were cases where really screwed it up. I hated that they completely changed the context of the song "What I Did for Love" so that it meant something *completely* different in the movie than it had on stage.
Although I've always wondered what "Fiddler" would have been like if they'd cast the man who played it on the stage: Zero Mostel, IIRC.
I"ve never heard him sing.
Mostel, particularly with the greater intimacy of film, would have come off much more comically over-the-top. It would have played much more as a farce. I'm sure that Mostel was wonderful on Broadway. However, for maximizing the emotional and intellectual complexity, and for bringing home the more painful and tragic elements of
Fiddler, I think that Jewison made the right call in going with Topol over Mostel in the movie.
If you want to see Zero Mostel in a major motion picture musical (adapted from Broadway), check out
A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It's fun, assuming that you like farce (and I know some people who don't). It won't be everybody's sense of humor ...... picture
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as a musical set in ancient Rome and you're getting in the ballpark of the basic tone (and, of course, Phil Silvers is in both of them).
Oh, and as for the other musical asked about in the original post: I've seen
Joseph performed in community theater, but not professionally.
