16 Changes Movie Adaptations Of Musicals Always Make That Are Just Flat-Out Annoying

Let's be honest, we all skip "Suddenly" on the Les Misérables soundtrack. And...look, I love Zefron as much as the next girl, but "Ladies Choice" is nowhere close to my favorite song on the Hairpsray soundtrack.

Allow me to rant about the live-action Beauty and the Beast for a moment — I'm sorry, but the only "Evermore" I acknowledge is the one by Miss Taylor Swift. The Beast had MULTIPLE great songs in the Broadway musical, including "How Long Must This Go On?" and "If I Can't Love Her" and its reprise. Why write an entirely new song?? I know the movie is more an adaptation of the animated musical than the Broadway show, but still! I'm sure it took time and money to write a new song! And for what?

I understand that you often have to cut songs from movies because there are simply too many. That's okay. But...don't cut a major climactic song. I still consider it a CRIME to this day that Rent cut the majority of "Goodbye Love," which provided major catharsis and was a huge character moment for Roger and Mark.

Why did Les Misérables release an entire soundtrack with only like half the songs? And can you imagine...a version of Phantom of the Opera...with only 13 songs...?

I will NEVER be over the fact that the Hairspray movie changed "Without Love" so that Link was singing to Tracy's photo instead of Tracy herself. This change was made to adjust for the fact that Tracy wasn't arrested, I guess (but wouldn't that have made it even easier to have Link and Tracy sing together in person?). But it also messed with some of the lyrics of the song, which means whenever the movie version of the song comes on, I sing the wrong lyrics, and for that alone I am angry.

I know Into the Woods had a lot of characters, but it still feels like they reduced or erased a lot in the film in favor of focusing on some of the stars.

In the Hairspray musical, Tracy is arrested just for protesting. In the movie, she actually hits a cop with her sign. While it's obviously not meant to hurt him, she technically is "assaulting an officer." This A) makes the arrest of everyone else more frustrating, because you can kind of blame it on Tracy/her thinking she has immunity as a white girl (which is especially frustrating because she runs away, leaving the mostly Black protestors to face the punishment for her actions) and B) waters down the message of racist cops who don't even need an excuse to break up a protest. And THEN, no one even seems to get arrested (unlike the play, in which almost the entire cast is arrested), which again waters down the message of racist police.

Did the Genie really need a love interest in the live-action Aladdin? I feel like his story was so much more about freedom than love — in fact, one thing I love about Aladdin is that although it is a love story, none of the characters set out to find love. In a way, they're all looking for freedom — so this subplot just didn't land for me.

There are SO many examples of this. I'm not trying to be mean (sorry to these men) — I honestly really like these actors and think they did a decent job, because in the end it really is more about the acting. BUT...there are SO many amazing singers AND actors out there who aren't as famous who could've been cast. That's not to say don't cast celebs — Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson, and Jamie Foxx were all amazing in Dreamgirls! Just make sure they can sing!

Cats is basically a glorified dance recital with fancy costumes and nonsensical music — the dancing is the #1 draw. So someone tell me why they cast James Corden, Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, etc. instead of professional dancers.

Broadway can get away with this because we can't really see them up close. But...as much as I love you, Ben Platt, you simply cannot pass for 17-year-old Evan Hansen onscreen for this upcoming Dear Evan Hansen adaptation. I know the movie's not out yet, but why didn't they cast one of the other amazing Evan actors?

Another thing Broadway shows are more flexible on is race. Revivals of shows like Phantom and Les Mis have become much more diverse, even if the characters are white in the source material/historical context. Unfortunately, films often go back to casting white characters to play these parts. Your response to this may be "film is a more accurate and less speculative medium," but hey, that didn't stop Les Mis from casting a bunch of people with bad British accents in a play set in France. And if the play isn't historically about a group of people who were likely white (like, say, 1800s opera attendees), then there is literally no reason not to have a diverse cast. Like, why the hell was everyone in Into the Woods white? And almost everyone in Mamma Mia!

Chris D'Arienzo, the writer of the Rock of Ages musical and the original writer-director for the film, was fired from the film, and said of the parts he had seen: "There feels like an underlying disdain — or at best, dismissive sense — of the era and the music." He also claimed that Adam Shankman, who took over directing, didn't like the stage show. And...well, the proof is in the pudding in this one. If the creator of the musical is pushed out from the movie and calls it bad, that's a pretty big mistake.

Look, it may sound like I have a lot of issues with movie musicals, and I do. But the worst thing of all? Not making them at all (with the exception of animal-based plays like Cats and The Lion King). When are we getting Wicked??!