# Why didn't any of you bastards tell me there was a LES MIZ musical coming? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 30, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603 "2012-11-30T19:46:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/21 "2012-11-30T21:29:17Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Maybe if there had been sliced bread then, Valjean would have been excused. “All I did was steal a slice of bread” – well, OK then. I adore the musical but my objection is Amanda Seyfried as Cosette. Cosette is a reserved dark-haired woman (OK, at least in my head); Seyfried should be playing Eponine. If I were to agree with that, it would be because I like Seyfried, love Eponine (damn your stupid eyes, Marius! You’ll pay for your role in her death, you bastard!) but despise Cosette. Hate her with the heat of a thousand something-or-others. Well, that’s not true. I don’t hate her so much as I find her boring. She’s not quite as bad as Arwen, but she’s up there. On the other hand I want to see tons of Seyfried, and since Cosette gets more story time (I presume) I will grudgingly concede that she should play that role. > [@Pleonast](#): > > The poll doesn’t have the option “Why don’t you know how to spell _Les Mis_ correctly?”. No pudding for you. I did spell it correctly: with a Z. That’s how Athena spells it; that’s how Patrick Jane spells it; that’s how Xena woulda spelled it. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/22 "2012-11-30T21:33:55Z")
Of course, as I make mention of the many blonde Cosette’s and brunette Eponine’s I’ve seen (come to think of it, both PBS performances I’ve seen were the same), I’ve also always seen a blonde Fantine and yet we get Ms. Hatheway. So I guess traditions are there to be broken. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/23 "2012-11-30T21:40:58Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > I’m not doubting your word, I just find it interesting how people can have such disparate experiences. Same thing with the Judge Dredd thread where some people said they were bombarded with ads and others said they had no idea it existed. Movie ads are very selectively targeted. I have no children and rarely encounter any entertainment intended for children, so children’s movies basically don’t exist for me (I think there are penguins involved – maybe singing penguins?) OTOH, I watch massive numbers of costume dramas both on film and on television, so I feel like I’ve been bombarded with information about the Les Mis movie (also, my mother is obsessed with the musical). My favorite is when ads are targeted differently for different audiences. You might see an ad for an exciting action movie, with lots of explosions, while I will invariably see an ad highlighting the romance that might be only incidental to the plot. Oh, and I only learned about the Hobbit movie when the thread popped up a few weeks ago, although it had been originally started in 2010. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/24 "2012-11-30T21:47:10Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Of course, as I make mention of the many blonde Cosette’s and brunette Eponine’s I’ve seen (come to think of it, both PBS performances I’ve seen were the same), I’ve also always seen a blonde Fantine and yet we get Ms. Hatheway. So I guess traditions are there to be broken. :: restrains rage:: _Cosettes_. _Eponines_. Pluralizing with apostrophes is for children and Welshmen. As for missing the ads: I haven’t seen a movie in theatres since that last Batman one (my word, how it sucked!) and when I watch TV it’s usually on the dvr set to skip commercials. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/25 "2012-11-30T21:47:24Z")
What planet was the rock you’ve been hiding under on? There’s been talk in the press circling for quite a while. The major names signed on well over a year ago and have been getting PR for it ever since. The trailer was on the Tony Awards broadcast. And in the past few months, they’ve previewed and advertised it _everywhere_. This wasn’t a secret. In other news, Generalissimo Franco is still dead. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2012, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/26 "2012-11-30T23:11:31Z")
It’s getting freaking RAVE reviews from those who have seen it. Expect tons of Oscar nominations and possibly wins. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/27 "2012-12-01T01:27:57Z")
I saw it on Broadway years ago. I slept through the middle three hours, but I endured the first and last three hours wide awake. Mine Gott In Himmel! It was worse than the book. And it took me about four years to get “Master of the House” out of my head! ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/28 "2012-12-01T01:33:12Z")
I’m hoping to get a babysitter when this comes out. If so, it might be the only movie I get to see in the theater this year. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/29 "2012-12-01T02:22:14Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Of course, as I make mention of the many blonde Cosette’s and brunette Eponine’s I’ve seen (come to think of it, both PBS performances I’ve seen were the same), I’ve also always seen a blonde Fantine and yet we get Ms. Hatheway. So I guess traditions are there to be broken. The first Fantine was Patti Lupone, most definitely a brunette. ---
**Author:** ![storyteller0910](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@storyteller0910](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/storyteller0910)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/30 "2012-12-01T03:35:55Z")
They released a couple of short preview clips today: Javert and Valjean at the opening, the end of “I Dreamed a Dream” with Fantine and the factory foreman, a bit of “On My Own,” a bit of “A Heart Full of Love.” I really like all of it, but especially Anne Hathaway. ---
**Author:** ![Rollo\_Tomasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@Rollo\_Tomasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rollo_Tomasi)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/31 "2012-12-01T04:11:52Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > Movie ads are very selectively targeted. I have no children and rarely encounter any entertainment intended for children, so children’s movies basically don’t exist for me (I think there are penguins involved – maybe singing penguins?) OTOH, I watch massive numbers of costume dramas both on film and on television, so I feel like I’ve been bombarded with information about the Les Mis movie (also, my mother is obsessed with the musical). > > My favorite is when ads are targeted differently for different audiences. You might see an ad for an exciting action movie, with lots of explosions, while I will invariably see an ad highlighting the romance that might be only incidental to the plot. > > Oh, and I only learned about the Hobbit movie when the thread popped up a few weeks ago, although it had been originally started in 2010. I usually go to a Regal multiplex, and I’ve seen the extended preview (the one that features the actors talking about the live singing) in front of every single movie I’ve seen there since at least September. Seriously, not an exaggeration. Everything from **Lincoln** to **Frankenweenie** to **Skyfall**. I’m looking forward to the movie half because I want to see it, and half because I want to stop seeing that damn preview, and I assume they’ll stop showing it once the movie’s released. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/32 "2012-12-01T04:15:18Z")
We saw the trailer for it tonight. Now I’m gonna have to take SWMBO to see it. I hate Les Miz. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/33 "2012-12-01T05:28:29Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > You know, it’s possible to love BOTH super-heroes AND musicals. I remind you that the doomed\* Hugh Jackman has done both. > > As for the earworms, I have already directed seventeen of the Bellucci slapbots to sneak into your house tonight and sing the entire thing for you. > > - For various complicated reasons. You made a mistake and ordered the [Bertolucci](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000934/) slapbots instead. Sorry, **silenus**. More nekkid Bertolucci for you. StG ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/34 "2012-12-01T06:43:01Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > The first Fantine was Patti Lupone, most definitely a brunette. Yeah…[in a blond wig](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNNPWvUqB-U). ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/35 "2012-12-01T11:12:49Z")
Yeah, nobody wears their own hair on Broadway. Not even Bernadette Peters anymore - but her wigs are styled to look like her own fabulous hair. Even with fabulous hair, it’s much easier to run microphone wires under a wig. And when you create a show like Les Mis, you create the \*look \*of it, and keeping that consistent from city to city and actor to actor is vastly easier with wigs. There are more than one actual Eponine wig in existence in more than one city, of course. But when you buy the rights to do the show, you also buy the rights to rent the wigs, costumes and other things that make it \*look \*like the show. I never understood why the wig design for Fantine is blonde, but Cosette is the blonde little girl and isn’t Fantine’s. And to make it worse, the poster/iconic painting shows the blonde waif with the broom, but Cosette’s clearly never swept a floor in her life. It goes against all art direction logic, and had me very confused the first time I saw the show. I thought \*Cosette \*was Fantine’s daughter, which made for a bizarre interpretation of the family dynamic at the inn. Of course, when they decided to do the movie, they had their own art direction department, and they have different microphone technology and different needs to consider with cameras, so they redid the character designs, costumes, makeup and hair. Anne Hathaway wanted her own hair cut off for the infamous scene - possible for the movie, not so much for stage. I’m glad they kept her hair dark for it - she doesn’t look right as a blonde, and now Eponine looks more like her mother. **Skald** , now maybe you’ll realize the dangers of time shifting with your DVR. Sure, you’ve avoided lots of reptilian themed car insurance ads, but you nearly missed the most exciting movie development EVER! ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/36 "2012-12-01T11:24:28Z")
:smack: Sweet Athena, I think my brain leaked out my ears with my ability to sleep. Please ignore everything I wrote in the second paragraph…Fantine \*is \*Cosette’s mother, not Eponine’s, blah blah…I’m confused about my confusion. Except the bit about the wigs. Wigs are important. I’m still an idiot. Do I get partial credit for the apostrophes? ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/37 "2012-12-01T14:31:53Z")
Umm, we didn’t want to spoil the surprise? (And about those slapbots, are they available for rent?) ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/38 "2012-12-01T15:04:10Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Eponine looks more like her mother. This is a point…Samantha Barks really does look like she could be HBC’s daughter. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/39 "2012-12-01T15:59:22Z")
My daughter and I are going to the first show on Xmas day. Not too excited by Seyfried, whom I’d never heard of, but I like the rest of the casting - especially the choice of Samantha Barks as Eponine. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603/40 "2012-12-01T16:06:37Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > My daughter and I are going to the first show on Xmas day. Not too excited by Seyfried, whom I’d never heard of You’re going to the very first show with your daughter, and yet somehow never got around to seeing MAMMA MIA? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-any-of-you-bastards-tell-me-there-was-a-les-miz-musical-coming/642603.md?page=3)