A Few More Thoughts On Romeo x Juliet

[joiedecombat]

I don't actually like Romeo And Juliet.

I don't like it mostly because, from start to finish, the main characters behave like idiots, and it's their own immaturity and rashness as much as anything that gets them dead. And to top it off, it's not even a believable romance. After all, at the beginning of the play, Romeo is OMG so pining away in love with a girl named Rosalind, right up until he first lays eyes on Juliet and is suddenly "ZOMG, Rosalind who?" - in fact I think that's nearly an exact quote - and then he is thereafter ZOMG so in love with Juliet. And she's going on about "my only love" after a little bit of flirting. And they both jump wildly toward suicide as the solution to their problems when a little rational thought could have helped things along quite a bit.

It's all just so teenaged.

Which I figure is the point; Romeo And Juliet is a tragedy, all right, but the tragedy isn't "woe, why can they never be together" or "woe, why must their families keep on fighting instead of recognizing their True Love." The tragedy is that the two leads' stupid decisions create so much senseless waste.

Which is why I cannot help but be amused by online reviewers who are complaining about the adaptation not being faithful, because making Juliet the Scarlet Pimpernel can only improve things.

This is also why my expectations for the development of the Romeo/juliet pairing in the series are really quite low. The better it's done, of course, the happier I'll be, but I am not insisting that the series sell me on the pairing, because... as of episode one, it's already doing better on that than the original did.

Comments

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware that crossdressing and using swords hotly and being a pimp was a bad thing.

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

I wasn't either! But to hear some of these people talk, you'd think it was.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

Oh fandumb.

[fiddlersgreen.livejournal.com]

Isn't crossdressing, using swords hotly, and being a pimp PRETTY MUCH THE WHOLE PLOT of about 95% of Shakespeare's comedies?

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

That's what I though.

[annwyd.livejournal.com]

I don't particularly dislike the original play--it's got pretty language, Mercutio, and Tybalt--but yeah, it's ridiculously overrated. The tragedy isn't "oh no, true love unfulfilled!" but that politics and stupidity turned what should have been a harmless teenage fling into DETH.

But I fail to see how even people who loved the original play would be upset with the show. First of all, it's Gonzo, and the trailers showed all this stuff. They could easily have decided to, oh, NOT WATCH IT. Second of all--it's supposed to be 26 episodes! Of course they have to change it from the original! *facepalm*

[joiedecombat.livejournal.com]

Mercutio may be the only part of Romeo And Juliet that I really like. Aside from the pretty language, but Shakespeare has plenty of other plays with language just as pretty that don't burn with stupid.

And, yeah, that's really my whole thing. You can't not know going in that this is not going to be a SHAKESPEARE IS SRS BIZNESS adaptation, so why would you watch it and then complain that it's not faithful enough?

[funwithrage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, word. I like a lot of Shakespeare, but the two plays he's arguably most famous for--R&J and Hamlet --both leave me sort of cold. Too many stupid teenagers. So, yeah, any adaptation where the main characters aren't idiots is a good adaptation.

I'm obliquely reminded of the freshman-year Shakespeare course I took, wherein some terribly stupid girl said something about how "Well, it's better that all this happened and Romeo and Juliet died. I mean, otherwise, they'd have been living without their soul mates."

Sometimes I think it's very good that I don't have mutant powers. It saves so many people exploding.