Les Miserables viewing #21

Can you believe it's been six years since the Les Miserables movie came out? It seems like only yesterday doesn't it? Can you believe I saw it 20 times in the cinema? That was my record until 2017 when I saw Wonder Woman 24 times.

So I didn't think I was gonna get to see Les Miserables in the cinema again 6 years but a cinema in Cardiff is doing Musical Mondays right now where they show a bunch of old musicals every Monday.

Currently they're also showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Wizard of Oz and The Greatest Showman (Which by the way is a totally overrated movie, and P.T Barnum is so not a guy who deserves a movie made about him. Seriously I don't get why people love The Greatest Showman)

So anyway...even though I've already seen it 20 times in the cinema and I have it on DVD, Blu-Ray and digital download, and I have 3 versions of the novel I still paid to see it in the cinema for the 21st time!

Call me crazy if you want, but I figured why not you know? If they're gonna go to the effort to re-show it then I might as well make the effort to see it again. It was actually really cool to see it on the big screen again.

It's so much better than that Crappy BBC version. So, so much better.

But 21 times people! I saw Les Miserables in the cinema 21 times! That's how much I love it!

Another copy of Les Miserables? Why do I do this to myself!

I just bought a mini version of Les Miserables....DONT JUDGE ME! I'M WEAK!! Look how thin it is!! It's so teeny! I'm still mad about the crappy BBC version, maybe this will help me heal! 

It's an abridged version...obviously! It looks to me like they've taken out all the parts where Victor Hugo diverts the story into the history of Paris and the sewers and thankfully, the history of the Petit Picpus convent...*shudders*...

My tickets are fading and it upsets me

I always keep my cinema tickets from every film I see at the cinema (I don't know why, I think just for....proof?) and I keep my 20 tickets from when I saw the movie version of Les Mis stashed in my copy of the novel.

Today when I was looking for a quote from the book I noticed that the ink on the tickets are fading, some of them are almost gone in fact and for some reason that kinda upset me.

I don't know why, I think it's just that if they disappear completely there will be no solid evidence that I saw the movie, and I think that sucks.

You can see on this picture that the words are barely there anymore, you can just about make it out if you look closely.

Les Mini Series: Thoughts on Part 6 + final conclusion

OK…there’s a lot to unpack here from the last episode, and from the series as a whole, so bear with me people because this is gonna be a long post.

So the finale finally rolled around, which is good, now I can move on with my life and try to forget about this horrible adaptation. Maybe you liked it, fine, your opinion is your own, but I bet the people who liked it haven’t read the novel, because if they had then they would know that this is not a good adaptation of Les Miserables, it is mediocre at best.

In tonights episode the revolution ends with the death of all the Les Amis boys, Javert finally got face to face with Valjean again only to have his world fall apart by realising he’s not an evil man after all, Valjean saves Marius, Marius and Cosette get married, Thenardier fucks off to America and Valjean dies.
And there’s no mention of what happened to Mdm Thenardier, Azelma or Toussaint. Sure maybe they weren’t the most important characters but I would have liked to have known their fates.

Like I said last week, we’ve barely been given an opportunity to get to know the Les Amis boys so when their deaths came around I really wasn’t that affected by it, not like I’ve ever been when watching the musical anyway. They were such boring characters, Enjolras in particular was very dull, and I’m not criticising the actor playing him, an actor is only ever as good as the script, but this guy is supposed to be an enigmatic leader who you would follow to your death. There was no point where I really bought his performance at all. I will say, his death scene with Grantaire was nicely done, you won’t get much better last words than “I piss on your blindfold” so I will say that Enjolras had a good death scene at the very least, but as for the rest of it, I think his character needed more life to it.

I think David Oyelowo as Javert was actually good in this episode, he started out as the same one note officer but by the end of the episode I actually found myself sympathising with him. I know that I’ve compared him to Batman a few times but actually I think Javert is more like General Zod from Superman. See, on Krypton (Where Superman and Zod come from, in case you don’t know) babies aren’t made like they are here, all babies are made through genetic engineering and your career is predetermined before you’re born. General Zod was designed even before birth to be a General, his whole life was dedicated to the military on Krypton so when Superman is born through natural means and Krypton gets destroyed he is obviously angry about it because by being born Superman is making a mockery of Zods entire life, and that’s why he’s like Javert. Javert was brought up with a very black and white view of the world. That there are people who break the law and those who uphold it and nothing in between; if you’re a criminal then you’re always a criminal. Javert chose to uphold the law, so when someone like Valjean comes along and shows him that a former criminal can actually lead a good life and be a good man well it sends his entire world view into turmoil, and yeah I totally get that, and I totally get why it would drive him mad. I’ve actually come to sympathise with Javerts point of view more in the past few years, I still don’t think he needed to kill himself, I’m sure there was another way out of his situation. But, I do get it, I get his turmoil.
I just really wish they hadn’t made Javert such a one note dumbass in this series, there is so much more to Javert than just his obsession with Valjean.

The ending of this series….Oh Christ the ending made no sense. Basically Marius and Cosette get back from their honeymoon… (oh and at least we were spared a wedding night scene, I was shocked they didn’t show that actually, they’ve sexualised Cosette enough in this series but they actually stopped at the last episode? Wow, wonders will never cease. At least we can be thankful for small mercies)…and Thenardier inadvertently tells them that it was Valjean that saved Marius’s life and that he is after all a good man. So two of them go to find Valjean but he’s in Digne, where the Bishop was from, where he dies with Cosette by his bedside…

OK…but how did Cosette know about Digne??? Valjean never told her about that, how would she know that he would be there? That makes absolutely no sense! Yeah, maybe Marius told her, because Valjean did tell him about the Bishop of Digne, BUT...he didn’t tell Marius how much the kindness of the Bishop meant to him, so for him to be there and for Marius and Cosette to find him there is a huge leap in logic

For everything they did wrong in this series I held out hope that they would at least have the good sense to actually do the ending right, but they didn’t, they even fucked up the ending! Good job guys, fucking well done (slow clap…)

You know what though, by the end of this series I found myself so not caring about any of the characters anymore that the ending didn’t even matter to me. How did this happen? I was so optimistic about this series before it started, we haven’t had a new adaptation of Les Miserables in ages, but by episode three Andrew Davies somehow made me not care about the characters from the only novel that I've ever loved. I think this series may have actually killed my heart.

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So what did I ultimately think of the whole thing? Honestly, I think the whole thing was perverted. I don’t just mean with it being overly sexualised and the erotic dream sequence that was totally uncalled for, I mean the whole novel has been perverted by Andrew Davies and his polluted mind.
You know, a fun fact is that Victor Hugo was the biggest man-whore that Paris ever knew at the time, every brothel in Paris was closed on the day of his funeral because all the prostitutes were too busy mourning his death to provide their services. So if the horniest man in France didn’t feel the need to add sexual overtones to his greatest work than maybe he knew what he was doing! Maybe he should have been listened to!

And Andrew Davies has the balls to claim that this was a more accurate adaptation of the novel?! Don’t make me fucking laugh, look at everything he did wrong…

He made the Paris police look like the fucking Keystone Kops, he turned Javert into a one dimensional idiot, he got rid of Fauchelevant who was totally an important character in the novel, he sexualised children by turning Eponine and Cosette into Marius’s wet dream, He made Enjolras dull as fuck and he got rid of half the Les Amis boys! Seriously, where was Combeferre, where was Joly, where was Bossuet, where was Jehan!

But the absolute worst thing about this series was what he did to Valjean. He missed the mark with him so much. Valjean is supposed to be a gentle soul who was changed by love, first by the Bishop of Digne and then by Cosette. But they made him into an angry, shouty, borderline abusive father who had semi-incestuous intentions towards his daughter. Cosette was the one who really made Valjean love, the Bishop was the one who set him on the right path but it was Cosette who really changed him, but the writers took that and perverted it. They changed him from a father who would rather die than hurt Cosette, so much so that in the novel it literally kills him to see her get married, to a man who was at one point dragging Cosette by the wrist through the streets and then physically restraining her from leaving the house. That is not the Valjean I know. This was so far removed from the Valjean I know that I don’t even recognise him anymore.

I don’t think I will ever get over what they did to Valjean in this series, ever! They have literally killed my image of him, I feel so emotionally scarred by this it’s been like losing a family member.

Maybe you think I’m taking this too personally but please remember that Les Miserables is the only novel I’ve ever read that made me feel anything. I’m not good with literature, I don’t always get the meaning of things and I’m not an intellectual by any means. I didn’t go to school as a kid and my education was stunted for years, so when I took on the novel Les Miserables and I found that I understood it and that I really connected with it, well, that meant a lot to me. So yes, I do take it personally when people fuck it up.

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But in the interest of fairness there were some things I liked about this series; I mean the first three episodes were quite good actually, in fact I was mainly favourable to them on this blog, but by episode four it went downhill so fast that my opinion of the whole series changed overnight.
I think the whole thing was visually pleasing, I mean it looked good; the sets looked pretty cool actually so I can’t fault it in its production values. Although if I’m honest it did look a lot similar to the 2013 movie, you could basically cut and paste certain parts of it and you would barely notice any difference. The costumes were good too, I particularly liked many of Cosettes dresses, they were pretty.

Also I actually liked the diverse cast, not like some people online who said it was inaccurate and forced diversity. Honestly, if the performance is there then ethnicity doesn’t matter, who cares what colour you are as long as you can play the part well, just cast whoever is good for the role. Hey, I mean I don’t recall Victor Hugo ever saying Javert couldn’t be a black man, or Thenardier, so why not? I don’t know how diverse Paris was in 1832, I wasn’t there! People should learn to judge by performance and not by skin colour, and by the last episode David Oyelowo absolutely crushed it as Javert. I actually felt a bit moved by his performance in the finale, it’s just a shame he wasn’t as good in the rest of the episodes.

I also liked the Thenardiers a lot in this adaptation, not as people, they’re still horrible human beings, but the performers were good in the parts and it was cool to actually see them portrayed as properly evil for once. Yeah in the musical they’re supposed to be the comic relief and that can be OK, it needs some laughs sometimes, but I’ve never been quite comfortable with making child abusers into comedy, so I liked that here they were actually shown to be cruel people. Olivia Colman as Mdm Thenardier was definitely the standout performance of this series.
But what happened to her by the end of it? We don’t see her again after the beginning of episode five! I hate to say it but I think her character deserved better than to just be forgotten like she was. And what happened to Azelma and Toussaint as well! They deserved better too!

Another thing that I liked was Ellie Bamber as Cosette, I liked how she actually had a personality in this and that she had her own thoughts and opinions, she’s such a non-character in the musical it was cool to see her being treated like an actual person for once. And I liked how they showed her obviously suffering from trauma of her past, that’s something that is sorely lacking from the book and I’ve been saying for years that she would have PTSD. You don’t go through years of horrific abuse and just come out fine on the other side, so I will admit that is one change I appreciated. And I appreciated that by the end of the series it’s clear that Cosette has definitely grown up a lot, she finally faces her past by facing Thenardier and it’s clear that she’s moved on from being just a frightened little child. So yes, OK, I’ll admit it, I did like that Cosette was given the opportunity to grow up, and in fact the changes to her character might have actually been the only good change from the novel.

What I didn’t like about her character is how they kept trying to sexualise her (Yes I’m bringing this up again because it bothered me the most out of everything in this series). Just look at how she was shown in episode four, in one scene she’s running around the park like a child, calling for her papa like a little girl would, and then five minutes later she’s in Marius’s sex dream. So is Cosette supposed to be a child or is she supposed to be a sexual being? Because you can’t have it both ways! There’s a word for that and the word is paedophilia, and somehow I don’t think that’s what Victor Hugo wanted or intended and I don’t ever want to see Cosette portrayed like that again, it’s sick.

I will defend Cosette to the death; she’s way underrated as a character. You know, you can think at Cosette as nothing more than an innocent waif who does nothing in the story, or if you’re Andrew Davies you can think of her as nauseating (which I dispute, I think he’s the nauseating one actually) or you can think of Cosette as the glue that keeps the whole story together. Cosette is the link between most of the major characters; she links Felix to Fantine, Fantine to the Thenardiers, the Thenardiers to Valjean and Valjean to Marius. So I take issue with people treating her like she doesn’t matter as a person, she deserves far more respect as a character than she ultimately gets.

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To me this whole series was just one big epic fail. I’ve seen plenty of adaptations of Les Miserables and some of them are good, some are bad and some are only average, and at the very least the bad ones made me feel nothing, but this series was the first time I’ve seen an adaptation that actually made me feel hurt.

I’m hurt by what some of the characters were turned into, I’m hurt by the changes to the text, I’m just hurt by the whole sordid thing. Andrew Davies took something I loved and he fucking corrupted it, he massacred it. He obviously doesn't understand the novel and why it's so important. Not just to me, but to the world. It's a story about redemption, and knowing that even if you do bad things it doesn't make you a bad person, it's about hoping for change in the world and it's about love. Remember, "To love another person is to see the face of God". That may be from the musical but that's still better than anything from this series.

Andrew Davies doesn’t deserve Les Miserables, he took something beautiful and he perverted it and I fucking hate him for it. My one wish right now is for Victor Hugo to rise from the dead and beat Andrew Davies to death with a candlestick in retribution for fucking up his greatest work.
If I’d been given a choice I would have rather burnt every copy of Les Miserables in the world before I let Davies get his grubby fingers on it, I would have rather let him pry the novel from my cold dead hands before I let him destroy it the way he did.

If you want my advice then I would tell you to avoid this adaptation at all costs. Go see a production of the musical, or see the 2013 movie version, or better yet just read the book, because there really is nothing better than the original novel.

Now it’s over and I’m done with this series, let us never speak of it again…

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Don’t forget if you’re in the UK you can see the last episode and the rest of the series over at the BBC iPlayer.

Les Miserables Part 6

Les Mini Series: Thoughts on Part 5

Ugghhhhh, I still feel unclean after last weeks episode, I had to shower for about an hour afterwards to get the creepy feelings off me. Still, as creepy as it was at least that episode gave me many thoughts and feelings to talk about, todays episode gave me almost no feelings at all, in fact this mini series as a whole is making me feel kinda empty inside.


OK so basically in tonights episode shit started to go down in Paris, yes the revolution is beginning! Do I care?........
No, not really. You know why? Because this mini series hasn't really given us a chance to know what the Les Amis boys are fighting for, or why, or even given us a chance to get the know the boys beyond their names. Say what you want about the brick of a novel or the musical but at least it made you actually like these boys. Or at least I think so, maybe you have different opinions on the subject.  You know at least in the musical I could tell who everyone was, apart from brief introductions in last weeks episode I don't even really know who is who. I can tell you from screen shots the names of the characters from the movie musical, but in this series none of the boys seem to have a defined personality. I mean why is Enjolras so dull? I thought he was supposed to be the enigmatic leader of the revolution who would inspire his friends to fight to the death, in this series he's just plain boring, and barely recognisable as Enjolras. He's supposed to get people stirred up, he's supposed to love only France and yet this Enjolras has the personality of a gnat. I dont think anyone would really follow him to their deaths.

If you want an audience to care about the characters then you have to give the audience a chance to get to know them, and give them a reason to love them, I think this mini series has missed the mark with the Les Amis boys in a big way.


Maybe I've just gotten more cynical in my advancing years but honestly I don't really care their little revolution. It's not like it even changed anything in the long run. Not in France or the rest of the world. All governments are corrupt and will continue to be corrupt and those boys in Paris died for nothing and the only reason anyone know about that student revolution is because of Victor Hugo.
We're all just screwed in the end anyway, we're all probably gonna be killed due to some racist with a nuke soon. It really doesn't matter what you believe in, someone else always has your life in thier hands and they will end it for no reason at any time.



...I got a bit too real then didn't I? Well a lot of shit has happened in the world since I started this blog!

I just don't think this series is doing those boys and their cause justice, I don't want to compare it too much to the musical or the novel, but it is supposed to be an adaptation of the book so I thought this part of the story would leave a bigger impact. It really hasn't for me, I feel way too jaded from this series to care about it anymore. It looked good on screen....I'll give it that much, I mean the sets look good and the barricades look impressive, that's all the good I can say though.
Wow.....this series has really fucked me up, I'm really struggling to write anything this week. I just feel nothing. At least the novel got me stirred up, and the musical is entertaining in it's own way, but this whole series so far is just leaving me flat.

Javert still has a hard-on for justice in this episode, in fact I think it's getting ridiculous now. He seriously needs to chill. I mean he was never the most charismatic character of the whole saga but they've barely given David Oyelowo any lines in this series that don't involve him having a boner for catching Valjean again. It's becoming almost comical in that sense and I really don't think that was ever the intention for Javerts character. I think this series has really failed that character. Again the musical has way better motivations and character development for Javert, in this series I think Javert just looks kinda stupid. I mean he's convinced that Jean Valjean is part of the student revolution, he thinks he's the leader of it in fact. What would make him think that? That wasn't part of his plan in the novel or the musical, he went undercover in the barricades to take down the revolution, it wasn't about Valjean. There is so much more to Javert than what they're making him out to be in this series, he's a police officer remember! He has other things to think about other than one man! Like I said it just makes the character seem stupid and kinda comical and I don't like it. The same could be said for the rest of the Paris police actually. Why are they so inept and incompetent? At one point they looked liked the Keystone Kops when they were running after Thenardier after he escaped from prison, they just look ridiculous to me, like they are part of a comedy and not a genuine drama.

Uggghhhh...I should probably talk about the other big thing from this episode, you know what it is, the "relationship" between Marius and Cosette. Yes it is progressing at a very fast pace now, way too fast in fact, but hey, I'm not judging. No wait...I am judging. I'm judging way hard! Let me remind you all that at this point before Marius gets all creepy and starts sneaking into Cosettes garden at night, that the two of them have only exchanged about 10 words to each other, yet by the end of this episode they're ready to get married. Fucking slow down! In fact come to a complete stop!
I've made myself very clear on this blog how much I hate Marius and now in this episode we have to put up with him being even more of a creepy stalker and we have to hear his awful poems he leaves for Cosette. Please spare me the fucking teen love story! There's really nothing worse than teenagers in love. It is the worst part of this whole thing! It's not even charming when you think about it, all Marius is doing is putting Cosette in more danger by leading Thenardier and his gang to where she lives. That's not what you're supposed to do to someone you claim to love.

By the way how old is Marius supposed to be? In this episode he needs permission from his grandfather to get married. If he's a student surely he's old enough to get married without permission? Although I actually have no idea how old he is or how old Cosette is because this series hasn't given us a proper timeline! He must be over 18 though surely....what even was the legal marrying age in France back then? I have so many questions! Besides if you need anyones permission surely it would be Valjean, he's Cosettes father after all, also he could try actually asking Cosette if she wants to get married too, that would be a good start. The fucking idiot.

I truly hate Marius...I really do. He's stupid prick! He was born a stupid prick and he'll die a stupid prick and in between he will continue to be a stupid prick!
There's only so many words in the English language I can use to describe how much I hate him, I really wish I'd stuck with French then I could insult him in another language. I'll use my Spanish instead and just call him a Bobo Cabrón!
If he could just act rational for one second I might have more sympathy for him, but no, he's a little rich boy pretending to be poor, he's pretending to be involved in the revolution but he doest really care about the cause, he's oblivious to Eponine, he's sneaking around a young girls garden at night, and then when he thinks Cosette has left him forever he's ready to kill himself. Yeah that sounds like a stable man! Cosette should totally marry him.

You know I think Marius and Cosettes relationship is kinda dull. I always preferred the relationship between Valjean and Cosette more than I liked Marius and Cosette. But that's because I have daddy issues not boyfriend issues. I just think the relationship between two tortured souls like Valjean and Cosettes are way more interesting than a soppy love story.
Well...I did like the relationship between them until last weeks episode which tried to pervert it! It was less creepy in todays episode at least, although Valjean is being way too intense with Cosette for my liking. I know that he wants to protect her, but there's a different between being protective and being possessive, and Valjean is coming off way to possessive and it makes him seem creepy. And I swear to Christ if I see Valjean manhandling Cosette on-screen one more time I'm gonna put my fist through my fucking TV. That's not the Valjean I know, this whole series has turned Valjean into someone I don't know anymore. He's way too angry! Valjean was supposed to be a gentle soul! That's why him and Cosette together are so pure and good, but this series has just twisted him and his relationship with his daughter into something degrading.

This series is becoming a huge failure...it's a shame really because it had so much potential to be good.

Oh by the way, Eponine died in tonights episode....I don't really care about that. I've never really been on team Eponine and this episode didn't make me like her any more. She gets way too much sympathy from people who like the musical, but in the musical she's given a different personality. I do feel sorry for her unrequited feelings for Marius, but I might like her more if she didn't try so hard to keep Marius and Cosette apart.
Sorry Eponine fans, but Cosette is my girl.


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OK, those were my thoughts on episode 5. Just one more to go and then I can put this whole lousy series behind me! Don't forget though if you're in the UK you can catch up with it on the BBC iPlayer at the link below.

Les Miserables Part 5

Les Mini Series: More thoughts on Part 4

OK...the more I think about some things from last weeks episode the more enraged I get about them, so I'm gonna write this post to vent some of my feelings about them because I don't think I really explained them well enough in my first post. Those are usually just my immediate reactions to the episode so this is after I've given it more thought.

I have so many problems with how Cosette is being portrayed in this mini series. Like I've said many times on this blog, Cosette is my favourite character and some of the things that Andrew Davies is doing to her on-screen is really disturbing to me.

I have two issues mainly that are getting to me and first off if Andrew Davies were here right now I'd ask him what the hell he his doing with Valjean and Cosettes relationship and why he's making it creepy. If you've watched the last episode you'll know what I mean. How dare he take one of the most tender and loving father daughter relationships in all of literature and twist it to become almost incestuous and paedophillic. Why did we need to see Valjean peeping on Cosette in her underwear? Was that necessary? Does he really think that was what Victor Hugo was intending with their relationship.

He does not understand the relationship between those two. They are two people who have suffered greatly and they have each never known love. So when they find each other they need each other desperately as father and child. There is nothing unseemly about their relationship and how Andrew Davies is degrading it is sick. It's just sick.

We have enough problems already in real life with the male gaze and the sexualisation of underage girls. Think about what's been happening in Hollywood right, now, think about the #metoo movement. There are enough creepy old men in the world and there are enough real paedophiles in the media being caught right now, so for the writer of this series to take Valjean and Cosette and imply that sort of thing between them has greatly upset me.
Andrew Davies has no right to do that to them and he has no right to do that to me. Their relationship is the light in the otherwise darkness of Les Miserables and he has perverted it.

My second issue that is getting to me is what he's done to Marius and Cosette, specifically the creepy wet dream sequence that was completely irrelevant to the story.
Cosette represents everything that is good, she is kind and sweet and innocent and nobody has the right to take all that from her and turn her into someones perverted wet dream. You will not do that to my Cosette, I will fucking fight you if you take Cosettes character and turn her into a male sexual fantasy.

What makes it worse is the fact that Ellie Bamber is so adorable as Cosette, she's cute as a button and I love her so much, but that just makes it all the more disturbing. They're sexualising a character who is essentially still a child at this point in the story because she's been so sheltered from the outside world. She still looks like a child in the character, she still talks like a child and still acts like a child and that just makes everything that's being implied by both Marius and Valjean even more unsettling.

If Andrew Davies were here right now in my flat I would fucking slap him. There is nothing right at all about what he's doing to Cosette. She is my favourite character in the entire novel and perhaps all of literature and I will fucking fight anyone who tries to hurt her. I will not have that shit in my house, nobody gets to hurt Cosette, especially not some sex obsessed writer who has taken one of the greatest novels ever written and twisted it into something I don't even recognise anymore.

Les Mini Series: Thoughts on Part 4

*Exasperated sigh*.......

OK, if you're reading this then I have to warn you right now that todays entry might not be very concise because I'm finding myself too angry and upset to write about this mini series any longer after this episode. My entire opinion of it has changed dramatically. THIS IS NOT A REVIEW, I never said I was gonna review the series, these are just my thoughts about it. My opinions are my own and my opinions are just as valid as the next persons even though you might not think my opinions are right. If you want your own opinions then you have to watch the series for yourself.

I just...I don't know what I'm even watching anymore but it's not Les Miserables. I don't know how they could possibly get it any wronger. My world is falling apart around me, I don't even know what to say...

OK OK OK, AAAAAAGGGHH! Just write something Brandon! You can do this, you read the whole book for fucks sake!

So, this episode picks up several years after last weeks ended. I don't know how long exactly because AGAIN there was nothing to show the passage of time. I would think maybe eight years because in the book Cosette is eight when she enters the convent and around sixteen when she leaves. I suppose that makes sense but come on people, these are just simple things! Give me a proper timeline! That's just one issue though, I think my main issue with this mini series is the dialogue, they're changing the dialogue too much, I think it sounds too modern.
I don't think that's entirely bad, there's nothing wrong with making it accessible to modern audiences, I mean the book isn't very dialogue heavy, Victor Hugo was more a descriptive writer than a writer of dialogue, but there's something about the way people speak in this series that just isn't connecting with me. Too much has been changed and it's only vaguely resembling Les Miserables now.
And I'm not saying it has to be a perfect copy of the book, I'm just saying there must be a happy medium and this mini series is not it!


I will admit though, for all the changes that have been made I do like the fact that Cosette seems to be an actual human being with a personality in this series. Sweet Jesus it finally happened! Cosette actually speaks! She actually has opinions and talks back to Valjean! This is the Cosette I've been wanting all these years! And FUCK ME SOMEONE FINALLY DID IT! THEY ACTUALLY LET COSETTE SHOW SOME PTSD ABOUT HER CHILDHOOD. I could see it onscreen and it was just like I thought it would be! The girl playing Cosette, Ellie Bamber, is really good in this series, she's taken a really blank role and given it some life. She actually portrayed on screen someone who has been abused and hidden from the world for years and I could see her fear, her confusion and her excitement for life in the character after Cosette left the convent. That was probably the only thing I liked about this episode.

I don't think the writers of this series really understand the relationship between Valjean and Cosette, it's my favourite relationship in the book and so any changes they make I take them very personally.
I have major issues with some of the things they did in this episode, mainly the scene when Valjean told Cosette about her mother.
Valjean would never tell Cosette that he fired her mother and that's what lead to her death, he just wouldn't, Cosette was the only person he ever loved, he would never have risked having Cosette hate him for that. Why would the writers do that? They have no idea what they're doing, they obviously don't know anything about Valjeans intentions towards his daughter.

Oh and even worse was when Valjean took Cosette to see some convicts in one scene, don't even get me fucking started on that shit.Whoever wrote that scene needs a slap...Valjean would NEVER have done that. In the book they only came across a  bunch of convicts by accident, It wasn't so he could show Cosette that the world is a horrible place, it was just a coincidence. And in the book they scared Cosette so much that Valjean knew he could never tell her about his past. He wouldn't have deliberately tried to tell her and then backed out of it because of her fear. He just wouldn't!
This writers just don't get it, apart from being captured by Javert it was Valjeans worst fear that Cosette would find out that he was an ex-convict, he would never have made her see convicts for herself. They don't know him and they don't know Cosette. And was it just me or was Valjean starting to get a little...incesty...at one point? Am I reading too much into some of his lingering stares or are the writers really gonna go there?
What in the fuck are the writers doing to those two? They're twisting Valjeans relationship with Cosette into something seedy and it's actually really upsetting me.

I'm really scared that this series is gonna ruin the book for me, I don't mean with like spoilers, I know the book back to front, I mean that they're destroying my image of the book
This...this is not Les Miserables. This is not the book I've grown to love. I'm hurt by what they're doing, I actually feel hurt inside from this. It's not a good feeling at all.

Now I should probably talk about Marius...Oh God I hate him so much and this mini series is doing nothing to change my opinion of him. I didn't think it was possible but they've actually made me hate Marius MORE!

He's still a little rich prick pretending to be poor because he thinks it's a noble cause, he's still a stalking little twat following a girl much younger than him, but now they're making him have sex dreams about Cosette and Eponine. ACTUAL FUCKING SEX DREAMS!
For all his faults, and he has so many faults, I know Marius wouldn't act like that. This is not what Marius was all about, this shit is purely for shock value now. Eponine is not a sexual being to Marius, in the book I always thought that Eponine was more of a nuisance and an annoyance to Marius, he never looked at her sexually, at the most they were just friends. I don't know what the writers think they're doing but I would seriously like them to fucking stop.

The rest of the episode I guess was fine, some of the Les Amis boys were introduced in this part but their plot didn't really progress that much. I thought it would actually, I expected more out of this episode but I guess they're saving it for the next episode. That makes sense I suppose, they deserve their own plotline and not to be tacked onto Marius's plot. I'd like to see more of them and to delve deeper into their belief system. I hope they at least get that part right!
The downfall of the Thenardiers is pretty much accurate to the book so I can't find fault with their scenes, they Thenardiers might actually be one of the main highlights about this series which is weird because they're supposed to be the villains of the piece. I dunno what it is, I just think that out of all the characters so far they're the ones that have actually been done right.

The rest of it...I don't know what's even happening anymore. I don't recognise this as Les Miserables. To be brutally honest I think I'm fucking done with this series. I'm gonna watch it until the end but only out of blind loyalty. I read the whole fucking book so I'm not gonna wuss out now on a substandard mini series.

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Uggggggghhh....it's all wrong but if you're in the UK and you want to catch up with the latest episode then you can over at the BBC iPlayer. 

Les Miserables Part 4

Les Meme-serables Pt2

I've never seen a more accurate representation of Marius Pontmercy!!

Oh God...I hate him so much. I'm not looking forward to the next episode of the mini-series because I know he's gonna be in it a lot!

Les Meme-serables

Things have changed a lot since I started this blog back in 2012!! Nowadays I could just explain everything about this book in memes!!

Les Mini series: Thoughts on Part 3

You know...it's been seven years since I first read Les Miserables and even after reading that huge fucking tome and watching several movie adaptations, and seeing it live, I never knew that Madame Thenardiers first name was Rosalie. Has it ever been mentioned before? I think this is the first time she's ever had a first name. I don't remember it being said in the book at all, I always assumed her first name was just Madame.

Even after 3 episodes now I still haven’t decided whether or not I actually like this miniseries yet. I think there’s some good parts to it and there are some parts that are lacking. I think if I was pressed on the issue I would say “yes, I like it, but…”. Which is basically me saying that I like it but I have some issues with it. That’s true of every adaptation I’ve seen though, there’s nothing yet that even comes close to the book in terms or greatness.

So part three was basically the part from the book which is my favourite and that’s where Valjean finally rescues Cosette from the Thenardiers and they live together in Paris for a while, before moving to the convent…..Oh dear God…the convent…..

Sorry, I’m remembering the convent from the book…*SHUDDERS*

There’s something I meant to bring up about Cosette last week but I forgot, I thought they would explain it this week actually but they didn’t and it’s about the whole passage of time in which Cosette is with the Thenardiers. In the book she’s supposed to have been there for six years but in this adaptation they make it look like Fantine leaves her, moves to Montfermeil, gets a job, gets fired, becomes a prostitute and then dies all within a matter of weeks. There was no real attempt at making it look like any time had passed and I found that kind of lazy.
I mean I know they can’t show all the 6 years in a one hour episode but just a caption to say what year it was would have helped.
In this episode they did try at least, after Fantine dies there’s a space of two years before Valjean gets to rescue her. Which is true to the book actually so I appreciate that.

The same goes for showing Valjean and Cosette living together for a while too before going straight to the convent, in the musical that happens on the same night Cosette gets rescued so I appreciated them letting Valjean and Cosette have time together and time to bond as father and daughter. I could have done without the implied paedophilia though from the Thenardiers. I don't appreciate that being implied in any way about Valjeans intentions towards Cosette. I mean it does look fairly shady that Valjean buys Cosette from the Thenardiers but in the book he has a note from Fantine saying that they have to hand her over, so if that had been kept in this adaptation there wouldn't have been any need for it to be creepy like it was. But hey, why do we need actual plot devices when we can just make things gross.
Seriously...we have enough problems with paedophilia in the media, I would like it kept out of Les Miserables please. Valjean is a good man, do not fuck with his character or I will fight you.

I’m not sure how I feel about the kid playing little Cosette though, she was a bit stiff and dead eyed in my opinion, although, after being abused for years I suppose I would expect any kid to be a bit dead eyed. I can’t decide if she played Cosette well or not. I guess I just wanted her to have more of a personality, she was quite cute though so I'm gonna give her a pass. Like I said Cosette is my favourite character but she really has nothing to do so I’m still hoping to see an adaptation where they really flesh out Cosette as a person instead of a plot device. I’ve said it before in this blog; Cosette is a character that nothing happens to, things just happen around her. She's more of a plot device than a person.
Still, I have to give this adaptation credit for having little Cosette swear. I never expected that to come out of her mouth. I actually laughed out loud in my flat when she said “Nosy old bitch”, and I live alone, so it’s weird for me to laugh at something when I’m alone, but I really liked that one line from her. It makes sense though for her to swear a little, I don’t think Victor Hugo ever really considered it but after years of living with the Thenardiers I imagine she probably heard all sorts of profanity, these things leave an impression on children you know Victor. And I still say Cosette wouldn't be just fine after all those years of abuse! You may be a great writer Victor Hugo but you know nothing about child development and child psychology!

Anyway...I think overall this adaptation has been faithful to the book, which is what I was hoping for, but at the end of this episode it kind of went on a different path. I mean the basic elements of the plot were there if you get my drift. Like Valjean took Cosette to the convent, but there was no Fauchelevant the gardener and Valjean had way more interaction with the nuns than he does in the book. I mean I guess this is just to move the plot along and to get rid of anything unnecessary (And yeah I get that not every little thing is necessary, I certainly appreciate them not going with the whole "burying Valjean" scene from the book) but I hope this is as much as they change now, because we're getting to the real meat of the story now and if they change it too much it just wont be Les Miserables any more, it'll just be another lame adaptation that only shares the name of the book.

There was one thing in this episode that I really liked, and it goes back to my point from part one about how all these characters interact without them knowing it. The guy from part two who cut Fantines hair off appeared briefly in this part as the man who sells the doll which Cosette calls Catherine, and I think they were trying to say that Cosettes doll had hair made from her mothers hair. I really like that idea, it's like a weird connection from Fantine to her daughter long after she's dead. I mean they never actually said that it was the same hair, but I think from the lingering shots onto the doll in this episode that that was what they were implying. It's kinda cool really.

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So those were my thoughts on Part 3. I hope I'm making sense, it all makes sense to me but sometimes I think I'm just rambling on and just talking to myself.

Next week I imagine that we'll see more of Marius (Uggggggh!) as we're going to be jumping ahead a few years to when the revolution begins. Just three more episodes to go now people! And don't forget that if you live in the UK you can catch up with the latest episode on BBC iPlayer at the link below.

Les Miserables: Part 3

Les Mini series: Thoughts on Part 2

You know the more I think about it the more I think that Javert was the inspiration for Batman...I'm still not convinced by David Oyelowos performance as Javert, but the man has such a hard on for justice we might as well rename him Le Chevalier Noir!!

 OK so part two of the BBC mini-series has just aired and i still think it's a slow burner. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing though, it's a little better then the musical in fact because that never let's you breathe for one second. Yes in this episode Fantine basically began her decent into prostitution and I gotta say I'm just not sold on Lily Collins performance, I'm not sure what it is i just know I've seen much better Fantines in much crappier adaptations. I think it's Lily Collins face, I've nothing against her as a person I just don't think she's very expressive, and sometimes you just gotta sell it with your face. Even when she was saying goodbye to little Cosette I didn't buy that she was actually sad about it. I dunno, I just think Fantine is one of the important characters and you gotta get it right
I will say though I was impressed with her during the hair cutting scene and the teeth pulling scene. Is it horrible to say that Fantines only interesting as a character when bad shit is happening to her? It feels mean to say that...It's kinda true though. Sorry.
Kudos to this adaptation though for actually showing that properly by the way! They never show the teeth pulling, and if they do, like in the movie musical, they pull her back teeth instead of her front teeth. You might think it doesn't matter what teeth they pull, but it does matter to the story! The whole point of Fantine is that she has nothing else except her great hair and her teeth, that's why it's so tragic when she has to sell them! And for that matter why do they always switch her hair colour and make her brunette and Cosette blonde? Is it artistic? Are they saying brunettes are bad and blondes are good? Again you might not think it matters, but it does matter!!!

Another important character introduced in part two was Mdm Thenardier, played by Olivia Colman, who in my opinion was the highlight of this episode. She was very conniving and very evil and possibly one of the best performances in the episode, I say watch the rest just for her. Oh and good on this episode for showing Mr Thenardier as actually abusive for once instead of just a drunken idiot, I like that, it was a good touch.

Overall I liked part two despite still not being convinced by one or two performances. I think now that the plot is moving that it's getting more interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing the relationship between Valjean and Cosette develop next week because that's my favourite relationship in the whole book. (DON'T JUDGE ME! I HAVE DADDY ISSUES THAT I'VE NEVER RESOLVED) 

Like I said before the stand out performance of part two is definitely from Olivia Colman, but the one that's still sadly lacking (In my opinion, others might see something else in him) is David Oyelowo. It's the same as Fantine right now for me, I've seen much more badass Javerts in much worse versions of the story. but David Oyelowo is a very good actor in his own right so I'm still gonna give him the benefit of the doubt because I think he's capable of a lot more.

One thing I didn't like in this episode was the scenes with little Marius, though they were only short so I wont begrudge them too much. I think I've made myself very clear in this blog about my dislike of Marius and at this point in the adaptation I really don't care about the life of a little rich kid and his dying dad. His dad's supposed to die when he's a teen by the way, why did they change that? I mean what does Marius have to do now? Is he supposed to change his political views as a child because I don't buy that for a second. It makes more sense for him to be a grown up and can form his own views on his father, that at the very least is a relatable character arc.
I think that was a bad change, and it was so short of a scene that it kind of makes the whole point of Marius and his political conversion pretty much inconsequential now. 
I'm curious to see what they do with Marius now, though I don't hold out a lot of hope for him.

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So those are my thoughts on Part two, come back next week for part three.

And don't forget if you're a UK reader you can catch with parts on and two over at BBC iPlayer

Les Miserables Part Two