Musical Mondays Week 10 High School Musical 1 & 2...maybe 3

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

Any guesses as to what Troy's mother does for a living? Did you see the size of their house (complete with basketball court)? There's no way they can afford all that, plus very nice ski trips, on a High School basketball couch's salary.

He wasn't just in charge of the basketball team, but he was moonlighting in the teacher's lounge too? Budget cuts, eh.

[EvRobert 1684]

I'd sit on his lap, he was a Bobo Nathan Fillion.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

I'd sit on his lap, he was a Bobo Nathan Fillion.

Also WAY too young to have a 17 year old son. Well, not technically, but the actor was 36 when the movie was made, which means he struggled through teachers' college with a baby Troy at his ankles, missed his shot at going pro, and then saddled his son with all of his failed expectations. For real, though, Troy's dad is a total man-child.

[tomspanks 9039]

Regarding Troy's parents, the father is married IRL to Louise Guzman from Teen Witch!

 

It was annoying that we never got to see Troy's mother again after NYE, but it was more annoying that they stuck her in some dowdy mother-of-the-bride dress for the party.

[EvRobert 1684]

Also WAY too young to have a 17 year old son. Well, not technically, but the actor was 36 when the movie was made, which means he struggled through teachers' college with a baby Troy at his ankles, missed his shot at going pro, and then saddled his son with all of his failed expectations. For real, though, Troy's dad is a total man-child.

 

That actually lines up with my experiences with classmates who got married too early and live hrough their kids, saddling them with their hopes, dreams, and expectations.

[Cameron H. 23786]

Did anyone else notice that when Gabriela congratulates Troy for winning the basketball game she was wearing an entirely different outfit than what she wore to the audition? Doesn't this kind of imply that, given the opportunity to watch and support her boyfriend play in the big game (not to mention the rest of the team that helped them get to the audition), she'd rather just skip it.

 

Real nice, Gabriela!

[Cameron H. 23786]

Regarding Troy's parents, the father is married IRL to Louise Guzman from Teen Witch!

 

It was annoying that we never got to see Troy's mother again after NYE, but it was more annoying that they stuck her in some dowdy mother-of-the-bride dress for the party.

 

How about the fact that Troy enters the party in a blazer like he's about to belt out "What a Fool Believes."

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Can I say again how awesome Kelsi is? Even if we put aside that orchestration at this level is well beyond the resources she has, she's a fantastic character. She gets a lot cooler in the next two movies, which is a shame, since her nerdy 'bowler hat and suit' persona is so endearing in the first one.

I haven't seen the other two movies (yet, anyway) but I really appreciated that Kelsi got to be "hot" in the finale and keep her glasses.

 

ETA: I should have read before posting but I hadn't noticed the bowler hat removal winds up being the "glasses" in this case. Trope reestablished.

[JammerLea 2070]

Wow, I sleep for a couple more hours and this is up to 6 pages?!

 

Okay since there's commenting on the songs...

 

I like the songs that didn't make sense a lot better than the ones that did. Mostly because of the choreography. They felt more fitted for the world of musical. The karaoke and musical audition songs were very stiff in comparison, and never really stood out as much visibly or audibly to me.

 

Though I will add that Gabriella's solo song "When There Was Me And You" never stood out at all and I totally forgot it was a thing. I get it's a way for her to release the angst of a broken heart, but I think it would've been better if maybe there was some split screen thing going on where we could've gotten some of the angst Troy has trying to deal with his unsupportive friends. Something to really shine a light on how THEY feel about things? Idk, maybe I'm thinking about it too hard. The only thing I took away from her solo was "Because I liked the view", and I was like "what view? were you were looking at his ass?"

 

"Stick to the Status Quo" is by far my favorite song, just because it's catchy, I like the choreography a lot, and we get introduced to these other characters that seem interesting and I wish they got more screentime.

[EvRobert 1684]

I would argue that removing the bowler hat and suit (and going back to something that was said on page one or two about the third movie and Ryan (that is Sharpy's brother right? Seriously why do you name one twin "Sharpy" and the other "Ryan") wanting to come out (or the actor wanted the character to be revealed as gay) and Disney nixing it. I think in the Disney safe world, any hint of androgyny is okay for being "weird" but when we all come together and accept each other, you need to conform to cultural norms.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

In four hours we've already posted half as many posts as are in the entire 'Lake House' thread, and we've barely scratched the surface...

 

THOUSANDTH POST!

[EvRobert 1684]

I think that the "Status Quo" and "Get Cha Head In The Game" numbers are why you hire a director like Kenny Ortega. They were the best directed numbers and had great flair and feel to them. Something that the more static numbers didn't. When they gave Ortega the chance to shine with the big dance numbers he really did.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

Seriously why do you name one twin "Sharpy" and the other "Ryan")

 

I think it's adorable that you heard her name as the same as the permanent marker. In reality it's even worse, it's Sharpay, like the dog. I think the reasoning with the difference in the names is that she's the princess and he's the afterthought, which is why it's a big deal at the end of the third movie that

 

 

 

Ryan gets into Julliard as a choreographer and Sharpay doesn't.

 

[JammerLea 2070]

I would argue that removing the bowler hat and suit (and going back to something that was said on page one or two about the third movie and Ryan (that is Sharpy's brother right? Seriously why do you name one twin "Sharpy" and the other "Ryan") wanting to come out (or the actor wanted the character to be revealed as gay) and Disney nixing it. I think in the Disney safe world, any hint of androgyny is okay for being "weird" but when we all come together and accept each other, you need to conform to cultural norms.

Actually I think it's pretty fucked up that Disney couldn't handle Ryan coming out as gay, but yet it is COMPLETELY OKAY FOR TWO SIBLINGS TO PLAY ROMANTIC INTERESTS TOGETHER IN MUSICALS idk how romantic Kelsi's musical production is, but they mentioned the siblings playing Romeo and Juliet and that's more than I need to know. Srsly this is the most uncomfortable thing about the movie for me, just have them be super close best friends or something what the fuck

[tomspanks 9039]

Oh and I totally noticed the beginning of "Status Quo" is HEAVILY influenced by "Can't Stop the Beat" from our previously discussed Hairspray!

 

I totally agree!

 

I liked the hip hop girl from this song and after a little bit of Googling, found this:

 

[EvRobert 1684]

 

I think it's adorable that you heard her name as the same as the permanent marker. In reality it's even worse, it's Sharpay, like the dog. I think the reasoning with the difference in the names is that she's the princess and he's the afterthought, which is why it's a big deal at the end of the third movie that

 

 

 

Ryan gets into Julliard as a choreographer and Sharpay doesn't.

 

 

Oh that spelling is even worse. It reminds me of a play I wrote I had two character named "Rowdy" Roderick (a reality TV guy) and his sister Amythyst (who changed her name to Amy). Their mother's name was Alison (also a reality TV star--the whole play was kind of a send up of the Kardashians). I had someone suggest that I should change or modify Alison's name because it was too normal of a name for such an outrageous character.

 

I never got the sense that Sharpay was the princess and Ryan was the afterthought in this film, it seemed as if they were almost equal partners in their weird Cersi and Jamie Lannister musical theater relationship. If that comes out in the later 2 films, I'm glad because it was so...weird.

 

Also, I'm glad for Ryan

[EvRobert 1684]

Actually I think it's pretty fucked up that Disney couldn't handle Ryan coming out as gay, but yet it is COMPLETELY OKAY FOR TWO SIBLINGS TO PLAY ROMANTIC INTERESTS TOGETHER IN MUSICALS idk how romantic Kelsi's musical production is, but they mentioned the siblings playing Romeo and Juliet and that's more than I need to know. Srsly this is the most uncomfortable thing about the movie for me, just have them be super close best friends or something what the fuck

 

It was SUPER weird!

[SaraK 1980]

Actually I think it's pretty fucked up that Disney couldn't handle Ryan coming out as gay, but yet it is COMPLETELY OKAY FOR TWO SIBLINGS TO PLAY ROMANTIC INTERESTS TOGETHER IN MUSICALS idk how romantic Kelsi's musical production is, but they mentioned the siblings playing Romeo and Juliet and that's more than I need to know. Srsly this is the most uncomfortable thing about the movie for me, just have them be super close best friends or something what the fuck

 

Sharpay seemed to have a crush on Troy at certain points of the movie - wouldn't she want him to audition so she could share a stage kiss or something with him instead of her brother? Or when you audition in pairs, do you have to stay in those pairs forever?

[FisterRoboto 7499]

 

Sharpay seemed to have a crush on Troy at certain points of the movie - wouldn't she want him to audition so she could share a stage kiss or something with him instead of her brother? Or when you audition in pairs, do you have to stay in those pairs forever?

Related question for someone who never did theater stuff:

 

Are pair auditions a thing? It struck me as a bit odd because they were picking their partner. I get why you would want people auditioning together, but it seems weird to be like, "Pick your own partner!" rather than the teacher saying, "Oh, I think person A was good, and person B was good, so let's see how they are together."

 

 

 

 

 

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

 

Sharpay seemed to have a crush on Troy at certain points of the movie - wouldn't she want him to audition so she could share a stage kiss or something with him instead of her brother? Or when you audition in pairs, do you have to stay in those pairs forever?

In the third movie, a big point of contention is that Sharpay wants to steal the love song that Kelsi wrote for Troybriella so that she can sing it instead, but when she gets it (because Gabriella goes off to college), she cuts Ryan out and wants to do the duet with Troy, which Ryan's all put out about. Then Sharpay summons Troy because she wants to 'practice the kissing scene', to which Ryan looks sad. That he can't do a kissing scene with Sharpay.

 

But joke's on Sharpay, because Troy's understudy gets called in and she gets macked on by the freshman basketball kid.

[Cakebug Tranch 6873]

Related question for someone who never did theater stuff:

 

Are pair auditions a thing? It struck me as a bit odd because they were picking their partner. I get why you would want people auditioning together, but it seems weird to be like, "Pick your own partner!" rather than the teacher saying, "Oh, I think person A was good, and person B was good, so let's see how they are together."

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, you'd have 'chemistry' auditions late in the game, but never as the first thing you'd do. Or you'd audition in pairs so you could read a scene. When i played Romeo I had to read opposite a whole bunch of Juliets and they mixed and matched to see who worked best. The auditioners' choice of partner is irrelevant.

[kateacola 2440]

maybe the drama teacher knew you couldn't split up Sharpay and Ryan? cause of their creepy incesty chemistry? (eww)

So it had to be them or a totally different pair??

 

 

I do want to point out I was watching as my bf was getting ready for work. So he did watch a good chunk of it too.

I was surprised he even was paying attention, let alone genuinely laughing at anything in this...He did like Sharpay and was legit laughing at her dialogue (not ironically) and he said Ashley Tisdale was the only good actor in this..

[EvRobert 1684]

I have never seen a "pair audition" at least like Sharpay and Ryan do, but yeah, sometimes during callbacks or sometimes during the inital audition, they might say "I wanna see how see how so and so work together"

 

For example, a couple of years ago I auditioned for The Odd Couple. I read a bunch of scenes as Oscar with different actors as Felix. I read some scenes as Felix with different people as Oscar. I even read as Speed and Murray.

 

When I co-directed Legally Blonde, we do various pairings, but in the end, we trusted our gut and our Emmett and Elle didn't do any scene work together. Sometimes you just have to trust yourself.

[EvRobert 1684]

maybe the drama teacher knew you couldn't split up Sharpay and Ryan? cause of their creepy incesty chemistry? (eww)

 

 

I do want to point out I was watching as my bf was getting ready for work. So he did watch a good chunk of it too.

I was surprised he even was paying attention, let alone genuinely laughing at anything in this...He did like Sharpay and was legit laughing at her dialogue (not ironically) and he said Ashley Tisdale was the only good actor in this..

 

Watching this in hindsight, it is surprising how good of a comic actor Efron turned out to be. As a regular watcher of NBC's Powerless, Vanessa Hudgens hasn't improved much.

[kateacola 2440]

 

Watching this in hindsight, it is surprising how good of a comic actor Efron turned out to be. As a regular watcher of NBC's Powerless, Vanessa Hudgens hasn't improved much.

Oh yea, she was painful to watch and I did want to ask if she has improved...cause I don't think I've seen anything else she's in.

Guess she hasn't then..