All the weird misinterpretations and revisions of Russian history aside, Anastasia is one of my favourite movies because its plot structure is so fucking weird
It’s a period piece romance. That’s cool, that’s all well and good, except that on the sidelines there’s an undead warlock who’s trying so hard to kill the protagonist, but all in ways that the protagonist either doesn’t notice or doesn’t accept as supernatural
And it isn’t a twist! The audience knows about the warlock! The warlock has a villain song! The warlock is one of the principal characters! But the protagonist spends 95% of the movie completely unaware of the warlock, and just spends the entirety of the movie doing period piece romance things while being repeatedly inconvenienced by the warlock until the climax, when the protagonist has to very suddenly
Acknowledge the existence of the warlock
Acknowledge the existence of the supernatural
See some real-ass goddamn magic
Kill the warlock
I have never seen a movie with a plot structure like this before, and I don’t think I’ll see one like it ever again. It’s like an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that turns Lady Catherine into a vampire who’s just repeatedly trying to drink Lizzy’s blood, but Lizzy doesn’t even notice until the climax whereupon she stuffs Lady Catherine’s mouth with garlic and cuts off her head (an adaptation I would kill to see, by the way). There are two completely different genres playing out at the same time, and one of them is trying to kill the other
Anyways that’s why the stage musical is bad, thank you and good night
The only thing I’m adding to this is that Disney’s Hercules has almost the same hero-villain dynamic in that the protagonist and antagonist think they are the heroes of two wildly different stories, and the protagonist doesn’t really know the antagonist exists until the endgame starts. It’s so fucking bizarre. They also both came out in 1997, and feature a red-headed protagonist who starts the story trying to find out who their parents are and falls in love with a shady brunette with dubious intentions who winds up trying to sacrifice themselves so the protagonist can live/be happy. I dunno what this means, but coincidence? I think NOT!
