The Music Meister wasn't just out to fix Barry and Kara's "relationship problems"; the reason he stole their powers and robbed a bank was to help Wally get out of the emotional funk he was in by giving him somebody to fight.
Spoilers The Flash - Season 3
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
What, Cisco got his line about "someone with...green skin and a sickass cape"...I got a good laugh out of that.
Hanging tough.
You're right. I forgot to mention that. It doesn't fix the problem of his motivation, tell us what he actually is or effect how he's definitely not the "Music Meister" in any way, but he does go around solving problems that aren't relationship based. So, you're right, but its not super relevant to what I was saying.
I decided to watch it when I saw people saying it didn't have as much music as they expected. I figured that meant I could skip the music without it effecting the plot of the episode, and I was right. I wouldn't have missed anything except Barry and Iris having their relationship fixed, but it ended up barely being a musical so it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn't good, but the music was barely in there and the story arguably had bigger problems then the pointless songs.
@kirk55555 Barry likely gave him the name Music Meister because of the fact that he A) trapped them in an alternate reality that relied on their inner thoughts and love of musicals to create itself and B) actually sang while in said reality, so it doesn't really matter that he wasn't like the Music Meister from Batman: The Brave and the Bold or the comics; that's the name they chose to give him, so that's who he is.
A bit late for that considering the past few episodes, but hopefully that was the end of it and maybe Iris can get back to being a reporter.
The writers remember she still works as a reporter, right?
I definitely agree. I thought the episode had a good sense of humor, but beyond that? The story took forever to get started and then ended so abruptly it was like getting hit by a truck. The songs were too few, barely meaningful and barely original. And I get that for some people that was a good thing, because they don't like musicals, but who exactly is the target audience for a bastard half-musical that wastes time with pointless songs while still not really embracing the fact that its a musical?
If you're going to do it, then do it and accept that certain temporary alterations of the status quo come with it, like the fact that characters in a musical always know a new song, because they're in a musical, or the fact that they can't just stop themselves from bursting into song even if its embarassing. If you're not going to do it, then what's the point?
I do agree that was a nice ending for the story. Though I think it would've been much more effective if the musical plot itself had had any real meat to it at all, rather than being just a simple lesson.
I was actually surprised by how much I didn't like Grant's singing in the episode, and I think this is a big part of the reason. It really sounded like it had been altered, like they somehow didn't trust his original performance. Everyone else's part sounded great, though. I knew they had a lot of great singers, but I had no idea the guy playing Winn could sing like that. That was a great surprise.
Another reason why trying to 'justify' the musical just leads to confusion. If they had embraced the clearly different nature of reality in a musical, there would be no question here. People sing to each other from wherever they happen to be. Songs can take place over a matter of minutes, hours or days. Scene changes can happen abruptly in the middle of a word. It's all part of the unique formula of what a musical is, so when the writers decide they have to justify specifically why all this is happening (beyond the simple and obvious answer of magic) and then start leaving things out because they can't justify them, they're just gutting the whole concept and hamstringing themselves for no reason.
Yeah, with MM's powers, it would've been easy enough to make people sing. Granted, this version wasn't as coercive as his namesake -- it was important to him to let his subjects figure things out for themselves and exercise free will -- but he could've at least imparted them with the knowledge of the lyrics and melodies.
Well, maybe they were trying to avoid comparisons to "Once More, With Feeling."
It just sounded like standard music-studio polish to me. The way singing in film and TV is almost always done is that the songs are recorded ahead of time in the studio to get the best sound quality, then lip-synched to by the performers on stage. It's almost unheard of to use the actual live singing recorded during the filming of the scene. That Anne Hathaway Les Miserables from 2012 did it that way, and its trailers made a big deal of what a novel approach it was to capture the raw sound of the actors singing on stage like in a theatrical musical, taking advantage of improvements in recording tech or the like. The idea was that it would make the singing sound more natural, more invested with the emotion the actors were channeling in the moment as they acted, rather than being more emotionally detached because it was recorded out of context weeks or months earlier in an acoustically sterile environment. Apparently, though, it was just perceived by audiences and critics as bad singing.
Anyway, it was pretty obvious from the sound of Barry's singing that it was of a piece with the music track recorded in the studio, rather than being "live" as it was presented in the scene. I would've been happier if they'd gone with a more authentic live sound, even if they'd faked it in the studio recording.
Apparently Jeremy Jordan is a well-known up-and-coming Broadway star. He's best known from the 2012 musical Newsies, for which he was nominated for the Tony and Drama Desk awards. He was also in the cast of Rock of Ages, was a replacement lead as Tony in the 2009-11 West Side Story revival, and played the male title character in a 2011 Bonnie and Clyde musical.
Be kind of stupid if that were the case. A supernatural hero tv show doing a musical episode can't escape that comparison any way you look at it. That's like a traditional fantasy epic starring dwarves, elves, humans and orcs trying avoid being compared to TLoTR.
I'll happily bow to all manner of experts - I certainly don't know the ins and outs of the process well enough to even try to pinpoint specific reasons for what happened. All I know is something made Grant's performance stand out from all the others in a (IMO) very negative way. Obviously nothing in a musical is truly spontaneous, but he felt artificial where the other performances felt perfectly believable.
Yeah, I had known that the leads were well known for their singing and that theree were multiple other broadway veterans in the casts (I'm honestly more familliar witth John Barrowman as a musical actor than a sci-fi one, really), but I didn't know that Winn was among them, let alone that his voice was that powerful. Musically speaking, I'd say he completely stole the show, except for the fact that he only had one song.
A bit late for that considering the past few episodes, but hopefully that was the end of it and maybe Iris can get back to being a reporter.
The writers remember she still works as a reporter, right?
If there is one thing I hate about Iris now is that the writers have forgotten that she has a job. We have all this soapy drama and Iris is more of a charactiture at this point than an actual character.
Its just the writers being dumbasses. They should never have used the name, and I bet they'd admit they used it mostly as a reference and not because the character fit at all. I know why they did it, but that doesn't make it right. Its really the only consistent problem The Flash has (besides the fact that it keeps thinking that Barry/Iris having relationship drama is anything but annoying at this point), misusing characters/names with less thought put into the use then the X-Men movies do with its wasting of side characters. There was no reason to call that guy "The Music Meister". Absolutely none, especially since he doesn't care about music specifically and isn't a villain. At least, for example, there is a version of Doctor Light who is a villain (even if they got the wrong version on Flash). Using "The Music Meister" name for the character was almost certainly an afterthought and probably ended up being more annoying/disappointing to people then anything.
Having a stupid in universe reason for the name doesn't excuse the misuse of it.
This is a fair criticism, and I think one that should be addressed. Music Meister was basically god-like--way too powerful for what he is supposed to be--almost like Mxyspltlk, but he didn't even have the say the name backwards thing.
I would hope they bring him back at some point for another musical episode, and establish that there ARE limits to his powers. That he LIED when he said that Barry and Kara created this world.
Either that, or have a more accurate Music Meister as a different villain and explain Darrin Criss later.
I'd like a sequel to take place in the REAL world, where people sing against their will, and of course dance perfectly. It would be fun. And that's what this episode was to me--pure fun. I enjoyed it a lot.
I would hope they bring him back at some point for another musical episode, and establish that there ARE limits to his powers. That he LIED when he said that Barry and Kara created this world.
Either that, or have a more accurate Music Meister as a different villain and explain Darrin Criss later.
I'd like a sequel to take place in the REAL world, where people sing against their will, and of course dance perfectly. It would be fun. And that's what this episode was to me--pure fun. I enjoyed it a lot.
I dunno, the whole "against their will" part kinda bugs me. How about something where the heroes, for some reason, have to deliberately stage a musical of their own in order to outfox the Music Meister or trap some villain? Like, maybe Grodd comes back, and they discover that singing helps them resist his mind control, plus he hates musicals so it drives him to distraction. Maybe Meister drops in to help nudge them toward figuring that out.
No, it's not.
It's nothing but whining about how these writers "disrespected the source material" and once again ignoring/willfully misunderstanding what the word ADAPTATION means.
While we're on the subject, I want people, without invoking the "it's not like the source material" strawman, to explain to me exactly what is so bad about the show's Music Meister possibly being a 5th Dimensional imp or some other type of "god-like creature".
Is it me or does Barry/Kara have far more chemistry than Barry/Iris or Kara/Jimmy & Mon-El
Nothing, nothing at all. I guess it helps I don't consider comics to be a religion that aren't allowed to adapt storylines and characters.
Nothing, nothing at all. I guess it helps I don't consider comics to be a religion that aren't allowed to adapt storylines and characters.
I think I already did so. The problem is not that he's something different from his namesake -- the problem is that they failed to explain what he is or why he was doing any of this. If he is some sort of imp or alien, then what sort? And what motivated him to seek out superheroes from two different universes and put them through this trial just so he could help them through their romantic problems? I mean, if he wanted to help superheroes, I'd say the Green Arrow and the Legends were in much more dire need of aid this week. It didn't make any sense. It was just the writers slapping some random stuff together to justify letting their cast members sing. And, sure, whatever excuse they came up with would've ultimately been for that purpose, but they didn't have to be so obvious about it.
^ Thanks for the response, @Christopher. I disagree that this is a problem, but "to each their own".
I agree with you. It should have been one or the other. I liked the hesitation of Kara and Barry at first though, so I didn't want to lose that.
That's kind of the whole Music Meister thing--making people sing against their will. In the real world, we don't break into song, and the Music Meister absolutely makes people do that. He turns life into a musical, and that's a really fun villain.
Source material exists for a reason. A character or a show is created and becomes popular. So someone else, who had nothing to do with the creation of that character or show, completely changing it, is going to get negative feedback from the audience that made the character popular in the first place. That's not whining. That's fair criticism. If a writer plays in someone else's sandbox, he should respect the source material. Otherwise, create someone original.
This version of the Music Meister was not an adaptation. He was a completely different character and only had the name in common with the original. So why not just give him a different name? This version of the character didn't even have any real musical theme. Barry and Kara were only in a musical because THEY liked musicals. If they were in a war movie, would he be the War Meister?
This is a completely different character. If they wanted an original character, create one. Otherwise, yes, respect the source material.
As for being a 5th dimensional being, that's really Mxy's gig. If they are going to do that, why not just use Mxy? And for the record, he totally would have worked given how they used Darren Criss' character.
Other than that, if they just wanted a different 5th dimensional being, there really wouldn't be a complaint from me other than "why not use Mxy?" It wouldn't bother me for more than 10 seconds.
I'm left wondering a lot about this character. I really want to see him again and find out more about his motivations.
Similar threads
