This is an extensive treatise of musical theatre history and storytelling through music in order to explain why this film is a poor musical. If that is of no interest to you please do not read this. Seriously. What the hell are musicals? It appears to be a play where the dialogue stops and the plot is conveyed through song. 1 Musical theatre is an art form often defined by people spontaneously bursting into song and dance. Spontaneous is an unfortunate misconception as musical storytelling is much more deliberate than it can appear. Theres an old adage in musical theatre: When youre too emotional to speak you sing. And when youre too emotional to sing you dance. Songs are sung for a reason. They occur at the most heightened and passionate emotional moments of the storyvows of love declarations of dreams 2 oaths of revenge utter despair making difficult decisions self discovery and celebration of ones self 3. These feelings are relatable and powerful functioning as the engines behind a medium that is inherently character driven. But a musical theatre song needs to do more than just express emotions. In the 1940s songwriter and lyricist duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II 4 revolutionized musical storytelling. With very few exceptions 5 most musicals up until then had been frivolous and lighthearted. The narratives werent a priority and the song and dance numbers put the stories on pause rather than advance them. Rodgers and Hammerstein decided to actually make the songs integral to their shows and in 1943 Oklahoma forever changed the way musicals were written. The late great Howard Ashman lyricist for Disneys The Little Mermaid Beauty the Beast and Little Shop of Horrors explained this principle best: Musicis information. Its a way to get character and plot information across. you want it to develop story or character in some way so the song will carry its own weight so it can justify its existence. 6a If you can take a song and you can remove it from the script and the script still makes sense you havent done your job properly. 6b Rose of Versailles 2025 lacks this fundamental understanding. From the start its opening song May Our Souls Bloom in Lovehttps://youtu.be/82yu4gq1YkE?si=z2CgujqHxao0WBj functions more as a theme song choosing to rely on an unseen and omniscient narrator to convey the setting and information throughout the whole film. Barring the song used in the ending credits Rose of Versailles 2025 has fourteen songs. All fall under one of two categories: 1. Background music where the characters are not depicted singing to anyone. Instead they are engaged in montage of some kind usually with symbolic imagery Ma Vie en Rose Believe in My Wayhttps://youtu.be/4UMIPc8yOg?si=FOWrVx86RIi70efa Child of Mars 2. Background music where the characters stay in reality but are still not actually depicted singing Never Surrenderhttps://youtu.be/gqRL9pRkxM?si=K0q473N9j0WxvWD Enchanting Masqueradehttps://youtu.be/NUza0TqeD8?si=JSkNYc8Sm0n82JAG The problem with the first category is that they completely put the story on pause. Those songs often start playing after the characters make their declarations making them redundant. Child of Mars is particularly guilty of this as Oscar makes her decision before she starts singing. Songs are supposed to process emotions not validate them. Those in the second category do not interfere with the narrative or pacing but are still reduced to nothing but anime insert songs. Unfortunately there is another issue plaguing the songs: theyre not diegetic. The definition of diegetic is: happening within or being the created world of a story. Or in simpler terms the music is actually being sung and heard by those in the film. Instead of having the characters actually sing to each other montage or no it opts for the Disneys Tarzan approach 7 of having the singing offscreena fundamentally weaker musical decision. Songs in musicals are meant to be sung by the characters either to other characters or to the audience. Robbing them of that agency is a terrible thing to do. The only exception the only song in the whole film that is wholly diegetic is Anger and painhttps://youtu.be/wmVkw9N7LXw?si=9wyWi3hIv8LClO2 sung by Bernard and the Parisian commoners. It is the films Do You Hear the People Sing? 8 moment even using the motif from the opening songperhaps the only true thoughtful and deliberate use of music. Other things the film didnt seem to think about: The vast majority of the songs are solos and most of them are incredibly short. Again those kinds of songs cannot pull their weight. Theres no musical cohesion. These songs dont sound like they all come from the same film. Oscar and Marie never sing together 9 and Marie is nearly completely forgotten in the last third of the film. The most emotional moments in the film were the ones not set to music. Oscar presenting as feminine for the first time Andrs injury and deteriorating sight Maries infidelity exposed those are some of the scenes that shouldve been sung. All of this to say that the cornerstones of musical storytelling just arent here. Ma Vie En Rose and Anger and pain are the songs closest to functioning properly but they still fall short. Sawano Hiroyuki and Yamamoto Kohta have years of experience both having composed for dozens of anime. But being a composer and understanding musical theatre are completely different skills 10. Rather than a musical it sounds more like a bland anisong concept album that was inspired by Rose of Versailles. This film was not obligated to be the greatest iteration of Rose of Versailles. It was not obligated to be the greatest musical. But as a musical it was obligated to tell its story through music. Rose of Versailles 2025 does not need the songs in order to tell its story. Theyre just pretty distractions and detract from the characters content to play it safe in shallow emotions. All but one of the songs can be skipped and nothing would be missed. For a musical that is nothing short of complete and utter failure. 1 The opening lyrics from A Musicalhttps://youtu.be/ZZ6x3WmQjj8?si=xlrovo9jTMsopYJx from Something Rotten 2015 2 Commonly referred to as I Want songs. Part of Your Worldhttps://youtu.be/SXKlJuO07eM?si=91zuT09BLXP7AzTa Almost Therehttps://youtu.be/ThMwHKfzz1I?si=ZQi3cZlsvItd5h The Wizard Ihttps://youtu.be/i0rRWwa2tQ?si=6CfaqPolHR3h4N6 3 Commonly referred to as I Am songs. Gastonhttps://youtu.be/30PVdigjbFY?si=9V77rZQwtc5zBHVR I Am Moanahttps://youtu.be/SgXpsZa8i4?si=berKrsyb5g0JA5k Meet the Plasticshttps://youtu.be/ju6Xwr9edPI?si=t05qrGzlUKeNfZI1 4 Richard Rodgers Oscar Hammerstein II were songwriting partners initiating and championing the Golden Age of musical theatre which lasted from the 1940s through the late 1950s. Aside from Oklahoma they are known for shows such as The Sound of Music The King I South Pacific Carousel and Cinderella. 5 Show Boathttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShowBoat 1927 is the first musical to be credited with telling a story about serious topics with emotional weight. 6a 6b Quotes taken from this interviewhttps://youtu.be/5h06FSVoqr4?si=ybRvShOfnaAkjkG. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken are the progenitors of the Disney Renaissance. Beginning with The Little Mermaid in 1989 the film singlehandedly saved the Disney company from bankruptcy. 7 Disneys Tarzan has only two moments of diegetic music: Kala singing the beginning of Youll Be in My Hearthttps://www..com/watch?v=OpFqoE0Dco8 and Trashin the Camphttps://youtu.be/PMCFmyYCTc?si=PSJgxbMOMPXUFkck. The rest of the songs are sung by an omniscient Phil Collins who represents Tarzan. So at least Rose of Versailles 2025 actually has the voice actors singing for their characters. 8 Do You Hear the People Sing?https://youtu.be/K5PzJhU8iI0?si=ymbG5xN1AgNm3LOJ is one of the most identifiable songs from Les Misrables. 9 This seems to be a recurring trait among the takarazuka musical adaptationshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheRoseofVersaillesmusicals as most of them focus on either Marie and Fersen or Oscar and Andr. 10 The other prime example of talented songwriters not understanding musical theatre storytelling is Disneys Wish. Wish at the very least still manages to function as a musical as the songs are both diegetic and are integral to the story.