Les Miserables

Les Miserables

One of my favorite operas is Les Miserables, and it is a great opera with beautiful music. I watched the movie when I was in high school; it was quite a big movie that year. The opera is set in early 19th century France. The main character is a man Jean Valjean who was in jail for nineteen years because he stole food for his starving sister and tried to escape jail a couple of times. After he was released, he had no where to go, because nobody want to give him another chance. Only the bishop took him in and took good care of him. During that time, his past keeps haunting him, and he continues stealing the bishop’s silverware. When the police show up, the bishop denies the charges and says the silverware was a gift for him. After this happened, Jean Valjean decides to make a fresh start in life. He renames himself M. Madeleine and starts a factory. There’s a young lady name Fantine, who is a single mom who gets fired from Valjean’s factory. She becomes a prostitute to feed her young daughter. After a few days, she passes away and gives her daughter to Valjean, and he promises her that he will look after her. Because there are police looking for Valjean, he finds a nice place in a convent, so him and the little girl Cosette can have a safe few years over there. After a couple of years, Cosette falls in love with Marius in a beautiful garden. Marius is the same age as Cosette and has so much passion in politics. There is a revolution during that time, and when  Marius joins in to one of the revolts, he is almost killed. Valjean saves his life because he knows how much Cosette loves Marius. Years later when Valjean is old and sick, Marius and Cosette are by Valjean’s bed when he dies.

I think there are going to be two groups of audiences that will react differently to this opera. One will be really supportive, one will not because this opera has a lot of things about religion and politics. The opera of Les Misérables came from a book that was published in 1862. When it first came out, there were many negative comments. The opera was first performed in 1980, and it received more positive comments by that time. People will be shocked about the extremely emotional plots. I think the author brought a few sensitive subjects of that time, such as religion, politics, romantic, and familial love directly to the reader and audiences. It is really important for people to look back and think again about the history, and what is the true meaning of family. Today, we are trying to make our life as simple as we can, compared the past when we had less patriotism. 

I did not get the chance to see this opera in person, but I went to the movie. In this movie, they used a lot of after effects such photoshop. At the beginning of the movie, they animate the boat. There are more scenes just like the first one. After editing makes the movie more colorful and mythical. 

If I can turn this into a video game, I will make Jean Valjean the first main character. He has to fix houses or boats in the game to gain energy and special coins to win the way to meet the bishop; at this point if he can escape jail he can gain more power for the future. By this time, he can make his own choices to either steal the silverware to go to the next step or he can be a good person and stay in the church forever. He does not have to run anymore, rather he can help the  bishop do great things in the church and start earning money to buy places and making houses. After working hard, he can use the money to go to the market to buy furniture. After he steals the silverware, he will meet the single mom and get the baby girl, Cosette. He can use all of his money to raise the baby girl. After Cosette grows up, she will become the main character, and she can dances around to earn special coins for shopping or short days to meet her future lover. In the game she can pick her outfits everyday. After she earn enough coins, she will meet Marius. At the same time, they all have to be careful of the police. Every time they got caught by the police, they will loose all of the energy and coins so they have to start earning the money again from the start. At the end, Cosette and Marius will have babies together.