The Three Stories/Movies About Love

I thought the movies Warm Bodies and West Side Story were both interesting stories that had some parts from The Romeo and Juliet play/story, mostly in the West Side Story.  But, there was one important thing that I found that they all have in common, is the main plot and I guess the one message that each one had. That plot/message of all of them is that love has no boundaries and if two people can find love, then nothing can stop it, not even feuds between any two groups. Despite the different ways of the movies/stories were shown or played, they all seem to be a trend of telling and retelling the same story about love.  

In West Side Story, I liked it when the setting of the story was different from the R and J play/story. In this case, 1950’s New York U.S.A., and the feuding groups were two different ethic gangs, the Americans/Jets and the Portuguese/Sharks.  Since it was a musical, there was a lot of dancing which is just another form of expression through movement instead of poetical speech in R and J.  There were scenes of the movie that were like Romeo and Juliet like the dance scene where Tommy and Maria meet for the first time and the balcony scene were both meet again. Both movies had both scenes happen in the order it happened. I think that West Side story did well in having enough parts from the Romeo and Juliet movie and enough changes in the setting, the characters, and different ending.

In Warm Bodies, the setting was also different in a fictional, future, and apocalyptic world of two feuding sides of humans and zombies. The movie had the balcony scene with the two main characters R and Julie meet, though it happened towards the end of the movie compared to Romeo and Juliet where it happened towards the beginning.  The way the characters spoke also was more casual and not really any poetic speech nor lengthy dance scenes. That helped me get a better understanding on what was going on in the movie and I liked the happy ending that resolved the feuded compared to Romeo and Juliet where it had a sad ending and resolution to the feud. I also like the small bits of humor in the movie. If any one like bloopers as much as I do, I'd look at the bloopers for Warm Bodies. 

In my opinion, West Side Story was a good movie, even though I do have trouble liking musicals, I do appreciate the work and effort that goes into the dancing scenes. I liked Warm Bodies the most out of the three since the characters spoke the way I and most others around me would speak, which makes it easy for me to pay more attention and understand. There was no Shakespearean/poetic speak to stop and listen to carefully to understand what each character communicated to each other. Though I haven’t seen the Romeo and Juliet at a stage/play setting, after seeing all of three stories of love, I gained more understanding and appreciation for how love stories where and are now shown, played, and written. I would like to see different plays of the same story Romeo and Juliet and see the differences and similarities between them.