Did you like LND? Why or why not? Please try to be as specific as possible

I hated Love Never Dies with an undying, firey passion. First off, the music was not even comparable to that of The Phantom of the Opera. Second, THERE IS NO SEQUEL TO THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. For ALW to write a sequel to the stand-alone book, was in my opinion, just offensive. The Phantom of the Opera ended at the end of the book, the musical, and the movie. There is no more to be told. Oh, and do I even need to mention the ENORMOUS flaws between The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies?? Just go try and count them up. You can't. There are too many to count. I will list a few:
1. Christine never slept with the Phantom, therefore, Gustave cannot be hers and the Phantom's son.
2. Raoul is not an abusive drunk. You really think Christine would've stuck around this long if he was? Come on, people, really.
3. At the end of The Phantom of the Opera, the movie, you can clearly see on Christine's gravestone, her death date: 1917. Considering when she was born, that would put her in her late 70's or 80's. Not her 20's as when she died in Love Never Dies.
4. Meg never loved the Phantom. NEVER. To have her have this, this, THING with the Phantom in Love Never Dies was, just, let me say it, STUPID, UNNESSEARY, JUST AN EXCUSE TO APPEAL TO THE PHANS WHO HATE RAOUL AND SHIP MERIK.
Love Never Dies's storyline was crap. Here is it in a nutshell:
The Phantom still loves Christine 10 years later, after Christine and Raoul are married and have a son. Raoul somehow gets Christine and Raoul over to New York so Christine can sing once more in a show for him. Raoul becomes scared that Christine will realize she loves the Phantom more than him, and, while he's drunk, makes a bet with the Phantom: If Christine sings, you can have her, but if she doesn't, I get to keep her. The Phantom agrees. Raoul realizes what he's done and disappears because he knows he'll lose Christine. Oh, um, by the way, PLOT TWIST! Christine and Raoul's son is actually Christine and the Phantom's son. Whoa! Didn't see that coming! Anyway, to sum things up, Christine sings, and now belongs to the Phantom. Meg gets angry because she's in love with the Phantom and threatens to shoot herself. The Phantom goes to get the gun from Meg and it misfires and shoots Christine. Meg disappears. As she lay there, dying,Christine tells her son that the Phantom is his real father. She dies.
THE END!
Wow. What a feel good movie/musical. Doesn't it make you want to be a better person, now?
Anyway, before I continue ranting til the end of time, I'll just sum up in a few sentences:
Love Never Dies never should have been written. There are too many flaws with The Phantom of the Opera, and the music was terrible, as was the storyline. I would love to just forget about this play and never hear about it again! But, unfortunately being a Phan means having to write many more reviews like this.
Sorry for ranting, but I needed to get this off my chest.

I love it. I love the cool set design, huge phantom mask on the turntable, all the lights and set of coney island. ( Australian production ). ALW music. And yes I like the story and how not much is similar to POTO. ( why do something twice ) I like how the phantoms not a complete madman anymore but shows signs of it. I love the reprises. Devil take the hindmost till I hear u sing again. Under a moonless sky the beauty underneath. All awesome. It's not as good as POTO. But the thing I like about it is I was interested all the way through. Where in parts of POTO ( Charlotte parts) im bored. And yes I loved the ending. Even cried.

I saw it in London and I must say it is a real shame if anyone missed it there.. I really liked the original recording, Ramin and Sierra are a brilliant team.. That story was also better, I did dislike the way Raoul, Meg and Madame Giry had been twisted into such horrible characters, but there wasn't so much deception and blackmail in it, Christine sang for the Phantom because she loved him not because of blackmail.. The revised version confused me when I saw it.. I really enjoyed the original intro or the idea of it in my head and although it opened with Ramin singing Til I Hear You Sing which is by far my favourite song of the piece there was just so much taken out.. The costumes are good and the set design in the London production was amazing with the lights and it really felt kind of real.. And as I said I saw Ramin as Phantom and I love him.. but the whole cast was amazing and acting and the singing was really what I wanted to see...
On the other hand, the Australian version.. I bought the DVD... I wish I hadn't.. I was very disappointed with it, mainly because Ben Lewis either cannot or was not acting at all, he stood awkwardly at some stages or otherwise did nothing at all.. ALW says in the bonus stuff that it gives them the chance to show so much more emotion in the DVD because it's up close, but there was no emotion to see.... Otherwise, some of the costumes I wasn't sure of, mostly the LND dress.. and most of the scenery wasn't as good as London, however, the "Beauty Underneath" scenery was amazing, I think is was much more exciting than the London production..
So therefore I have mixed feelings... Music is good, set design and that generally good.. Glad I have the original recording because that's good.. story and most of the characters I hate and Australian DVD mostly sucks, for me, I couldn't get past that bad acting.. After seeing Ramin, it is quite hard to..
But I think it's up to people to see it for themselves and make their own decisions on it..

i've seen parts of it and i'm gonna see the whole movie i know i'm gonna love it

yes

I saw The Phantom of the Opera when I was 12, and I heard the Original London Cast Recording of Love Never Dies when I was 16. By then my life had gone through some MAJOUR changes. For one thing my Dad died 2.75 months after I saw The Phantom of the Opera on stage (believe it or not) and my life was continuing to get worse. When I was 13 I had read "The Phantom of Manhattan" so it was not a surprise to me when Christine died. :( But what Meg said before she shot her sounded JUST like I was feeling by the time I was 16. (added to that my relationship with my sister had gone tough the same stages as Meg and Christine's in Love Never Dies the Australian production in the past eight years at the time) but I HADN'T killed anybody. Why? When I saw the DVD The blocking for "Please Miss Giry I Want to go Back" made it look like Meg MEANT to shoot Christine. Later I found out Meg was Bipolar, and I'm not! Also during a class called "Working with Young Children" I learned that If a child is born less then a year into a marriage it most likely falls apart, which is WHY Christine chooses the Phantom. Also gambling was popular among rich people during the time that the Phantom of the Opera was set. Raoul in the original novel is immature and immature people are impulsive, and do things like drink too much, and gamble. What I like about Love Never Dies is it's biases in reality. But, Mr. Webber WHAT HAPPENS NEXT??!