Les Miserables: Differences between the 2012 movie and the book

I'm coming as someone way more familiar with the book's version of events, compared to how they're depicted in the movie. This is not a necessarily criticism of the movie... I found it gorgeous to look at, and I enjoyed seeing the Les Miz world visually for the first time, because all I've had to go on was my imagination previously, and maybe the illustrations and book covers of the various editions I'd read.  

But, being honest, some of the movie changes didn't make a lot of sense, but when the equivalent scenes mostly made sense in their original context.

Thoughts about Les Miz movie:

1) Starts with Valjean and a troop of convicts hauling a ship with ropes. They're singing "Look Down! You're here until you die or for 20 more years." But it's Valjean's last day as an inmate and Javert insensitively tells him he's free, here's your yellow passport, all in front of the other inmates. Maybe this should be handled in private?

2) Javert told Valjean to get the flag, not with the mast! So why isn't Valjean doing the smart thing and detaching the flag, folding it and handing it to Javert?

3) No Petit Gervais scene where he weeps for the first time in 20 years and swears to really turn his life around.

4) It's now 1823, and the town of M-sur-M is still dirty and very, very poor. People are grumbling, cold and hungry and singing that there will be a reckoning and there's gonna be hell to pay. And there's a locked gate that forces them to stay in town, like it's some huge prison.  

5) The factory at M-sur-M doesn't seem to be very well-paying or prosperous. It looks like another Dickens-type exploitation factory. We never get a feel that M. Madeleine was the one who turned things around for M-sur-M with good wages for all and wealth and prosperity even leaking to the surrounding villages.

6) Factory foreman is a sexual harasser, everybody knows it, nobody reports it, and M. Madeleine is clueless about this.

7) M. Madeline helps an old man under a fallen cart. Javert sees and sings about his suspicions, but we never hear the name of the man under the cart.

8) Fantine goes wandering around the dark streets, and random, weird and menacing people offer her money for her hair and teeth. Instead of a respectable barber (who needs the hair for wigs) or that charlatan traveling quack dentist.

9) Fantine's descent into prostitution, as well as the sale of her hair and teeth all happened on the same day.

10) The dark streets are dangerous and M. Bamatabois was grabbing Fantine to molest her after she already said "no" instead of playing a mean jest (with a snowball).

11) M. Madeline admits in court that he's Valjean. He returns to M-sur-M and tells Fantine that he will get Cosette and Fantine dies peacefully. Javert comes in to arrest him, they have a swordfight. Javert's sword vs. Valjean's wooden stick. Valjean escapes by jumping out a window into the water. Javert doesn't seem upset by the escape. There is no ship Orion or again-convict Valjean's rescue of a sailor.

12) Going to Montfermeil and the inn, the emphasis is on humor- the Thenns are grifters, sing a lot about it, lure marks into their inn and pickpocket everything possible- money, hats, glasses, rings, artificial eyes, false legs. They also piss into the beer and serve food of questionable origin. They give Cosette dirty looks and threats, but they really don't physically abuse her.

13) Just as they are leaving, Valjean and Cosette are chased by Javert and his troops. They never even get a breather to settle in Gorbeau House. Javert doesn't go undercover as a beggar to hunt for Valjean. He's strutting around in his uniform, shouting for Valjean or 24601, being easy to spot and flee from.

14) Valjean and Cosette flee to a convent. He hails a man and asks for help and that's the first time we hear the name "Fauchelevent", who was the man rescued from the cart. Why is he working in a convent now? 

15) In "Stars", Javert dedicates his life and swears by the stars that he will find and arrest Valjean. As if there were NO OTHER CRIMINALS in France, like Patron Minette, or someone like that... Valjean's case needs a dedicated police investigator. Makes perfect sense (/s).

16) There is nothing that ties Marius' father to Thenn- as in being saved on the battlefield at Waterloo.

17) Gavroche is introduced, but his blood relation to the Thenns (their son) isn't stated. He sings that once "we" killed the king and "we" tried to change the world too fast. So he's already THAT political?

17) Marius and Enjolras are co-leaders of the rabble-rousing rebellion. Grandpa Gillenormand has a few lines, saying that Marius is shaming the family, but that's all. We never see the extent of their political arguments, never know a thing about Marius' Bonapartist dad, or see Marius character arc as Grandpa's boy, discovering the truth about his father, his gradual radicalization, his belief in a debt owed to Thenn, the allure of the ABC's.

18) Marius and Eponine are portrayed as longtime friends. So this explains why there's a Marius/Eponine group of shippers.

19) The Ambush doesn't seem very menacing at all. Valjean and Cosette are accosted by Thenn, and only Valjean enters the hovel (which has a curtain, not a door). Thenn seems pissed that Valjean took Cosette away, but nobody ever ties him up, threatens him with a hot poker, or extorts money.

20) The party breaks up simply because Eponine spots Javert and tells everyone to scram. Marius is not involved at all and Javert just happens to be there at the right place and right time. And Javert lets Thenn and the criminals go- has a bigger fish to fry in Valjean.

21) Eponine sings about Cosette and what's become of ME... but she doesn't really look too bad. Clean hair, clean face, nice makeup, has her teeth, clothing not falling apart, well-filled cheeks and arms and not skeletal-thin...

22) Marius subverts the rebellion's Red and Black song to transform it into a song about L-O-V-E for Cosette. The rest of the guys smile and join in. LOL. Enjolras, always intense-looking, isn't happy about this AT ALL. Grantaire is a cool guy and not a stinkin' sexual harasser.

23) Cosette sings to herself about being IN LOVE with a guy she hasn't said a word to. This is a slow part. Valjean and Cosette seem to be living in a nice house and not the convent, with no explanation about when/why they left. The movie REALLY plays up the Marius/Cosette/Eponine love triangle.  

24) Valjean joins the rebellion in a soldier's uniform, and we don't know why. Not like he was donating the uniform so one of the rebels can leave safely. It's Gavroche, not Marius that tells the rebels, "I know him." and not to kill Valjean.

25) Once the rebellion gets going, it's pretty violent, and starts to fizz out. There's only one barricade left. Enjolras proposes a sensible thing: let's not waste lives, and whoever wants to leave can go. It takes Gavroche, a KID, to sing their song and get the rebels' juices flowing again. Why do they need a kid to lecture them on freedom? They know they're all toast. Their deaths aren't going to free the people.

26) The trip to the sewers isn't a very long excursion. Thenn is already hanging around there, and tells Valjean the way out (after stealing Marius' ring). This takes less than 2 minutes total, and half of it is Javert searching for them.

27) Marius' recovery at Grandpa's house didn't take long at all. While the women clean up the blood outside, Marius, arm in a sling, is healthy enough to go back to the ruins of Cafe Musain and sing about grieving for his friends.

28) What is Valjean doing? He's telling Marius about Jean Valjean who stole bread to save a child, and his crime was washed away serving 19 years in sweat. So, what's the problem then? He feels he's paid for his crime, and all should be good, right? But he tells Marius that he's gotta flee and ditch Cosette now.

29) The Thenns crash Marius and Cosette's wedding, pretending to be aristocracy. Where did their fine clothing and makeup and accouterments come from? Last seen, they were in a rickety wooden hovel and dirt poor. Marius tells them to "Go away, Thenardiers" but how does he know who they are? He'd never met them or lived in the same boarding house as them? They try to sell information, Marius punches Thenn and throws them out of the wedding party and that's the last we see of them. And so, Madame Thenn survives and doesn't die in prison! This is a good thing, because this version of the Thenns aren't child abusers or cruel and irredeemable. They're more harmless, more clever and more funny and far more entertaining.

30) Marius is not a d-bag. He never pushed Cosette and Valjean apart. Valjean had his own reasons for slinking away from them and going to "THE" convent to die.

31) Fantine comes for Valjean as he dies, and sings that "To love another person is to see the face of God." and then we see a bunch of now-dead people: Eponine, Gavroche, the ABC boys, all singing about "putting away the sword" and a future they'll bring when tomorrow comes. Yay! I think? So they're all renouncing violence, and love will conquer all, and they want us to join their now-peaceful crusade, right? So why are they still at the barricades, waving the same flags and not appearing to try a different tact, like reconciliation, taking down the barricades, reaching out to the soldiers (and making more strategic alliances next time)? And the bad news is: France won't become a Republic again until 1870, so those who are still alive in 1832 have a LONG wait.

What's good about the movie:

• The attractive A-list cast. I would have preferred this to be a movie and not a musical.
• Valjean and Fantine's drastic weight loss when the chips are down is totally believable.
• The set pieces, which look spectacular.
• The swooping camera-work, which frees the work from its stage origins.
• The narrow streets of Paris, which some have criticized as "the Disneyland version" but I happen to love Disneyland, so that sounds good to me. Les Miz: The Theme Park Experience?
• The Thenns. First time I'd seen them was in the manga and their cruelty and abuse was front-and-center. The movie/musical Thenns are a better set of human beings, doing what they need to survive, and not really hurting anyone.
• 
  Marius pays tribute to the ABC's. Only in the movie and the musical, where we can see him actually grieve for his friends and their lost cause. In the book, Marius has a long recovery and then his entire life's focus shifts to Cosette. He doesn't even give a thought about his departed friends or the cause that they all (incl. Marius) fought for!