Okay, so:
I've met people with all kinds of different views on RENT, and I was curious what people around here thought of it.
Personally, I love it to death. In all seriousness, it changed my outlook on the world and helped me come to terms with some stuff about myself.
So I want to know: what do all of you think?
Movie or play or both.

I personally love both the show and the movie, they're great ways of dealing with very real issues. This is really my favorite movie and musical of all time. Anyone who hasn't seen RENT, get a copy of the movie and watch it before you make any judgements on this show/movie.
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Script Frenzy '08: Midnight-Planning
JulNoWriMo '08: The VeritaSeekers 2 (Title TBA)-Planning
NaNoWriMo '08:Wyatt Cane and the Looking Glass-Planning

I haven't seen the show, though I'd like to. I love the movie - I remember sitting in the last row of the theatre with my sister, sobbing my eyes out.

My friends just don't seem to get it, but it's great.

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NaNo 2005: Lark's War (51k)
2006: The Passion of Resentment (50k)
2007: Cenotaph (finished! 121k)

Put me in the "not a fan" camp, but I've never been much of a fan of dramatic fiction (What? I like laughing!) so that's to be expected.
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Screnzy '08: Ceres. It's a romantic comedy between two mad scientists in space.
NaNo 2007: The Dragon Herald. (It's really not much like it sounds like.) Failed pretty badly, blah. :-/
NaNo 2006: Jerusalem O'Kira, Blockade Runner. I WON!

I've seen the movie a couple times and I love the soundtrack, but the story itself seems to be too much "oh look, we're edgy!" for my tastes. I have no doubt that it's powerful stuff for some (especially when the play first came out) but it's just not my kind of entertainment.

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NaNoWriMo '07: The Squabbles of Nearly But Not-Quite Scientists; winner!
FAWM '08: "The Fall of the Candy Gladiator and Other Tales"; winner!
SF '08: In planning...

I get what you mean about it changing your outlook on the world. When I first saw it (on a very ill-advise junior high chorus trip), it made me fall in love with a whole assortment of things: musicals, bohemianism, the city, you name it. I adored it for years, even if I couldn't remember most of it.

Then the movie came out. I bought that sucker and watched it until the DVD busted. I forced everyone else around me to watch it too. Now, though, I find myself falling out of love with it. As I get older, I see what people mean when they call it too "omg edgy" and those who don't love the songs as much. Also, since my first seeing it, I've seen a lot better musicals.

So, to make a TL:DR story short, put me down for "Still like it, but not as much as I did."

I'm conflicted about RENT - I like the story, love the characters, and I really like a lot of the songs, but the fact that they use the original cast in the film is my bone of contention. I love that they've used stage actors who otherwise may not have gone into film, but RENT is more beliveable when they characters are at just-left-uni age. When they're thirtysomething, I just find myself thinking "get a life!"

And it's THE SAME. Why will nobody do RENT differently? OK, the London one was dreadful, but surely someone could do RENT without keeping it exactly the same as it's always been?

I like RENT a lot, but I'm not a huge fan. I saw the movie and thought it was good, but I'm not a big musical person. I just didn't find the singing all that spectacular, but to each their own.

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Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal. - Neil Gaiman

Love the show and know every word, but years of being a drama and art geek in my high school those many moons ago kind of satisfied my need to ever listen to it (on repeat for hours on end multiple times a week...) Now that I think about it, my friends and I kind of were the high school versions of those characters...scary. I probably haven't listened to it at all in a couple years, but if you say one word that is in "La Vie Boheme" I will burst into (occasionally inappropriate) song.

That said, the movie killed my soul a little bit. I agree that, while it's cool that they kept the original cast, I couldn't help but think they didn't fit the characters anymore. Mostly, though, just the filming style really bothered me. It's like they didn't make a cohesive film, they just patched together a bunch of individual music videos. It felt like the characters and the real power of the show got lost in "OMG it's Rent! With editing!"

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

HUGE disappointment. I'm not a big fan of the stage show, but the movie left me frustrated and angry in that "You had a bulletproof product here and you *still* managed to screw it up!" way... much like I felt after seeing PHANTOM and PRODUCERS. So much of it simply did not work because they made it "real" -- and agreed: using the now-30ish original cast looked a little weird, considering those characters are supposed to be early 20ish.

Loved the stage show, hated the movie. Mostly, they killed the spirit of what the stage show was supposed to be, and more than that, they used the original cast when the show is supposed to be about people that are college-age or a little older. The movie sorta' killed my respect for movie musicals, though I'll have to disagree with the side shot on Phantom, since they tried to blend the musical with the book, so there you go.

Either way, the fact is, it's a good operetta, as long as one remembers that, above all, it is in fact a period piece. So there you are.

"You're insane."
"Has it really taken you this long to figure that out?"
- Batman: The Long Halloween