Legend on the Stage – “This Is It”

Although I knew it is just a final milking from the cash cow by the production company, after watching this “Final tribute to MJ”, I still felt sad and sorry for his departure.

He belongs to the stage: Whatever he did off it, he just shines on it. Even without actually singing those songs (to protect his voice before the real show, as he said), his confident movements proved that he is really the “King of Pop”. Those 80’s costumes and movements might look “out” on anybody else, but just so “in” on him. And he is one of the only two ppl that can make the “black-shoe-white-socks” a fashion instead of a disaster – the other one is the late Bruce Lee. Now they can finally meet in the heaven.

And the stage belongs to him: As one of the two stage directors, he requests for perfection for every detail – echo, lighting, movements of the dancers, etc. The keyboard guy complains that “MJ knows every tone of every single one of his songs”. God knows that most singers have to recite the lyrics and stage positions before every single one of their shows… And I particularly like what he said to that young guitar girl when they were rehearsing for the duo – “It’s your time to shine!”.

Editing based on limited original video clips is never an easy job. (I did some trivial editing jobs recently, and that’s why I understand that.) This documentary really deserves an Oscar nomination for that. Come on, you cannot get MJ to come back and shoot for some additional cuts when you find out that you are missing them… Yup, I heard that some of the scenes were not by the “real MJ”, but, whatever…

There are so many songs that are important to me here: The anti-war “They Don’t Care About Us”, the save-the-planet “Earth Song” and “Heal the World”, the anti-discrimination “Black or White”, and a very special one for me – “Beat It” (cuz I performed this song in an aerobics way with some classmates back to the college yrs…). And so many classic movements: moonwalk, robot dance, “Billie Jean” (you know what I mean…), etc. Just like a “compilation”… After watching all these, you will have the same feeling as I do – why we have to lose him?!