Anastasia’s survival and escape is one of the most talked about rumors since 1928, concerning the assassination of the Romanov Family by the Soviet Union. Although it has been proven that Anastasia did not survive the assassination, her legacy still lives on to this day, with the rumor of her survival. In fact, the story was so popular that it became a movie in 1997 and later (in 2016) made into a Broadway musical. Both the movie and the musical have similar songs, but the musical added more songs. However, the question still remains: Is the musical better than the movie or is the movie better than the musical?

DISCLAIMER: This story contains spoilers for both the movie and the musical. So, if you do not want spoilers then you probably should not read this article. However, if you do not mind spoilers, then by all means, please enjoy this article!

The movie’s plot talks about an orphan girl (who is actually Anastasia Romanov) by the name of Anya, who cannot remember anything from her past. Despite having amnesia, she does know that someone cared about her. So, she sets out on an adventure to find her family. Later, she meets Dimitri and Vlad, who are con artists that want to find someone who will pretend to be Anastasia because Anastasia’s grandmother (who is somehow still alive) has offered a large sum of money to find her granddaughter. So, the two hope to find a girl in order to fool the grandmother into thinking that she is Anastasia and receive all that cash (or rubles) for themselves. When they first meet Anya (who looks exactly like Anastasia), they decide to trick Anya into thinking that she may be the Grand Duchess and offer to take her to Paris to meet her grandmother. Anya, hoping to locate her family, accepts the offer and travels with them to Paris. However, what the three do not know is that an evil sorcerer, Rasputin, still wants revenge on the Romanov family for betraying him. He has vowed to kill Anya and complete his “Romanov curse.”

The Anastasia movie as a whole was mediocre. It was not perfect, but it was still a good movie. However, some key moments could be changed to improve it. Rasputin as the villain really needed some improvements. He seemed too bland and did not really accomplish anything extravagant. He had his “magical evil minions” (demons) do all of his evil work that usually ended up failing. Also, the way in which Rasputin was defeated was not believable. Rasputin was defeated by Anya smashing his evil reliquary (which contained his magic) and he was destroyed by his minions. In addition, some of the other characters in the story were just forgotten. One example included Vlad, who (at the beginning) was a really fun character that helped the story move forward. One of Vlad’s funny scenes was when he tallied how many times Anya won an argument against Dimitri. However, when the end of the movie came, he was forgotten (as if he did not even exist). It would have been awesome if Vlad had helped out in the final battle with Rasputin. Fortunately, these were the only problems with the movie, since most of the movie was enjoyable. The animation was very creative and different from other animations (like Disney and Dreamworks). Not only that, but the relationship between Dimitri and Anya hugely improved the story. The two characters worked really well together, as their relationship was like an “enemies to lovers” trope or “opposites attract” trope. One of the best scenes between them took place when Dimitri saved Anya from almost falling into the ocean. In this scene, Anya opened up to Dimitri after she had a nightmare about the “Romanov Curse ” and Dimitri comforted her afterwards. To sum up, the only way to make this movie more interesting would have been to fix/replace the villain and not forget the characters that introduced the story.

In the musical, a more historical approach to the animated story was used. More songs were added as well as more characters, more lines, and an enormously improved new villain. While the plot was really similar to the animated movie, the musical had some changes. The musical centered around Dimitri and Vlad as they tried to find an actress to play “The Grand Duchess Anastasia” for their con. The auditions (for the girl to play Anastasia) were going horribly because all the actresses who auditioned were terrible. The two are about to give up searching when the audience is introduced to Anya, who had heard about Dimitri and had hoped to travel to Paris in order to find her family. Just like the movie, Anya has amnesia. However, in the musical, Anya actually remembers some parts of her past (just not everything). Dimitri and Vlad (intrigued by Anya’s loss of memory and her similarities to the real Anastasia) decide to have Anya play the role of Anastasia and (similar to the movie) fool Anya into thinking she was Anastasia. While Dimitri and Vlad are in the process of teaching Anya how to be Anastasia, Anya is arrested by the Bolsheviks and taken to Gleb Vaganov, the musical’s villain. Gleb (suspicious that Anya was a Romanov) threatens Anya about impersonating Anastasia and gives her a stern warning. Despite the warning, Anya joins with Dimitri and Vlad to head to Paris.

So, the musical version of Anastasia was quite good; even great! The musical had a more serious approach when explaining about the Communist Party (also known as the Bolsheviks) and showing actual historical parts of the story of Anastasia. When Anya started to remember her past, the musical was much better by having Anya remember the night her family was assassinated in a nightmare instead of the movie version that had her remember the smell of peppermint in her grandmother’s gloves. It was also better that in the musical the grandmother met Anya instead of being abducted by Dimitri to force the grandmother to reunite with Anya (Anastasia). The best improvement in the musical was the new villain. Gleb was the best villain compared to Rasputin’s character from the movie. In the musical, Gleb seemed more human than any of the villains of Broadway musicals, which makes him a greater villain. Also, his internal conflict with himself about whether he should love Anya or not demonstrated the character’s weakness and was heartbreaking. This line (from the musical) sums it up perfectly: “She’s near at hand yet here I stand, my heart and mind at war…The times must change, the world must change, and love is not what revolution’s for…” (from the Quartet of the Ballet). The musical also provided more key moments for Anya and Dimitri’s relationship, like how he met Anastasia. In the movie, Dimitri helped Anastasia and her grandmother (Dowager Empress) escape the palace through a hole in the wall. What happened in the musical was that Dimitri saw Anastasia (with her family) from a crowd of thousands where he ran after her so that she could acknowledge him (to which she smiled at him when she did) and he bowed in front of her. This scene was immensely touching and led Anya to start remembering her past more. The musical could have been better if the costumes were a bit more historically accurate. Though many of the costumes were historically accurate (like the outfits the Romanovs wore), it is not believable that there were sleeveless dresses in the 1920s and 1930s (especially like the blue dress that Anya wore at the Ballet). Sleeveless dresses were not popular before the 1940s.

When comparing the musical and the movie of Anastasia, the musical version was better than the movie version. The musical version seemed more historical and real than the movie which was childish. Not only that, the characters really improved in the musical. They especially improved the characters who were the most annoying in the movie. The musical significantly improved the villain in the story and was more believable and accurate. While the movie was more appealing to children, the musical appealed to a larger audience (regardless of age).