What's all the fuss about???

I caught this up a theatre way back in 1986. At that point I had never seen "The Nutcracker" on stage. What I saw was a boring and totally incomprehensible mess! Sure the music is great and the dancing was OK but there was no rhyme or reason to what was going on. Also there was some controversy because the costumes and design had been changed from the stage show (I heard). I finally saw it a few years later on stage. While I didn't exactly love it (I'm just not into ballet) it was entertaining, made sense and moved quickly (it was only 2 hours with the intermission). Obviously some people love this but it isn't an accurate version of what was put on stage. I heard there are films that are more faithful to the material. I suggest you look for those.