Transcript
Speaker: Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments?
Speaker: When the killer's identity is about to be revealed.
Speaker: During that perfect meditation flow.
Speaker: On Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment.
Speaker: That's why we've got millions of ad-free podcast episodes, so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath.
Speaker: Download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts ad-free, included with Prime.
Speaker: If your team isn't using ClickUp, you're wasting time, and Dad approves it.
Speaker: 61% of knowledge workers manage work more than doing it, switching apps 1,000 times a day.
Speaker: That's work sprawl and costs millions.
Speaker: ClickUp replaces 20 apps with convergence, uniting projects, docs, and chats, while AI super agents handle the busy work.
Speaker: Join 4 million teams using ClickUp to finish work 30% faster.
Speaker: Try it free and get 15% off AI upgrades at clickup.com slash podcast.
Speaker: That's C-L-I-C-K-U-P dot com slash podcast.
Speaker: Welcome to Adaptation, the Book to Movie podcast.
Speaker: I'm Nate.
Speaker: And I'm Chris.
Speaker: And today we are covering Wicked, both movie versions as well as the Gregory Maguire novel, right?
Speaker: Is that the author, Chris?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And we have a very special guest with us today.
Speaker: Chris, do you want to introduce our guest?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hi, honey.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: Everybody, this is Blair.
Speaker: Blair, this is everybody.
Speaker: Hi, everybody.
Speaker: Thanks so much for joining us, Blair.
Speaker: You know, I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker: I'm really excited.
Speaker: And thanks for thanking of me for this episode.
Speaker: Well, of course, we couldn't have anybody else because you are our resident Wicked Superfan, correct?
Speaker: You said it.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, the number of times that I have just suddenly heard the wicked soundtrack blaring from a room in our house.
Speaker: And blaring meaning that Blair is singing it.
Speaker: It's not what I meant, but I am going to steal that and use it again.
Speaker: It's so accurate.
Speaker: I remember.
Speaker: After the first one came out when you were singing, dancing, dancing through life.
Speaker: And I was like, Blair, you've got to stop.
Speaker: That song is so bad.
Speaker: You were like, I know, but I love it so much.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: That's funny because I've been listening to the soundtrack and the original play soundtrack a lot recently.
Speaker: And I've been skipping over that song, but ever since watching the second movie, I've been going through it.
Speaker: and pushing through dancing through life and then i'm like ah here's the fiero again um there are some like little easter eggs in that song so now i listen to it yeah
Speaker: It is fun.
Speaker: I think I just was like burnt out on it after a wicked Palooza that was last year, especially, you know, but, um, before we jump into our discussion of wicked, I'd like to know Chris, what you've been reading Blair, what else have you been up to?
Speaker: Have you been seeing movies, reading books?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: I have been reading pretty exclusively for the pod lately.
Speaker: I just finished the house made for the next episode.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: Wow, you're really ahead.
Speaker: Well, I keep trying to, I like to have the next one read before I do like more for fun reading.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And this was my first full Monday to Friday, full day every day week at the school.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: And man, these kids, I get home and I just like stare at the wall.
Speaker: So not as much reading as I would like going on.
Speaker: But today I finished The Housemaid and as a little treat to myself,
Speaker: I started back in on the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: I like to kind of just return to that trilogy every once in a while.
Speaker: And it felt tasty to be back into Tolkien land.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: I know you do love Tolkien.
Speaker: And we've got a Hobbit episode up for those that want to hear it.
Speaker: And we're planning, I think, on doing Lord of the Rings in the first half of the year next year.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: As well.
Speaker: Blair, what have you been up to?
Speaker: Crocheting?
Speaker: I finished a gift for one of my friends who's going to have a baby at the end of December.
Speaker: So it's a little baby blanket, AKA just a really easy, large square.
Speaker: So it's not advanced, but the yarn is really fabulous.
Speaker: It's nice and chunky.
Speaker: And I just finished my first week at my new job, a new salon here in New York City.
Speaker: So that is going really well.
Speaker: And, um, not been reading much recently because I've been too tired at night because, or else if I'm too tired, it'll just put me to bed.
Speaker: Um, but I want to mention the last new to me movie that I watched that I keep being reminded of because it was such an incredible story.
Speaker: It was the Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield movie.
Speaker: Oh, we live in time.
Speaker: What did you want to do?
Speaker: on the plane back from Istanbul.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: You texted me.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: It's a tearjerker.
Speaker: You will feel everything.
Speaker: It's a beautiful movie.
Speaker: I put it on my watch list when you texted me.
Speaker: I haven't gotten to see it yet, but I do want to.
Speaker: So I had been wanting to see it and I was like, what better time to cry in public than on a really long plane where they're probably going to serve me food in the middle of it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, just full snot nose, to your face, airplane food dinner.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I can't believe there's a movie Feasting that you haven't made.
Speaker: That was one that it happens every year, like starting this time of year when it's pretty deep in award season.
Speaker: And I like I just don't have the time and or just too many access to the theater because I'm snowed in or something like that.
Speaker: So I do miss like two or three pretty big ones every year that I kind of have to catch up on later.
Speaker: And it's it's started.
Speaker: I don't have a ton of movies to report on because
Speaker: Because of that, exactly.
Speaker: I was traveling for Thanksgiving and everything.
Speaker: So the only new movie I've seen since our last episode is one called Jay Kelly on Netflix, which I thought was a really beautiful, brilliant movie, a story about an actor who's kind of reckoning with having dedicated his life to his craft instead of his family.
Speaker: And it's George Clooney.
Speaker: So it's a really kind of interesting thing, considering...
Speaker: know he didn't like get married and have a family until he put his career sort of on a slightly back burner slight how do you say that i guess slightly back burner oh no we'll take that yeah yeah so really cool and just really pretty and and sad and that's all i've got really to to report on did you guys watch that in omaha no i think it just hit netflix yesterday i just watched it this morning oh okay it's a good one though if you guys need it's kind of a tearjerker
Speaker: Adam Sandler's in it and he's really good.
Speaker: He, you know, he every once in a while does like a not comedy and is actually one of the most brilliant actors working right now.
Speaker: He's really fantastic in this movie.
Speaker: So yeah, it's really good.
Speaker: That combo in a serious movie sounds crazy.
Speaker: George Clooney and Adam Sandler.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Well, and it is, it is like sort of funny too, man.
Speaker: It was just really good.
Speaker: It really, really left an impression.
Speaker: I want to see it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: fire up netflix tonight yeah i was gonna say maybe that's the push we need to buy netflix or maybe not because netflix is acquiring warner brothers i don't know if you guys heard about this but their bid was approved i saw that yeah and that's pretty bad news for for sure the theater industry potentially filmmaking as a whole so keep your fingers crossed that that gets blocked
Speaker: That has to violate antitrust law.
Speaker: Like that's insane.
Speaker: There have been statements from just about every single union in the industry saying that they intend to sue the government if it's passed because of that.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So I'd, I'd be really surprised if it gets approved and pushed through, but like weird things happen every day with this government.
Speaker: So yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: Yeah, that is.
Speaker: Bad news.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But on a lighter note.
Speaker: Yeah, I was like, wow, really?
Speaker: Cut down.
Speaker: Let's talk about a fantasy song and dance musical, shall we?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes, please.
Speaker: Blair, you, had you seen the stage show?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And like a while ago, like as a kid or what?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: A while ago I was in my
Speaker: pre-teens.
Speaker: I think I was in middle school, maybe sixth, seventh, or eighth grade.
Speaker: I can't quite remember so long ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you saw it with your family and your sister?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My sister and I saw it with two of our friends.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Took an adventure into the city to see a Broadway show.
Speaker: Oh my.
Speaker: And then all these years later, the movie comes out.
Speaker: You're a big fan.
Speaker: I make Chris read the book and then you and Kelly went and saw the new one together just like a week or two ago, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At 9.30 PM, I was like, you're leaving when?
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It was extreme for me too.
Speaker: I mean, but when you can catch my sister on a, on a good day, she's going to make a be occupied in her calendar till the minute she shuts her eyes at night.
Speaker: I was just happy to nail her down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, good.
Speaker: I'm glad that this story has been a significant one for you for a long time.
Speaker: I'm really glad to hear what you have to say as we move through our conversation here.
Speaker: So with that, Chris, why don't you tell us a little bit about the book?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As I was kind of telling you guys before we start, I'll keep this pretty brief because frankly, it's not... I haven't seen the second one and I don't remember much of the first one.
Speaker: When did it come out?
Speaker: A year ago.
Speaker: Oh, so it was pretty recent.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Frankly, very little similarity.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah, but I'll explain.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I kind of took, I'm going to include very few details, both because I frankly don't know what would be spoilers and what wouldn't.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And it would be so exhausting to discuss the differences between the book and the movie.
Speaker: I think it's just not even worth approaching.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But there are some very interesting tidbits that I'll kind of lean towards instead that I think you guys will enjoy.
Speaker: So the full book title, which is insane, Why'd You Do This, Gregory?
Speaker: Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: That's the length of a scholarly article.
Speaker: That is pretty silly.
Speaker: Published by Gregory Maguire in 1995.
Speaker: It is considered dark fantasy.
Speaker: Dark fantasy?
Speaker: Quite dark.
Speaker: frankly.
Speaker: The book is... th is is a lot of murder.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yeah, we'll get there.
Speaker: We'll get there.
Speaker: Okay, okay.
Speaker: We might have to talk about spoilers.
Speaker: Yeah, what we are doing here today is actually, rather than our typical discussing a movie based on a book, which is most common, this is a movie, two movies technically, based on a stage musical based on a book, based on a movie, based on a book.
Speaker: That's a, isn't that a 30 rock joke when Jenna like wins an award for being for like best actress in a musical based on a TV show based on a movie.
Speaker: Cause she's in like mystic pizza, the movie or something.
Speaker: I just love the fact that you're asking us a question about 30 rock.
Speaker: That is great.
Speaker: That is, I don't know, Nate, is it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The answer is yes.
Speaker: That is 100% 30 rock joke.
Speaker: Yes, which is comical and worked out very well for us because it makes for, I think, some pretty cool comparisons here.
Speaker: I wrote out the timeline, maybe as much for my benefit as anyone else, but maybe people will find this interesting.
Speaker: So The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's book by L. Frank Baum, published in 1900.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: Um, super fun fact.
Speaker: I like, I think I giggled a little when I read this.
Speaker: This is where Elphaba's name came from.
Speaker: His initials.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: LFB.
Speaker: And, uh, yeah, Maguire was like, I sat down to write the book and the name of the character just came to me immediately because of the, because of the original author's initials.
Speaker: I think that's super cool.
Speaker: That is cool.
Speaker: So then the adaptation, The Wizard of Oz, the movie, came out in 1939.
Speaker: And then the book, so it's right here in the middle, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, comes out in 95.
Speaker: Wicked, The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.
Speaker: That is the name of the musical, I believe.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Confirmation.
Speaker: Does anyone know?
Speaker: I had never heard that title.
Speaker: I hadn't, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker: That's a mouthful, too.
Speaker: You know, how do you market that?
Speaker: And that's based on a script and then the screenplays for the movies all written by Winnie Holzman.
Speaker: So that came out in 2003, only eight years after the book.
Speaker: It's also only loosely based on the book.
Speaker: It's kind of a culmination of these things, which I think is where the game of telephone is really getting stretched.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the movies came out whenever Nate says the movies came out.
Speaker: 2024 and 2025.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Okay, Nate.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Okay, so the very clear, immediate, most jarring aspect of comparing these is that the book, as compared to everything else in that timeline, is deliberately an adult-oriented text.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yes, he said it because he, McGuire was originally a children's book author, and then...
Speaker: for this book, he had questions basically about what is evil, the conception of evil, are evil people born or are they made that way, kind of nurture versus nature.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then he saw the Wicked Witch of the West in the film The Wizard of Oz, and I suppose the book as well, as this character in which he could explore that topic.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: but deliberately did not want that to be another children's book, wanted it to be a book for adults.
Speaker: That's so interesting because I feel like these movies border on, they're almost kids' movies, the way that they so simply put forward these ideas of good versus evil.
Speaker: So that's really interesting that it's basically the antithesis of what the original author wanted.
Speaker: Dude, they are not that way.
Speaker: One example, Alphaba's mom.
Speaker: So I think in the first one, it's like the wizard, right?
Speaker: And he like rolls through and that's why she's green or something.
Speaker: They have like this green tonic.
Speaker: In the book, the mom is so bored of living this boring backwater life with her minister husband that she is essentially just at home, constantly doped out of her mind, sleeping with so many men she doesn't know who the father is.
Speaker: She's a real rock and roll chick.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: The stranger wanders in after Alphaba is born.
Speaker: They have an affair.
Speaker: And then he starts living with them.
Speaker: And later in the book, we find out actually both the mom and Throp, Throp, it's the dad's name.
Speaker: The weird Alphaba and Armless Sister's dad.
Speaker: Throp is their last name, right?
Speaker: He's the governor.
Speaker: Yeah, Governor Throp.
Speaker: In the book, he is a traveling minister.
Speaker: And he's constantly on the road, crazy life, and this guy moves in with them, and both the dad and the mom are in love with him and sleeping with him.
Speaker: It becomes this sort of... Guys, there's this good versus evil thing.
Speaker: In order to fight the corrupt powers that be, Alphaba leaves Shiz, and instead of going,
Speaker: If you care to find me, look to the West or whatever she does.
Speaker: So close.
Speaker: She joins an underground terrorist organization.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: And attempts an assassination.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So she's kind of a rock and roll chick too.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But like, as you can tell immediately wildly different, there is an orgy with a tiger in it.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Which, to the credit of the book, in their context, animals are sentient beings who can talk.
Speaker: So a little less weird, but only a little.
Speaker: Yeah, barely.
Speaker: Yeah, only a little.
Speaker: So, yeah, basically, I think it just does not behoove us to discuss much in terms of details of the book, because unless... If you have only consumed the musical and the movie,
Speaker: the book is really like not you won't recognize it wow that's that's pretty wild i it was shocking i was like man i really don't remember this movie or there's a lot in the second one especially considering some of the other like just a couple weeks ago we talked about kiss of the spider woman which has a sort of similar track of
Speaker: You know, the book comes out and the movie comes out and then a stage show comes out and a new movie comes out.
Speaker: And they were fairly similar.
Speaker: Like the differences were somewhat small, you know?
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: It's really interesting that this one is like a total left turn.
Speaker: Yeah, wildly so.
Speaker: And I mean, I can kind of see why.
Speaker: This would be a hardcore movie if it was truer to the book.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: And I do wonder kind of if part of that is...
Speaker: Like the kids that I remember loving the Wicked soundtrack and the musical when we were in high school, we would absolutely not have been allowed to watch this movie, right?
Speaker: First of all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And second of all, it's like a different story.
Speaker: Yeah, totally.
Speaker: I mean, I haven't seen the second one again, so I guess I don't know how it turns out.
Speaker: But big, big high scope.
Speaker: He set out to explore these grand themes of evil, whether it is born or
Speaker: or become self-fulfilling prophecy to the people who are already branded evil and then treated that way.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You know, is the troublemaker at school genuinely this much more troubling than other students, or have they been told it for years and now they're just fulfilling that role?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: That sort of idea.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: He himself compared the novel to Dickens.
Speaker: Wild.
Speaker: Well, you know what?
Speaker: I said the same thing, but listen.
Speaker: And this is from an interview they did in The Guardian.
Speaker: I have the article if anyone wants to see it or if we want to put it in the notes or something.
Speaker: Cool interview.
Speaker: And he said, I had this story about morals that I wanted to tell.
Speaker: And the individual life of one person from birth, their lived experience to their death, seemed like the most appropriate approach, I guess.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: He also specifically said,
Speaker: It's similar to Dickens.
Speaker: And then this was a direct quote.
Speaker: It has a 19th century moral urgency.
Speaker: I read that and I was like, book makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: I don't think anyone came out of that musical saying, boy, I'm going to think a lot about good and evil.
Speaker: He's choosing a very approachable matter that is someone else's life, right?
Speaker: They literally talk about her as a toddler, growing up, going to school, making friends.
Speaker: But
Speaker: He can exaggerate these situations to such a point that you and I are not experiencing day to day, but it's more approachable because we have that greater context.
Speaker: That was how I took it.
Speaker: Okay, got it.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: The book lives at this very fascinating to me, fascinating intersection where I would argue the musical and movies have almost certainly overshadowed the book.
Speaker: I guess I don't know if you guys would agree, but culturally,
Speaker: Yeah, I would.
Speaker: Yeah, I feel confident in that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I just wanted to, I don't know if I'm saying wild stuff.
Speaker: And that's not to say the book has not experienced its own success.
Speaker: It did very well initially.
Speaker: I think it was something like half a million copies in that first run.
Speaker: And then a decade later, 2005, I have to imagine because of the musical, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for half a year, 26 weeks straight.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: As we all know, not an original character.
Speaker: At its core, this is based on a character of someone else's making, which to me leaves the door open to suggest it's essentially fan fiction.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that was why I think the details of the book are not super useful for us to discuss, but this is our first time to discuss fan fiction.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Because it sits at this unique intersection.
Speaker: We are rarely, if ever, going to discuss other works of fanfiction because they typically contain copyrighted intellectual property and material that you are not allowed to profit from, right?
Speaker: You just write it and you put it on WordPress or something that floats around the internet.
Speaker: You know, everybody's favorite Harry and Draco ship Harry Potter erotic fanfiction.
Speaker: What the hell?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Really a lot of it out there.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: But you can't publish the book of it because that's someone else's creative material, right?
Speaker: One, this guy is very arguably, not even arguably, factually not a fan.
Speaker: He's already an accomplished published author in his own right.
Speaker: And because the original book came out 125 years ago, it falls outside of copyright law.
Speaker: All of that is public domain material.
Speaker: So we land at this really weird place where, yes, the movies are very arguably children's movies, certainly aimed at all ages, right?
Speaker: Yeah, family movies, yeah.
Speaker: The book is not, but also he can grapple with this very sturdy topic because we all have this pre-built world and context
Speaker: of having seen The Wizard of Oz, maybe not read the book.
Speaker: I don't know anyone that's read the original book.
Speaker: Probably seen the movies by now, right?
Speaker: You have all of this information.
Speaker: So going into the book, which would not have been true of the new movies, obviously, when the book was published, but everyone has seen Wizard of Oz, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: 39, I wrote to ask you to fact check me.
Speaker: That was the first movie in color, correct?
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Common misconception.
Speaker: Aw, man.
Speaker: Wait, you said common.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So other people also think that I didn't make this up.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Everybody says that, but no, that's, that's not the case.
Speaker: I saw this somewhere in a little documentary I watched recently, something about the original, like back in the day was who was producing, um, was MGM producing the wizard of Oz?
Speaker: They did produce the wizard.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With the lion roar.
Speaker: Am I allowed to speculate?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's one of my toxic traits, speculating without research.
Speaker: The story was that another production company that also had a lot of money owned the rights to color films.
Speaker: So they had to figure out a way to make, like it was a monopoly on color film.
Speaker: It was like, how could you do that back in the day?
Speaker: But it was like around that time of verging from black and white films and
Speaker: post adding sound to films and, you know, not silent films.
Speaker: Um, so they really needed to find a way to make it colorful.
Speaker: So what'd you find Nate?
Speaker: I'm reading an article right now called what was the first color movie?
Speaker: It's not what you think it is.
Speaker: And they say many people think of the wizard of Oz as being the first color film in cinema history.
Speaker: While this is technically not true, we'll dive into why it's a common misconception.
Speaker: The first color movie was a short film called A Visit to the Seaside.
Speaker: The Wizard of Oz is known for popularizing technicolor, which is those really vibrant colors.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: And that's probably why that misconception exists.
Speaker: But no, the British short film is called A Visit to the Seaside from 1908.
Speaker: So, you know, 31 years, right?
Speaker: Before Concert of Oz came out.
Speaker: Okay, that is interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, glad I wrote to ask you to fact check instead of probably diving into that one then.
Speaker: This is such a unique circumstance, I guess, is the thrust of my argument, right?
Speaker: We can immediately...
Speaker: dive in to what would otherwise be a crazy character, right?
Speaker: Like even in their world, they're all confused why her skin is green.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But we have all this built-in knowledge.
Speaker: Everybody's seen Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: Everybody's heard the soundtrack, right?
Speaker: So now, I don't know, again, that this would have been true when it came out in the 90s, but now for anyone considering approaching the book, it honestly makes it more immediately clear these themes that he's trying to get across.
Speaker: because you don't need to grapple with the characters that would otherwise be pretty crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's I'm not I'm not usually well, no, I am usually a fan of fan fiction.
Speaker: It's not usually a book that would be of interest to me, but he really did a unique and creative thing here.
Speaker: Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker: And fan fiction being turned into published material
Speaker: is something that I think is sort of on the rise right now.
Speaker: A lot of movies, I think Twilight, for example, is one that was originally, was that a Harry Potter fan fiction?
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: Other way around.
Speaker: Fifty Shades of Grey was originally, oh, wait, no, you're right.
Speaker: Twilight was.
Speaker: Fifty Shades of Grey.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So they make these small tweaks to make it legal or was it earlier this year?
Speaker: Maybe it was last year.
Speaker: There's that Anne Hathaway movie on prime where she falls in love with a member of a boy band.
Speaker: I saw that movie.
Speaker: It's I did too.
Speaker: I think it's called the idea of you.
Speaker: It's it was originally written as a one direction fanfic.
Speaker: It's about Harry Styles.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: She had to change the name, the boy band and the name of the character and was able to publish it.
Speaker: And now it's a major motion picture starring Oscar winning Anne Hathaway.
Speaker: So it's definitely on the rise.
Speaker: And
Speaker: For those that are fans of fan fiction or writers of fan fiction, you know, keep your head up because you might be the next.
Speaker: Well, I didn't think of it because I think about a lot of modern ones.
Speaker: And so I said, okay, when did this start?
Speaker: Like, what can we, you know, similar to the Gothic literature, what is the family tree here?
Speaker: So this blew my mind.
Speaker: Some of the early examples of fan fiction include the legends of King Arthur.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Like the round table?
Speaker: We're talking centuries, literally over a millennia ago.
Speaker: Was King Arthur a real guy?
Speaker: There was an English King Arthur.
Speaker: He did not actually slay a dragon.
Speaker: I'm not nearly the expert enough to say, like, yes, he had a round table or he did.
Speaker: But the idea of these oral traditions and myths that...
Speaker: Obviously, you know, you're playing telephone.
Speaker: Someone's going one village to the next.
Speaker: It's going to start morphing.
Speaker: You're going to start adding characters.
Speaker: But it's tremendous amounts of examples, historically, of people taking just one thing, right?
Speaker: Which is essentially what Maguire did here.
Speaker: Like, Alphaba is the show.
Speaker: I mean, yeah, the wizard is there.
Speaker: Portrayed similar or different.
Speaker: I think that's maybe up to interpretation.
Speaker: But some examples like Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker: people would take him and then write their own stories around him.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Star Trek and Star Wars are very famous for this.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I mean, the Star Wars Expanded Universe has hundreds of very fun novels where someone, and dozens if not hundreds of authors with all of them.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Because the fan base has kind of, it's called the EU and everyone's kind of accepted.
Speaker: You're either like a hardcore strict canon only fan base
Speaker: or you're an EU fan and you accept all of them.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: And all of these different authors who will take one, maybe even, these are my favorites.
Speaker: Because I do not think you can watch The Wizard of Oz and say, the Witch of the West was a minor character.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: She was pretty pivotal to that story.
Speaker: Yes, she's the villain.
Speaker: Yeah, I love when someone will go in, who did this?
Speaker: There's a very famous recent one.
Speaker: Of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Speaker: Someone did just like, what's their story?
Speaker: Bless you.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which Shakespeare am I thinking of?
Speaker: Hamlet.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's like two of the little sidekick dudes that have three lines apiece in Hamlet.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: And then this guy went and said, I'll write a whole play.
Speaker: And then once again, old enough that it's in the public domain, you can do whatever you want.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think it's this fascinating realm where, because people do this all the time with music, right?
Speaker: People cover other people's songs.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: And we talked about that a lot on the Bruce Springsteen episode.
Speaker: I'm not typically a big fan in terms of it's fun to sit down and read, but why would a quote unquote serious author step aside from creating their own unique material to do this, where I would very much argue that's not what McGuire did here.
Speaker: He didn't want to just hop on the Wizard of Oz bandwagon.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He saw a unique opportunity to present much more important and profound ideas.
Speaker: And this was just the appropriate vessel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I would even argue that it almost doesn't even fit into The Wizard of Oz very well because The Wizard of Oz story is a dream that Dorothy Gale has in her mind, as opposed to actually having landed in this fantasy world, like run by magical witches and wizards.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And all of the characters, including the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, are just like composites of people in Dorothy's life.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: Yeah, so definitely interesting that he chose to do it and kind of threw some of that logic out the window in order to do so.
Speaker: Because it sounds like he liked the character enough.
Speaker: Yes, I agree with you.
Speaker: I have the privilege of being on FaceTime with you guys.
Speaker: So I was able to see some of Blair's facial expressions throughout some of that, that, uh, lesson from Chris.
Speaker: I assume Blair that you're as surprised as I am to hear how different the book is from the movies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm really surprised.
Speaker: And that tends to be a recurring theme on this podcast.
Speaker: I love hearing how these like movies that we love and, you know,
Speaker: are special in current pop culture.
Speaker: The books are like, what was this guy smoking, honestly?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think to have pulled this story out of thin air, you probably had to be smoking something because it's, like I said, it almost doesn't map onto The Wizard of Oz very well at all.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: And I think you said that already as well.
Speaker: I don't think he really wanted to.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But that's all I wanted to share about the book.
Speaker: There is a lot more to it.
Speaker: It was a hefty book, but yeah, I think that's all that really pertains to our discussion here and now.
Speaker: How long is the book?
Speaker: I once, my journey with the book is I checked it out on Libby and saw how many hours the audio book was and immediately returned it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Just north of 400 pages.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: I think it was something like 25 hours of audio or something.
Speaker: And I was like, I'm not given a day of my life.
Speaker: It's a novel.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's not just a book.
Speaker: I pictured a little, a little book.
Speaker: One might.
Speaker: In my opinion.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It really does, I think.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, let's take a quick break.
Speaker: And then when we come back, we'll talk about the movies.
Speaker: Yay.
Speaker: Welcome back to Adaptation.
Speaker: Chris just walked us through Gregory Maguire's Wicked.
Speaker: I'm not saying that whole title.
Speaker: And now I'm going to talk a little bit about the movies.
Speaker: Kind of an interesting journey to these movies being made for several reasons.
Speaker: First and foremost, they split the single stage show.
Speaker: This is, like you said, technically based on the stage show, which is based on McGuire's book, into two movies.
Speaker: The first one came out last year.
Speaker: I'm a little murky on what the title actually is because when the movie starts, the title card says Wicked Part One, but in all of the marketing material, we just call it Wicked.
Speaker: That's what it says on IMDb and Letterboxd.
Speaker: So I don't know if they maybe dropped that part one when they decided to name the second part Wicked for Good, but that is the name of the second movie that came out just a couple of weeks ago here.
Speaker: These movies legally cannot be considered a prequel to The Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: I don't know really how they're not, but that's because these movies were produced by Universal and Warner Brothers currently owns the IP that is Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: And that's some dumb Hollywood garbage.
Speaker: It is really, really bizarre.
Speaker: And especially when you consider that, like, like Blair alluded to earlier, MGM did actually produce the original Wizard of Oz movie.
Speaker: Universal's stage division is who did the stage production.
Speaker: So like, I don't know how they say that this is not a prequel to the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker: Do people consider it a prequel to Wizard of Oz?
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: I mean, like I do.
Speaker: Wouldn't you?
Speaker: How does the second one end?
Speaker: Well, okay, it overlaps with the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: Oh, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker: I was like, boy, they really changed that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I guess partial prequel.
Speaker: Anyway, there is a lot of iconography that we associate with the 1939 Wizard of Oz that is part of that IP, such as the ruby red slippers, which was actually a change from the book.
Speaker: They are silver in the book, Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: know they had this technicolor technology and they needed it something to really stand out and something to really catch people's eyes so they made it red the mole on the chin of the witch is actually patented so you probably will not see many witches unless they are
Speaker: created by Warner brothers that have them all in that exact spot on their chin.
Speaker: And even the shade of green that Margaret Hamilton was painted was, um, trademarked as well.
Speaker: And Cynthia Revo and the costume designer of these movies, or I'm sorry, the, the makeup artists on these movies collaborated to find a different shade of green, which, you know, is probably like one click over on the color wheel.
Speaker: But a lot of really weird stuff is like trademarked from that movie.
Speaker: So technically it's not a prequel, I guess, to your point about fan fiction, it kind of is like the one that made it through, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, if he, if he claims it's all based on the book and not on the movie, then he's in the clear.
Speaker: Oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker: And I, I've not seen the stage show, so I don't know Blair, if you have anything to add here, really.
Speaker: I did want to throw in because, again, the movie is based on the stage show and the stage show is what made this sort of the cultural phenomenon that it was.
Speaker: It is the fourth longest running show in Broadway history.
Speaker: One of the only musicals to make billions of dollars.
Speaker: That's not very common at all.
Speaker: That's like a shitload of money.
Speaker: And this is obviously what launched Kristen Chenoweth and Idina Menzel.
Speaker: into superstardom at least as far as as being a broadway star goes i mean it's yeah it's it's been running continuously like the we tried to go last weekend like to we thought it'd be cool to prepare for this to get 200 a piece whoa it's not even 264 wow if you want to go on like a friday night yeah people just love it man it was it was like
Speaker: Hamilton before Hamilton in terms of a piece of Broadway art sort of permeating culture outside of New York and outside of America too.
Speaker: It's really popular in like Japan, for example, is, is a country that really just digs wicked.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't really know why.
Speaker: Like I, I,
Speaker: Didn't look into it, and I don't know that anybody would know the answer.
Speaker: But yeah, it's like a global phenomenon.
Speaker: So really no surprise that these movies came about.
Speaker: These two were both directed by John Chu, and they were written, like you said, by Winnie Holtzman with John Chu and Dana Fox as well, collaborated on those screenplays.
Speaker: And they star Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, quite famously because of their bizarre press runs.
Speaker: I'm here for it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I was for a, for a minute, but I kind of hope I can go like a year without thinking about either of them at this point.
Speaker: Also stars Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh.
Speaker: in, in principal roles as well.
Speaker: Like many of the movies we've talked about recently, this one has spent a long time in development hell starting actually in the nineties when several people tried to option McGuire's book to do a straight adaptation of that book.
Speaker: So it was interesting to hear you talk about how different it is because several people were considered for, for roles in a dramatic non-musical adaptation of the book.
Speaker: including Demi Moore, who had actually optioned the rights at one point in the 90s to produce it as well as star in it, but was never able to get anything off the ground.
Speaker: Other actresses like Whoopi Goldberg, Claire Danes, Salma Hayek, Laurie Metcalf, Michelle Pfeiffer, Emma Thompson, and Nicole Kidman were all once considered for roles in an adaptation of the book with Robert Zemeckis directing, and he did the Back to the Future.
Speaker: That movie would have been so good.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: I really kind of wish that he had directed these musicals because I think he just has some really strong sensibilities that Chu, I don't think, does.
Speaker: But anyway, like I said, nothing was able to get off the ground.
Speaker: It's really tough to get...
Speaker: these stories write.
Speaker: Obviously, it'd be tough to make the book into something people could sit in a theater and watch like in public, it sounds like.
Speaker: And I wonder too, how much the book being so dark and sexually charged and including plots of like terrorism and things like that.
Speaker: I wonder if audiences would have maybe been really turned off to it too, because it's characters, even though she's like the most classic villain of all time, it's still characters that you're kind of endeared to.
Speaker: yeah because everybody's grown up watching the wizard of us so who knows why it fell through but it never got off the ground
Speaker: And then, of course, the stage show comes along and changes everything.
Speaker: And now nobody wants to see Maguire's novel made into a movie.
Speaker: They want to see Holzman's musical adapted into a film.
Speaker: And there started to be some sort of rumblings in about 2011 when Lea Michele was becoming a really big star thanks to Glee, partly because that show so closely and like intentionally associates her with Idina Menzel, who starred in the Broadway production.
Speaker: and amy adams as well and then the directors that were considered were rob marshall who did chicago james mengold who recently did the bob dylan movie a complete unknown who i think would have been a really good choice too and ryan murphy who created glee and again fell on his face nothing ever came of it 2018 was the next time that some news sort of surfaced stephen daldry who directed billy elliott was prepping to take on directorial duties with lady gaga as elphaba which i think also would have been cool
Speaker: and Shawn Mendes as Fierro, which I think would have been awful.
Speaker: So I'm kind of glad that that one didn't happen.
Speaker: And then eventually we landed on the movie that we have now, or movies.
Speaker: But just to peek into how difficult these movies even were to get off the ground,
Speaker: The release date was routinely bumped and bumped and bumped because other musicals like Cats and Sing 2 were sort of taking the holiday corridor release spots.
Speaker: Or Universal is also behind the Mamma Mia movies.
Speaker: So a few years ago, they opted to do Mamma Mia 2 in the summer and to push Wicked back a couple of years because they were just more confident in the Mamma Mia 2 script than what they had at the time for Wicked.
Speaker: And then by the time they're ready to actually get the ball rolling,
Speaker: We're hit with a huge pandemic and you can't shoot movies.
Speaker: And then once the pandemic ends, there are guild strikes.
Speaker: So it's been really difficult for these movies to come to be.
Speaker: But finally, in 2021, John Chu is hired.
Speaker: Erivo and Grande are cast and we start moving forward.
Speaker: They said that they split the movie into two parts because they couldn't decide what to leave out.
Speaker: Typically, when you adapt a stage musical to the screen, the stage shows run for like three plus hours because...
Speaker: they stopped the narrative to sing three and a half minute songs.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: It's pretty common to have to cut songs and scenes and characters and storylines, and they just didn't want to do that.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So they said that they were cutting it in half for that reason.
Speaker: Having seen both, I think it's because they didn't want the second half of the story to drag down the first.
Speaker: The stage show is pretty famous for the second half being much weaker than the first.
Speaker: So really interesting that they found some ways to protect themselves from that.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And then I threw in some names here that were considered for the roles, just because I think it's kind of fun to think about what could have been.
Speaker: Dove Cameron, Renee Rapp, and Amanda Seyfried all auditioned for Glinda.
Speaker: And then Cooper Coach, Nick Jonas, and Joe Jonas all auditioned for Fiero, which are just like wild.
Speaker: All six of those names would have just made this a wildly different movie.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Imagining Renee Rapp as Glinda, it all of a sudden to me would have been
Speaker: more of a parody or like a Saturday Night Live skit.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker: I think the same thing about the Jonas Brothers being in it.
Speaker: I'm like, what?
Speaker: Yeah, and I only know Renee Rapp from Mean Girls the musical and I hate that movie.
Speaker: But I didn't know who Renee Rapp was before that and I was like, she's the only good part of this movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I guess I'm happy for her that she was in that because her voice is really cool.
Speaker: And she also, I think she fit the character really good.
Speaker: So I think just that terrible Mean Girls musical was perfectly cast for her, but she is not Galinda.
Speaker: No, she's not.
Speaker: I think that they really did a good job finding their, especially their Elphaba and Galinda.
Speaker: The two of them together.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the thing is they have so much chemistry as people, but also musical chemistry.
Speaker: Like their duets and things.
Speaker: You're like, oh my God.
Speaker: It's just like hair stands up, you know, hair on the back of your neck stands up.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: okay wicked in 2024 whatever the hell that movie's actually called grossed 758 million dollars worldwide gracious which means it is a big hit but it could have been bigger especially internationally there are a lot of countries you know i said a lot love this movie apparently a lot don't give a single they don't perform very well overall outside of america
Speaker: I have a feeling that Universal was expecting this movie to make a billion dollars and 758 million is a ways away from a billion.
Speaker: So I'm...
Speaker: It was really interesting to see how they pivoted away from that marketing blitz that like all out, everything is wicked, wicked, wicked everywhere you turn.
Speaker: For the second movie, it was a lot more subtle, but for, for all of that criticism that I just mounted, the first wicked was the highest grossing musical adaptation ever of a Broadway play musical and the highest grossing story based in Oz ever.
Speaker: There have been a number of, you know, attempts to tell stories based in the world of Oz that usually go pretty poorly.
Speaker: So it was very successful.
Speaker: I don't mean to take away from it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love the whiz.
Speaker: I'll mention it later, but I think the whiz is the best version of the story.
Speaker: But anyway, praise for the movie included its performances.
Speaker: Like we just mentioned the practical sets, you know, they built a lot of the buildings and stuff in Oz, which are, and the university, which is really cool.
Speaker: Costumes of course are fantastic.
Speaker: stunning and then uh people really liked its themes of course of of sisterhood and good versus evil and things not being exactly what you thought they were right detractors or critics pointed out that it had really horrible lighting design and and then there were some issues with the narrative as well and characterization that come from splitting the story into i think both movies when you watch them to me at least they feel incomplete i don't feel like
Speaker: I'm getting the whole story because it wasn't meant to be told.
Speaker: You know, you mentioned Star Wars earlier.
Speaker: Those movies are meant to be told in three, three part chunks, you know, and wicked was not.
Speaker: So to, to be fair, the narrative and pacing, that's actually quite akin to the book.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: It's, it's very clear that the big ideas are the point.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And so it's almost not surprising.
Speaker: It would have been stranger if they had somehow, they would have had to do a lot of their own original writing to fill those gaps for these purposes.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah, and I do wonder what they did as far as original writing goes, because both of the movies are longer on their own than the stage show is in totality.
Speaker: So there's something, like I said, I haven't seen the stage show.
Speaker: Maybe, Blairie, you can speak to parts that were not in the musical besides the original songs.
Speaker: Yeah, they certainly added some things, right?
Speaker: Do you remember any?
Speaker: They added some things to what happens in the movie from the stage show.
Speaker: Yeah, that we're not in the stage show.
Speaker: Do you want to jump out?
Speaker: No, I mean, I wish I remembered the stage show better.
Speaker: I really wish I got to see it before this episode.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My sister said during the second one that it was very different from the stage show.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: I couldn't say for sure what's added to part two that's not in the play.
Speaker: Well, one of the things that's new is that they wrote an original song for each Elphaba and Galinda to sing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Neither of them are good songs either.
Speaker: They are not good songs.
Speaker: They stick out like sore thumbs.
Speaker: And I was like, what?
Speaker: I was like tapping my head.
Speaker: I'm like, why don't I know this song?
Speaker: I should be singing along.
Speaker: Galinda's is called the girl in the bubble.
Speaker: The girl in the bubble.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker: That's her vehicle of transportation is her bubble.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Her mechanical bubble.
Speaker: Yes, mechanical, not magical.
Speaker: And then, um, forget what else it was.
Speaker: I better look up Cynthia.
Speaker: Cynthia's really friggin' stunk.
Speaker: I thought Girl in the Bubble was okay.
Speaker: Um.
Speaker: Yes, please look it up because it'll, it'll jog my memory.
Speaker: No place like home?
Speaker: Yes, she is.
Speaker: I guess that doesn't jog mine.
Speaker: Can I explain?
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She is, she catches the animals all leaving Oz almost in a Noah's Ark fashion.
Speaker: And they're going underground to the under Oz or something that's maybe not mentioned.
Speaker: I don't know if that's in the book.
Speaker: Um, and she's like, just, I'm going to fix this.
Speaker: I'm going to talk to the wizard.
Speaker: Like you guys still need to, and they're like, no, nobody trusts you.
Speaker: you're bad, you're the bad witch.
Speaker: And she's like, there's no place like home.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, that's kind of a cute nod to Dorothy.
Speaker: And what does it mean?
Speaker: It means like Elphaba was, even though her whole like hometown and everything, everyone's turned on her, it still, it portrayed that she still felt loyal to where she came from and that she wasn't ready to give up on it, even though all of Oz had already painted her as
Speaker: The Wicked Witch.
Speaker: The Wicked Witch.
Speaker: Well, I wish that had come through better lyrically.
Speaker: That song was a freaking hot turd.
Speaker: It was so boring.
Speaker: So does she, wait, does she at any point in the second movie spend seven years hiding in a convent?
Speaker: Not a convent.
Speaker: She hides.
Speaker: This is fucking insane.
Speaker: Are you sure you read the right book?
Speaker: That's why I was like, okay, this is, this has to not be in it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I got to see this movie.
Speaker: They don't, they don't specify how long I don't think, but she does go into hiding long enough for a lion to grow up.
Speaker: How long does that take?
Speaker: Seven years?
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: The lion cub from the classroom.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, and then he's the lion man with Dorothy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that's yeah.
Speaker: Wait, she goes into hiding and then... She becomes a superhero and she frees animals every chance she gets.
Speaker: Okay, so it's still that.
Speaker: I mean, there's like one example of that happening in the book.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: No, but she goes to this convent and hides for seven years and then when she comes out, her kid is there.
Speaker: Yeah?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: The kid?
Speaker: Book only.
Speaker: Dorothy?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No, Elphaba's Child by Fiero.
Speaker: How's that even possible?
Speaker: He's a fucking scarecrow.
Speaker: Fierro?
Speaker: In the movie, Fierro turns into the scarecrow.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay, that's correct.
Speaker: The interaction with Dorothy and the shoes and killing armless sister.
Speaker: Nessa.
Speaker: Yes, Nessa.
Speaker: That's like 5% of the book.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: It is the very, very end.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's like the movie.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: The second movie is like Dorothy the whole time?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Not Dorothy.
Speaker: It's overlapping with The Wizard of Oz the whole time.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: Dorothy's not a huge part of the book, but she's like a background character.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So that's... Quite literally a background character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, she's having...
Speaker: Fierro's like a prince back in his home region and he's married and his wife and kids are there.
Speaker: And he comes to the city after Alphaba leaves Shiz after one year of school and goes... So she leaves, she goes to school for a year.
Speaker: Nessa comes the next year, not at the same time with her.
Speaker: Galinda stays, Nessa comes, Alphaba leaves school and goes underground and joins this terrorist organization.
Speaker: And then she meets up with Fierro again later.
Speaker: And they start having an affair because his wife is back at their house.
Speaker: But his wife is not Galinda?
Speaker: Fierro?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Did he ever get with Galinda?
Speaker: No, Galinda marries this like rich accountant type of guy.
Speaker: And becomes a sorceress.
Speaker: And Fierro.
Speaker: Yeah, they really do change a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She joins this underground terrorist organization, attempts to assassinate Morrible.
Speaker: I think Yo's character, right?
Speaker: Fails.
Speaker: The wizard's secret police, the gale force, chases her back.
Speaker: They find Fiero there and not her, and they kill Fiero.
Speaker: And so she's so traumatized, she goes to a convent for seven years and is basically catatonic.
Speaker: And when she wakes up, she has a kid whose father is Fiero.
Speaker: So he's the heir to Fiero's kingdom.
Speaker: What the hell?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: When did she give birth?
Speaker: In the convent.
Speaker: And she doesn't even remember giving birth.
Speaker: She just wakes up and they're like, oh yeah, this kid's yours.
Speaker: Is the kid green?
Speaker: No, but also Fiero in the book has blue diamond printed skin.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: What the hell?
Speaker: I know, I just had to Google image him to see like, you guys are not describing what I think you're describing when you said the Jonas Brothers.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Wildly different.
Speaker: Cool, cool, cool, cool.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now part of me wants to
Speaker: Read it now because it sounds so weird.
Speaker: That brings us to this year where we get Wicked for Good, right?
Speaker: Which is trailing slightly behind the original at the box office.
Speaker: I don't think it's probably going to match what the original made, which is a pretty bit that's pretty rare for a sequel to not outgross the original.
Speaker: So that's a pretty big.
Speaker: What's the word I'm thinking of?
Speaker: Starts with an I. Embarrassment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Embarrassment.
Speaker: Yeah, it is an embarrassment.
Speaker: indictment yes uh it's a pretty big indictment i think of some of the the flaws of this movie which um which were basically that the pacing was awful of the second movie in my opinion nothing happens in this movie nothing happens until basically the end and they just sing bad songs the visuals are really bad the scarecrow is practical i don't know if you've seen blair the um
Speaker: behind the scenes images of of Jonathan Bailey in the scarecrow suit, but it's it's an actual practical suit.
Speaker: It looks so awful in the movie.
Speaker: I can't I can't believe how awful he looks.
Speaker: People in my screening laughed when he came on as as the scarecrow because he looks terrible.
Speaker: He looks like a leper.
Speaker: I didn't, I mean, it looks like CGI to me.
Speaker: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I wasn't expecting anything.
Speaker: He looked, he looked bad.
Speaker: He didn't look as handsome as he did as a human.
Speaker: When he was made of burlap.
Speaker: But like, it didn't.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess with today's technology, I'd assume the burlap could have looked more
Speaker: real like her actual fabric and have those little frayed pieces but um it did look very cgi and that's what i mean he was wearing burlap and i hated his hair i know his hair was like edward scissorhands yes and it's like that's it's not what his hair is but he's a human i know or what his hair looks like in the wizard of oz i don't know it's
Speaker: I'm getting ahead of myself here, but it's pretty, I'm sure it's very clear that I did not like this movie whatsoever.
Speaker: But Ariana Grande is getting a lot of love for it.
Speaker: And Cynthia is too, but more muted.
Speaker: Just yesterday, the Critics' Choice Awards nominations came out, which are a key piece.
Speaker: precursor and indicator for the Oscar nominations.
Speaker: And Cynthia actually missed out.
Speaker: She was not nominated there for Best Actress, which is kind of a big, big snub, big indicator that people are really falling out of love with these movies and that she might not end up getting an Oscar nomination down the line.
Speaker: So I'm not too sad about that.
Speaker: They shot these movies back to back.
Speaker: So I'm like, how can you end up with two Oscar nominations for the same body of work?
Speaker: It's kind of silly to me anyway.
Speaker: Oh, she had an Oscar nom for the first one?
Speaker: Yeah, for the first one.
Speaker: Okay, true.
Speaker: So it's like getting nominated, you can't get nominated twice for the same movie.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I understand that there's some nuance, you know, to like the characters have been through some different things, but I just don't know.
Speaker: It doesn't seem very fair to me.
Speaker: Anyway, I thought this would kind of be a fun time to share the results of the survey that I put up on our story.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, that's perfect.
Speaker: I thought these were so fun.
Speaker: Yeah, I threw up some questions on our Instagram story.
Speaker: If you're not following us on Instagram, please do.
Speaker: It's linked down below.
Speaker: Otherwise the handle is adaptation underscore pod.
Speaker: Please do, because I think we're going to do some of these fun sort of opinion polls and quizzes and things like that.
Speaker: 54% of the people that responded to our survey said that they wanted to read the book.
Speaker: So kind of interesting that that's a big, uh, I think that's a pretty big chunk of.
Speaker: Far more than I would have guessed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 58 said they had seen the stage show again that's a huge number in my opinion i've i've never seen this one and i've had the privilege of seeing a lot of of stage shows live so i was really surprised just how freaking popular this show is no no pun intended um only only 62
Speaker: Only 62% had seen both movies, which was smaller than I thought.
Speaker: I posted it about a week, week and a half after the second movie came out.
Speaker: I would have thought that that would have been higher.
Speaker: But again, like I said, there's some indicators that people are not as excited about the second movie.
Speaker: I asked people to rate on sort of a sliding scale to rate the movies.
Speaker: So I don't have actual hard numbers for this.
Speaker: I can just kind of look at the average and tell you what it looks like.
Speaker: Part one ratings are sitting at about 85 or 90%.
Speaker: People are really, really fond of it.
Speaker: And then part two for good, the ratings are sitting pretty squarely at 50%.
Speaker: It seems like it's pretty divisive.
Speaker: I also asked for people's MVPs.
Speaker: We got a lot of shout outs for Elphaba.
Speaker: ariana grande specifically the wizard himself and the end credits as well which a lot of jokes start i will say i thought jeff goldblum as the wizard is like the most brilliant casting ever really i agree he's he you see a lot more of him in the second part yeah yeah he's in it a lot i
Speaker: uh, cannot stand him in these movies or Michelle Yeoh, which is painful.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: I think they are giving like career worst performances.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: They're so awful.
Speaker: And they, neither of them can sing.
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: I think, I think.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: My thoughts are racing.
Speaker: Well, I think Jeff Goldblum is the perfect kind of like innocent.
Speaker: Um, he's like the dumb idiot.
Speaker: villain who like he doesn't i don't think he knows he's the villain he is doing something wrong by deceiving a lot of people trying to be good a lot of characters of this movie are trying to be good they're trying to make good they're trying to be good and that like means a lot of different things for each character um but jeff goldboom i mean
Speaker: Yeah, like, I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, we can talk about him again during the discussion because I have a question about what we all think about the wizard.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, let's jump into it then.
Speaker: Do you want to hit us with your first question, Blair?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So I wanted to know how is the wizard portrayed in the book?
Speaker: And, you know, he has this redemption song in the musical and it's called A Sentimental Man.
Speaker: And then also...
Speaker: At the end of part two, he learns something that is devastating to him and which may have changed the course of his actions.
Speaker: So at the end of part two, he finds out that Elphaba was his daughter.
Speaker: his illegitimate child.
Speaker: Oh, so they're suggesting he didn't know all along.
Speaker: And my sister and I were both like, didn't he know?
Speaker: Like, didn't he find out in the first one?
Speaker: But, and then we're like, I guess not, like they don't really talk about it, but he finds out because she has this keepsake of her mother's, which is a vial of this little potion, the green potion.
Speaker: That's the only purpose to think about.
Speaker: Glinda brings it to him and says, this is all that's left of her.
Speaker: And he sees it and he learns in that one moment.
Speaker: And so he's devastated because now she's been what they believe is evaporated.
Speaker: But really, she gets a chance to run away with Fierro, the scarecrow, and they escape.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah, it's actually a really good ending.
Speaker: It's a really good ending because she and Fierro get to live in peace and they leave Oz.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: Yeah, so back to the question.
Speaker: How's the wizard portrayed in Wicked the book?
Speaker: The wizard's from another planet.
Speaker: Planet?
Speaker: Confused me.
Speaker: Yeah, so did she find the grimoire?
Speaker: The big mystical book?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's called the Grimmery, but... Oh, Grimmery.
Speaker: No, no, no, you guys are right.
Speaker: I just said it wrong.
Speaker: Grimoire.
Speaker: Yeah, the Grimmery.
Speaker: He's got it in front.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then she has a page of it and then she goes and shows the wizard and he's like, thank you.
Speaker: Where's the rest of this?
Speaker: I'm from another realm.
Speaker: I only came here to find this book.
Speaker: And then basically started meddling in politics to gain power.
Speaker: I don't know, because he's a bad person.
Speaker: No, the wizard's a horrible person in the book.
Speaker: He has an entire secret police force.
Speaker: He's killing everybody.
Speaker: Yeah, that's too bad.
Speaker: Is he sort of that like bumbling goofball idiot that he is in the movie, though?
Speaker: No, no, they entirely made that up, which is why I like Jeff Goldblum.
Speaker: I only like him the way that they did it.
Speaker: I think you're correct.
Speaker: He would be entirely inaccurate if they had been more true to the book.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: Yeah, him as a war villain.
Speaker: War criminal.
Speaker: Yeah, war criminal.
Speaker: A war villain?
Speaker: I'm thinking war crimes here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Crimes against humanity.
Speaker: Yeah, they're horrible.
Speaker: They tear up all of the land to go find rubies.
Speaker: They drain all of the water out so they can... The people can't access water, so they'll leave.
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: They have Professor Goatman murdered.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: He gets killed?
Speaker: Another person that can't really sing.
Speaker: Did he not get killed in the movie?
Speaker: No, he loses his ability to speak.
Speaker: And then we never find out what happens to him.
Speaker: Oh, wait, no, he does go back to work at the university.
Speaker: No, Madame Horrible murders him.
Speaker: They just toned it down so much.
Speaker: I really got to see this second movie.
Speaker: I'm so curious now.
Speaker: But it was difficult to read the book after seeing the first one, because all I could picture for The Wizard was Jeff Goldblum.
Speaker: Yeah, you have said on the mic here before how much you hate watching the movie first because it robs you of the opportunity of imagination.
Speaker: What kind of questions do you got, Chris?
Speaker: Yeah, so overall, I want to know where the movies land for you guys on this morality scale in terms of what impression do you get of what the author originally intended discussing these heavy topics?
Speaker: perception of evil, nature versus nurture.
Speaker: Like, is that, that's not what I walked away from the first movie whenever I saw it.
Speaker: And so I'm curious if there's like any of that for you guys in just watching.
Speaker: There, to me, there was a more obvious moral scale in the second movie.
Speaker: And in my reflection on the movie and realizing, you know, For Good is one of the most popular songs of the second act.
Speaker: It's very touching to me.
Speaker: It's part of the title of this movie.
Speaker: So it really was like, for good.
Speaker: Like that, they really use that word a lot to describe Galinda.
Speaker: And when, you know, Madame Morrible's talking to Elphaba when she first walks on the campus of Shiz, she's like, if you come here, I'll help you meet the wizard if you make good.
Speaker: And so that triggers Elphaba into thinking, what can I do right?
Speaker: What can I do right?
Speaker: How can I make good?
Speaker: And so it's like, what does good mean?
Speaker: And so if you make good, it was a hidden threat, right?
Speaker: Like, Madame Morrible at the time, she didn't know that Elphaba is the wizard's child.
Speaker: No one did.
Speaker: But she knows that Elphaba had real magic.
Speaker: And so for the wizard in the movie and for Oz, they use magic to make good.
Speaker: it's really it's like behind that facade of what oz is right but making good means to do what i tell you keep the secret to maintain the wizard's facade and alphaba already idolized the wizard because she actually thought he was good so like that's why alphaba was my mvp is because she actually had the magic and she used her magic like for good she was like we need to talk to the wizard that's why we have a wizard
Speaker: She wanted to free the animals.
Speaker: Like, we have talking animals.
Speaker: Why are we getting rid of them?
Speaker: And so the whole thing with good versus evil and then also Galinda completely changes her tune in the second movie due to their friendship.
Speaker: That's what the song for good is about.
Speaker: They really learned from each other.
Speaker: Elphaba learned how to more, maybe manipulate people a little bit more, maybe like get what she wants out of people, but only for the general good.
Speaker: And then Glinda is obviously more humbled by her, brought down to earth, because Glinda doesn't have magic.
Speaker: That's why she has a fine mechanical bubble.
Speaker: I forgot that part.
Speaker: I forgot that Glinda had no magic.
Speaker: So she, like the wizard, they have to pretend they're good.
Speaker: They have to put on a facade and lie that they're good.
Speaker: They have to do all this stuff that's fake to come off as quote unquote good.
Speaker: And people behind the scenes
Speaker: who are actually doing the good, like Elphaba, she gets painted as the villain.
Speaker: And so Glinda's morality was like big for me in the, in the, in the second movie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And also how they filmed, I think I'll wrap this up, but also how they filmed the second one.
Speaker: I felt like the camera angles were a lot closer to the characters faces.
Speaker: So you saw a lot more
Speaker: facial expressions, a lot more pensive moments.
Speaker: It was more who they are as characters.
Speaker: You could see more inside them.
Speaker: When this first movie was filmed more from far away, when you would see them top to bottom, you'd see what they're wearing.
Speaker: They're like, here's their character, here's what they wear, here's what we want you to think of them.
Speaker: And this was more zoomed in, more at a personal level.
Speaker: Where have these, where has this story gotten these characters?
Speaker: How did, who are these characters now at the end of all this?
Speaker: That's very interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think that's really well put.
Speaker: And I do think that the morality is there to address your question, Chris.
Speaker: I really love the way that you put that, Blair.
Speaker: It was very helpful to me as someone who jumps to cynicism at these movies because I don't like them.
Speaker: So I really appreciate hearing why it's so meaningful to somebody that saw and found all of that for themselves.
Speaker: I don't, like for me watching, the morality takes sort of a second or a backseat to
Speaker: sisterhood between galinda and elphaba i i really think that this is a movie about like friendships forged in fire almost more than more than it is okay about morals but that's not to say that the morals are not present i think that those those themes just jumped out at me maybe more than what is good who is wicked how is wicked etc everyone always asks who is wicked no one asks how is wicked
Speaker: Well, they should be.
Speaker: I think that's what Gregory Maguire would want us to ask.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: And are those born wicked or is wicked thrust upon them?
Speaker: I love when Glinda says that.
Speaker: It's so like, ooh, yeah, Elphaba was dealt a shitty hand.
Speaker: Yep, she really was.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I find it fascinating that everybody that we know of that was considered to direct this movie, which like I just said, is one very much about sisterhood to me, is a man.
Speaker: You know, John Chu, Stephen Daldry, James Mangold, Ryan Murphy, all these people, men, men, men, men.
Speaker: How is the idea of sisterhood presented in the book?
Speaker: I guess I'm asking the reverse of your question, Chris.
Speaker: Does it seem like a central tenant?
Speaker: Or is it sort of a B story, whereas the sort of politics and high fantasy are kind of the A story?
Speaker: B story.
Speaker: The latter.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's not the impression you get from the book at all.
Speaker: In the book, later on, Galinda is really just as... Maybe not... She does develop as a character, but not nearly to the degree that it sounds like she does in the movie.
Speaker: She's still kind of a vapid, aloof...
Speaker: She does develop powers in the book, as I think, doesn't she have real powers in the original Wizard of Oz movie?
Speaker: Yes, she does.
Speaker: That's one of the problems I have with this whole thing.
Speaker: And she does in the book, too.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: And yeah, they do get along.
Speaker: And she does say, like, my sister's coming.
Speaker: I can't stay.
Speaker: I need to go do something about this.
Speaker: I want you to look after her when I'm gone.
Speaker: So, like, a little bit.
Speaker: but it is not a central tenet by any means of the book.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And the side of that for you, Blair, that I want to ask, you saw this, that you saw the stage musical with your sister, you saw the new movie with your sister.
Speaker: I know that the two of you are very close.
Speaker: Is that something that came through to the two of you that there's this themes of sisterhood or maybe because it was helmed by a man, was that not as prevalent to you?
Speaker: Like, maybe that's why it became obvious to me, because I'm watching a male lens on sisterhood, right?
Speaker: I felt like their friendship was accurately documented in this movie, because a real true friendship and real true sisterhood is being able to call someone out when they're being shitty, call someone out when they're being dumb, your best friend, with love, respectfully.
Speaker: And so these two, they, they check each other regularly and they're like, I really hope you get it and you don't live to regret it.
Speaker: They are so real with each other.
Speaker: Um, and their, their love and respect for each other.
Speaker: Like they, they really grab each other's back, but it's, it's, it's too bad that you, we, we don't get to see you.
Speaker: We know that they're friends at the end of the first movie.
Speaker: like all this time passes before the second movie where they're all like graduated from shiz and in their careers and and they're still friends so yeah i i felt the theme of sisterhood and well then there's the parallel elphaba had an actual sister and right they didn't have such a healthy their their relationship was a little tainted yeah because the the younger
Speaker: One with the disability was, had, she was more favorited by the father, pitied for her disability and therefore put on a pedestal while Elphaba was green and weird and wore raggedy clothing and an actual witch's hat.
Speaker: And she was put on the back burner.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: I'm glad to hear this.
Speaker: That's so interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Remember how Brenda in the movie has no magic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But she is popular.
Speaker: She's the portrayal of perfection.
Speaker: She's idolized by the Ossians and the munchkins.
Speaker: I think maybe they chose to make her not have magical powers in the movie because then she can align with the wizard in that way.
Speaker: And they're like, we have this wizard who we make it look like magic.
Speaker: And then we also have her, she's perfect for it.
Speaker: She's perfect.
Speaker: She'll be the face of it.
Speaker: She'll be Glinda, the good witch.
Speaker: And so like, that's like their shared weakness.
Speaker: And so she's kind of always on the wizard's side.
Speaker: That's one time in the second film where she and Elphaba are not seeing eye to eye.
Speaker: And she's like, Elphaba, you have to do this.
Speaker: And Elphaba almost does it.
Speaker: She almost falls for it.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: I just realized that.
Speaker: I think that's a really good point.
Speaker: I like you pointing out that they're parallel lines, again, because I'm so inclined towards cynicism and criticism of these.
Speaker: I hadn't seen it that way.
Speaker: That being said, this movie bends over backwards to...
Speaker: overlap itself with the Wizard of Oz in in ways that I found extremely contrived and just yes weird and unnecessary so then to ignore the fact that we see Glinda using magic we see her on screen using magic in the Wizard of Oz to me this it's like an asinine lapse in logic I'm like why yeah what's what's happening here why are you making up your own rules
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Like, okay, okay, you're going to try to stay true to these other things that are wholly unnecessary, but then this is fair game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, odd.
Speaker: Do you have more questions, Blair?
Speaker: Who is y'all's redemption character?
Speaker: Who did you hate and then you loved?
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: I didn't like anybody.
Speaker: Or the opposite.
Speaker: Which character took you on a rollercoaster ride?
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: There is one line at the very end of the movie that really disappointed me.
Speaker: I was really disappointed in Elphaba when she resigns to the fact that she cannot make the progress that Glinda would be able to.
Speaker: And that's ultimately why she leaves and leaves Glinda to sort of run Oz.
Speaker: I think it's a line in the song for good, or at least the dialogue surrounding that song.
Speaker: She says something about, I can't do what you can do.
Speaker: And to me, that seemed like a really bummer damnation of the sort of rebellion that she staged across these two movies.
Speaker: It seemed to me like, you know, I really wanted to root for Elphaba because she was an underdog and could
Speaker: conceivably use her powers for good and find a solution that benefited everybody.
Speaker: But she kind of chose not to in the end.
Speaker: And somebody else defeated the wizard.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Like Dorothy comes in and cleans up that mess.
Speaker: So I was kind of disappointed in Elphaba by the end.
Speaker: But yeah, I don't know if there was anybody that I felt higher on.
Speaker: Maybe Glinda because she felt really bad for what she did to Nessa.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, that was hard to watch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Her remorse over that.
Speaker: Really strong performance, too.
Speaker: Ariana Grande is a good actress.
Speaker: What do you think, Chris?
Speaker: I don't think I liked anyone.
Speaker: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker: I mean, some of them, like The Wizard and Matamorable, are just, like, bad throughout.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah, just genuinely, objectively bad people.
Speaker: Well, in the book, Fierro.
Speaker: But the book Fiero is so, so different.
Speaker: He's like this kind of foreigner from another land.
Speaker: Everyone's like kind of questioning of him right away.
Speaker: A professor tries to let him be killed essentially in class the first day he shows up by allowing a like reanimated set of antlers run across a stage and try to stab him to death.
Speaker: But then also he comes to the city and just has an affair sleeping with Elphaba.
Speaker: because he's bored of his wife.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think the only character I think I genuinely like in this movie are the lion cub and what's his name?
Speaker: Chicory or Chimichurri?
Speaker: The first monkey.
Speaker: Chimichurri?
Speaker: I don't remember his name.
Speaker: What's his name?
Speaker: Is it the flying monkey?
Speaker: Yeah, it becomes the flying monkeys.
Speaker: Chistory.
Speaker: Chistory.
Speaker: Chistory.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: I got no problems with that guy.
Speaker: Um, but no, I don't, I find them all deplorable for different reasons.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The book was plagued by wickedness.
Speaker: The book was way, way darker.
Speaker: A lot of murders.
Speaker: Who was your redemptive character, Blair?
Speaker: Linda.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Because she's the mean girl in part one, and she truly, they really changed for the better by knowing each other, and she's, she's a totally different
Speaker: girl she's a girl's girl at the end of this movie and i guess i'm just i'm obviously my whole scale of reference is the beginning of the first movie and the end of the second part so she's just totally different and she has to live with the pain of losing her best friend yep and they let her believe they melt elphaba so glinda believes that she's dead and gone and then
Speaker: Scarecrow Fierro comes back and takes her away and they escape.
Speaker: And so, but everyone in Oz thinks that the Wicked Witch was melted and gone.
Speaker: But so I'm telling Chris what happens in the movie, but, cause he hasn't had the pleasure of seeing it yet, which I think he will.
Speaker: Yeah, Glinda, poor Glinda.
Speaker: Yeah, she made me cry and Ariana's voice just makes me cry, period.
Speaker: Can I ask you, I think we're having very different interpretations of that song.
Speaker: I hear that lyric as, I don't know if I've been changed for the better, but I've been changed for good.
Speaker: I hear that as a net neutral on the morality scale.
Speaker: Yes, I'm definitely different than I was, but I don't know if it's better.
Speaker: It's hard to say if I've been changed for the better, but I have been changed for good.
Speaker: For good, knowing you changed my life.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I don't know if it's better.
Speaker: I just know that it's different.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You have me in a tizzy here.
Speaker: You're absolutely right.
Speaker: It's a, it's a, it's a, is this a lexical ambiguity?
Speaker: I don't even think it's ambiguous.
Speaker: I think if you're willing to specify, yeah, man, you've changed my life.
Speaker: I don't know if it's for the better.
Speaker: You don't specify that unless you're implying it's not for the better.
Speaker: You know what that aligns with too?
Speaker: In the movie, Blair, when Elphaba and Fiero are starting to hook up and they're like, how do you think I'm beautiful?
Speaker: And he goes, I'm just looking at you through different eyes.
Speaker: I was like, what?
Speaker: That is so inappropriate.
Speaker: So mean.
Speaker: I'm just like kind of imagining you a little differently.
Speaker: Yeah, what a horrible lie.
Speaker: He's like, I'm going to close my eyes during it.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, as long as the lights are off and I'm a little drunk,
Speaker: I just thought that line was, I was like, I can't believe that made it into the final cut.
Speaker: You guys didn't want to rewrite?
Speaker: That sounds so awful.
Speaker: What a horrible thing to say to somebody.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I don't remember if that's original from the musical, but I love at that part where they're about to make good in the East Sack.
Speaker: You're just saying good for like anything at this point.
Speaker: I didn't want to say make love.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: They're making Hades of Love and he goes, what?
Speaker: This is true to the musical.
Speaker: He goes, how are we feeling right now?
Speaker: And she's like, for the first time, I actually feel wicked.
Speaker: And it's like, you're like, everyone in the theater was like high-fiving each other.
Speaker: We're all like, yeah, finally.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: People were laughing in my screening.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: My theater was full of fans.
Speaker: Okay, now I'm good.
Speaker: I'm glad.
Speaker: I would have had a better time.
Speaker: Yeah, you would have been changed for the better.
Speaker: Yeah, at least for good.
Speaker: I hate this.
Speaker: I'm still baffled by the fact that the movie was split into two parts.
Speaker: I don't think it was necessary.
Speaker: Do you think that the story presented in the book would survive or benefit or thrive or completely fall apart if they had split it into two books at the same point?
Speaker: You remember where the first movie ended, right?
Speaker: Elphaba leaves the Emerald City with the Grimmery.
Speaker: Ready to start a revolution.
Speaker: The book actually, I think it reasonably could have been, like it would have made sense at the point where she leaves to have been split into two smaller books.
Speaker: I just think it would have had the same effect.
Speaker: Like if I had read the first book that was just that first half, I don't know if there would have been enough draw for me to be like, I should definitely go read the next one.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have a question.
Speaker: Yeah, please.
Speaker: In the book Wicked,
Speaker: Who is the Wicked Witch of the East?
Speaker: Nessie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Just checking.
Speaker: That was like, when that happened, we were like, my jaw was on the floor.
Speaker: She names herself that.
Speaker: And you're like, oh, that's who the house falls on.
Speaker: And that's why she's chasing Dorothy, because Dorothy puts her shoes on and then can't take them off.
Speaker: And Nessie had willed them to Elphaba.
Speaker: And she's like,
Speaker: I don't know who this dumb broad is from Kansas, but I want my shoes.
Speaker: That happens.
Speaker: That's true to the movie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, let's move on.
Speaker: Let's talk about ratings.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Blair, out of five stars, what would you rate Wicked Part One?
Speaker: Four and a half.
Speaker: Four and a half.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Jeez.
Speaker: It made me laugh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It made me cry.
Speaker: I thought I was going to cry more in the second one.
Speaker: I cried more in the first one.
Speaker: fabulous establishment of the plot and I was just on the edge of my seat waiting for the year to pass for part two.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And all the best music.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The good songs are in the first half besides for good.
Speaker: My rating for Wicked Part 1 was three stars.
Speaker: To me, it is like a perfectly mediocre movie.
Speaker: I have some like technical issues with it that, you know, kind of annoy me, like the lighting design and things like that.
Speaker: But so much rises above it that it's still, it's still fun.
Speaker: And costumes and sets are like unreal.
Speaker: Like I don't, you'd never see movies that look
Speaker: like that costumes and sets.
Speaker: So there's there's some really good stuff there.
Speaker: Just a little gets a little bit bogged down by some of the silly stuff.
Speaker: I like I really hated the singing goat and like her cape being huge at the end.
Speaker: There's just all these details where I was like, wait, what the fuck?
Speaker: Yeah, but it's just like out of my exact wheelhouse.
Speaker: So it's it's a three stars, but it's like a warm three stars, you know?
Speaker: I would I would agree.
Speaker: I felt the same way about the first movie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And how about Wicked for Good, Blair?
Speaker: 3.75.
Speaker: 3.75.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Why does it drop for you?
Speaker: I think I wish it had more wow factor.
Speaker: I love the set design.
Speaker: I love the costumes.
Speaker: Everything aesthetically was, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess I can't call it a four, but everything aesthetically was top tier for me.
Speaker: I wish they didn't add those
Speaker: two songs.
Speaker: I don't really know why they needed to do that because they weren't hits.
Speaker: Like, you can't, we can't add to the Wicked soundtrack now.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So that whole Noah's Ark thing where Elphaba sang her new song and Galinda's new song about, I'm the girl in the bubble, no one understands me.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, because you've been a fake bitch your whole life.
Speaker: Like, that's your own problem.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then like more, more bow and Yang.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He was not in the second one all that much.
Speaker: Not enough bow and Yang.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: My rating for wicked for good is also lower than the first.
Speaker: I currently have it at two stars.
Speaker: I think it's going to go further down.
Speaker: I just really have a hard time.
Speaker: Like so many people work so hard on these things.
Speaker: I hate to get on, on the internet and, and publish a low.
Speaker: rating, you know what I mean?
Speaker: That might be the lowest you've rated a movie yet.
Speaker: On the podcast, it is.
Speaker: This is probably tied for the worst movie I've seen this year.
Speaker: I despise the second Wicked movie.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I've heard that from a lot of people.
Speaker: I want to give a shout out to my friend Krista, who was one of the people that did our surveys.
Speaker: I texted her today because she gave the first very similar to Blair.
Speaker: The first was like a 4.5 and rated the second a zero.
Speaker: And so we just had kind of a, uh,
Speaker: bitch fest over text today.
Speaker: I think I've made it pretty clear what I don't like about this movie, so I'm not going to get too into it.
Speaker: But it's similar to what Blair said.
Speaker: The things that are good about it were also good in the first part, which means that there's nothing special happening in the second part.
Speaker: And then when you add in, I don't like the narrative of the second movie and I don't like the songs and considering it's a full blown musical, that's really fucking bad.
Speaker: Like that makes it really unenjoyable for me.
Speaker: And, um, if I were not covering this movie on the podcast, I would have walked out of the theater.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I was really disappointed because I was so sort of on the fence of the first one.
Speaker: I was really hoping that this one would tip the scales and I would become a wicked fan.
Speaker: And I thought the trailers looked really good.
Speaker: And I was really excited that they had written these original songs because I'd heard that the music was kind of weak in the second half.
Speaker: So I was like, well, then I clearly know that they need to like pick it up.
Speaker: But both of the songs are slow and sad and bad and pointless.
Speaker: And like, there's so much literalism to musicals are supposed to be like,
Speaker: when they start singing, they're not actually singing in the narrative, right?
Speaker: They're expressing like, like the song that she sings with Fiero.
Speaker: takes place instead of them having sex is what it's supposed to be, right?
Speaker: Because it's a heightened version of what's happening in the story.
Speaker: But instead, they're basically engaging in foreplay during the song.
Speaker: And I'm like, well, they're not actually singing before they have sex.
Speaker: They're having sex here.
Speaker: Like, what are you doing?
Speaker: So anyway, I just felt like there was a really fundamental misunderstanding of what Wicked was supposed to be, The Wizard of Oz as well, like turning the
Speaker: Tin Man into like an evil monster.
Speaker: I was like, what the fuck is going on here?
Speaker: He likes La-di-da sings through the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: And then in Wicked, he's like, killer, killer, killer.
Speaker: Like, I'm, I just like, it's like sacrilegious to me.
Speaker: I can't fucking believe this.
Speaker: Anyway, I'm getting too wound up here.
Speaker: So we need to move on to Chris's rating of the book, I think.
Speaker: It feels like astoundingly a three.
Speaker: As we've discussed, Goodreads doesn't allow half stars.
Speaker: I would entertain a 3.5 for this book.
Speaker: The themes and ideas are cool, and I see why he took the approach he did as an author.
Speaker: I was never a big fan of The Wizard of Oz, the first movie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so it's just like an entire universe I'm not interested in.
Speaker: Yeah, I do get that.
Speaker: I didn't feel drawn to it either.
Speaker: I know what you mean.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: It's a three.
Speaker: It's not lower.
Speaker: It wasn't, you know, I wasn't pissed at it.
Speaker: I wasn't ready to put it down at any point.
Speaker: And honestly, actually, we've had many books that were more of a chore to continue reading.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I would call it overwhelmingly average.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's my feelings on the first part too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is, this, this feels clear at this point, Nate, who would you recommend this movie to?
Speaker: Nobody.
Speaker: Now, if you like the wizard of Oz or the whiz, like we mentioned, I think it's worth exploring, watching these movies, just like be ready to not like it, I guess, or, or to love it.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: I'm just one, one opinion.
Speaker: Other high fantasy stories like The Princess Bride and The Beauty and the Beast, you might like this movie.
Speaker: There's a term called a wedding cake movie.
Speaker: These are very much wedding cake movies, and that's usually semi-period dramas where they have really fancy costumes and there's a lot of opulence in the aesthetics and the visuals like you were talking about, Blair.
Speaker: So Bridgerton came to mind because it's, it's sort of got that over the top opulence and like opulent frenzy sort of.
Speaker: So I said that that show might be kind of a gateway drug.
Speaker: to wicked and then I wanted to shout out into the woods as well, which is another high fantasy musical based on famous fairy tales.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That, uh, you could maybe draw some comparisons to just because we're, we're putting these famous fairy tale characters in, in darker complex situations.
Speaker: So if you'd like those, maybe there was a, or the, what's it called?
Speaker: Wicked would be a good one for you.
Speaker: What about you Blair?
Speaker: Would you recommend the movie?
Speaker: Yes, put it on for your baby when they can't sleep at night.
Speaker: Put it on for... No, I'm sorry, I'm joking.
Speaker: I think if you haven't heard of it, you should see it after you know the history of where it came from.
Speaker: I think you really need to know the backstory.
Speaker: Um, I would, yes, I would recommend the movie to anyone who likes musicals, the opulence wedding cake type, uh, genre.
Speaker: I think it takes you on an emotional journey.
Speaker: There are a range of emotions and I think it's, it's a feast for the eyes.
Speaker: It totally is.
Speaker: I think I, I have, I personally have trouble enjoying musicals that I don't have an emotional attachment to the music to.
Speaker: Like I already knew the music.
Speaker: I knew the music before I ever, for years, before I ever saw the play.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: So I've known these songs since I was a kid.
Speaker: So one musical that I can't stand and everyone loves is La La Land.
Speaker: Like I, I hate that movie with a burning passion.
Speaker: It's so bad to me with two actors that I adore.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: I think if you've heard of it, you should see it, but if you're not into musicals, read the book and then go from there.
Speaker: Fair.
Speaker: And if you like Wizard of Oz, you should watch this because yes, they spent so much money on this.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just delicious.
Speaker: It's like sink your teeth into it.
Speaker: And if you engorge too much, then you never have to watch it again.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: I, um, cause I think obviously lots of people have probably already seen the movie or will see the movie or have seen the musical.
Speaker: If you do enjoy them, like to Blair, I would say you might enjoy the book.
Speaker: If you don't enjoy the movies, I don't think, I don't think the book is going to be something that's going to, that you're going to enjoy.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: At least in part, because as we discussed, it is just north of 400 pages and there are really very few people
Speaker: If it were like, actually you made an interesting suggestion with your question.
Speaker: If it were split in two, I would be much more ready to say, yeah, read the first one and see.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: If you want to move to the second one.
Speaker: It was so long and there really are some slow parts.
Speaker: I did enjoy it and I do not intend to see the second movie.
Speaker: So actually probably more people I would recommend this to than a lot of the books that we've discussed.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Especially the, not adult-themed, but the adult-oriented aspect.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As I have kind of beat to death already, it falls at such a unique intersection.
Speaker: I think more people would enjoy it than maybe know they themselves would enjoy it.
Speaker: Does that make sense?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, it's not just The Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: It's not just a fairy tale about happy endings.
Speaker: There's a lot to it.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: I think that there's a lot to the movie too.
Speaker: It just got, in my opinion, it was like overshadowed by
Speaker: some of these flaws that don't jive with me.
Speaker: And I want to be totally clear too.
Speaker: One of the reasons I was so excited to have Blair on the podcast to talk about this is because I know you love these movies and I don't love these movies and it would make for a really interesting conversation and that it doesn't mean anything to us that the other feels that way.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Like I'm genuinely jealous of you that you loved this movie.
Speaker: And I'm not jealous that you love La La Land.
Speaker: Yeah, don't be jealous.
Speaker: I can understand the criticisms of La La Land too, actually.
Speaker: But yeah, please, if you do love Wicked, just mute my section, I guess, of the podcast.
Speaker: Having not seen the movie, it was fascinating to hear two wildly different takes on the second one.
Speaker: And obviously I knew you loved it.
Speaker: And I think I had a good idea you didn't enjoy it, but still interesting to hear why, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, and I'd be really curious to, not that I would ever pay for it now as much as I hate the movies, but I'd be curious to see if I like the stage show more or less or the same.
Speaker: I really think we'll probably still try to see it.
Speaker: And it was huge when I was playing a lot for musical type stuff in high school, so I've played the entire score a thousand times.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: What's your favorite song to play from it, from Wicked?
Speaker: Something bass heavy.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: I mean, I don't remember specific bass lines from any of them.
Speaker: None of them were like, this is a blast.
Speaker: But you hear an entire chorus up on stage singing for good, you get some feels.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Live, 100 teenagers belting their hearts out.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Like I have fond memories of playing that song.
Speaker: Like No One Mourns the Wicked or No Good.
Speaker: Oh, that is fun.
Speaker: I do like, is that the opening song from the first movie?
Speaker: Yeah, that one.
Speaker: And Ariana's singing basically opera.
Speaker: I'm like, holy shit, this one is kind of a banger.
Speaker: I have goosebumps thinking about it right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: The lyrics.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Goodness knows the wicked lives are lonely.
Speaker: The wicked lives are lonely.
Speaker: Goodness knows the wicked die alone.
Speaker: Oh, I could cry thinking about it.
Speaker: So much more of this memorized than I realized.
Speaker: Blair's a wicked super fan.
Speaker: Yeah, super fan for sure.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Well, thank you, Blair, for joining us.
Speaker: It was so fun to have you on, especially for these very special movies and the super sized episode.
Speaker: We look forward to having you back again.
Speaker: I would be so honored to return.
Speaker: Well, thank you all for joining us for our conversation as well.
Speaker: Up next, we are covering The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden with a film adaptation directed by Paul Feig.
Speaker: And that's a personal favorite for my family.
Speaker: So I'm really excited to see it
