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Ep. 24: 'Wicked': Are We Changed for the Better or Just 'For Good?'
14 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of 'Adaptation: the Book to Movie Podcast,' Nate and Chris are joined by Chris's wife Blair, to discuss the films 'Wicked' and 'Wicked: For Good,' as well as the novel they are inspired by, wirtten by Gregory Macguire.
Expect thoughtful conversations about the vast differences from page to picture, reviews of the movies and what we find so special about the musical spectacular.
What Was the First Color Movie? — It's Not What You Think It Is 'They changed my ending, I felt aghast': how we made WickedUP NEXT: 'The Housemaid' by Freida McFadden & its film adaptation directed by Paul Feig.
Follow us on social media:
Nate's Letterboxd (@professor_n8)
Chris's Letterboxd (@cjanderson878)
Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Producer: Nate Day
Special Guest: Blair Vigneron
"Adaptation Theme"
- Written by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow
- Performed by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow, Nate Day
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Transcript
Introduction and Advertisements
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Meet the Hosts and Guest
00:01:13
Speaker
Welcome to Adaptation, the Book to Movie podcast.
00:01:16
Speaker
I'm Nate.
00:01:16
Speaker
And I'm Chris.
00:01:18
Speaker
And today we are covering Wicked, both movie versions as well as the Gregory Maguire novel, right?
00:01:25
Speaker
Is that the author, Chris?
00:01:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:01:27
Speaker
And we have a very special guest with us today.
00:01:30
Speaker
Chris, do you want to introduce our guest?
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:33
Speaker
Hi, honey.
00:01:34
Speaker
Hello.
00:01:36
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Everybody, this is Blair.
00:01:38
Speaker
Blair, this is everybody.
00:01:40
Speaker
Hi, everybody.
00:01:43
Speaker
Thanks so much for joining us, Blair.
00:01:47
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You know, I'm really happy to be here.
00:01:49
Speaker
I'm really excited.
00:01:51
Speaker
And thanks for thanking of me for this episode.
Blair's Personal Stories and Interests
00:01:54
Speaker
Well, of course, we couldn't have anybody else because you are our resident Wicked Superfan, correct?
00:02:02
Speaker
You said it.
00:02:04
Speaker
Oh my gosh, the number of times that I have just suddenly heard the wicked soundtrack blaring from a room in our house.
00:02:11
Speaker
And blaring meaning that Blair is singing it.
00:02:17
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It's not what I meant, but I am going to steal that and use it again.
00:02:20
Speaker
It's so accurate.
00:02:22
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I remember.
00:02:23
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After the first one came out when you were singing, dancing, dancing through life.
00:02:27
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And I was like, Blair, you've got to stop.
00:02:29
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That song is so bad.
00:02:31
Speaker
You were like, I know, but I love it so much.
00:02:34
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:02:35
Speaker
That's funny because I've been listening to the soundtrack and the original play soundtrack a lot recently.
00:02:43
Speaker
And I've been skipping over that song, but ever since watching the second movie, I've been going through it.
00:02:51
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
00:03:03
Speaker
It is fun.
00:03:03
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?
00:03:22
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Have you been seeing movies, reading books?
00:03:24
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What's going on?
00:03:25
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I have been reading pretty exclusively for the pod lately.
00:03:29
Speaker
I just finished the house made for the next episode.
00:03:32
Speaker
Whoa.
00:03:33
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Wow, you're really ahead.
00:03:36
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Well, I keep trying to, I like to have the next one read before I do like more for fun reading.
00:03:42
Speaker
Sure.
00:03:42
Speaker
And this was my first full Monday to Friday, full day every day week at the school.
00:03:48
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:03:49
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And man, these kids, I get home and I just like stare at the wall.
00:03:53
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So not as much reading as I would like going
Recent Movie Discussions
00:03:58
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on.
00:03:58
Speaker
But today I finished The Housemaid and as a little treat to myself,
00:04:02
Speaker
I started back in on the Lord of the Rings.
00:04:05
Speaker
I like to kind of just return to that trilogy every once in a while.
00:04:08
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And it felt tasty to be back into Tolkien land.
00:04:15
Speaker
Good.
00:04:16
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I know you do love Tolkien.
00:04:19
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And we've got a Hobbit episode up for those that want to hear it.
00:04:22
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And we're planning, I think, on doing Lord of the Rings in the first half of the year next year.
00:04:28
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Yes.
00:04:28
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Yes.
00:04:28
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As well.
00:04:31
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Blair, what have you been up to?
00:04:32
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Crocheting?
00:04:33
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I finished a gift for one of my friends who's going to have a baby at the end of December.
00:04:38
Speaker
So it's a little baby blanket, AKA just a really easy, large square.
00:04:45
Speaker
So it's not advanced, but the yarn is really fabulous.
00:04:49
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It's nice and chunky.
00:04:51
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And I just finished my first week at my new job, a new salon here in New York City.
00:04:58
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So that is going really well.
00:05:00
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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.
00:05:08
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.
00:05:22
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It was the Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield movie.
00:05:26
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Oh, we live in time.
00:05:27
Speaker
What did you want to do?
00:05:29
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on the plane back from
Industry Insights: Netflix's Potential Acquisition
00:05:31
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Istanbul.
00:05:32
Speaker
Oh, that's right.
00:05:33
Speaker
That's right.
00:05:33
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You texted me.
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:36
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:05:37
Speaker
It's a tearjerker.
00:05:38
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You will feel everything.
00:05:40
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It's a beautiful movie.
00:05:42
Speaker
I put it on my watch list when you texted me.
00:05:44
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I haven't gotten to see it yet, but I do want to.
00:05:48
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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.
00:05:59
Speaker
Right.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, just full snot nose, to your face, airplane food dinner.
00:06:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:06:06
Speaker
I can't believe there's a movie Feasting that you haven't made.
00:06:10
Speaker
That was one that it happens every year, like starting this time of year when it's pretty deep in award season.
00:06:17
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.
00:06:27
Speaker
So I do miss like two or three pretty big ones every year that I kind of have to catch up on later.
00:06:33
Speaker
And it's it's
Wicked: From Broadway to Film
00:06:34
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started.
00:06:34
Speaker
I don't have a ton of movies to report on because
00:06:38
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Because of that, exactly.
00:06:39
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I was traveling for Thanksgiving and everything.
00:06:41
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.
00:07:00
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And it's George Clooney.
00:07:03
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So it's a really kind of interesting thing, considering...
00:07:08
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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
00:07:36
Speaker
Adam Sandler's in it and he's really good.
00:07:38
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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.
00:07:46
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He's really fantastic in this movie.
00:07:48
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So yeah, it's really good.
00:07:50
Speaker
That combo in a serious movie sounds crazy.
00:07:53
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George Clooney and Adam Sandler.
00:07:54
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I know.
00:07:55
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Well, and it is, it is like sort of funny too, man.
00:07:58
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It was just really good.
00:07:59
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It really, really left an impression.
00:08:02
Speaker
I want to
Dark Themes in Wicked Book and Adaptations
00:08:03
Speaker
see it.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:05
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
00:08:31
Speaker
That has to violate antitrust law.
00:08:33
Speaker
Like that's insane.
00:08:34
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.
00:08:43
Speaker
Exactly.
00:08:44
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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.
00:08:51
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So yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:08:53
Speaker
Who knows?
00:08:56
Speaker
Yeah, that is.
00:08:57
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Bad news.
00:08:57
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Okay.
00:08:58
Speaker
But on a lighter note.
00:09:00
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Yeah, I was like, wow, really?
00:09:01
Speaker
Cut down.
00:09:03
Speaker
Let's talk about a fantasy song and dance musical, shall we?
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yes, please.
00:09:09
Speaker
Blair, you, had you seen the stage show?
00:09:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:14
Speaker
And like a while ago, like as a kid or what?
00:09:18
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:18
Speaker
A while ago I was in my
00:09:21
Speaker
pre-teens.
00:09:22
Speaker
I think I was in middle school, maybe sixth, seventh, or eighth grade.
00:09:26
Speaker
I can't quite remember so long ago.
00:09:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:30
Speaker
But you saw it with your family and your sister?
00:09:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:34
Speaker
My sister and I saw it with two of our friends.
00:09:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:38
Speaker
Cool.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:39
Speaker
Took an adventure into the city to see a Broadway show.
00:09:43
Speaker
Oh my.
00:09:44
Speaker
And then all these years later, the movie comes out.
00:09:47
Speaker
You're a big fan.
00:09:48
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?
00:09:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:57
Speaker
At 9.30 PM, I was like, you're leaving when?
00:10:01
Speaker
I know.
00:10:02
Speaker
It was extreme for me too.
00:10:03
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.
00:10:18
Speaker
I was just happy to nail her down.
00:10:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:20
Speaker
Well, good.
00:10:21
Speaker
I'm glad that this story has been a significant one for you for a long time.
00:10:26
Speaker
I'm really glad to hear what you have to say as we move through our conversation here.
00:10:31
Speaker
So with that, Chris, why don't you tell us a little bit about the book?
00:10:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:36
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.
00:10:45
Speaker
When did it come out?
00:10:47
Speaker
A year ago.
00:10:49
Speaker
Oh, so it was pretty recent.
00:10:50
Speaker
I don't know.
Fan Fiction and Adaptation Trends
00:10:52
Speaker
Frankly, very little similarity.
00:10:56
Speaker
Really?
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, but I'll explain.
00:10:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:00
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.
00:11:08
Speaker
Sure.
00:11:10
Speaker
And it would be so exhausting to discuss the differences between the book and the movie.
00:11:14
Speaker
I think it's just not even worth approaching.
00:11:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:17
Speaker
But there are some very interesting tidbits that I'll kind of lean towards instead that I think you guys will enjoy.
00:11:24
Speaker
So the full book title, which is insane, Why'd You Do This, Gregory?
00:11:29
Speaker
Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
00:11:33
Speaker
No, no.
00:11:35
Speaker
That's the length of a scholarly article.
00:11:38
Speaker
That is pretty silly.
00:11:39
Speaker
Published by Gregory Maguire in 1995.
00:11:43
Speaker
It is considered dark fantasy.
00:11:45
Speaker
Dark fantasy?
00:11:46
Speaker
Quite dark.
00:11:47
Speaker
frankly.
00:11:48
Speaker
The book is... this is a lot of murder.
00:11:53
Speaker
What?
00:11:54
Speaker
What?
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah, we'll get there.
00:11:55
Speaker
We'll get there.
00:11:56
Speaker
Okay, okay.
00:11:57
Speaker
We might have to talk about spoilers.
00:12:00
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.
00:12:15
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.
00:12:24
Speaker
Cause she's in like mystic pizza, the movie or something.
00:12:30
Speaker
I just love the fact that you're asking us a question about 30 rock.
00:12:34
Speaker
That is great.
00:12:34
Speaker
That is, I don't know, Nate, is it?
00:12:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:36
Speaker
The answer is yes.
00:12:37
Speaker
That is 100% 30 rock joke.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yes, which is comical and worked out very well for us because it makes for, I think, some pretty cool comparisons here.
00:12:51
Speaker
I wrote out the timeline, maybe as much for my benefit as anyone else, but maybe people will find this interesting.
00:12:56
Speaker
So The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's book by L. Frank Baum, published in 1900.
00:13:02
Speaker
Whoa.
00:13:05
Speaker
Um, super fun fact.
00:13:07
Speaker
I like, I think I giggled a little when I read this.
00:13:10
Speaker
This is where Elphaba's name came from.
00:13:13
Speaker
His initials.
00:13:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:15
Speaker
LFB.
00:13:17
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.
00:13:31
Speaker
I think that's super cool.
00:13:31
Speaker
That is cool.
00:13:32
Speaker
So then the adaptation, The Wizard of Oz, the movie, came out in 1939.
00:13:39
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.
00:13:45
Speaker
Wicked, The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.
00:13:50
Speaker
That is the name of the musical, I believe.
00:13:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:54
Speaker
Confirmation.
00:13:55
Speaker
Does anyone know?
00:13:56
Speaker
I had never heard that title.
00:13:57
Speaker
I hadn't, but it wouldn't surprise me.
00:13:59
Speaker
That's a mouthful, too.
00:14:00
Speaker
You know, how do you market that?
00:14:03
Speaker
And that's based on a script and then the screenplays for the movies all written by Winnie Holzman.
00:14:10
Speaker
So that came out in 2003, only eight years after the book.
00:14:13
Speaker
It's also only loosely based on the book.
00:14:15
Speaker
It's kind of a culmination of these things, which I think is where the game of telephone is really getting stretched.
00:14:21
Speaker
Sure.
00:14:22
Speaker
Totally.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:24
Speaker
And then the movies came out whenever Nate says the movies came out.
00:14:27
Speaker
2024 and 2025.
00:14:27
Speaker
Sure.
00:14:28
Speaker
Okay, Nate.
00:14:32
Speaker
I don't know.
00:14:35
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.
00:14:50
Speaker
What?
00:14:51
Speaker
Yes, he said it because he, McGuire was originally a children's book author, and then...
00:14:58
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.
00:15:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:14
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.
00:15:26
Speaker
Sure.
00:15:27
Speaker
but deliberately did not want that to be another children's book, wanted it to be a book for adults.
00:15:32
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
Technicolor Myths and Wicked Comparisons
00:15:43
Speaker
evil.
00:15:44
Speaker
So that's really interesting that it's basically the antithesis of what the original author wanted.
00:15:51
Speaker
Dude, they are not that way.
00:15:53
Speaker
One example, Alphaba's mom.
00:15:54
Speaker
So I think in the first one, it's like the wizard, right?
00:15:57
Speaker
And he like rolls through and that's why she's green or something.
00:15:59
Speaker
They have like this green tonic.
00:16:02
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.
00:16:20
Speaker
She's a real rock and roll chick.
00:16:23
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yep.
00:16:24
Speaker
The stranger wanders in after Alphaba is born.
00:16:29
Speaker
They have an affair.
00:16:30
Speaker
And then he starts living with them.
00:16:32
Speaker
And later in the book, we find out actually both the mom and Throp, Throp, it's the dad's name.
00:16:39
Speaker
The weird Alphaba and Armless Sister's dad.
00:16:44
Speaker
Throp is their last name, right?
00:16:46
Speaker
He's the governor.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, Governor Throp.
00:16:49
Speaker
In the book, he is a traveling minister.
00:16:53
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.
00:17:03
Speaker
It becomes this sort of... Guys, there's this good versus evil thing.
00:17:11
Speaker
In order to fight the corrupt powers that be, Alphaba leaves Shiz, and instead of going,
00:17:18
Speaker
If you care to find me, look to the West or whatever she does.
00:17:23
Speaker
So close.
00:17:24
Speaker
She joins an underground terrorist organization.
00:17:27
Speaker
Whoa.
00:17:27
Speaker
And attempts an assassination.
00:17:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:30
Speaker
So she's kind of a rock and roll chick too.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:33
Speaker
But like, as you can tell immediately wildly different, there is an orgy with a tiger in it.
00:17:40
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:17:42
Speaker
Which, to the credit of the book, in their context, animals are sentient beings who can talk.
00:17:48
Speaker
So a little less weird, but only a little.
00:17:53
Speaker
Yeah, barely.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, only a little.
00:17:55
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,
00:18:06
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
00:18:30
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.
00:18:36
Speaker
And they were fairly similar.
00:18:37
Speaker
Like the differences were somewhat small, you know?
00:18:41
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:18:42
Speaker
It's really interesting that this one is like a total left turn.
00:18:45
Speaker
Yeah, wildly so.
00:18:47
Speaker
And I mean, I can kind of see why.
00:18:50
Speaker
This would be a hardcore movie if it was truer to the book.
00:18:55
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:18:56
Speaker
Sure, yeah.
00:18:57
Speaker
And I do wonder kind of if part of that is...
00:19:01
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?
00:19:10
Speaker
First of all.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:12
Speaker
And second of all, it's like a different story.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
00:19:16
Speaker
I mean, I haven't seen the second one again, so I guess I don't know how it turns out.
00:19:19
Speaker
But big, big high scope.
00:19:22
Speaker
He set out to explore these grand themes of evil, whether it is born or
00:19:27
Speaker
or become self-fulfilling prophecy to the people who are already branded evil and then treated that way.
00:19:33
Speaker
Sure.
00:19:33
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?
00:19:44
Speaker
Right, right.
00:19:45
Speaker
That sort of idea.
00:19:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:48
Speaker
He himself compared the novel to Dickens.
00:19:52
Speaker
Wild.
00:19:53
Speaker
Well, you know what?
00:19:54
Speaker
I said the same thing, but listen.
00:19:56
Speaker
And this is from an interview they did in The Guardian.
00:19:58
Speaker
I have the article if anyone wants to see it or if we want to put it in the notes or something.
00:20:02
Speaker
Cool interview.
00:20:03
Speaker
And he said, I had this story about morals that I wanted to tell.
00:20:08
Speaker
And the individual life of one person from birth, their lived experience to their death, seemed like the most appropriate approach, I guess.
00:20:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:21
Speaker
He also specifically said,
00:20:23
Speaker
It's similar to Dickens.
00:20:24
Speaker
And then this was a direct quote.
00:20:26
Speaker
It has a 19th century moral urgency.
00:20:31
Speaker
I read that and I was like, book makes a lot of sense.
00:20:33
Speaker
I don't think anyone came out of that musical saying, boy, I'm going to think a lot about good and evil.
00:20:39
Speaker
He's choosing a very approachable matter that is someone else's life, right?
00:20:46
Speaker
They literally talk about her as a toddler, growing up, going to school, making friends.
00:20:52
Speaker
But
00:20:53
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.
00:21:04
Speaker
That was how I took it.
00:21:06
Speaker
Okay, got it.
00:21:07
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:21:08
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.
00:21:18
Speaker
I guess I don't know if you guys would agree, but culturally,
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, I would.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, I feel confident in that.
00:21:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:25
Speaker
I just wanted to, I don't know if I'm saying wild stuff.
00:21:28
Speaker
And that's not to say the book has not experienced its own success.
00:21:31
Speaker
It did very well initially.
00:21:33
Speaker
I think it was something like half a million copies in that first run.
00:21:37
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.
00:21:48
Speaker
Whoa.
00:21:50
Speaker
As we all know, not an original character.
00:21:52
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.
00:22:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:04
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.
00:22:12
Speaker
Sure.
00:22:14
Speaker
Because it sits at this unique intersection.
00:22:17
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?
00:22:30
Speaker
You just write it and you put it on WordPress or something that floats around the internet.
00:22:34
Speaker
You know, everybody's favorite Harry and Draco ship Harry Potter erotic fanfiction.
00:22:40
Speaker
What the hell?
00:22:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:42
Speaker
Really a lot of it out there.
00:22:44
Speaker
Wow.
00:22:45
Speaker
But you can't publish the book of it because that's someone else's creative material, right?
00:22:51
Speaker
One, this guy is very arguably, not even arguably, factually not a fan.
00:22:56
Speaker
He's already an accomplished published author in his own right.
00:23:00
Speaker
And because the original book came out 125 years ago, it falls outside of copyright law.
00:23:07
Speaker
All of that is public domain material.
00:23:11
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?
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, family movies, yeah.
00:23:22
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
00:23:37
Speaker
of having seen The Wizard of Oz, maybe not read the book.
00:23:40
Speaker
I don't know anyone that's read the original book.
00:23:43
Speaker
Probably seen the movies by now, right?
00:23:45
Speaker
You have all of this information.
00:23:46
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?
00:23:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:23:57
Speaker
39, I wrote to ask you to fact check me.
00:23:59
Speaker
That was the first movie in color, correct?
00:24:03
Speaker
Nope.
00:24:03
Speaker
Common misconception.
00:24:06
Speaker
Aw, man.
00:24:07
Speaker
Wait, you said common.
00:24:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:08
Speaker
So other people also think that I didn't make this up.
00:24:10
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:24:11
Speaker
Everybody says that, but no, that's, that's not the case.
00:24:14
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?
00:24:29
Speaker
They did produce the wizard.
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
With the lion roar.
00:24:32
Speaker
Am I allowed to speculate?
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:36
Speaker
That's one of my toxic traits, speculating without research.
00:24:40
Speaker
The story was that another production company that also had a lot of money owned the rights to color films.
00:24:51
Speaker
So they had to figure out a way to make, like it was a monopoly on color film.
00:24:56
Speaker
It was like, how could you do that back in the day?
00:24:58
Speaker
But it was like around that time of verging from black and white films and
00:25:03
Speaker
post adding sound to films and, you know, not silent films.
00:25:09
Speaker
Um, so they really needed to find a way to make it colorful.
00:25:14
Speaker
So what'd you find Nate?
00:25:16
Speaker
I'm reading an article right now called what was the first color movie?
00:25:19
Speaker
It's not what you think it is.
00:25:20
Speaker
And they say many people think of the wizard of Oz as being the first color film in cinema history.
00:25:26
Speaker
While this is technically not true, we'll dive into why it's a common misconception.
00:25:30
Speaker
The first color movie was a short film called A Visit to the Seaside.
00:25:34
Speaker
The Wizard of Oz is known for popularizing technicolor, which is those really vibrant colors.
00:25:40
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:25:41
Speaker
And that's probably why that misconception exists.
00:25:44
Speaker
But no, the British short film is called A Visit to the Seaside from 1908.
00:25:49
Speaker
So, you know, 31 years, right?
00:25:53
Speaker
Before Concert of Oz came out.
00:25:55
Speaker
Okay, that is interesting.
00:25:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:57
Speaker
Well, glad I wrote to ask you to fact check instead of probably diving into that one then.
00:26:01
Speaker
This is such a unique circumstance, I guess, is the thrust of my argument, right?
00:26:06
Speaker
We can immediately...
00:26:08
Speaker
dive in to what would otherwise be a crazy character, right?
00:26:12
Speaker
Like even in their world, they're all confused why her skin is green.
00:26:16
Speaker
Right.
00:26:17
Speaker
But we have all this built-in knowledge.
00:26:19
Speaker
Everybody's seen Wizard of Oz.
00:26:21
Speaker
Everybody's heard the soundtrack, right?
00:26:23
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.
00:26:38
Speaker
because you don't need to grapple with the characters that would otherwise be pretty crazy.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:44
Speaker
So it's I'm not I'm not usually well, no, I am usually a fan of fan fiction.
00:26:48
Speaker
It's not usually a book that would be of interest to me, but he really did a unique and creative thing here.
00:26:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting.
00:26:58
Speaker
And fan fiction being turned into published material
00:27:03
Speaker
is something that I think is sort of on the rise right now.
00:27:05
Speaker
A lot of movies, I think Twilight, for example, is one that was originally, was that a Harry Potter fan fiction?
00:27:11
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:27:12
Speaker
Other way around.
00:27:13
Speaker
Fifty Shades of Grey was originally, oh, wait, no, you're right.
00:27:17
Speaker
Twilight was.
00:27:18
Speaker
Fifty Shades of Grey.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:27:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:23
Speaker
So they make these small tweaks to make it legal or was it earlier this year?
00:27:28
Speaker
Maybe it was last year.
00:27:30
Speaker
There's that Anne Hathaway movie on prime where she falls in love with a member of a boy band.
00:27:35
Speaker
I saw that movie.
00:27:37
Speaker
It's I did too.
00:27:37
Speaker
I think it's called the idea of you.
00:27:40
Speaker
It's it was originally written as a one direction fanfic.
00:27:45
Speaker
It's about Harry Styles.
00:27:46
Speaker
Incredible.
00:27:51
Speaker
She had to change the name, the boy band and the name of the character and was able to publish it.
00:27:58
Speaker
And now it's a major motion picture starring Oscar winning Anne Hathaway.
00:28:02
Speaker
So it's definitely on the rise.
00:28:04
Speaker
And
00:28:05
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.
00:28:14
Speaker
Well, I didn't think of it because I think about a lot of modern ones.
00:28:18
Speaker
And so I said, okay, when did this start?
00:28:20
Speaker
Like, what can we, you know, similar to the Gothic literature, what is the family tree here?
00:28:27
Speaker
So this blew my mind.
00:28:29
Speaker
Some of the early examples of fan fiction include the legends of King Arthur.
00:28:34
Speaker
What?
00:28:34
Speaker
Like the round table?
00:28:36
Speaker
We're talking centuries, literally over a millennia ago.
00:28:40
Speaker
Was King Arthur a real guy?
00:28:42
Speaker
There was an English King Arthur.
00:28:44
Speaker
He did not actually slay a dragon.
00:28:46
Speaker
I'm not nearly the expert enough to say, like, yes, he had a round table or he did.
00:28:52
Speaker
But the idea of these oral traditions and myths that...
00:28:59
Speaker
Obviously, you know, you're playing telephone.
00:29:01
Speaker
Someone's going one village to the next.
00:29:03
Speaker
It's going to start morphing.
00:29:05
Speaker
You're going to start adding characters.
00:29:07
Speaker
But it's tremendous amounts of examples, historically, of people taking just one thing, right?
00:29:14
Speaker
Which is essentially what Maguire did here.
00:29:17
Speaker
Like, Alphaba is the show.
00:29:19
Speaker
I mean, yeah, the wizard is there.
00:29:21
Speaker
Portrayed similar or different.
00:29:23
Speaker
I think that's maybe up to interpretation.
00:29:26
Speaker
But some examples like Sherlock Holmes.
00:29:29
Speaker
people would take him and then write their own stories around him.
00:29:32
Speaker
Oh.
00:29:33
Speaker
Star Trek and Star Wars are very famous for this.
00:29:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:37
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.
00:29:50
Speaker
Sure.
00:29:51
Speaker
Because the fan base has kind of, it's called the EU and everyone's kind of accepted.
00:29:55
Speaker
You're either like a hardcore strict canon only fan base
00:29:58
Speaker
or you're an EU fan and you accept all of them.
00:30:00
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:30:02
Speaker
And all of these different authors who will take one, maybe even, these are my favorites.
00:30:08
Speaker
Because I do not think you can watch The Wizard of Oz and say, the Witch of the West was a minor character.
00:30:14
Speaker
Correct.
00:30:14
Speaker
She was pretty pivotal to that story.
00:30:17
Speaker
Yes, she's the villain.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, I love when someone will go in, who did this?
00:30:22
Speaker
There's a very famous recent one.
00:30:24
Speaker
Of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
00:30:26
Speaker
Someone did just like, what's their story?
00:30:28
Speaker
Bless you.
00:30:29
Speaker
What?
00:30:30
Speaker
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which Shakespeare am I thinking of?
00:30:36
Speaker
Hamlet.
00:30:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:38
Speaker
It's like two of the little sidekick dudes that have three lines apiece in Hamlet.
00:30:42
Speaker
Oh.
00:30:43
Speaker
And then this guy went and said, I'll write a whole play.
00:30:46
Speaker
And then once again, old enough that it's in the public domain, you can do whatever you want.
00:30:51
Speaker
Right?
00:30:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:52
Speaker
So I think it's this fascinating realm where, because people do this all the time with music, right?
00:30:57
Speaker
People cover other people's songs.
00:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:31:00
Speaker
And we talked about that a lot on the Bruce Springsteen episode.
00:31:03
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.
00:31:19
Speaker
He didn't want to just hop on the Wizard of Oz bandwagon.
00:31:22
Speaker
Right.
00:31:23
Speaker
He saw a unique opportunity to present much more important and profound ideas.
00:31:30
Speaker
And this was just the appropriate vessel.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:33
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.
00:31:51
Speaker
Right.
00:31:52
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.
00:32:00
Speaker
Right, right, right.
00:32:01
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.
00:32:09
Speaker
Because it sounds like he liked the character enough.
00:32:12
Speaker
Yes, I agree with you.
00:32:13
Speaker
I have the privilege of being on FaceTime with you guys.
00:32:16
Speaker
So I was able to see some of Blair's facial expressions throughout some of that, that, uh, lesson from Chris.
00:32:22
Speaker
I assume Blair that you're as surprised as I am to hear how different the book is from the movies.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:31
Speaker
I'm really surprised.
00:32:31
Speaker
And that tends to be a recurring theme on this podcast.
00:32:36
Speaker
I love hearing how these like movies that we love and, you know,
00:32:41
Speaker
are special in current pop culture.
00:32:45
Speaker
The books are like, what was this guy smoking, honestly?
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:50
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.
00:33:03
Speaker
No, no.
00:33:04
Speaker
And I think you said that already as well.
00:33:08
Speaker
I don't think he really wanted to.
00:33:10
Speaker
Right.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:13
Speaker
But that's all I wanted to share about the book.
00:33:15
Speaker
There is a lot more to it.
00:33:17
Speaker
It was a hefty book, but yeah, I think that's all that really pertains to our discussion here and now.
00:33:23
Speaker
How long is the book?
00:33:24
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.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yep.
00:33:33
Speaker
Just north of 400 pages.
00:33:36
Speaker
Whoa.
00:33:37
Speaker
I think it was something like 25 hours of audio or something.
00:33:40
Speaker
And I was like, I'm not given a day of my life.
00:33:43
Speaker
It's a novel.
00:33:44
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:45
Speaker
It's not just a book.
00:33:47
Speaker
I pictured a little, a little book.
00:33:49
Speaker
One might.
00:33:50
Speaker
In my opinion.
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:53
Speaker
It really does, I think.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:33:57
Speaker
Well, let's take a quick break.
00:33:59
Speaker
And then when we come back, we'll talk about the movies.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yay.
00:34:08
Speaker
Welcome back to Adaptation.
00:34:09
Speaker
Chris just walked us through Gregory Maguire's Wicked.
00:34:13
Speaker
I'm not saying that whole title.
00:34:14
Speaker
And now I'm going to talk a little bit about the movies.
00:34:17
Speaker
Kind of an interesting journey to these movies being made for several reasons.
00:34:22
Speaker
First and foremost, they split the single stage show.
00:34:27
Speaker
This is, like you said, technically based on the stage show, which is based on McGuire's book, into two movies.
00:34:33
Speaker
The first one came out last year.
00:34:34
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.
00:34:44
Speaker
That's what it says on IMDb and Letterboxd.
00:34:48
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.
00:34:58
Speaker
These movies legally cannot be considered a prequel to The Wizard of Oz.
00:35:02
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.
00:35:14
Speaker
And that's some dumb Hollywood garbage.
00:35:17
Speaker
It is really, really bizarre.
00:35:19
Speaker
And especially when you consider that, like, like Blair alluded to earlier, MGM did actually produce the original Wizard of Oz movie.
00:35:27
Speaker
Universal's stage division is who did the stage production.
00:35:31
Speaker
So like, I don't know how they say that this is not a prequel to the Wizard of Oz.
00:35:35
Speaker
I don't know.
00:35:36
Speaker
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:35:37
Speaker
Do people consider it a prequel to Wizard of Oz?
00:35:41
Speaker
I guess.
00:35:42
Speaker
I mean, like I do.
00:35:43
Speaker
Wouldn't you?
00:35:44
Speaker
How does the second one end?
00:35:46
Speaker
Well, okay, it overlaps with the Wizard of Oz.
00:35:49
Speaker
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
00:35:51
Speaker
I was like, boy, they really changed that.
00:35:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:54
Speaker
I guess partial prequel.
00:35:55
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.
00:36:06
Speaker
They are silver in the book, Wizard of Oz.
00:36:09
Speaker
But...
00:36:10
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
00:36:27
Speaker
created by Warner brothers that have them all in that exact spot on their chin.
00:36:31
Speaker
And even the shade of green that Margaret Hamilton was painted was, um, trademarked as well.
00:36:37
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.
00:36:51
Speaker
But a lot of really weird stuff is like trademarked from that movie.
00:36:56
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?
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:05
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.
00:37:08
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's true.
00:37:10
Speaker
And I, I've not seen the stage show, so I don't know Blair, if you have anything to add here, really.
00:37:16
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.
00:37:26
Speaker
It is the fourth longest running show in Broadway history.
00:37:30
Speaker
One of the only musicals to make billions of dollars.
00:37:33
Speaker
That's not very common at all.
00:37:35
Speaker
That's like a shitload of money.
00:37:37
Speaker
And this is obviously what launched Kristen Chenoweth and Idina Menzel.
00:37:41
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
00:38:05
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.
00:38:14
Speaker
It's really popular in like Japan, for example, is, is a country that really just digs wicked.
00:38:22
Speaker
Really?
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:23
Speaker
I don't really know why.
00:38:25
Speaker
Like I, I,
00:38:26
Speaker
Didn't look into it, and I don't know that anybody would know the answer.
00:38:28
Speaker
But yeah, it's like a global phenomenon.
00:38:31
Speaker
So really no surprise that these movies came about.
00:38:35
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.
00:38:44
Speaker
And they star Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, quite famously because of their bizarre press runs.
00:38:51
Speaker
I'm here for it.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:55
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.
00:39:03
Speaker
Also stars Jonathan Bailey, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh.
00:39:07
Speaker
in, in principal roles as well.
00:39:10
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.
00:39:24
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.
00:39:35
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.
00:39:44
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.
00:39:59
Speaker
That movie would have been so good.
00:40:03
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:40:03
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.
00:40:14
Speaker
But anyway, like I said, nothing was able to get off the ground.
00:40:16
Speaker
It's really tough to get...
00:40:18
Speaker
these stories write.
00:40:19
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.
00:40:27
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.
00:40:36
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.
00:40:46
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
00:40:54
Speaker
And then, of course, the stage show comes along and changes everything.
00:40:57
Speaker
And now nobody wants to see Maguire's novel made into a movie.
00:40:59
Speaker
They want to see Holzman's musical adapted into a film.
00:41:04
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.
00:41:19
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
00:41:49
Speaker
and Shawn Mendes as Fierro, which I think would have been awful.
00:41:53
Speaker
So I'm kind of glad that that one didn't happen.
00:41:58
Speaker
And then eventually we landed on the movie that we have now, or movies.
00:42:03
Speaker
But just to peek into how difficult these movies even were to get off the ground,
00:42:07
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.
00:42:18
Speaker
Or Universal is also behind the Mamma Mia movies.
00:42:21
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.
00:42:35
Speaker
And then by the time they're ready to actually get the ball rolling,
00:42:39
Speaker
We're hit with a huge pandemic and you can't shoot movies.
00:42:41
Speaker
And then once the pandemic ends, there are guild strikes.
00:42:44
Speaker
So it's been really difficult for these movies to come to be.
00:42:49
Speaker
But finally, in 2021, John Chu is hired.
00:42:52
Speaker
Erivo and Grande are cast and we start moving forward.
00:42:56
Speaker
They said that they split the movie into two parts because they couldn't decide what to leave out.
00:43:01
Speaker
Typically, when you adapt a stage musical to the screen, the stage shows run for like three plus hours because...
00:43:08
Speaker
they stopped the narrative to sing three and a half minute songs.
00:43:11
Speaker
So,
00:43:13
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.
00:43:20
Speaker
Wow.
00:43:20
Speaker
So they said that they were cutting it in half for that reason.
00:43:24
Speaker
Having seen both, I think it's because they didn't want the second half of the story to drag down the first.
00:43:30
Speaker
The stage show is pretty famous for the second half being much weaker than the first.
00:43:35
Speaker
So really interesting that they found some ways to protect themselves from that.
00:43:39
Speaker
Cool.
00:43:40
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.
00:43:47
Speaker
Dove Cameron, Renee Rapp, and Amanda Seyfried all auditioned for Glinda.
00:43:52
Speaker
And then Cooper Coach, Nick Jonas, and Joe Jonas all auditioned for Fiero, which are just like wild.
00:43:58
Speaker
All six of those names would have just made this a wildly different movie.
00:44:02
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:44:03
Speaker
Yes.
00:44:04
Speaker
Imagining Renee Rapp as Glinda, it all of a sudden to me would have been
00:44:11
Speaker
more of a parody or like a Saturday Night Live skit.
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, totally.
00:44:17
Speaker
I think the same thing about the Jonas Brothers being in it.
00:44:19
Speaker
I'm like, what?
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah, and I only know Renee Rapp from Mean Girls the musical and I hate that movie.
00:44:29
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.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:35
Speaker
I guess I'm happy for her that she was in that because her voice is really cool.
00:44:39
Speaker
And she also, I think she fit the character really good.
00:44:41
Speaker
So I think just that terrible Mean Girls musical was perfectly cast for her, but she is not Galinda.
00:44:48
Speaker
No, she's not.
00:44:49
Speaker
I think that they really did a good job finding their, especially their Elphaba and Galinda.
00:44:54
Speaker
The two of them together.
00:44:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:56
Speaker
That's the thing is they have so much chemistry as people, but also musical chemistry.
00:45:01
Speaker
Like their duets and things.
00:45:03
Speaker
You're like, oh my God.
00:45:04
Speaker
It's just like hair stands up, you know, hair on the back of your neck stands up.
00:45:08
Speaker
Yep.
00:45:09
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
00:45:32
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.
00:45:38
Speaker
So I'm...
00:45:41
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.
00:45:49
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.
00:46:05
Speaker
There have been a number of, you know, attempts to tell stories based in the world of Oz that usually go pretty poorly.
00:46:13
Speaker
So it was very successful.
00:46:14
Speaker
I don't mean to take away from it.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:18
Speaker
I love the whiz.
00:46:19
Speaker
I'll mention it later, but I think the whiz is the best version of the story.
00:46:24
Speaker
But anyway, praise for the movie included its performances.
00:46:27
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.
00:46:37
Speaker
Costumes of course are fantastic.
00:46:39
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
00:47:06
Speaker
I'm getting the whole story because it wasn't meant to be told.
00:47:09
Speaker
You know, you mentioned Star Wars earlier.
00:47:12
Speaker
Those movies are meant to be told in three, three part chunks, you know, and wicked was not.
00:47:19
Speaker
So to, to be fair, the narrative and pacing, that's actually quite akin to the book.
00:47:25
Speaker
Really?
00:47:26
Speaker
It's, it's very clear that the big ideas are the point.
00:47:32
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:32
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:47:33
Speaker
And so it's almost not surprising.
00:47:35
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.
00:47:43
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:47:44
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.
00:47:56
Speaker
So there's something, like I said, I haven't seen the stage show.
00:47:58
Speaker
Maybe, Blairie, you can speak to parts that were not in the musical besides the original songs.
00:48:05
Speaker
Yeah, they certainly added some things, right?
00:48:08
Speaker
Do you remember any?
00:48:09
Speaker
They added some things to what happens in the movie from the stage show.
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah, that we're not in the stage show.
00:48:15
Speaker
Do you want to jump out?
00:48:17
Speaker
No, I mean, I wish I remembered the stage show better.
00:48:21
Speaker
I really wish I got to see it before this episode.
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:25
Speaker
My sister said during the second one that it was very different from the stage show.
00:48:31
Speaker
Really?
00:48:32
Speaker
I couldn't say for sure what's added to part two that's not in the play.
00:48:37
Speaker
Well, one of the things that's new is that they wrote an original song for each Elphaba and Galinda to sing.
00:48:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:48:44
Speaker
Neither of them are good songs either.
00:48:47
Speaker
They are not good songs.
00:48:50
Speaker
They stick out like sore thumbs.
00:48:51
Speaker
And I was like, what?
00:48:53
Speaker
I was like tapping my head.
00:48:54
Speaker
I'm like, why don't I know this song?
00:48:57
Speaker
I should be singing along.
00:48:58
Speaker
Galinda's is called the girl in the bubble.
00:49:02
Speaker
The girl in the bubble.
00:49:03
Speaker
So.
00:49:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
00:49:04
Speaker
That's her vehicle of transportation is her bubble.
00:49:07
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:49:08
Speaker
Her mechanical bubble.
00:49:09
Speaker
Yes, mechanical, not magical.
00:49:12
Speaker
And then, um, forget what else it was.
00:49:16
Speaker
I better look up Cynthia.
00:49:17
Speaker
Cynthia's really friggin' stunk.
00:49:19
Speaker
I thought Girl in the Bubble was okay.
00:49:21
Speaker
Um.
00:49:22
Speaker
Yes, please look it up because it'll, it'll jog my memory.
00:49:25
Speaker
No place like home?
00:49:27
Speaker
Yes, she is.
00:49:29
Speaker
I guess that doesn't jog mine.
00:49:31
Speaker
Can I explain?
00:49:33
Speaker
Please.
00:49:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:34
Speaker
She is, she catches the animals all leaving Oz almost in a Noah's Ark fashion.
00:49:42
Speaker
And they're going underground to the under Oz or something that's maybe not mentioned.
00:49:50
Speaker
I don't know if that's in the book.
00:49:52
Speaker
Um, and she's like, just, I'm going to fix this.
00:49:56
Speaker
I'm going to talk to the wizard.
00:49:57
Speaker
Like you guys still need to, and they're like, no, nobody trusts you.
00:50:02
Speaker
you're bad, you're the bad witch.
00:50:04
Speaker
And she's like, there's no place like home.
00:50:06
Speaker
And I was like, oh, that's kind of a cute nod to Dorothy.
00:50:11
Speaker
And what does it mean?
00:50:12
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
00:50:31
Speaker
The Wicked Witch.
00:50:32
Speaker
The Wicked Witch.
00:50:34
Speaker
Well, I wish that had come through better lyrically.
00:50:37
Speaker
That song was a freaking hot turd.
00:50:39
Speaker
It was so boring.
00:50:40
Speaker
So does she, wait, does she at any point in the second movie spend seven years hiding in a convent?
00:50:47
Speaker
Not a convent.
00:50:48
Speaker
She hides.
00:50:49
Speaker
This is fucking insane.
00:50:50
Speaker
Are you sure you read the right book?
00:50:52
Speaker
That's why I was like, okay, this is, this has to not be in it.
00:50:55
Speaker
Right.
00:50:56
Speaker
I got to see this movie.
00:50:58
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.
00:51:04
Speaker
How long does that take?
00:51:05
Speaker
Seven years?
00:51:05
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:51:06
Speaker
That's right.
00:51:06
Speaker
The lion cub from the classroom.
00:51:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:10
Speaker
And then, and then he's the lion man with Dorothy.
00:51:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:51:14
Speaker
So that's yeah.
00:51:16
Speaker
Wait, she goes into hiding and then... She becomes a superhero and she frees animals every chance she gets.
00:51:25
Speaker
Okay, so it's still that.
00:51:26
Speaker
I mean, there's like one example of that happening in the book.
00:51:31
Speaker
Oh.
00:51:31
Speaker
No, but she goes to this convent and hides for seven years and then when she comes out, her kid is there.
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah?
00:51:38
Speaker
No.
00:51:38
Speaker
The kid?
00:51:39
Speaker
Book only.
00:51:40
Speaker
Dorothy?
00:51:40
Speaker
No.
00:51:42
Speaker
No, Elphaba's Child by Fiero.
00:51:47
Speaker
How's that even possible?
00:51:48
Speaker
He's a fucking scarecrow.
00:51:51
Speaker
Fierro?
00:51:53
Speaker
In the movie, Fierro turns into the scarecrow.
00:51:56
Speaker
Yes.
00:51:57
Speaker
Okay, that's correct.
00:52:00
Speaker
The interaction with Dorothy and the shoes and killing armless sister.
00:52:07
Speaker
Nessa.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yes, Nessa.
00:52:10
Speaker
That's like 5% of the book.
00:52:14
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:52:16
Speaker
It is the very, very end.
00:52:18
Speaker
Wow.
00:52:19
Speaker
That's like the movie.
00:52:20
Speaker
Really?
00:52:21
Speaker
The second movie is like Dorothy the whole time?
00:52:23
Speaker
No.
00:52:26
Speaker
Not Dorothy.
00:52:27
Speaker
It's overlapping with The Wizard of Oz the whole time.
00:52:30
Speaker
Huh.
00:52:32
Speaker
Dorothy's not a huge part of the book, but she's like a background character.
00:52:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:37
Speaker
Yes.
00:52:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:52:38
Speaker
So that's... Quite literally a background character.
00:52:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:41
Speaker
No, she's having...
00:52:42
Speaker
Fierro's like a prince back in his home region and he's married and his wife and kids are there.
00:52:46
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.
00:52:56
Speaker
Nessa comes the next year, not at the same time with her.
00:52:59
Speaker
Galinda stays, Nessa comes, Alphaba leaves school and goes underground and joins this terrorist organization.
00:53:08
Speaker
And then she meets up with Fierro again later.
00:53:12
Speaker
And they start having an affair because his wife is back at their house.
00:53:17
Speaker
But his wife is not Galinda?
00:53:19
Speaker
Fierro?
00:53:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:22
Speaker
Did he ever get with Galinda?
00:53:23
Speaker
No, Galinda marries this like rich accountant type of guy.
00:53:27
Speaker
And becomes a sorceress.
00:53:30
Speaker
And Fierro.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah, they really do change a lot.
00:53:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:34
Speaker
She joins this underground terrorist organization, attempts to assassinate Morrible.
00:53:40
Speaker
I think Yo's character, right?
00:53:43
Speaker
Fails.
00:53:44
Speaker
The wizard's secret police, the gale force, chases her back.
00:53:49
Speaker
They find Fiero there and not her, and they kill Fiero.
00:53:52
Speaker
And so she's so traumatized, she goes to a convent for seven years and is basically catatonic.
00:53:58
Speaker
And when she wakes up, she has a kid whose father is Fiero.
00:54:01
Speaker
So he's the heir to Fiero's kingdom.
00:54:04
Speaker
What the hell?
00:54:05
Speaker
No.
00:54:05
Speaker
When did she give birth?
00:54:08
Speaker
In the convent.
00:54:10
Speaker
And she doesn't even remember giving birth.
00:54:11
Speaker
She just wakes up and they're like, oh yeah, this kid's yours.
00:54:14
Speaker
Is the kid green?
00:54:16
Speaker
No, but also Fiero in the book has blue diamond printed skin.
00:54:21
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:54:23
Speaker
What the hell?
00:54:25
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.
00:54:32
Speaker
Wow.
00:54:34
Speaker
Wildly different.
00:54:35
Speaker
Cool, cool, cool, cool.
00:54:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:54:37
Speaker
Now part of me wants to
00:54:39
Speaker
Read it now because it sounds so weird.
00:54:42
Speaker
That brings us to this year where we get Wicked for Good, right?
00:54:45
Speaker
Which is trailing slightly behind the original at the box office.
00:54:49
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.
00:54:58
Speaker
So that's a pretty big.
00:55:00
Speaker
What's the word I'm thinking of?
00:55:01
Speaker
Starts with an I. Embarrassment.
00:55:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:04
Speaker
Embarrassment.
00:55:05
Speaker
Yeah, it is an embarrassment.
00:55:08
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
00:55:31
Speaker
behind the scenes images of of Jonathan Bailey in the scarecrow suit, but it's it's an actual practical suit.
00:55:38
Speaker
It looks so awful in the movie.
00:55:40
Speaker
I can't I can't believe how awful he looks.
00:55:43
Speaker
People in my screening laughed when he came on as as the scarecrow because he looks terrible.
00:55:51
Speaker
He looks like a leper.
00:55:53
Speaker
I didn't, I mean, it looks like CGI to me.
00:55:58
Speaker
I mean, I don't know.
00:56:00
Speaker
I don't know.
00:56:01
Speaker
I wasn't expecting anything.
00:56:05
Speaker
He looked, he looked bad.
00:56:06
Speaker
He didn't look as handsome as he did as a human.
00:56:10
Speaker
When he was made of burlap.
00:56:15
Speaker
But like, it didn't.
00:56:17
Speaker
Yeah, I guess with today's technology, I'd assume the burlap could have looked more
00:56:22
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
00:56:49
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.
00:56:57
Speaker
But Ariana Grande is getting a lot of love for it.
00:56:59
Speaker
And Cynthia is too, but more muted.
00:57:03
Speaker
Just yesterday, the Critics' Choice Awards nominations came out, which are a key piece.
00:57:08
Speaker
precursor and indicator for the Oscar nominations.
00:57:11
Speaker
And Cynthia actually missed out.
00:57:12
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.
00:57:25
Speaker
So I'm not too sad about that.
00:57:28
Speaker
They shot these movies back to back.
00:57:30
Speaker
So I'm like, how can you end up with two Oscar nominations for the same body of work?
00:57:36
Speaker
It's kind of silly to me anyway.
00:57:38
Speaker
Oh, she had an Oscar nom for the first one?
00:57:41
Speaker
Yeah, for the first one.
00:57:42
Speaker
Okay, true.
00:57:43
Speaker
So it's like getting nominated, you can't get nominated twice for the same movie.
00:57:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:57:48
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.
00:57:54
Speaker
It doesn't seem very fair to me.
00:57:56
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.
00:58:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:58:02
Speaker
Oh, that's perfect.
00:58:03
Speaker
I thought these were so fun.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah, I threw up some questions on our Instagram story.
00:58:09
Speaker
If you're not following us on Instagram, please do.
00:58:11
Speaker
It's linked down below.
00:58:13
Speaker
Otherwise the handle is adaptation underscore pod.
00:58:17
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.
00:58:24
Speaker
54% of the people that responded to our survey said that they wanted to read the book.
00:58:30
Speaker
So kind of interesting that that's a big, uh, I think that's a pretty big chunk of.
00:58:34
Speaker
Far more than I would have guessed.
00:58:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:37
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
00:59:02
Speaker
Only 62% had seen both movies, which was smaller than I thought.
00:59:06
Speaker
I posted it about a week, week and a half after the second movie came out.
00:59:10
Speaker
I would have thought that that would have been higher.
00:59:12
Speaker
But again, like I said, there's some indicators that people are not as excited about the second movie.
00:59:17
Speaker
I asked people to rate on sort of a sliding scale to rate the movies.
00:59:21
Speaker
So I don't have actual hard numbers for this.
00:59:24
Speaker
I can just kind of look at the average and tell you what it looks like.
00:59:28
Speaker
Part one ratings are sitting at about 85 or 90%.
00:59:30
Speaker
People are really, really fond of it.
00:59:32
Speaker
And then part two for good, the ratings are sitting pretty squarely at 50%.
00:59:36
Speaker
It seems like it's pretty divisive.
00:59:39
Speaker
I also asked for people's MVPs.
00:59:41
Speaker
We got a lot of shout outs for Elphaba.
00:59:43
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
01:00:09
Speaker
uh, cannot stand him in these movies or Michelle Yeoh, which is painful.
01:00:14
Speaker
Really?
01:00:14
Speaker
I think they are giving like career worst performances.
01:00:18
Speaker
Really?
01:00:19
Speaker
They're so awful.
01:00:20
Speaker
And they, neither of them can sing.
01:00:21
Speaker
It's so bad.
01:00:24
Speaker
I think, I think.
01:00:25
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
01:00:27
Speaker
My thoughts are racing.
01:00:30
Speaker
Well, I think Jeff Goldblum is the perfect kind of like innocent.
01:00:35
Speaker
Um, he's like the dumb idiot.
01:00:38
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
01:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, like, I don't know.
01:01:06
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.
01:01:13
Speaker
Okay.
01:01:14
Speaker
Well, let's jump into it then.
01:01:15
Speaker
Do you want to hit us with your first question, Blair?
01:01:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:17
Speaker
Sure.
01:01:18
Speaker
So I wanted to know how is the wizard portrayed in the book?
01:01:23
Speaker
And, you know, he has this redemption song in the musical and it's called A Sentimental Man.
01:01:31
Speaker
And then also...
01:01:33
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.
01:01:45
Speaker
So at the end of part two, he finds out that Elphaba was his daughter.
01:01:50
Speaker
his illegitimate child.
01:01:52
Speaker
Oh, so they're suggesting he didn't know all along.
01:01:54
Speaker
And my sister and I were both like, didn't he know?
01:01:57
Speaker
Like, didn't he find out in the first one?
01:02:00
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.
01:02:13
Speaker
That's the only purpose to think about.
01:02:16
Speaker
Glinda brings it to him and says, this is all that's left of her.
01:02:19
Speaker
And he sees it and he learns in that one moment.
01:02:22
Speaker
And so he's devastated because now she's been what they believe is evaporated.
01:02:27
Speaker
But really, she gets a chance to run away with Fierro, the scarecrow, and they escape.
01:02:32
Speaker
What?
01:02:33
Speaker
No.
01:02:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's actually a really good ending.
01:02:38
Speaker
It's a really good ending because she and Fierro get to live in peace and they leave Oz.
01:02:44
Speaker
And, um,
01:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, so back to the question.
01:02:49
Speaker
How's the wizard portrayed in Wicked the book?
01:02:51
Speaker
The wizard's from another planet.
01:02:55
Speaker
Planet?
01:02:56
Speaker
Confused me.
01:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, so did she find the grimoire?
01:02:59
Speaker
The big mystical book?
01:03:01
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:02
Speaker
It's called the Grimmery, but... Oh, Grimmery.
01:03:05
Speaker
No, no, no, you guys are right.
01:03:06
Speaker
I just said it wrong.
01:03:07
Speaker
Grimoire.
01:03:07
Speaker
Yeah, the Grimmery.
01:03:09
Speaker
He's got it in front.
01:03:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:10
Speaker
And then she has a page of it and then she goes and shows the wizard and he's like, thank you.
01:03:14
Speaker
Where's the rest of this?
01:03:15
Speaker
I'm from another realm.
01:03:17
Speaker
I only came here to find this book.
01:03:19
Speaker
And then basically started meddling in politics to gain power.
01:03:24
Speaker
I don't know, because he's a bad person.
01:03:25
Speaker
No, the wizard's a horrible person in the book.
01:03:29
Speaker
He has an entire secret police force.
01:03:31
Speaker
He's killing everybody.
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's too bad.
01:03:35
Speaker
Is he sort of that like bumbling goofball idiot that he is in the movie, though?
01:03:39
Speaker
No, no, they entirely made that up, which is why I like Jeff Goldblum.
01:03:45
Speaker
I only like him the way that they did it.
01:03:47
Speaker
I think you're correct.
01:03:48
Speaker
He would be entirely inaccurate if they had been more true to the book.
01:03:53
Speaker
Sure, sure.
01:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, him as a war villain.
01:03:56
Speaker
War criminal.
01:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, war criminal.
01:03:59
Speaker
A war villain?
01:04:01
Speaker
I'm thinking war crimes here.
01:04:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:05
Speaker
Crimes against humanity.
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, they're horrible.
01:04:07
Speaker
They tear up all of the land to go find rubies.
01:04:10
Speaker
They drain all of the water out so they can... The people can't access water, so they'll leave.
01:04:16
Speaker
Oh my god.
01:04:19
Speaker
They have Professor Goatman murdered.
01:04:24
Speaker
Oh, really?
01:04:24
Speaker
He gets killed?
01:04:25
Speaker
Another person that can't really sing.
01:04:27
Speaker
Did he not get killed in the movie?
01:04:29
Speaker
No, he loses his ability to speak.
01:04:33
Speaker
And then we never find out what happens to him.
01:04:35
Speaker
Oh, wait, no, he does go back to work at the university.
01:04:39
Speaker
No, Madame Horrible murders him.
01:04:43
Speaker
They just toned it down so much.
01:04:46
Speaker
I really got to see this second movie.
01:04:47
Speaker
I'm so curious now.
01:04:49
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.
01:04:59
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.
01:05:10
Speaker
What kind of questions do you got, Chris?
01:05:11
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?
01:05:28
Speaker
perception of evil, nature versus nurture.
01:05:31
Speaker
Like, is that, that's not what I walked away from the first movie whenever I saw it.
01:05:36
Speaker
And so I'm curious if there's like any of that for you guys in just watching.
01:05:41
Speaker
There, to me, there was a more obvious moral scale in the second movie.
01:05:47
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.
01:05:57
Speaker
It's very touching to me.
01:05:59
Speaker
It's part of the title of this movie.
01:06:01
Speaker
So it really was like, for good.
01:06:03
Speaker
Like that, they really use that word a lot to describe Galinda.
01:06:09
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.
01:06:22
Speaker
And so that triggers Elphaba into thinking, what can I do right?
01:06:25
Speaker
What can I do right?
01:06:27
Speaker
How can I make good?
01:06:28
Speaker
And so it's like, what does good mean?
01:06:30
Speaker
And so if you make good, it was a hidden threat, right?
01:06:36
Speaker
Like, Madame Morrible at the time, she didn't know that Elphaba is the wizard's child.
01:06:41
Speaker
No one did.
01:06:42
Speaker
But she knows that Elphaba had real magic.
01:06:47
Speaker
And so for the wizard in the movie and for Oz, they use magic to make good.
01:06:54
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
01:07:23
Speaker
She wanted to free the animals.
01:07:24
Speaker
Like, we have talking animals.
01:07:26
Speaker
Why are we getting rid of them?
01:07:27
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.
01:07:38
Speaker
That's what the song for good is about.
01:07:40
Speaker
They really learned from each other.
01:07:42
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.
01:07:50
Speaker
And then Glinda is obviously more humbled by her, brought down to earth, because Glinda doesn't have magic.
01:07:57
Speaker
That's why she has a fine mechanical bubble.
01:08:00
Speaker
I forgot that part.
01:08:01
Speaker
I forgot that Glinda had no magic.
01:08:04
Speaker
So she, like the wizard, they have to pretend they're good.
01:08:08
Speaker
They have to put on a facade and lie that they're good.
01:08:12
Speaker
They have to do all this stuff that's fake to come off as quote unquote good.
01:08:18
Speaker
And people behind the scenes
01:08:20
Speaker
who are actually doing the good, like Elphaba, she gets painted as the villain.
01:08:25
Speaker
And so Glinda's morality was like big for me in the, in the, in the second movie.
01:08:31
Speaker
Okay.
01:08:32
Speaker
And also how they filmed, I think I'll wrap this up, but also how they filmed the second one.
01:08:38
Speaker
I felt like the camera angles were a lot closer to the characters faces.
01:08:44
Speaker
So you saw a lot more
01:08:47
Speaker
facial expressions, a lot more pensive moments.
01:08:51
Speaker
It was more who they are as characters.
01:08:55
Speaker
You could see more inside them.
01:08:57
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.
01:09:05
Speaker
They're like, here's their character, here's what they wear, here's what we want you to think of them.
01:09:10
Speaker
And this was more zoomed in, more at a personal level.
01:09:16
Speaker
Where have these, where has this story gotten these characters?
01:09:19
Speaker
How did, who are these characters now at the end of all this?
01:09:21
Speaker
That's very interesting.
01:09:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:09:25
Speaker
I think that's really well put.
01:09:27
Speaker
And I do think that the morality is there to address your question, Chris.
01:09:32
Speaker
I really love the way that you put that, Blair.
01:09:34
Speaker
It was very helpful to me as someone who jumps to cynicism at these movies because I don't like them.
01:09:40
Speaker
So I really appreciate hearing why it's so meaningful to somebody that saw and found all of that for themselves.
01:09:48
Speaker
I don't, like for me watching, the morality takes sort of a second or a backseat to
01:09:56
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
01:10:23
Speaker
Well, they should be.
01:10:24
Speaker
I think that's what Gregory Maguire would want us to ask.
01:10:27
Speaker
I agree.
01:10:28
Speaker
And are those born wicked or is wicked thrust upon them?
01:10:34
Speaker
I love when Glinda says that.
01:10:36
Speaker
It's so like, ooh, yeah, Elphaba was dealt a shitty hand.
01:10:41
Speaker
Yep, she really was.
01:10:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:10:45
Speaker
Okay.
01:10:46
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.
01:10:56
Speaker
You know, John Chu, Stephen Daldry, James Mangold, Ryan Murphy, all these people, men, men, men, men.
01:11:03
Speaker
How is the idea of sisterhood presented in the book?
01:11:06
Speaker
I guess I'm asking the reverse of your question, Chris.
01:11:09
Speaker
Does it seem like a central tenant?
01:11:11
Speaker
Or is it sort of a B story, whereas the sort of politics and high fantasy are kind of the A story?
01:11:19
Speaker
B story.
01:11:20
Speaker
The latter.
01:11:21
Speaker
Okay.
01:11:22
Speaker
It's not the impression you get from the book at all.
01:11:24
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.
01:11:35
Speaker
She's still kind of a vapid, aloof...
01:11:39
Speaker
She does develop powers in the book, as I think, doesn't she have real powers in the original Wizard of Oz movie?
01:11:47
Speaker
Yes, she does.
01:11:48
Speaker
That's one of the problems I have with this whole thing.
01:11:51
Speaker
And she does in the book, too.
01:11:52
Speaker
That's crazy.
01:11:55
Speaker
And yeah, they do get along.
01:11:56
Speaker
And she does say, like, my sister's coming.
01:11:59
Speaker
I can't stay.
01:12:00
Speaker
I need to go do something about this.
01:12:02
Speaker
I want you to look after her when I'm gone.
01:12:04
Speaker
So, like, a little bit.
01:12:05
Speaker
but it is not a central tenet by any means of the book.
01:12:10
Speaker
Okay.
01:12:11
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.
01:12:19
Speaker
I know that the two of you are very close.
01:12:22
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?
01:12:32
Speaker
Like, maybe that's why it became obvious to me, because I'm watching a male lens on sisterhood, right?
01:12:39
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.
01:13:02
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.
01:13:13
Speaker
They are so real with each other.
01:13:15
Speaker
Um, and their, their love and respect for each other.
01:13:17
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.
01:13:26
Speaker
We know that they're friends at the end of the first movie.
01:13:29
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
01:13:57
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.
01:14:13
Speaker
And she was put on the back burner.
01:14:15
Speaker
Okay, cool.
01:14:18
Speaker
I'm glad to hear this.
01:14:19
Speaker
That's so interesting.
01:14:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:21
Speaker
Remember how Brenda in the movie has no magic.
01:14:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:14:26
Speaker
But she is popular.
01:14:28
Speaker
She's the portrayal of perfection.
01:14:31
Speaker
She's idolized by the Ossians and the munchkins.
01:14:35
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.
01:14:45
Speaker
And they're like, we have this wizard who we make it look like magic.
01:14:51
Speaker
And then we also have her, she's perfect for it.
01:14:54
Speaker
She's perfect.
01:14:54
Speaker
She'll be the face of it.
01:14:55
Speaker
She'll be Glinda, the good witch.
01:14:58
Speaker
And so like, that's like their shared weakness.
01:15:01
Speaker
And so she's kind of always on the wizard's side.
01:15:04
Speaker
That's one time in the second film where she and Elphaba are not seeing eye to eye.
01:15:09
Speaker
And she's like, Elphaba, you have to do this.
01:15:12
Speaker
And Elphaba almost does it.
01:15:13
Speaker
She almost falls for it.
01:15:15
Speaker
Interesting.
01:15:16
Speaker
I just realized that.
01:15:18
Speaker
I think that's a really good point.
01:15:19
Speaker
I like you pointing out that they're parallel lines, again, because I'm so inclined towards cynicism and criticism of these.
01:15:28
Speaker
I hadn't seen it that way.
01:15:29
Speaker
That being said, this movie bends over backwards to...
01:15:33
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
01:16:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:16:03
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.
01:16:10
Speaker
Right.
01:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, odd.
01:16:14
Speaker
Do you have more questions, Blair?
01:16:15
Speaker
Who is y'all's redemption character?
01:16:19
Speaker
Who did you hate and then you loved?
01:16:22
Speaker
Oh.
01:16:24
Speaker
I didn't like anybody.
01:16:25
Speaker
Or the opposite.
01:16:27
Speaker
Which character took you on a rollercoaster ride?
01:16:31
Speaker
You know what?
01:16:33
Speaker
There is one line at the very end of the movie that really disappointed me.
01:16:37
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.
01:16:46
Speaker
And that's ultimately why she leaves and leaves Glinda to sort of run Oz.
01:16:51
Speaker
I think it's a line in the song for good, or at least the dialogue surrounding that song.
01:16:55
Speaker
She says something about, I can't do what you can do.
01:16:59
Speaker
And to me, that seemed like a really bummer damnation of the sort of rebellion that she staged across these two movies.
01:17:06
Speaker
It seemed to me like, you know, I really wanted to root for Elphaba because she was an underdog and could
01:17:13
Speaker
conceivably use her powers for good and find a solution that benefited everybody.
01:17:19
Speaker
But she kind of chose not to in the end.
01:17:21
Speaker
And somebody else defeated the wizard.
01:17:24
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:17:25
Speaker
Like Dorothy comes in and cleans up that mess.
01:17:28
Speaker
So I was kind of disappointed in Elphaba by the end.
01:17:33
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know if there was anybody that I felt higher on.
01:17:37
Speaker
Maybe Glinda because she felt really bad for what she did to Nessa.
01:17:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
01:17:44
Speaker
Yeah, that was hard to watch.
01:17:46
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:46
Speaker
Her remorse over that.
01:17:49
Speaker
Really strong performance, too.
01:17:50
Speaker
Ariana Grande is a good actress.
Character Analysis: The Wizard and Others
01:17:52
Speaker
What do you think, Chris?
01:17:53
Speaker
I don't think I liked anyone.
01:17:56
Speaker
That's what I'm saying.
01:17:59
Speaker
I mean, some of them, like The Wizard and Matamorable, are just, like, bad throughout.
01:18:03
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:18:03
Speaker
Yeah, just genuinely, objectively bad people.
01:18:08
Speaker
Well, in the book, Fierro.
01:18:10
Speaker
But the book Fiero is so, so different.
01:18:13
Speaker
He's like this kind of foreigner from another land.
01:18:17
Speaker
Everyone's like kind of questioning of him right away.
01:18:20
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.
01:18:36
Speaker
But then also he comes to the city and just has an affair sleeping with Elphaba.
01:18:41
Speaker
because he's bored of his wife.
01:18:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:44
Speaker
I think the only character I think I genuinely like in this movie are the lion cub and what's his name?
01:18:51
Speaker
Chicory or Chimichurri?
01:18:53
Speaker
The first monkey.
01:18:55
Speaker
Chimichurri?
01:18:56
Speaker
I don't remember his name.
01:18:57
Speaker
What's his name?
01:18:58
Speaker
Is it the flying monkey?
01:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, it becomes the flying monkeys.
01:19:03
Speaker
Chistory.
01:19:03
Speaker
Chistory.
01:19:04
Speaker
Chistory.
01:19:05
Speaker
There we go.
01:19:06
Speaker
I got no problems with that guy.
01:19:10
Speaker
Um, but no, I don't, I find them all deplorable for different reasons.
01:19:15
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:16
Speaker
The book was plagued by wickedness.
01:19:18
Speaker
The book was way, way darker.
01:19:20
Speaker
A lot of murders.
01:19:23
Speaker
Who was your redemptive character, Blair?
01:19:25
Speaker
Linda.
01:19:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:26
Speaker
Why?
01:19:27
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
01:19:39
Speaker
girl she's a girl's girl at the end of this
Lyrics and Script Critique
01:19:42
Speaker
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
01:20:09
Speaker
Scarecrow Fierro comes back and takes her away and they escape.
01:20:12
Speaker
And so, but everyone in Oz thinks that the Wicked Witch was melted and gone.
01:20:17
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.
01:20:26
Speaker
Yeah, Glinda, poor Glinda.
01:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, she made me cry and Ariana's voice just makes me cry, period.
01:20:37
Speaker
Can I ask you, I think we're having very different interpretations of that song.
01:20:41
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.
01:20:48
Speaker
I hear that as a net neutral on the morality scale.
01:20:51
Speaker
Yes, I'm definitely different than I was, but I don't know if it's better.
01:20:57
Speaker
It's hard to say if I've been changed for the better, but I have been changed for good.
01:21:02
Speaker
For good, knowing you changed my life.
01:21:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:06
Speaker
But I don't know if it's better.
01:21:08
Speaker
I just know that it's different.
01:21:10
Speaker
Oh my God.
01:21:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:12
Speaker
You have me in a tizzy here.
01:21:15
Speaker
You're absolutely right.
01:21:17
Speaker
It's a, it's a, it's a, is this a lexical ambiguity?
01:21:22
Speaker
I don't even think it's ambiguous.
01:21:25
Speaker
I think if you're willing to specify, yeah, man, you've changed my life.
01:21:29
Speaker
I don't know if it's for the better.
01:21:31
Speaker
You don't specify that unless you're implying it's not for the better.
01:21:37
Speaker
You know what that aligns with too?
01:21:39
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?
01:21:48
Speaker
And he goes, I'm just looking at you through different eyes.
01:21:51
Speaker
I was like, what?
01:21:54
Speaker
That is so inappropriate.
01:21:56
Speaker
So mean.
01:21:57
Speaker
I'm just like kind of imagining you a little differently.
01:22:02
Speaker
Yeah, what a horrible lie.
01:22:03
Speaker
He's like, I'm going to close my eyes during it.
01:22:06
Speaker
He's like, yeah, as long as the lights are off and I'm a little drunk,
01:22:11
Speaker
I just thought that line was, I was like, I can't believe that made it into the final cut.
01:22:15
Speaker
You guys didn't want to rewrite?
01:22:17
Speaker
That sounds so awful.
01:22:18
Speaker
What a horrible thing to say to somebody.
01:22:20
Speaker
I know.
01:22:21
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.
01:22:32
Speaker
You're just saying good for like anything at this point.
01:22:37
Speaker
I didn't want to say make love.
01:22:39
Speaker
Come on.
01:22:39
Speaker
They're making Hades of Love and he goes, what?
01:22:44
Speaker
This is true to the musical.
01:22:46
Speaker
He goes, how are we feeling right now?
01:22:48
Speaker
And she's like, for the first time, I actually feel wicked.
01:22:52
Speaker
And it's like, you're like, everyone in the theater was like high-fiving each other.
01:22:57
Speaker
We're all like, yeah, finally.
01:23:00
Speaker
Really?
01:23:01
Speaker
People were laughing in my screening.
01:23:03
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
01:23:04
Speaker
My theater was full of fans.
01:23:06
Speaker
Okay, now I'm good.
01:23:07
Speaker
I'm glad.
01:23:07
Speaker
I would have had a better time.
01:23:09
Speaker
Yeah, you would have been changed for the better.
01:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, at least for good.
01:23:18
Speaker
I hate this.
01:23:19
Speaker
I'm
Wicked Movie Review: Split and Ratings
01:23:20
Speaker
still baffled by the fact that the movie was split into two parts.
01:23:24
Speaker
I don't think it was necessary.
01:23:26
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?
01:23:37
Speaker
You remember where the first movie ended, right?
01:23:39
Speaker
Elphaba leaves the Emerald City with the Grimmery.
01:23:42
Speaker
Ready to start a revolution.
01:23:46
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.
01:23:56
Speaker
I just think it would have had the same effect.
01:23:59
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.
01:24:07
Speaker
Sure.
01:24:09
Speaker
You know?
01:24:09
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:11
Speaker
I have a question.
01:24:12
Speaker
Yeah, please.
01:24:14
Speaker
In the book Wicked,
01:24:16
Speaker
Who is the Wicked Witch of the East?
01:24:19
Speaker
Nessie.
01:24:20
Speaker
Okay.
01:24:20
Speaker
Just checking.
01:24:21
Speaker
That was like, when that happened, we were like, my jaw was on the floor.
01:24:27
Speaker
She names herself that.
01:24:29
Speaker
And you're like, oh, that's who the house falls on.
01:24:33
Speaker
And that's why she's chasing Dorothy, because Dorothy puts her shoes on and then can't take them off.
01:24:38
Speaker
And Nessie had willed them to Elphaba.
01:24:41
Speaker
And she's like,
01:24:42
Speaker
I don't know who this dumb broad is from Kansas, but I want my shoes.
01:24:47
Speaker
That happens.
01:24:48
Speaker
That's true to the movie.
01:24:50
Speaker
Okay.
01:24:50
Speaker
Well, let's move on.
01:24:52
Speaker
Let's talk about ratings.
01:24:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:24:54
Speaker
Blair, out of five stars, what would you rate Wicked Part One?
01:24:58
Speaker
Four and a half.
01:24:59
Speaker
Four and a half.
01:25:00
Speaker
Wow.
01:25:00
Speaker
Why?
01:25:01
Speaker
Jeez.
01:25:02
Speaker
It made me laugh.
01:25:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:25:04
Speaker
It made me cry.
01:25:05
Speaker
I thought I was going to cry more in the second one.
01:25:08
Speaker
I cried more in the first one.
01:25:11
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.
01:25:20
Speaker
Wow.
01:25:21
Speaker
Okay.
01:25:23
Speaker
And all the best music.
01:25:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:25:26
Speaker
The good songs are in the first half besides for good.
01:25:30
Speaker
My rating for Wicked Part 1 was three stars.
01:25:32
Speaker
To me, it is like a perfectly mediocre movie.
01:25:35
Speaker
I have some like technical issues with it that, you know, kind of annoy me, like the lighting design and things like that.
01:25:43
Speaker
But so much rises above it that it's still, it's still fun.
01:25:47
Speaker
And costumes and sets are like unreal.
01:25:49
Speaker
Like I don't, you'd never see movies that look
01:25:52
Speaker
like that costumes and sets.
01:25:54
Speaker
So there's there's some really good stuff there.
01:25:56
Speaker
Just a little gets a little bit bogged down by some of the silly stuff.
01:26:00
Speaker
I like I really hated the singing goat and like her cape being huge at the end.
01:26:05
Speaker
There's just all these details where I was like, wait, what the fuck?
01:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, but it's just like out of my exact wheelhouse.
01:26:12
Speaker
So it's it's a three stars, but it's like a warm three stars, you know?
01:26:17
Speaker
I would I would agree.
01:26:18
Speaker
I felt the same way about the first movie.
01:26:20
Speaker
Okay.
01:26:21
Speaker
And how about Wicked for Good, Blair?
01:26:25
Speaker
3.75.
01:26:25
Speaker
3.75.
01:26:26
Speaker
Okay.
01:26:29
Speaker
Why does it drop for you?
01:26:31
Speaker
I think I wish it had more wow factor.
01:26:36
Speaker
I love the set design.
01:26:37
Speaker
I love the costumes.
01:26:39
Speaker
Everything aesthetically was, I mean, I don't know.
01:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I can't call it a four, but everything aesthetically was top tier for me.
01:26:48
Speaker
I wish they didn't add those
01:26:51
Speaker
two songs.
01:26:52
Speaker
I don't really know why they needed to do that because they weren't hits.
01:26:57
Speaker
Like, you can't, we can't add to the Wicked soundtrack now.
01:27:02
Speaker
Sure.
01:27:03
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.
01:27:15
Speaker
It's like, yeah, because you've been a fake bitch your whole life.
01:27:18
Speaker
Like, that's your own problem.
01:27:22
Speaker
Yeah.
Criticism of Wicked's Second Movie
01:27:23
Speaker
And then like more, more bow and Yang.
01:27:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:28
Speaker
He was not in the second one all that much.
01:27:30
Speaker
Not enough bow and Yang.
01:27:32
Speaker
And yeah.
01:27:34
Speaker
My rating for wicked for good is also lower than the first.
01:27:38
Speaker
I currently have it at two stars.
01:27:40
Speaker
I think it's going to go further down.
01:27:42
Speaker
I just really have a hard time.
01:27:44
Speaker
Like so many people work so hard on these things.
01:27:45
Speaker
I hate to get on, on the internet and, and publish a low.
01:27:51
Speaker
rating, you know what I mean?
01:27:51
Speaker
That might be the lowest you've rated a movie yet.
01:27:56
Speaker
On the podcast, it is.
01:27:58
Speaker
This is probably tied for the worst movie I've seen this year.
01:28:01
Speaker
I despise the second Wicked movie.
01:28:05
Speaker
Wow.
01:28:06
Speaker
I've heard that from a lot of people.
01:28:08
Speaker
I want to give a shout out to my friend Krista, who was one of the people that did our surveys.
01:28:12
Speaker
I texted her today because she gave the first very similar to Blair.
01:28:17
Speaker
The first was like a 4.5 and rated the second a zero.
01:28:22
Speaker
And so we just had kind of a, uh,
01:28:25
Speaker
bitch fest over text today.
01:28:28
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.
01:28:32
Speaker
But it's similar to what Blair said.
01:28:34
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.
01:28:41
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.
01:28:50
Speaker
Like that makes it really unenjoyable for me.
01:28:53
Speaker
And, um, if I were not covering this movie on the podcast, I would have walked out of the theater.
01:28:59
Speaker
Wow.
Recommendations and Audience Suitability
01:29:00
Speaker
Wow.
01:29:01
Speaker
I was really disappointed because I was so sort of on the fence of the first one.
01:29:06
Speaker
I was really hoping that this one would tip the scales and I would become a wicked fan.
01:29:10
Speaker
And I thought the trailers looked really good.
01:29:12
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.
01:29:17
Speaker
So I was like, well, then I clearly know that they need to like pick it up.
01:29:22
Speaker
But both of the songs are slow and sad and bad and pointless.
01:29:26
Speaker
And like, there's so much literalism to musicals are supposed to be like,
01:29:31
Speaker
when they start singing, they're not actually singing in the narrative, right?
01:29:35
Speaker
They're expressing like, like the song that she sings with Fiero.
01:29:40
Speaker
takes place instead of them having sex is what it's supposed to be, right?
01:29:44
Speaker
Because it's a heightened version of what's happening in the story.
01:29:48
Speaker
But instead, they're basically engaging in foreplay during the song.
01:29:51
Speaker
And I'm like, well, they're not actually singing before they have sex.
01:29:55
Speaker
They're having sex here.
01:29:56
Speaker
Like, what are you doing?
01:29:57
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
01:30:06
Speaker
Tin Man into like an evil monster.
01:30:09
Speaker
I was like, what the fuck is going on here?
01:30:11
Speaker
He likes La-di-da sings through the Wizard of Oz.
01:30:14
Speaker
And then in Wicked, he's like, killer, killer, killer.
01:30:17
Speaker
Like, I'm, I just like, it's like sacrilegious to me.
01:30:20
Speaker
I can't fucking believe this.
01:30:22
Speaker
Anyway, I'm getting too wound up here.
01:30:24
Speaker
So we need to move on to Chris's rating of the book, I think.
01:30:31
Speaker
It feels like astoundingly a three.
01:30:34
Speaker
As we've discussed, Goodreads doesn't allow half stars.
01:30:37
Speaker
I would entertain a 3.5 for this book.
01:30:40
Speaker
The themes and ideas are cool, and I see why he took the approach he did as an author.
01:30:48
Speaker
I was never a big fan of The Wizard of Oz, the first movie.
01:30:52
Speaker
Okay.
01:30:53
Speaker
And so it's just like an entire universe I'm not interested in.
01:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, I do get that.
01:30:59
Speaker
I didn't feel drawn to it either.
01:31:00
Speaker
I know what you mean.
01:31:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
01:31:04
Speaker
That's it.
01:31:06
Speaker
It's a three.
01:31:07
Speaker
It's not lower.
01:31:08
Speaker
It wasn't, you know, I wasn't pissed at it.
01:31:10
Speaker
I wasn't ready to put it down at any point.
01:31:12
Speaker
And honestly, actually, we've had many books that were more of a chore to continue reading.
01:31:18
Speaker
Okay.
01:31:22
Speaker
I would call it overwhelmingly average.
01:31:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:25
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:25
Speaker
That's, that's my feelings on the first part too.
01:31:29
Speaker
Yeah.
01:31:30
Speaker
This is, this, this feels clear at this point, Nate, who would you recommend this movie to?
01:31:34
Speaker
Nobody.
01:31:35
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.
01:31:44
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:31:45
Speaker
I'm just one, one opinion.
01:31:47
Speaker
Other high fantasy stories like The Princess Bride and The Beauty and the Beast, you might like this movie.
01:31:53
Speaker
There's a term called a wedding cake movie.
01:31:55
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.
01:32:07
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.
01:32:15
Speaker
So I said that that show might be kind of a gateway drug.
01:32:18
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.
01:32:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:32:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:32:28
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.
01:32:35
Speaker
So if you'd like those, maybe there was a, or the, what's it called?
01:32:39
Speaker
Wicked would be a good one for you.
01:32:42
Speaker
What about you Blair?
01:32:43
Speaker
Would you recommend the movie?
01:32:44
Speaker
Yes, put it on for your baby when they can't sleep at night.
01:32:52
Speaker
Put it on for... No, I'm sorry, I'm joking.
01:32:59
Speaker
I think if you haven't heard of it, you should see it after you know the history of where it came from.
01:33:05
Speaker
I think you really need to know the backstory.
01:33:08
Speaker
Um, I would, yes, I would recommend the movie to anyone who likes musicals, the opulence wedding cake type, uh, genre.
01:33:17
Speaker
I think it takes you on an emotional journey.
01:33:20
Speaker
There are a range of emotions and I think it's, it's a feast for the eyes.
01:33:25
Speaker
It totally is.
01:33:27
Speaker
I think I, I have, I personally have trouble enjoying musicals that I don't have an emotional attachment to the music to.
01:33:36
Speaker
Like I already knew the music.
01:33:38
Speaker
I knew the music before I ever, for years, before I ever saw the play.
01:33:42
Speaker
Oh, wow.
01:33:43
Speaker
So I've known these songs since I was a kid.
01:33:47
Speaker
So one musical that I can't stand and everyone loves is La La Land.
01:33:50
Speaker
Like I, I hate that movie with a burning passion.
01:33:53
Speaker
It's so bad to me with two actors that I adore.
01:33:57
Speaker
So.
01:33:59
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.
01:34:06
Speaker
Fair.
01:34:06
Speaker
And if you like Wizard of Oz, you should watch this because yes, they spent so much money on this.
01:34:12
Speaker
I don't know.
01:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's just delicious.
01:34:14
Speaker
It's like sink your teeth into it.
01:34:16
Speaker
And if you engorge too much, then you never have to watch it again.
01:34:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
01:34:21
Speaker
Huh?
01:34:22
Speaker
That's all.
01:34:24
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.
01:34:32
Speaker
If you do enjoy them, like to Blair, I would say you might enjoy the book.
01:34:36
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.
01:34:43
Speaker
Sure.
01:34:44
Speaker
At least in part, because as we discussed, it is just north of 400 pages and there are really very few people
01:34:53
Speaker
If it were like, actually you made an interesting suggestion with your question.
01:34:57
Speaker
If it were split in two, I would be much more ready to say, yeah, read the first one and see.
01:35:02
Speaker
Sure.
01:35:03
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:03
Speaker
Oh yeah.
01:35:03
Speaker
If you want to move to the second one.
01:35:05
Speaker
It was so long and there really are some slow parts.
01:35:09
Speaker
I did enjoy it and I do not intend to see the second movie.
01:35:14
Speaker
So actually probably more people I would recommend this to than a lot of the books that we've discussed.
01:35:20
Speaker
Huh.
01:35:21
Speaker
Okay.
01:35:22
Speaker
Especially the, not adult-themed, but the adult-oriented aspect.
01:35:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:35:29
Speaker
As I have kind of beat to death already, it falls at such a unique intersection.
01:35:34
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I think more people would enjoy it than maybe know they themselves would enjoy it.
01:35:39
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Does that make sense?
01:35:40
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Yeah.
01:35:41
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Like, it's not just The Wizard of Oz.
01:35:43
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It's not just a fairy tale about happy endings.
01:35:47
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There's a lot to it.
01:35:50
Speaker
Totally.
01:35:52
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I think that there's a lot to the movie too.
01:35:53
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It just got, in my opinion, it was like overshadowed by
01:35:58
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some of these flaws that don't jive with me.
01:36:01
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And I want to be totally clear too.
01:36:03
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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.
01:36:17
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You know what I mean?
01:36:20
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Like I'm genuinely jealous of you that you loved this movie.
01:36:24
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And I'm not jealous that you love La La Land.
01:36:26
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Yeah, don't be jealous.
01:36:29
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I can understand the criticisms of La La Land too, actually.
01:36:33
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But yeah, please, if you do love Wicked, just mute my section, I guess, of the podcast.
01:36:43
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Having not
Closing Remarks and Next Episode Teaser
01:36:44
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seen the movie, it was fascinating to hear two wildly different takes on the second one.
01:36:48
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And obviously I knew you loved it.
01:36:49
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And I think I had a good idea you didn't enjoy it, but still interesting to hear why, you know?
01:36:56
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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.
01:37:07
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I really think we'll probably still try to see it.
01:37:10
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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.
01:37:18
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Oh, really?
01:37:18
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What's your favorite song to play from it, from Wicked?
01:37:21
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Something bass heavy.
01:37:22
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Yeah, of course.
01:37:24
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I mean, I don't remember specific bass lines from any of them.
01:37:27
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None of them were like, this is a blast.
01:37:29
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But you hear an entire chorus up on stage singing for good, you get some feels.
01:37:37
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Yeah.
01:37:37
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You know what I mean?
01:37:38
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Live, 100 teenagers belting their hearts out.
01:37:43
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Oh my gosh.
01:37:43
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Like I have fond memories of playing that song.
01:37:45
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Like No One Mourns the Wicked or No Good.
01:37:49
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Oh, that is fun.
01:37:50
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I do like, is that the opening song from the first movie?
01:37:53
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Yeah, that one.
01:37:54
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And Ariana's singing basically opera.
01:37:56
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I'm like, holy shit, this one is kind of a banger.
01:37:59
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I have goosebumps thinking about it right now.
01:38:01
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Yeah.
01:38:02
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Oh my God.
01:38:04
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The lyrics.
01:38:05
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Yep.
01:38:05
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Goodness knows the wicked lives are lonely.
01:38:08
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The wicked lives are lonely.
01:38:10
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Goodness knows the wicked die alone.
01:38:13
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Oh, I could cry thinking about it.
01:38:16
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So much more of this memorized than I realized.
01:38:19
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Blair's a wicked super fan.
01:38:21
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Yeah, super fan for sure.
01:38:23
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Good.
01:38:25
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Well, thank you, Blair, for joining us.
01:38:27
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It was so fun to have you on, especially for these very special movies and the super sized episode.
01:38:33
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We look forward to having you back again.
01:38:36
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I would be so honored to return.
01:38:39
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Well, thank you all for joining us for our conversation as well.
01:38:42
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Up next, we are covering The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden with a film adaptation directed by Paul Feig.
01:38:48
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And that's a personal favorite for my family.
01:38:51
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So I'm really excited to see it