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All the changes in WICKED: For Good | The differences between the stage musical and film adaptation
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- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
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- [01:02]
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- [02:22]
Micky Jo
Well, who can say if it was changed for the better? Although many, many people have joined that particular discourse, one thing we do know is that the second act of the musical was indeed changed for Wicked for good. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. If you're meeting me for the first time, my name is Micky Jo. I'm obsessed with all things theatre. I've seen Wicked more than a Dozen times on three different continents. I'm very excited to be telling you more about it. Welcome back to another exciting installment of Wicked Weekends, a series of videos in which I dig a little deeper into Wicked for the second in the two part film adaptation of the Broadway and West End musical and global cultural phenomenon Wicked. And good news everybody. Today is the day you may have been waiting for. It is the video that I have been teasing for some time now, the discussion that a lot of you have been eager for down in the comments. I am holding two monkeys in my hands and that can only mean one thing. Well, actually it could mean a few different things depending on what you do with your monkeys. But for me it means that I'm about to sit here and tell you all about the many differences but between Wicked on stage and on screen. Do we like it this way around? Should I swap? Should I swap the monkeys? Which way around? Are you gonna see me? Is this your left or my left? Hold on stage. Should be on the left. That happened first. Stage, screen. No, I was right the first time. Gosh darn it. So what we're going to talk through today are some, but not necessarily all, of the changes made to Wicked, the musical second act, when adapting it for the second film, Wicked for Good. I did this last year with the first part of the film adaptation, but this is going to be interesting because if anything, there were many more change for the second act of Wicked in turning it into this film and it was sort of necessary. This is going to be an inexhaustive list because there are bound to be little details that I didn't quite pick up on, which is what all of you are for. If there is anything that I don't comment on in this conversation, feel free to share it in the comments section down below. I'm not necessarily going to highlight the many different references and Easter eggs because all being well, that is coming this time next weekend. This is a good moment to make sure that you are subscribed here on YouTube with the notifications turned on so you don't miss when that video drop. It could be the middle of the afternoon or literally three o' clock in the morning. I have a very hectic life. Or you can follow me on podcast platforms, which for videos like this is much the same, minus the Monkees, which I think you can all agree adds a little something. I know you're both doing just excellent work. Please don't look at me like that. You're incredibly intimidating. There's no kindness in those eyes. Anyway, that is quite enough monkey business. Let's talk about the many differences between Wicked the Musical and Wicked the Movie for Good edition.
- [05:02]
Okay, we're going to do this across three different categories, beginning, I think, with storytelling, because that's going to form the basis of every other scene that we're going to talk about. Now, Wicked the Musical opens its second act with what is going to become the thank goodness sequence. And we hear the song every day. More Wicked. And the citizens of Oz are fearful about the newly propaganda sized Wicked Witch. Wicked the movie, with its increased runtime, has the chance to expand on this just a little bit. And we hear the same music, but we are seeing citizens of Oz from throughout the realm, and not just the greener, tired individuals lucky enough to be at the AAN press event that we are about to start singing about. So we see flashes of fear from across the land, particularly in Munchkin Land, Elphaba's former home. That one's got to hurt. And though not much has been added to the script in order to include this, there is an entirely new scene in which we see the construction of the Yellow Brick road. This of course, being one of the most iconic elements of the wizard of Oz film, with the juice twist in Wicked, being that it's actually being constructed under animal slave labor as part of animal servitude enforced by the corrupt wizard and his pseudo fascist Ozian regime. All of that is to be interrupted, however, by entrance applause recipient Elphaber, who swoops in on a broomstick, frees some animals, poses like a Marvel superhero, and then paints a couple of guards yellow before swiftly flying away, pursued by, you guessed it, flying monkeys. Next, we have to talk about the thank goodness scene, which is the surprise engagement of Glinda and Fiyero in the musical. This takes place sort of under the management of Madame Morrible, it would seem, in the Emerald City. Based on the set design of this moment and how everyone is dressed in the movie, it has been displaced to Munchkin Land. And there's a reason for that, because it is also celebrating the unveiling of the Yellow Brick Road. All roads lead to the wizard and all that, only there is to be a little bit of disruption. Disruption. While in the musical we don't see or hear from Elphaba until she arrives back in Munchkin Land to try and win the support of her sister Nessaros, in the movie, we see her for a second time here, bursting through a layer of cloud and trying to skywrite a persuasive message, which unfortunately is disrupted by Madame Morrible doing the one magical thing she's actually capable of. And speaking of the sky, there's a couple other additions that we need to talk about. So in the musical, there is a line during the thank Goodness sequence when Madame Morrible introduces Fierro as the Captain of the guard. That line exists in the film, only he is called the Captain of the Gale Force, which is the name used for the secret police in the Gregory Maguire novel. Of course, it's also a nod to Dorothy's surname, Dorothy Gale, as well as the whole concept of cyclones and tornadoes. We love a wind metaphor, but they aren't the only thing flying through the sky in the musical. One of the most iconic moments at the beginning of the show in no One Wants the Wicked in the first act is Glyndon Glinda's arrival via bubble, which is not seen nor discussed again until deep into the second act when Elphaba spits at her. We can't all come and go by bubble, wait for that line to be discussed in just a bit. In the movie, though, as we have the chance to expand on so many of the elements of this story, we actually see the introduction of the flying bubble to Glinda for the very first time as Madame Morrible presents it to her as exactly gift, completing her evolution into Glinda the Good, and discussing in no uncertain terms how this bubble, with its hidden mechanism, is going to persuade people that she is actually capable of magic. Just as much as the Wicked Witch is even giving her a little bubble wand to really seal the deal as she tells her the wand really sells it. Now, this is just the beginning of a slightly more detailed version of Glinda's arc in this film, which we're going to come back to because we have to talk about some of our supporting characters. It's at this point that we get a much more thorough expansion of the story between Nessaros and Bok. There is an entirely new scene, in fact a sequence of scenes in the film to justify a single line of dialogue that Bok has in the stage musical when he reveals to Elphaba that Nessa is just as wicked as she is because she has been stripping the Munchkins of all of their rights. And why, with Nessa replying to keep you here in the movie. However, we don't need to trust Bok on all of that because we get to see it. We see another of their former shiz school friends, Avarick, bringing in a bill to be signed by Nessa, called the Animal Anti Motility Law. Bok is horrified, but Nessa explains that there is pressure on her to sign it, though it isn't until Bok reveals that he thinks now is the perfect time for him to leave and, you know, go and head off and achieve his Munchkinly aspirations, that Nessa realizes actually she should sign it, but with one amendment, so that it also includes Munchkins. Something which Bok realizes during a devastating historical parallel seen at a train station. And just like that, we've arrived at where we need to be in the musical. Just like in the show, Elphaba arrives in Munchkinland, only this time she already knows about her father's death, and Nessa, who reveals it to her in the show, just talks to her about it instead, still with a palpable resentment, one which is eased when Elphaba uses the Grimory to help her sister float up out of her wheelchair and feel some joy and escapism. Perhaps this being a major difference from the show, and a very deliberate one that was reworked with the consultation of Marisa Bodie, the actress who plays Nessarose in the stage musical. Elphaba enchants Nessarose's shoes so that she can simply walk out of her chair and subsequently walk around in the newly enchanted silver slippers as a reminder they were given to Nessarose as a gift by their father. They were her mother's shoes. In the film, however, she simply floats up into the sky. She's real happy about it. And then Bok walks in, says something unfortunate and it causes her to deflate as though we're in Peter Pan and she can no longer come. Your happy thoughts. One particular dialogue alteration comes at the very end. Now, in the stage musical, the scene begins with Elphaba appearing inside of a wardrobe, and when Nessa asks why she's come, she says, well, there's no place like home. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. One of many wizard of Oz references. Only she can't do that in the film because she's just spent two and a half minutes singing a song, 80% of the lyrics of which were, there's no place like home. So instead, we have another fun little Winnie Holtzman line of dialogue, I'm assuming because she loves to do this, where Elphaba leaves her sister's home before, I believe, flying through a skylight and announcing, I'm off to see the Wizard. She actually has a similar exit line in a subsequent scene, which is an entirely new scene once again for the film because in the stage musical, Glinda and Elphaba, who have been separated, aren't going to reconcile until after she has threatened the wizard and been taken hostage by the guards and Fiyero. Glinda runs in and discovers them all together. And that's when she sees Elphaba again for the first time. In the film. They have an earlier reconciliation on Glinda's private balcony as she is getting ready for her wedding. This is part of another major change, because in the musical, this is not Glinda and Fiyero's wedding. They never actually get to their wedding day. This is a ball that's being staged to announce that they are engaged. How do I know that? Well, for the same reason that it rhymed. It's from a lyric. In the film, though, this is their actual wedding, which does dial up the drama of the whole thing somewhat. In any case, Elphaba has arrived, the two of them reconcile, and what used to be a mean spirited line that Elphaba hurls at Glinda later on during an argument is now reappropriated as playful banter as Glinda says, I can't believe you really travel around on that broomstick. And Elphaba replies, well, we can't all come and go by bubble. It's the littlest bit passive aggressive, but still largely friendly at this point. Now, Glinda is quick to try and get Elphaba to go with her to go and speak to the wizard, but Elphaba assures her get ready for another winning exit line, that this is between the wizard and I. Once again, she flies off like the Marvel superhero that she is, having delivered a playful line to the title of one of the songs. They love to do this in Wicked, the stage musical as well. There's a line which I think still made it into the film, when they announce the engagement of Elphaba and Fiyero and he's like, we're engaged. And she says, surprised? We thought you'd be the wizard and I. That takes us into Wonderful, in which Glinda is now participatory. As a reminder in the musical, Glinda does not arrive until the very end of this scene. And though he does get held at gunpoint in the stage version, the film takes it one step further and actually has him locked in a cage, which admittedly does give him a little bit more impetus to just be hanging out and drinking the little green elixir because, you know, he's got nowhere else to go. This after a sequence in the film in which Elphaba frees an entire room of caged animals. In the musical, this comes after the freeing of the flying monkeys, which the wizard agrees to. But it's the discovery of Dr. Dillamond, rendered mute by the wizard and his imprisonment that reminds Elphaba of her real purpose and that the wizard isn't to be trusted. This gets expanded on in the film. Not only does she see way more animals, with Dr. Dillman still being the one that really drives her to it, when she finds him in the center of the room, quite auspiciously located, and there's a slightly reworked discussion between her and the wizard. In the musical, he says, like Elphaba, we couldn't allow him to continue speaking out. And she says, you want to know what my heart's desire is? It's to hunt you or stop you or something to that extent until the day I die. Something very angry. He goes to the big wizard's head and he's like, guards, guards. It's the witch. It all starts to go very wrong very quickly. The whole thing just gets, you know, very confrontational. In the film, he says to her, elphaba, some animals just aren't to be trusted. And she replies, yes, I know that now. Before freeing them and instructing him to run like the Marvel superhero that she is.
- [15:09]
Now. During that last scene, the flying monkeys got freed. Get ready for this. And there's a really interesting, subtle dramaturgical change from the musical to the film. Because in the stage show, there was always this slightly inexplicable logic around their newfound desperation to catch Elphaba. Because she had arrived entirely of her own accord, they had not lured her to the engagement ball. They had no suspicion she was necessarily going to turn up on that night. The wizard says to her, I thought you'd be back. But they haven't readied a trap for her. He calls in the guards at the end because she is reminded that she hates the guy. And yet at the end of this scene, they try and justify some dialogue where they're like, now we're never going to catch her. As if you know, anything's really changed in the film. They highlight the fact, specifically that now he doesn't have the monkeys. He has lost his spies. He has lost those who were in winged pursuit of her, who we have already seen chasing her around Oz and doing a pretty good job of it. So they now say, now, without the monkeys, it'll be even harder to catch her. And so that is how they justify having to come up with a new deadly plan. Which brings us to another entirely new scene for the film. Because it is implied in the stage musical that a little bit of tornado magic is about to happen, but we only really see the effect of it. We hear and see something of a cyclone projection at the end of as Long as you're Mine, when Elphaba and Fiero are duetting with each other in the film, however, there's an entire scene that interrupts that and splits it in twain with the whole of the as Long as yous Mind duet happening first, before we cut to Madame Morrible giving it mysterious dancerly tornado magic looking fantastic, bringing us back to Elphaba and Fiyero in an explicitly post coital embrace. Meaning that there is, and I'm so sorry to bring your attention, another significant difference between the musical and the film, which is that in the stage musical they do get rather cock blocked by a flying house. And in the film at least, that has the decency happen afterwards, leading us towards the scene that wicked production images photographers for years have been referring to as fallen house, for reasons that I assume are clear now. In the musical, after Glinda bids farewell to an offstage Dorothy, who we do not see even from behind, she has a comedy line. She turns to the audience and she says, I hope they don't get lost. I am so bad at giving directions. Which is funny because the directions were follow that one road, the hallway. This little comic aside is gone from the film, but she does appropriate one of her later lines from the show when she mistakenly calls the dog Dodo. What follows in both versions is her experiencing a quiet, private moment of grief for Nessaros, who has just been untimely crushed by a farmhouse. Almost everything after that, though, between Elphaba and Glinda, is pretty different. So in the musical, Elphaba says, what a touching display of grief. And Glinda, I think, immediately replies, I don't believe we have anything else to say to one another. Reminding us, the audience, that this isn't them seeing each other again for the first time. Because if you remember from the wizard of Oz, Elphaba appears, asks for the ruby slippers, and Glinda's like, you can't have them. They're on her feet. She can't take them off, and sends Dorothy off, and she's like, fiddle Faddle. You have no power here. All of that stuff in the movie, there's less of a reminder of that, and instead there's almost something that suggests the opposite, because Elphaba makes Glinda jump and Glinda says oh shiz. Which does imply that the curse word that that sounds like not only exists in the Ozzian language, but that they realize that the name of their esteemed and beloved university is in linguistic proximity to it. In response to this, Elphaba says something along the lines of Did I scare you? I tend to have that effect on people, which is something similar to what she said when she appeared in Nessaros Mirror in the musical. Interestingly enough now, as these scenes progress, they do so with a whole handful of differences. Both culminate in a fight between the two, in which they initially use wand and broomstick before throwing them to the floor and just sort of scratching at each other. But prior to all of that, in the stage version, Glinda goes to comfort Elphaba about the death of her sister before Elphaba questions how on earth Glinda could just think that this was an accident and houses just fly through the sky with Glinda responding, well, I guess it was a regime change brought on by a twister of fate. All of that attempt at PR spin is gone from the film and instead there is dialogue. More interesting, I think, with Elphaba challenging Glinda to say, how could you send that girl off to the wizard? As if he can give her anything, as if he can help her. With Glinda replying, she's a long way from home and she's scared, and all of these excuses in place of her regime change commentary about Nessa's death, she simply says, though I think she gets interrupted, that she never really thought about it. She also has a new comedy line where in response to Elphaba cackling, she mocks her cackle and says, where did you get that? Just another sort of unpicking of Elphaba's Wicked Witch of the west origin story that gets acknowledged in the Wicked of It All. Now for our few remaining storytelling changes, we are jumping right to the end, largely because everything that plays out between now and then is pretty similar. That is until Glinda returns to Madame Morrible and the wizard, who are normally together remarking on how happy Dorothy and friends are to have just received their courage and brains and hearts, etc. Though the wizard himself is looking a little, as Madame Morrible puts it in the stage musical despondieri. It's at this point in the stage musical musical that Glinda greets the both of them and then presents the little green bottle that she discovered, reveals that the wizard has been Elphaba's father all along. I should have issued a spoiler alert at the beginning of this video, but I'm hoping it was implicit with Madame Morrible in the stage musical saying, of course she was a child of both worlds. That's why she was so powerful. Glinda then charges the wizard with taking an indefinite leave of absence, which he agrees to before turning to Madame Morrible, who sort of begins to feign an apology to Glinda, who she knows she threatened not that long ago with Glinda, asking her if she'd ever given any thought to how she might fare in captivity prison. Now, almost all of this still happens in the movie. However, it happens separately. She doesn't find Morrible and the wizard together, she goes to see them both individually. And so when the penny drops about him being Elphaba's father, it's Glinda who says she was a child of both worlds. And when she goes to see Morrible, she still has her arrested and she still throws her rude remark from shiz back at and saying, it is my opinion you do not have what it takes. I hope you prove me wrong. I doubt you will. I don't know that it lands, because I don't know that that many people remembered it from the first film, but she doesn't do the whole captivity prison bit. Finally, we have some reworking of the final scene and the final few moments of the show, which normally sees Glinda addressing a crowd and saying, we have been through some frightening times, but if you will let me, I would like to truly be be Glinda the Good. While clutching the Grimory. She then flies off, presumably to begin the no one mourns the Wicked moment. It's sort of implied in the stage show that she is initially addressing perhaps a generic Ozian crowd or perhaps the Emerald City, before heading off to Munchkin Land or wherever it is that no one mourns the Wicked happens in the stage show because it's not actually necessarily made explicitly clear to go and do the whole no one wants the Wicked business. This. This is a little bit changed in the film, because instead she goes to Munchkin Land immediately, does the whole no one mourns the Wicked moment. We almost get ready to run back into the way the first film started before it zooms back out and we go back to her and she decides to make a slightly more meaningful speech and call for the inclusion of animals, adjusting her language from fellow Ozians to all Ozians. Friends because I don't see any enemies here calling the animals animals to come out from wherever they were hiding, which in spite of their relentless persecution, seems to have been incredibly nearby, like within earshot, dozens of them. All of this means that when we hear who can say if I've been changed for the better because I knew you no one mourns the Wicked, the final musical moments of the show. When we hear those in the film, they are now happening post no one Mourns the Wicked rather than it being implied that this is the beginning of that song and that the whole thing is cyclical to that extent. Not only that, we have a couple of final visual moments in the film not present in the stage show, including the Grimory blowing open and a sort of a wry smile from Elphaba, as though she may be cognizant of that from wherever she is traveling off into the land beyond Oz. And I believe it has been identified that it's a spell of healing that it opens to that will sort of help her. It's like therapy. The Grimory is like offering her, offering her better help, basically, before we get an utterly heartbreaking and frankly rude final visual recreating the Wicked poster. But that's more of a conversation for the Easter Egg video next week.
- [24:12]
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- [25:58]
Micky Jo
How's everybody doing? That took longer than I thought. Does anyone need a snack break? I can recommend the Green Elixir. Just don't drink it if you're heavily pregnant. Let's move on to a conversation about the songs, many of the changes to which will have been evident and which have already been discussed extensively on social media. Worth pointing out as a general disclaimer that there is a lot of added orchestral instrumental music music underneath several moments of the film, which has been newly scored. Much of it incorporates themes from music throughout the show, but there are a couple of iconic musical moments that are as a result, a little bit different. One of the earliest changes I noticed was in the vocal arrangements of Everyday More Wicked. I actually initially thought it was in a lower key because and I can't sing the movie one for you because I'm not that familiar with it it yet, but in the stage show it's the tenor line of being like all of Oz is ever on alert and it definitely sits in a different, slightly lower place. All of the vocal arrangements, all of those lines feel as though they've been reworked, but there is more. This becomes an entire medley of reprised songs from the first film. From the first act, Elphaba sings a little bit of a reprise of the wizard and I newly in a minor key with lyrics all about stopping the wizard and showing everyone that what he says is a lie, while a section of what is this feeling Is reprised for Glinda's lackeys, including her university friends Fanny and Shen Shen to sing about how good she is. Dearest Glinda, you are still the best. Complete with TikTok corridor choreography. There is even a reprise of the melody of Glinda's song Popular as she sings La la la la while walking out to the Emerald City Square, with her vocalizations being sung back to her as a militaristic fanfare by the assembling guards led by Fierro Newly the captain of the Gale Force, which I do think is a very funny choice because it's implied within the lyric that that's only ever something she sings in popular because something doesn't quite rhyme and so she has to add the lar and then just sings a bunch of Lars because she's making it up. So the notion that that goes on to become an entire military chant is quite fun. Funny. What's less funny is that amidst all of this, some of my favorite ensemble lines in the everyday, more wicked moment are newly sung by Madame Morrible, who does lose her entire vocal section in thank Goodness. We'll talk about that in just a moment. But she now sings the lines like some terrible green blizzard throughout the land she flies, defaming our poor wizard, which in the musical would be two soloists before everyone comes in on with her callous families and lies. She lies in the film, though. This is Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, the results of which we all heard. And before we get to thank goodness, we have a new ending for this entire sequence, which is a major tonal inversion of this recurring no one mourns the wicked melody in which we hear them singing we believe in Glinda, which is a really nice way of wrapping the whole thing up, actually, if we're not going to transition immediately into thank Goodness Goodness like we do in the stage show. The reasons for all of this is to give us something of a recap from the first film, given that it was released an entire year later. We're remembering what it is that Elphaba is doing and why, and we are demonstrating to the audience what it is that Glinda has been getting up to and sort of fast tracking our way through her political rise to power. It's very. Here's what you missed on Wicked Glee. Although, interestingly enough, once we get into thank Goodness, the biggest musical change here is the cutting of Madame Morrible's section, where she attempts to rewrite the the history of Glinda and Elphaba's meeting with the wizard as she sings the day you were first summoned for an audience with Oz. And although he wouldn't tell you why initially, when you bowed before his throne, he decreed you to be known. I don't need to do the whole thing. But she gives out a false propaganda version of what happened gone entirely from the film, largely because I think we get the message and because, you know, there's a risk of people not realizing that she's lying because they didn't see all of this happen 20 minutes ago, so they don't necessarily know that it's. It isn't the truth. Like, if we're in the business during this moment of reminding people what happened, it's not really a good idea to start telling them a fake version. After which we get the first of two entirely new songs written for Wicked for good. This is no Place Like Home, sung by Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba as part of an entirely new scene where she sees animals fleeing, many of them two by two, giving Noah's Ark. And because this is a movie musical, she encourages them not to flee the land. Land of Oz by way of song, a song that pays homage to perhaps the most iconic wizard of Oz line of all time, there's no place like Home, Reminding us both that this is a different interpretation of wizard of Oz and we're still very connected to that story, with a kind of a playful twist on the iconic phrase, now with a considerably deeper meaning about identity and, you know, being displaced due to persecution, but also the fascinating implied notion that perhaps Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the west, as she would come to be known, aren't that different after all. Now, the next song that we hear is the Wicked Witch of the east, which, if you are wondering, has always been a part of the Wicked stage musical, but for whatever reason, possibly because it gets very interrupted by the ongoing scene, isn't a part of the original Broadway cast recording, it is also heavily reworked pursuant to the changes to this scene and Nesterose's character and disability representation on screen, because in the stage version, Nessa is resentful from the off, and it's a much more agitated up tempo as she begins to sing Alphabet as the music stirs all of my life I've depended on you. How do you think that feels? Which already is playing into a lot of ableist language depending on her. It gets worse when she sings all of my life I've depended on you and this hideous chair with wheels, which evidently, in a more positive portrayal of disability, is not a kind of a lyric that we want to sing. She finishes this section by continuing scrounging for scraps of pity to pick up and longing to kick up my heavy heels, revealing the shoes and prompting Elphaba with an idea. In the film, however, and it is the same melody, a little slowed and a little bit reworked and cut off a little earlier. She sings the following lyrics. She sings that night at the Oz Dust, Bach danced with me there and it felt like he loved me. Then that night when I felt I was floating on air, I want to feel that again. Make me feel that again. Not directing to the shoes, but directing to the idea of feeling like she's floating on air, which Elphaba takes just so literally. And once Elphaba uses her powers to help Nessarose in whichever way that she does in the stage musical, she sings I've Done what long ago I should. And finally from this power, something good. While in the film it's almost exactly the same, but rather than it being around the idea of like, I always should have done this, instead, it's I'd always been unsure I could. After which Bok arrives like a grenade thrown through the window, sees Nessa able to stand up from her wheelchair in the stage musical, or floating above, above it in the film, and begins to sing to her that surely now he is able to leave. He has slightly different lyrics in the stage musical versus the film. In the stage musical he sings, nessa, Nessa, surely now I'll matter less to you and you won't mind my leaving here tonight. Something to the extent of for the ball that's being staged, announcing Glinda is engaged to Fiero. Nessa. That's right, that lyric has to change because it's not a ball that's being staged to announce their engagement, it's their entire world wedding. And he sings the moment when I read Glinda's going to be wed to Fiyero. Yes, Nessa, that's right. Which actually doesn't make grammatical sense because he doesn't continue that thought into anything. He says, the moment when I read that Nessa, that's right. And I've got to go appeal to her, express the way I feel to her. Nessa's response to this is the same in the musical and the film, only she sings it in the musical and she sings, lost your heart? Well, we'll see about that. Under these, like, vampiric electric guitar chords going full supervillain origin story. While in the film these are just spoken lines, though curiously, they do still rhyme. The final part of the song is the same in both, only the film's version is in a lower key. Now I was starting to wonder if all of the songs in the film adaptation were going to have new introductions, because we next had Wonderful, which had a very reworked beginning and I haven't learned it well enough to sing it for you, nor do I really care to sing the original verse version of it for you either. But essentially the wizard is articulating the same idea. For whatever reason, it is both a new melody and new lyrics for the film version compared to the stage version. Eventually we get into a recognizable melody when he begins to sing Wonderful. They called me Wonderful. What I will say is, I think we expand a little bit on his Kansas carnival backstory with the lyrics in the film, whereas the musical doesn't say anything quite that specific beyond alluding to him having been blown here. By the way, Winds of Chance told you we love a wind metaphor. Another major change from the stage version of Wonderful to the film is that in the stage version, it's just the wizard singing to Elphaba. And towards the end she has like one sung line when she sings, it does sound wonderful. She does not sing that in the film, namely because there is another person present during that entire song because Glinda is there throughout. And so she sings things they call him Wonderful. And I think she might say, trust me, it's wonderful towards the end as well. Not only that, she and Elphaba have a moment together when they ride around on a swing that may or may not be soft, launching a universal ride. Honestly couldn't tell you why else that moment happens. And they reprise the little unlimited melody, which has actually always had some kind of a home in this number. Because on stage the wizard sang a line to Elphaba at this part when he would sing something like, the most celebrated are the rehabilitated. There'll be such a whoop dee doo a celebration throughout us. That's all to do with you. Something to that extent that now exists as a sung moment by Glinda that transitions back into the wizard, at which point there is an entire dance break that was not present in the stage version when Alphabet and Glinda recreate their choreography from the Ozdust Ballroom to get together. It's a real remember the friendship that we had moment and a nice way of allowing them to have some positive times together during what is otherwise a very estranging narrative in the second film. Interestingly, and my friend Joe Weinberg did a great job of pointing this out over on TikTok. There is actually a lyric change in Wonderful and some of the wizard's lines when he is pointing out different perspectives and singing like a man's called traitor or liberator. One man's a thief or philanthropist anthropist. Is one a crusader or ruthless invader? It's all in what label is able to persist that has been the last of the pairs of lines have been swapped around. Whichever way it was originally, it's now the other way around in the film. I think on stage it was is one a crusader or ruthless invader to it now being Is one an invader or noble crusader? And Joe suggested the reason for that is because in the other two examples, the bad thing always comes first. So now it's just more. More consistent now. I told you there was different incidental instrumental music There is different music when the flying monkeys get freed. It's more sort of stirring and powerful in the film, whereas in the stage show it's a repeat of music we associate with the monkeys because we saw it in the opening moments of the show. I think it's like that.
- [37:17]
That very frenetic kind of panic attack of a piece of music. There are two changes in no Good Deed that I would like to talk about, and one of them is being misrepresented because I'm seeing a lot of people saying Glinda shouts Fiyero rather than Elphaba singing it at the start of no Good Deed. And that isn't strictly true inasmuch as, yes, Glinda says it and not Elphaba in the film, but in the stage show they have always both said it. And I have had to pick a few people up on this, because what actually happens in the stage show. And again, this is not reflected in the cast album. So that might be why it's being misremembered is Glinda shouts Fiyero first. And then the idea is that it will perfectly overlap and transition with Elphaba rising up through it trapdoor and continuing the Fiero. So it's like Fiero, Fiero. And it passes between the two of them seamlessly. Ish. There is then a lyric change in no Good Deed. In the stage version, towards the end, she says, let all ours be agreed I'm wicked through and through Since I cannot succeed Fiero saving you, I promise no good deed will I attempt to do again Ever again. I'm getting carried away. In the film it's different, and it's the line, since I cannot succeed Fiyero saving you. In the film it becomes, I'm wicked through and through, and since I can't succeed Fiyero saving you. Basically, we have a budget of four syllables in that line. It's either since I cannot or and since I can't. And there's an ambiguity in the stage show lyric where it kind of sounds like she's saying two things. Because the line becomes, since I cannot succeed Fierro saving you, I promise no good deed will I attempt to do again. But it does also initially sound a bit like, let all Oz be agreed I'm wicked through and through since I cannot succeed Fiera saving you. So you kind of get both, but you eventually realize it's the first one. Whereas in the film, it makes it a little bit more clear that it's two distinct ideas. Let all laws be agreed, I'm wicked through and through and since I can't succeed Fiera saving you I promise no good deed will I attempt to do. Again, just a little bit more grammatical clarity. Whereupon we get to our next entirely new song for the film, the Girl in the Box Bubble, which does come rather in the middle of the climax. That is the March of the Witch Hunters. But it offers Ariana Grande as Glinda, a moment of literal and figurative self reflection as she examines herself in various reflective circular surfaces around her very circular suite. This an entire musical expansion on a moment from the stage show which still exists in the film. When she goes to Madame Morrible and says we have to stop this, it's gone too far. Now there is a little bit of tinkering with the song March of the Witch Hunters. There's a new little kind of melt her refrain that they sing. I believe the lyric is the same at the end, but Spotify lists the lyric wrong on both the original Broadway cast recording and possibly on the new film soundtrack. Because they list the ending lyric as Wickedness must be punished, Punished, punished for good. Which is not what they're singing. That's not what's on the original Broadway sheet music. And that's not what they sing on stage. They're singing Punished, punished, Punished but good, which is a sort of infrequently used colloquial expression to mean thoroughly wickedness must be punished. Real good, basically, is what they're saying. But Spotify lists it as for good, which by all accounts makes more sense. I can't quite tell from listening what they're singing on the film soundtrack. Weigh in down below. Do you think they're singing Punished for good or Punished but Good? Given that for good is now also in the title of the film, it would. It would make altogether more sense. Sense, finally. And though this necessarily wasn't as devastating to anyone else as it was to me, the Sentimental man reprise from the stage musical is not present in the film. It is entirely gone from the film adaptation, which is surprising to me because it's quite a sort of an emotional little ending, a little emotional button for the wizard as Elphaba's father Discovery. Because why else would he sing that lyric? Why do we care care at the beginning that he's always wanted to be a father, unless we can have the devastating reality that he was this entire time. But he believes himself now to have been instrumental in his daughter's assassination. I mean, he asked them to go and kill her and bring him the broomstick. So the fact that he, in that moment of realization, chooses to sing I am a sentimental man who always longed to be a father is actually pretty devastating and yet apparently not something they needed in the film. So so cut it was.
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- [43:15]
Micky Jo
Which brings me to some final concluding thoughts and about shifts in characters and a couple new lines of dialogue in the film as well. I mean, it's It's a new script in collaboration with original book writer Winnie Holtzman that adapts her script from the second act. But there's an awful lot new. I can't tell you every single new line of dialogue. I will point out the more conspicuous ones, Elphaba in the film versus the stage show, because she has those action sequences that she doesn't get on stage. Feels, as I've playfully mentioned, a little bit more like a superhero. There is a cute moment when she has that new reunion with Glinda, the one that happens a little earlier and she calls her Galinda. I had been listening out for this because even her school friends, everyone's got very used to calling her Glinda, even those who knew her from before except for Elphaba, who calls her Glinda. And Glinda has always been her slightly performative title because she changed it to make a point and try and get Fiyero to be impressed by her. But Gerlinda is her real name and that's what Elphaba calls her when they reunite for the first time. Now, speaking of Glinda, she has a lot more expansion in the film than she does in the second act of the musical, in which she already has a lot of thrust and a really decent arc because we have a flashback to young Galinda getting given a magic wand for her birthday, but not having the magical ability to use it and being disappointed by that. At which point her mother reassures her her that everybody loves her and that's all she's ever going to need. This is what kind of sets it up to feel like Wicked for Good is the Glinda story because young Elphaba got a flashback in the first film and obviously none of that is present in the stage musical. They don't have young actors or chaperones backstage at the Gershwin or the Apollo Victoria, though I suppose they could do it with puppets. And throughout Wicked For Good, Glinda is generally a little more serious because some of her broader musical comedy life lines to add a little bit of levity into the second act of Wicked, the musical on stage have been removed for the film, including the one I already mentioned about Dorothy and the Yellow Brick Road. Another later on when she will go and find Elphaba before they sing For Good together and she says, let the poor girl go and the dog Dodo. And there is a great love line from the stage version of Wicked that would not work in the film because we're establishing a different tone. This is when she goes to find the wizard being held hostage by Fiero with Elphaba alongside him after their wedding in the film has just been disrupted by a chorus line from Dr. Dolittle the Musical. In the stage version she tells the wizard, don't mind him, your Ozness, we all went to school together. Or in the British version of the show, we were all at uni together. It's a great laugh line, particularly in the UK because it sounds a little bit insincere. It would undermine the gravity of the situation in the film as she's also putting two and two together and realize that Fiyero has feelings for Elphaba. Speaking of which, there is a line that Fiyero has here in the stage musical that to spare Glinda's feelings in the film because it's a little bit indelicate. He no longer says when Glinda says, the two of you the whole time. And Elphaba replies, it wasn't like that in the stage musical. This is a little sort of ongoing characteristic of Fiyero being a little foolish by saying, well, it sort of was. Again, it's. It's something of a chuckle line gone from the film to spare Glinda's feelings. It would make him seem just even more callous than he needs to. This is also Fierro and Elphaba's first moment of reunion together in the musical and in the film, at which point she says to him, you scared me. I thought you'd changed. In the musical, she's referring to his behavior just moments ago, threatening her with a gun. In the film, she's talking about when he was hunting her earlier in the woods and she didn't really realize that he was doing so to try and find her before anyone else. We know that because he had an added line about it in the film saying, I have to find her because if somebody else finds her first before Glinda cuts him off. Now, when she says to him, fiera, you scared me. I thought you'd changed. He replies, I have changed in a very meaningful and heartthrobby sort of a way. This in the stage musical happens as he is threatening the wizard who is party to this entire conversation. In the movie, this happens after Glinda has come in, found the two of them to together and watch them flee. Let me pick my monkeys back up for some thoughts about the flying monkeys. Now in the stage musical, the flying monkeys seem to largely remain caged until Alpha Bagoza negotiates their freedom, at which point they later just appear by her side circa no good deed. Certainly by the end when she is getting messages from them and they are working, working for and alongside her while she's still encouraging them to keep trying to speak. In the film, there's an entire arc with this and it's actually really well written and very well thought out because at the beginning they are still chasing her. They are in pursuit of her, working for the wizard. A little later on, they watch her trying to reassure the animals of Oz that they should stay here because it's their home and they're sort of narrowing their eyes at this entire thing and taking in the scene before them. Then when Elphaba does arrange derange their freedom from the wizard, she personally apologizes to Chestery for giving them all wings and says that she can't undo what has been done to them. But it's only when Chestery and the monkeys happen upon Fierro chasing after Elphaba towards the fallen house, tearing their Ozian insignias from their uniforms and arriving with him at the start of the yellow brick road that they truly develop an allegiance to Elphaba. And only on his instruction they follow Fiyero, and because he says protect her, they do. That is the origin story now of them working for the Wicked Witch, a much more detailed and thorough one that allows them to have their own independence and opinions. And if the monkeys are considerably more thoughtful in the film versus the stage musical, the lion is just so much less. Not that we really hear from the lion on stage, which it turns out is the preferable alternative, because on screen, what a frustration this lion is. Where is he? He's somewhere over there. I'm not even picking you up. I'm. I'm still mad at you. So the lion now appears in this added scene with the animals readying to flee, during which Elphaba sings there's no place like home. He's not the only animal who has dialogue in this scene, because Dulcibear, the bear who cared for Elphaba as a child, also reappears and they have a reunion. But the lion not only interrupts the beautiful singing of Cynthia Erivo, which is an offence in and of itself, but then begins to offer a very distorted misrepresentation of the circumstances of his own freedom from a literal cage. I don't want to go into it, but needless to say, all of that is new for the film. And in the musical, all we see is a tail being pulled from the wings and a pre recorded lion noise is all we hear. He doesn't have any kind of a speaking voice. Now, speaking of minor characters from Shears, Avaric, who I mentioned was a stupid student, then works for Nessa in the Governor's Mansion in the film. In the stage musical, there is a character called Avarick, though this is a completely different person. He is not a student at Shiz, he is the driver who brings Fiyero to Shiz, nearly running down Alphabet in the process, gives him a secret handshake and then leaves. But there are some other Shiz University alumni who make their way into the second film. Fanny and Shenshen, Glinda's friend friends who we don't encounter in the second act of the musical, are still by her side. They even have a little bit of dialogue in the early moments of the film when we are establishing who Glinda is becoming Ms. Coddle, the headchistress of Shiz University, who is sort of a part of the Madame Morrible character who has been stripped away from the version that she is in the stage musical. She also reappears at the wedding, but we do don't really hear from her. And speaking of characters who reappear who we don't hear from Dr. Dillamond. Not only is the reason that Elphaba is reminded to chastise the wizard, but also explicitly survives in the film. At which point I realized we never really care what happens to him in the stage musical because they never follow up with it. But in the film we see him return to his classroom as a teacher at Shiz, though with very little to say about it.
- [51:21]
So those then are all of the differences that I could find and recall between Wicked the musical on stage and Wicked for Good on screen. As and when the film is released digitally, I dare say I will be able to look back, watch it for the third time and find even more little differences. It's also been a little while since I've actually seen the musical on stage, probably the better part of a year, which is something I hope to rectify very soon with yet another visit. In the meantime, let me know if you noticed any other differences between the stage version and the screen version. Share them all in the comment section down below. And while we're here, why not weigh in with your opinions on some of the differences which I have pointed out? Are there any which you think improved Wicked for the screen? Are there any things that you missed from the stage version? We didn't even talk about that beautiful transitional crossover moment between I'm not that Girl reprise and the start of as Long as you're Mine that I was sad to have have lost. On that note, let me know all of your thoughts about the Wicked changes in the comments down below and stay tuned for more Wicked Weekends content coming next weekend. In the meantime, thank you for listening. Make sure you're subscribed with the notifications, turned on or following me on podcast platforms. I have been Mickey Joe Theatre and as always, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.
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