← MickeyJoTheatre
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Mickey Joe
Not to be a ridiculous theater person and suggest that Fiyero entering on horseback changes everything about the trajectory of his character, but the fact that Fiero enters on horseback changes the entire trajectory of his character. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theater themed YouTube channel. My name is Mickey Joe and I am obsessed with all things theater. I have been particularly excited to see the fantastic response to the release of the long anticipated feature film adaptation of the musical Wicked. Yes, Wicked Part 1 has finally come out in cinemas. Based on the first act of the Broadway musical from 2003 based on the Gregory Maguire novel of the same name based on the stories of the wonderful wizard of Oz from L. Frank Baum. A film based on a musical based on a book based on a book that also as a film pays homage to another film based on the book that that book that the musical that the film is based on is based on is based on. Anyway, I am celebrating another Wicked Wednesday here on my theatre themed YouTube channel. If you don't know, I have already released Wicked themed videos, spent the entire year watching trailers for this thing and then when it came out I have shared spoiler free and spoiler filled video reviews. If you want to know what I thought of the film that's not what we're talking about today, you can go and check out those videos already. More recently, I have talked about all of the different Easter eggs and references that we saw in the Wicked film. Some of them paying homage to the wizard of Oz, that iconic film, some of them nodding towards things that might happen in Wicked Part 2, and others nodding specifically towards the stage musical, like the opening shot of a w his hat. That also used to be how the stage musical started. Like the monkeys flying around during the overture. And because the film is based on the stage show and really lovingly adapted from it, retaining much of the original material and aesthetic, there's a huge amount of crossover between the film and the stage versions. However, as you might expect, there are also differences, some key differences, and that's what we're going to be talking about in today's video. How does the Wicked movie differ from the stage musical? Now, principally, I'm going to be talking about the original Broadway production of that musical, the one still playing at the Gershwin Theatre in New York, still playing at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London, still seen on tour around the US and the uk, elsewhere around the globe. I clarify this because in the last few years there have also been non replica productions. That is to say, the same material, the same script, the same score Occasionally translated into different languages, but with new designs, new directions. I got to see one of those non Replica productions in Sao Paulo, Brazil last summer. That's where I got this Defy Gravity hat, a hat which literally holds space for the lyrics of Defy Gravity right here on my head. And there are also videos on my channel about that if you're curious what that trip was like, what I thought about that production. And also, you know, while we're here looking at these specific differences, there are a couple of differences just between the identical West End and Broadway productions as well. I also made a video about that. You can go and check out all this Wicked stuff here on my channel. Make sure you're subscribed. But like I said, today we're really going to focus on those differences that they made in adapting the musical to the screen. And to help illustrate that, I have two helpful little monkey assistants. This is Chisery per the design of the original stage musical. And this is chistory per the design of the film. You can get this one at anywhere where the musical is playing. Also at 1 Shubert Alley in New York. That's a merchandise store for Broadway shows. You can get this one courtesy of the Noble Collection. And they're going to help clarify when I'm talking about the movie and when I'm talking about the stage version. So let's embark on this discussion together down the metaphorical yellow brick road, which may or may not have been built yet. We'll get to it. If you enjoy this, make sure to subscribe to my theatre themed YouTube channel for more Wicked Wednesday content coming over the next few weeks. Also, I am bound to have missed out a couple of moments where there are differences, and this is not an exhaustive video. I'm not going to tell you every single changed line of dialogue because there are several. But if there are any conspicuous omissions, feel free to comment them in the comment section down below. As well as weighing in about what you thought of these changes. Were they changed for the better? Wink wink, nudge nudge. Anyway, let's talk about it. So I have been making notes about this since I first saw the film. The most immediate change that we notice is differences in Elphaba's backstory as well as how much of Elphaba's backstory we get to see in the stage version of Wicked. This is all contained within Glinda's narration in the song. No one mourns the Wicked. That happens timeline wise. At the end of the Wicked story, she is assuring the people of Munchkinland. Spoiler alert, by the way, for the whole of this video, like the entire thing. She is assuring the people of Munchkin Land that, yes, the Wicked Witch of the west is in fact dead. But when they begin to sing, no one mourns the Wicked. She reminds them that Elphaba was once a real person with real problems. So in the stage version, we see a flashback of her father and mother. We learn that her mother was having an affair, after which Elphaba was conceived and born as this green baby. And the reaction to her birth was very traumatizing. Her father simply said, take it away. He was horrified. And we don't then see Elphaba again until she is arriving at shiz. In the film, however, we see these same events taking place, but we get a little bit more exposition. Through her early childhood, we learn that with neither of her parents interested in taking care of her from the moment of her birth, she was raised by her nanny, Dulcie Bear, who is in fact a bear. And this serves two purposes at once. In the film, it reminds us that she felt this distance from her parents, but it also helps to justify and further the kinship that she feels towards the plight of the animal community, who, as she is gay, getting older, are being more and more marginalized in the land of Oz. It's what endears her to Dr. Dillamond as a friend and a political ally. Now we don't really find out what happened to Dulcibert. I'm very curious to see if this is something that comes back in the second film. Some other differences that we see in these early scenes, we actually see baby Elphaba once she is born, sort of casting magic in ways that she can't really control. She telekinesis a bunch of stuff onto the ceiling, like she's a character in X Men. I absolutely, absolutely don't think that telekinesis is a verb, but I choose to use it that way. We also learned that the silver shoes that will later be gifted to Nestero's by her father, this happens in the stage musical as well in the film are the silver shoes of her mother. In the stage musical, he just went out and bought some silver shoes at a silver shoe store. In the film, it's her mother's silver shoes. The shoes, I should say, are silver in both versions, because that is how they are in the original wonderful wizard of Oz book. It's only the film adaptation with Judy Garland that made them ruby red. Carrying on in the film. We also see a moment from Elphab Nessarose's childhood. Elphaba taking care of her younger sister and becoming once again enraged and utilizing her magical ability. When neighboring Munchkin children. It's unclear if they're mocking just her or the both of them. They're definitely mocking Elphaba in some capacity because she's green and she gets that. But this basically just reaffirms all of the stuff that we've seen from the circumstances of her birth. Her father is dismissive towards her, loves Nessa, Rose really, like, cherishes her, and Dulcibear attempts to reassure her, being the only real parental figure that she's known. And that's a pretty great example of the extra amount of just like, flesh and depth that they have added into the film. The whole thing feels like it's been expanded in each individual scene in a way that doesn't feel like they've just stuffed a load of extra stuff at one particular moment. Act one of the show is not nearly as long as Wicked Part 1, the film, but it feels very naturally extended. Now, the next place where we saw really conspicuous plot differences was in the arrival to Shiz. And there's little details here. Like in the film version, Glinda arrives with her parents on a boat. In the stage version, we never meet Glinda's parents. We just see her arriving, being pushed in on a trolley full of her own luggage. In both versions, we soon see her flanked by her two friends, Fanny and Shen Shen. In the film version, Fanny is played by Bo and Yang. In the stage version, to my knowledge, Fanny has only ever been played by female performers. So there's kind of a gender flip here. Except we don't really know expressly, I think, from the film version how Fanny identifies. Certainly the costuming of that character. And this sort of a skirt element to the Shiz uniform feels a little queer coded. Interestingly enough, there is a separate ensemble track in the stage version where a Shiz student, also, like a male presenting Shiz student, also has a skirt. So that in many ways feels like a remnant from the stage show. While we're talking about Shiz uniforms, they are more conspicuously different in the film version. In the stage musical, they're all wearing white and blue, and Glinda is just all in white and Elphaba is all in blue. It means the two of them are sort of stark opposites, but they both look like they're at least wearing some variation of approved school uniform. In the film, Elphaba is dressed all in black. There's a reason for this. I'm getting to it. But Glinda is wearing like if you put the Shiz uniform in the laundry with like one red blouse and it dyed the whole thing this pale pink, it super feels like non regulation uniform. But she also has a private suite which no one else seems to, and a load of luggage. So it's clear that she exists at this university with an extraordinary amount of privilege from the beginning. Now here is the biggest difference plot wise. When Elphaba arrives at Shiz in the film, she is not enrolled. She is not planning to enrol, she is not planning to attend. In the stage musical she is attending with Nessarose. The two of them are both arriving together and her father says something like the only reason I am letting you go to this university is to take care of your sister. Because he cares about Nessarose and he doesn't care about Elphaba. But in the film this is a moment where Nessa is going to start this next chapter of her life with independence. Elphaba is happy for her. If Elphaba is a little sad that she doesn't get to go to this place of wonderful magical higher education, she hides it well because she really is supportive of her sister. Now after Nessa, who is a wheelchair user, independently wheels herself further into Shears and immediately begins making new acquaintances, her father becomes very anxious for her well being and asks Elphaba to go with her. He does so in a much softer way than he does in the stage show. Everything's a little faster and broader in the stage show is like I am a grumpy father in the film. There's more nuance here in the role played by Andy N. And you can see how deeply he cares for his younger daughter. And he says to Elphaba, go with her just until she gets to her room. But he still becomes short tempered with her when Elphaba tries to persuade him that Nessarose is fine and doesn't need her to hover. When Elphaba does then follow after Nessa Rose, Nessarose isn't necessarily thrilled about this. Now in terms of how Elphaba ends up attending Shiz in the film, the same circumstances, or at least similar circumstances take place in both where Nessa in her wheelchair is whisked away from Elphaba in the stage show, this is because Madam Morrible takes custody of Nessarose's chair because the Governor has made his concerns for his daughter's welfare quite apparent and she has made arrangements for Nessarose to share Madam Morrible's own private compartment, which I think is the worst thing that could possibly happen to you as a young person going to university. Like the headmistress, the head schistress of that university, being like, oh, yeah, you're going to stay in my room. Awful. Sucks. But in the film, it's not about Elphaba not being in control of Nesta. It's about Nessa not having that control for herself. And we're going to talk more about this as we talk about the character, but this is because a new shiz character called Ms. Coddle. We'll get to her as well. Attempts to wheel Nessa away and take her to the room where she will be staying. Ms. Coddle being a name based on her behavior towards Nero. She is coddling her unnecessarily. And she is patronizing this disabled student in a way that Elphaba knows her sister does want. So Elphaba, in both versions, does a little bit of angry magic. Nessero's chair in the stage version just spins around. In the film version flies up into the air, and a bunch of other chaos goes down. Madame Morrible witnesses this in both versions. In the stage version, she's like, never apologize for talent. I will tutor you personally in the art of magic. And in the film version, insists that she enroll at Shiz in order for that to be possible as such, in this film version, as we then go into the wizard and Eye, Elphaba is experiencing this completely new, new unexpected circumstance. She didn't think that she was going to be starting a life at Shiz. And also, she's already stepping on Ness's toes a little more here than she was in the stage version, metaphorically speaking. And that little hint of resentment between what were otherwise two very contented sisters begins to bubble. Now, we've started talking about some of these different character arcs, so we'll continue Big picture here. Elphaba is not quite as immediately angry with her peers as she is in the musical, I think because we've seen that moment of her experiencing this intolerance and bullying from childhood. She's just gotten used to it at this point. She is not thrown into a rage when people stare at her and make green jokes. She is just saddened by it. And she delivers this very rehearsed speech that she's been saying, yes, I've always been green. No, I didn't eat grass as a child. All of that stuff. The difference with Glinda from This first scene. Meanwhile, she doesn't immediately bully Elphaba the same way she does in the stage musical. In the stage musical, she's like, one of the first things she says is green. She's phosphorescent. And in the film, she. Again, it's tone deaf. But she thinks she means well, or at least she wants to be perceived as meaning well. When she goes up to Elphaba after saying, you're green, she goes up to her and says, I hope to study in sorcery and then I will use my power to help, like, heal you of this affliction. Basically a super racist thing to say to someone that she thinks is coming from a good place, even if she doesn't really mean it authentically. Which means from the beginning we get this sense of glue. Glinda being someone who wants to be liked, who wants to be seen to be doing the right thing, it's more about how she's being perceived than how she's actually acting. Big difference between Elphaba and Glinda's morality in the film. The grudge between them arises when Elphaba is allowed to share a room with Glinda that she thought was going to be hers and hers alone. And further to that, when she doesn't seem willing to help her get in on Madam Morrible's sorcery tutorial. Glinda is very ambitious about this and is devastated that her dream is going to someone else. Next up, let's talk about Madame Morrible. So Madame Morrible in the stage version is this very bubbly, sort of a grand dame, slightly comedic character who takes a big shift towards the end of the first act and certainly into the second. The conspicuous difference here is that the stage version of Morrible has been effectively split into two characters. Where we have the version of Madame Morrible played by Michelle Yeoh. And we also have Ms. Coddle, who takes on some of her responsibilities as head schistress. That scene with Nessa, the scene in Dr. Dilliman's classroom, portions of that and sort of her bubbly nature, her public speaking, is appropriated to Ms. Coddle, the character played by Keola Settle, who was created for the film. This leaves Michelle Yeoh's Madame Morrible a little more stern, a little more humorless. And it has really fascinating implications, I think, because towards the end of the first film, very end of the thing defying gravity has happened, Elphaba has flown off into the sky, riffing all about the place. Madame Morrible walks up onto the balcony and with a gesture of her hand orders the guards to release Glinda and walks over to her and embraces her, signifying that she is going to be embraced by Morrible and the wizard, but that she is going to be used by them as well. And I think because the Morrible in the film is that little bit more stern, more serious, less sort of vivacious, as we know her to be in the stage musical, she needs Glinda. This stage Morrible, she could be the public face of this if she wanted to. She's not as young and beautiful as Glinda was, but she can do the public speaking thing very well. This one doesn't necessarily have the warmth to capture the love of the people of Oz. She really needs Glinda. I say this one, I'm holding the monkey. Another Morrible difference is that when we meet her in the Wizard's throne room, she says that she's there because she couldn't miss Elphaba's big day in the stage musical. She announces at that point that she's risen up in the world and she has been made the new press secretary. Whether this is something that will happen in the second part of the film, I don't know. She also technically is. Her title is headshistress and Sorcery Tutor in the stage musical. She is just the dean of sorcery in the film, which tickles me because prior to Elphaba's arrival, there are no other magical students. Possibly there have been no magical students since the wizard of Oz himself. So I don't know what she's been doing at this university this entire time. Now, we've already touched a little bit on the character of Nessa Rose, largely similar in both the stage musical and the film, but the things that happen to her are a little bit different. It is the agency afforded to her that feels new for the film. And it's worth pointing out here the wider context that for the first time the role of Ness Rose is being played by a wheelchair user, by an actress who is a wheelchair user. This being something that I don't believe has ever happened in either the original or non replica productions of Wicked on stage. So this is a brilliant move forwards in terms of authentic disability representation. And in conjunction with that, the actress, actress named Marisa Bodhi had conversations with the writers about Nesseros and the depth of that representation and authenticity and the nature of the story we were telling about disabled characters. And I'm assuming it's from that, that we got this renewed depth around Nessa's arrival at Shiz and this autonomy and agency that she has afforded in those moments. And Elphaba advocating for that for her. Finally, I want to talk about Fiero. He is so different in the stage show and the film. He's like a completely different person because in the stage show he is that vapid narcissist, straw for brains character who is completely 180 turned around by Elphaba. And in the film we play a lot more into that. Sort of like a Jane Austen Bridgerton esque Regency era meet cute between the two of them, where he nearly runs her down in the middle of the night on horseback before his arrival is technically announced. So that when he is announced like a new student is joining us. Elphaba has already met him before. We've seen this a bunch of times previously. Like the. The young woman meets the prince without knowing that he's a prince. One of those classic fairy tale. And for so many reasons, this particular arrival changes him from the narcissist that he was to someone a lot more thoughtful. Despite his repeated insistence that he isn't, despite the jokes in the script implying that him suddenly becoming thoughtful is a big deal. We still have that same joke that we had in the stage version where Glinda says he's been thinking, which really worries me. And then he arrives and he says to Elphaba, I've been thinking. And she says, I've hurt. That doesn't really land to the same extent in the film because we can see him being quite pensive from the off. In fact, there's an earlier scene when he says to Elphaba, come on, let's get to class. Flying completely in the face of his whole D dancing through life ethos where he's saying, don't worry about schools and lessons and just have a nice touch. Just vibe, simply vibe. And fair enough. Within the context of Dancing Through Life, he still expresses the same ideas and we can still see that he is as charming as Fiero has ever been and as charismatic and as confident. But it's that first arrival that really changes the way that we encounter him and the way. Way that we know him going forwards. Because in the stage musical, and I talked about this in the last video as well, I'm going to say it again, he arrives in a cart being pulled by a driver named Avaric. In earlier versions of the show, this was a rider of. I think it's called a sawhorse. And Fiero is sleeping in the back with glasses on. And Alphabet nearly gets run down. They added a bit of dialogue for the two of them here for the London production, I believe when it opened, that was then retroactively put back in on Broadway. And he says to her something like, maybe the driver saw green and thought it meant go. And they have this little clash. He soon afterwards meets Glinda and the two of them immediately gravitate towards each other like, oh, you're the prettiest girl at school, I'm the prettiest boy at school. We should date. But in the film. In the film, he's not sleeping in the back of a cart. He is riding his horse. His horse who speaks because many animals can talk in Oz, in the middle of the night, nearly runs Elphaba down, but doesn't make jokes about her complexion. She launches into this well rehearsed speech, fact that she is green. And he picks her up on how defensive she's being because he hasn't actually said anything about that yet, implying that it's wrong of her to assume he would be prejudiced, implying that he's not. Immediately she meets Fiero and he is different. Not changed by their relationship, but just different from the beginning. And not as vacuous or as narcissistic or as entitled as the version of him in the stage musical which is sleeping in the back of a cart being pulled by someone else. No, this Fiero is riding a horse. He is thoughtful. It's different. I'm telling you, I've spoken a little bit about the animals, so let's continue talking about this. In the stage musical, Dr. Dillman sings a song called Something Bad to Elphaba. After a scene where we meet him for the first time. He is teaching a history lesson where we as the audience find out about some of the reasons Oz is now the way that it is. The great drought, food growing scarce, people growing angry, animals becoming the scapegoats for this situation. He flips over his blackboard and there is a damning message written on the other side that says animals should be seen and not heard. He dismisses the entire class. Elphaba stays behind, both to comfort him and share her concerns about this situation. The two of them end up sharing lunch. It's a very sweet moment because she takes some sort of food out of a paper bag and he tears off the paper and eats it because he is a goat. That's a cute moment. In the film, however, they never share lunch. They have a little interaction here and they become friends and he calls Her, a friend by the end of his arc in this first film. But the song Something Bad is not sung in that moment. He sings it later in this clandestine meeting with various other animals. It's not clear if they're all other members of the faculty or just other animal activists, and they're all pondering the worsening situation for them in Oz and whether the best thing to do is to leave. It's very indicative of real life circumstances that have been endured by many different marginalized communities and peoples from around the world world throughout history. For that reason, I think Something Bad resonates a lot more in the film. It feels a lot more powerful because it speaks to something quite dark and quite familiar. Elphaba witnesses all of this because she is eavesdropping. Having followed him out of the gates of Shiz, she ends up interrupting the meeting because she's startled by a vision that she has of Dr. Dillamd in a cage. Foreshadowing something that we know from the stage musical happens in the second act, aka the film part. 1. Other little detail about the film version is that Dr. Dillman is about to say the word scapegoat. And Elphaba, I can't believe what word she uses instead. But she doesn't say scapegoat. And it's almost as like she's trying to spare him and like preserve his dignity in that moment by not using the word scapegoat. Because as a goat, I don't know if that's a slur to him, but it feels like she's trying to spare his feelings. Now in that scene between them, he, in his distress has knocked a vase of flowers on the floor and she goes and picks them up for him. They are poppies. They show in that moment that they both like poppies, so she brings him some later on in the scene where he, like in the stage musical, will tell the students this is his last day at Shiz, and he will be dragged out of the classroom while telling them they're not being told the whole story. Very troubling stuff. What follows is very similar in both the stage musical and the film. A new professor arrives with a lion cub in a cage. But in the stage musical, Elphaba frees the lion cub by casting a spell on everyone else in the classroom except for herself and Fiero, to have them all dance around. Familiar of the jitterbug scene from the wizard of Oz. In the film, she does this by enchanting the poppies that she's brought for Dr. Dillamund. Referencing another moment from the wizard of Oz when Dorothy and the lion are put to sleep by poppies. The only other difference then in this sequence, which I also spoke about in my last video, is that Fiero and Elphaba help rescue the lion cub by fleeing on bicycles that they find by the entrance to Shiz University. This being a little bit of a visual nod to Ms. Gulch in the wizard of Oz film, and Toto in the bicycle basket and all of that stuff. Now, I've talked an awful lot about plot and characters. Let's talk about some of the musical differences, a lot of which will have been easier to hear and pick out, even if you only have a vague familiarity with the original Broadway cast recording. And honestly, compared with many different movie musical adaptations, this probably stayed the most loyal and the most similar to its original stage score. There is a different ending to the song Popular that modulates through these higher keys and ends with this other little soprano moment, very well sung by Ariana Grande. Steven Schwartz in one interview talked offhand about putting this into the show. I don't need him to do that, Stephen. I like it for the film. We don't need to put it back into the musical. There is also this different introduction to the song One Short Day and the two of them are on the train heading towards the Emerald City. We'll talk about the train actually, but they're heading towards the Emerald City. And we hear the familiar One short day. Except in the stage version, this goes a little more like One short day in the Emerald City. Do do do do do do One short day in the Em City Emerald City. And then we launch into One short day in the Emerald City. In the film, however, we hear this extra added little vocal line where it goes One short day if you only have. If you only have. Which makes it sound a little more like Disneyland or Disney World Parade music. I think there's this extended metaphor around Oz and this Disney esque theme park and the way that the wizard presents himself and presents the Oz of tomorrow as this little diorama. It's very early Walt Disney. It's very Carousel of Progress. It's very World's Fair. And that little change to the music helps to cement that idea from the beginning. Another way in which the Oz sequence feels very Disney is because of what's happened with Wizard Mania. Wizzermania has always been a feature of the Emerald City in the middle of One Short Day in the stage version, but it's shorter here and not anywhere near as meaningful. It's just a little show with these funny flathead characters singing who's the Mage? Whose major itinerary is making all us merrier. And we still hear that in the film, but we hear a whole extended section beforehand where we see them putting on this show about the history of the wizard's arrival and the Grimmery before that. The grimory being this collection of ancient magic passed down by the magical ancient ones played by some very special performers in the film with some very special cameo appearance appearances. And this is the most substantial moment of new music that we hear in the film version. This whole section when they're singing about the Grimmery, eventually leading its way after a few minutes into who's the Mage, who's major itinerary is making all us merrier. The only difference being that is then sung by our two cameo performers, AKA Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel of the original Broadway cast of Wicked on stage, that sung as solo lines by them at that moment rather than the ensemble vocal moment that we here in the stage version. Now we also have a few different lyrics, the first one being in Elphaba's birth flashback sequence. In the stage version, the midwife and the witch's father are both singing back and forth to each other. What can it be? What does this mean? It's atrocious. It's obscene. In the film, Dulcibear, the maternal bear character who takes care of Elphaba, she can't sing that, she's atrocious. There is still a middle wife present. But Dulcibear has one of these lines and so rather than sing it's atrocious, she sings. It's uncanny. This, because she looks kindly towards Elphaba, she takes care of the little green baby. She's not going to call it atrocious. Also in that song, no one mourns the wicked. There is something that is very different from the stage version, but if you only ever listened to the cast recording, you wouldn't notice this, because in the stage musical in person, when Glinda is singing out live a lie for you, and she then gets interrupted by a munchkin saying, Glinda, just exactly how dead is she? She then answers the question and it leads into no one minds the Wicked. But in the film, we've already heard some of that dialogue eerily over that opening image of the hat before we hear the entire overture. And so instead they do what the cast recording of the stage version does, which is to have her be interrupted on this soprano bit. She sings for you. And. And then someone immediately comes in with no one more. It's the Wicked, and kind of snaps her head and she's like, oh, wow, they're going really hard about all of this. And speaking of going hard, there is a logistical difference at the end of Defying Gravity that necessitates a lyric change. In the stage version, Defying Gravity happens at the very end of the song. Elphaba flies up sort of above the roof of the attic. It's not really clear on stage where she's going. In the Brazilian version I saw, she breaks through a window and out over the audience and descends over the person in row eight, which happened to be me. It was very cool, by the way. But in the traditional stage voc, and she just rises above the stage and the guards burst into the attic and flood this space with other, like, citizens of Oz. And they're pointing up at her and they're singing, no one wants the Wicked get her. As she's singing Bring me down now in the film, she has flown out of the tower. She has a whole extended moment. Here we come away from the song Defying Gravity, she sees this vision of her younger self that inspires her to find the courage to grab the broom, fly all around the tower. Defying Gravity in the film is a lot more disjointed. And we have this refrain where the unlimited motif comes back again as she's sort of embracing the power that she has in her independence. She doesn't need anyone else by her side. She can do this. That unlimited motif, if you haven't heard me say this before, being very special because it's the same seven notes as the first seven notes of Somewhere over the Rainbow. Unlimited My future. Anyway, because she is now flying a decent distance away from the balcony of the Wizard's Tower, it's harder for them to sing. No one mourns the Wicked get her because she's hard to get, basically. So instead they sing, no one mourns the Wicked kill her. Which, it's kind of implied, is what they're going to do in the stage show anyway. But it's still no less surprising to hear, oh, I've been singing the lyric wrong. It's not no one mourns, it's look at her, she's wicked. Get her or kill her. I've lost all credibility as a Wicked fan in the last few minutes. And there are also differences in the orchestrations, but it is largely a very faithful version of the original stage score, and that's not surprising. Because Stephen Schwarz and Stephen Arus worked on both. Now we've touched on some of the differences with the entrance into the Wizard's chamber. We talked about Morrible arriving, not necessarily having become press secretary. We talked about the Grimory backstory being told through song in the Wizard Mania outdoor theater moment. The nature of the story here is that the wizard had arrived, decided, descended in a balloon. We know already from the wizard of Oz that he is from the human realm. In fact, he is from Omaha, Nebraska. And when they ask him if he can read the Grimmery because he's just come down in a balloon and they wonder if he's going to be some magical person, he fakes it by saying the word O Maha and passing that off as some sort of a magical incantation. This leading to him becoming embraced as the wonderful wizard of Oz, the one who can read the Grimory and must be a wizard. And they sort of centralize him within the culture of their land, asking minimal questions to discernibly. But thereafter, he has to do various things in order to maintain this image, like building this giant wizard head and not allowing anyone to see the human version of himself, but also various other things. He shows Elphaba and Glinda the Oz of tomorrow and that he is thinking of building a road that will lead from the various different provinces to the Emerald City to give people direction so they know where they're going, that if they follow the road, it will lead them straight to him. At that point, comically, he doesn't know what color to make the road, so he's built a little device that allows him to change the color. Elfimber flicks through a couple of options and Glinda says, no, go back to the yellow one. It just says road to me, which is one of the funniest lines in the film, I think. But this is one of the many ways in which we see the foundations of the iconic elements of the wizard of Oz being created in Wicked. We will come to find out in the second film how exactly the Tin man and the Cowardly lion and the Scarecrow came to be as well. Finally, some differences in terms of scenes that we see and dialogue. In Glinda's entrance in Munchkinland, we never hear the line, no need to respond. That was rhetorical. After she says, it's good to see me, isn't it? She's also a little less haughty at this point, a little more down to earth. It's not, it's good to see me, isn't It. It's more like, oh, it's good to see me, isn't it? And because that section I mentioned before, where she affirms that the witch is in fact dead, is gone. We don't hear innuendo autuendo. We heard over beginning because there has been so much rumor and speculation. Let me set the record straight. But we don't hear innuendo outuendo, which is one of the first Aussian words we encounter in the stage script. Excuse me, I've put down my monkeys. She has a couple of new moments in this first scene. At the end of the song, she kind of says to herself, if that's all, I'm going to go. And she starts to leave. In the stage version, we then see her rise up in the bubble and one munchkin says, glinda, is it true you were her friend? This is kind of played for last because someone else slaps him for even suggesting it. And she then motions to the bubble to lower back down. In the film, she's already in a more literal bubble and someone asks the question, but without being challenged. But the comedy arises from the fact that she can't hear them because she's in a bubble. We hear her muted voice going, what? But she then turns off the bubble or pops the bubble again and then answers the question when they replace Repeat it now, while we're at shiz, there is a lot of different spoken material. Almost every time that box speaks to Glinda, it's a very different conversation than the stage version of it was in the film. He has a surname. He introduces himself as Boq Woodsman, which is a little on the nose, but we all know where we're going with this. He also mistakes his own name. In the stage show, he introduces himself as Bok and she says, Bic. And he's like, it's Bok in the film. He's like, it's Bic. I mean, it's Bok. And he has other lines, like saying, I cry a lot. Like he has a lot of just different material material. There is one delicious wizard of Oz reference from the stage musical that did not make it into the film because it's a little silly. Someone asked, I think it's Fiero asks, what's in the punch? And the answer is lemons and apples and pears. And the response to that is, oh, my. Because, of course, we're paying homage to from the wizard of Oz. Lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. Lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. But we don't just have lines removed from the stage show. We also have a lot of new lines as well. The scene before what is this feeling? Is entirely new for the film because in the stage musical, we go directly from the wizard and I into what is this feeling with no dialogue in between. It's kind of insane for an El who's just sung this huge song to then launch into another one. But yeah, we have this whole scene with Glinda showing Elphaba the meager space that she's allotted her within their shared room and asking that she help her gain favor with Madame Morrow. It doesn't go well once they've later become friends. However, we hear an iconic line from the stage musical treated a slightly different way in the film. That line being pink goes good with green. In the stage musical, Elphaba is too busy being startled by her own reflection and the contemplation that she might actually be able to be beautiful. Or like the juxtaposition between the beautiful flower and the way that she sees herself. However you want to interpret that, Elphaba doesn't really say anything in response to that. In the film. When Glinda says to her, pink goes good with green, Elphaba clarifies goes well with green. This is not the first time that Elphaba has corrected Glinda's grammar. She did it also at their first meeting. And it helps to just build a little on the personalities of each of them and who they are. And, you know, this thing that initially came between them and how that can continue. They're still who they each are, but they're friends in spite of it. I also think this is possibly a line of dialogue that bothered John M. Chu, because he's spoken about Arian saying about some part of the film, you can't cut that. It's Bible. And I kind of think that that was Pink goes good with green. Finally, and this is a really weird detail to end with, Elphaba and Glynda go to the Emerald City by going to the train station. In the stage musical, Elphaba having received an invitation from the wizard, but she convinces Glinda once they're there to go with her to the Emerald City because Glynda is sad about Fiero. And then they go and have a lovely time together. And then fate intervenes. One of them flies off into the west and the other one gains political appointment. In the film, this train arrives exclusively for Elphaba. She is the only passenger intended on this train. And there's a little conductor that Glinda finds very charming. She says, there's a little man with a mustache that's new for the film. It's so green, it's so futuristic. It's very clearly the wizard's train. And I'm intrigued by the suggestion here that mobility is a little harder in Oz, that the Emerald City is not as easy to get to unless that specific train arrives for you. In any case, El England aboard the train. We see the interior of the train. In the film version, they go to the Emerald City and what happens, happens. And there are other little differences as well, largely to do with how the film ends. We see Madame Marble's proclamation that El is wicked and not to be trusted being heard in Munchkin Land, where her father begins to clutch his chest and fall down on the floor. In the second act of the stage musical, we learn that he has died of shame. So it's kind of like we're seeing that early in the film. We'll probably hear about it in Part two next November, but we also see the reactions of Bok and Fiero. Bok just kind of looks concerned about all of this, but Fiero jumps on a horse and sets off for somewhere. And I am very intrigued to see how all of this plays out in the next film, as I'm sure you are as well. But those have been all of the larger differences that I have noticed between Wicked, the stage musical and the Wicked film. I hope that was interesting. There are probably some that I have missed. Feel free to comment down below as well as sharing your thoughts on all of those changes. For the most part, I think they actually serve each of the characters and the overall narrative better in the film because they have the time to. Because it's two and a half hours dedicated only towards the plot of the first act, whereas the stage musical in two and a half hours has to get through both acts. That has been today's Wicked Wednesday video. Stay tuned for more Wicked coverage coming over the following weeks. Make sure you're subscribed with the notifications turned on so you don't miss those as well as my other theatre themed content right here on YouTube. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Joe Theater. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.