An excerpt from my script review for Wicked: Part One which will be available 01/13/25:
2.) Plot Stability
Before we go too far into this, I’ve never seen the show/musical, nor did I watch the film before reading this script.
In fact, as the boss and I watched Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo make their press rounds this fall, there was no way this film could live up to all the hype, right?
I mean, bigger than Barbie?!
(Well it wasn’t bigger than Barbie, yet, but it did do pretty well if you checked the stats from the previous section.)
Fast forward to Christmas, when the boss took the girls to see it in the theaters, then the week after when they purchased it on Amazon…and I cannot escape these songs!
They sing them everywhere in the house, and even listen to it in the car when they can’t watch the movie.
And half the time it’s not even lyrics, just the vocalizations of Glinda or Elphaba…
Not wanting to see it before I read it, I had to dodge the various home viewings in the living room.
Sat down to read this weekend, and gave the 124 page script an audible sigh when I opened it.
Have to say now though…I kind of enjoyed it.
Sure I knew what it was about, empathizing with the Wicked Witch, but there’s this whole subplot about the animals of Oz being persecuted.
Did not expect that, and it’s really relatable, even more so when Dr. Dillamond is voiced by The Dinklage!
(That little cameo made me reminisce on my initial time playing Destiny on Xbox, even if they did replace him later as the voice of your Ghost.)
I was even surprised by how the film/script opens, showing us the aftermath of Dorothy killing the Wicked Witch.
On that note though…
Water “melts” her, and there’s a few hints here and there about it in the film, but how does she drink?
We see her holding a cup in a few spots, but practically speaking, she has to drink something, right?
If liquids are only water based, like say milk, are they then okay?
(After a bit of googling, apparently it’s only 100% water that affects her, it being pure and her soul being “impure” according to the 1995 Wicked novel.)
Anyway…the story picks up with Glinda showing up to Munchkinland to let them know that yes, the Wicked Witch is actually dead.
Queue the music…and before she leaves we see her flashback to Elphaba’s creation, and their time at school together.
Okay, so listen, it was a good story…
My issue is that viewers like my children don’t know that there was a whole series of books written by L. Frank Baum in the early 1900s, where Dorothy went on all kinds of adventures in Oz.
Before Shiz, before Hogwarts, hell even before Narnia or Westeros, there was the Wonderful Land of Oz.
In it, the Wicked Witch was definitely the villain, and Dorothy wasn’t a patsy.
Now, I have zero clue what’s going to go down in Part Two, but my kids act like they just watched the Oz version of the argument that Daniel was the real bully in Karate Kid.
It’s fine for them to enjoy this “new” take on a classic story, but after showing them the original Wizard of Oz film, their reply was…
“Yeah, naw.”
Want EARLY access to our videos, uploads, and movie/script reviews? Members get them FIRST! Follow this link to our Discussion Forum.
