WICKED THE MUSICAL - anyone seen this or wants to?

huh? they don't play anything in cinemas here before films i think, or if they do i've been tuning it out all my life. you can spot the annoying drama students in any crowd, no?

I love that this is (I think) the entirety of the footprint on ILX of this multi-Tony-winning musical, which passed Cats last year to be Broadway's fourth longest-running show.

I saw it a few years ago, it's corny, I'm corny, I loved it. While we were at it, I bought myself and my partner at the time the show's two special cocktails, which came in large ornate glasses. One, I think, had the yellow brick road depicted on the side of the glass, I forget the other. As I've been hanging around a fair number of people who've been bar staff at one point or another, I dutifully returned the glasses to the bar at the interval. When I got back, my partner, horrified, pointed out that we had bought the glasses as well as the cocktail - that's why they were £50.

Anyway! There's a film (films!) coming, which might have a thread of their own at some point. A friend messaged me with a meme that, since Peter Dinklage had been cast as Dr Dillahunt, the largest of the talking animal roles, the films has been marked safe from James Corden. And from that, I listened to the cast album on Spotify, and now I have a question.

I am not well-versed in musical theatre - I watched what I caught on TV as I grow up (Mary Poppins / Sound of Music / Willy Wonka), and most of the rest of what I've seen has been from Parker / Stone.

So when I listen to 'Popular', my reaction is "Huh, this sounds like Tom Lehrer". I'm sure it doesn't sound like Tom Lehrer! - they probably both sound like other areas of musical theatre that I don't know. But I'd be interested in finding out, if anyone has any tips?

it's not a comparison and i would have to think hard about a lot of modern stuff i'm not dead familiar with to make comparisons, but...thinking about the kind of witty, snappy lyrical vibe in "Popular", if you never listened to Company you should check that.

I mean everybody shd anyway. Apologies if this is a trite post.

also making more than one film out of Wicked is a terrible idea but what you gonna do?

make it a trilogy u cowards

god-emperor of oz

It’s cuckoo that they’re doing that shit with musicals now

huge property, gotta squeeze all the milk out of that cash cow

Ha I would like to recant my initial reaction to this show; it was actually a lot of fun

(Avenue Q totally deserved that Tony win, though; it’s just the better show all the way around)

It's not trite, NV, thank you, a recommendation is exactly what I wanted!

Yeah, I mean, Defying Gravity is a great ender, but I'm sure Wicked wasn't the first musical to hit "Man, that was amazing, what's happening next - oh it's the interval" - two films is weird, particularly since it'll be mostly-giddy / mostly-grim

ok I'll admit this was pretty good! I was sick to death of all of the songs years ago because at the time I was regularly running or attending auditions for shows so EVERYBODY did these songs and my director's ringtone was Defying Gravity for one show I AD'ed.

I have never seen the stage musical so i can't really speak to what was added, and I definitely felt fatigue setting in over the last half hour, if they were going to break it in two, I don't see why the first one needed to be 2 hours and 40 minutes. but Cynthia Erivo is phenomenal, and I'll have to admit Ariana Grande is great even though she feels like she's playing herself here.

so hey...I can change my mind on these things! woo.

prior to seeing this my only lasting memory of this was Idina Menzel hitting the worst note imaginable during her Tony Award performance

brown note?

green

Never heard any of these songs (including "Defying Gravity") and knew nothing about the story aside from "everyone knows the Wicked Witch was Wicked but what this musical presupposes is..."

I really enjoyed it! Terrible desaturation that everyone has noted and lots of bad editing for most of the musical numbers and when the bad CGI takes over it's bad but I liked the sets themselves and they did well using the space. Obscenely long and not terribly well paced (the animal thing is happening and it feels like it's in a different story). Best one was the "we've just moved in and don't like each other" song. Cynthia and Ariana were incredible. I was somewhat blown away.

Now gonna have to hold off from googling what happens for a year (surely the sister in the wheelchair is not the witch that gets the house on her? surely they can't have dorothy roll in and kill Elpha...don't tell me). Was dreading this but my sad devotion to seeing the major awards contenders compelled me. Glad I did.

I didn’t really like this, but I was pleasantly surprised by ariana grande’s performance — she has some real presence and has genuinely good comedic timing, and of course the singing (both from grande and cynthia erivo) was fantastic, bonus points for most of the songs being live, reportedly. (I didn’t find erivo’s dramatic chops very impressive though.)

thought michelle yeoh was miscast, and overall I could not get invested in the story or any of the other characters, and I just kind of hated the way it looked. I tried going into it with an open mind but the ersatz hogwarts sets and, honestly, the songs themselves (aside from the original wizard of oz, I am completely unfamiliar with any and all wicked lore) I found to be really generic and uninspiring. and of course it was just too long.

I was surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did, for a movie where very little happens in three hours. Erivo and Grande are most of the reason the movie works when it does, and I felt swept into the beautiful world they created (though it certainly draws a lot from Hogwarts)

Halfway thru the novel and damn was the original author far more interested in working out other things than the musical was.

the thing I gotta warn those of you who haven't listened to Wicked 10 trillion times and seen the stage musical (my son is a huge fan and has an infinite tolerance for repetition; I heard the OST daily for months) is that Wicked is famously top-heavy. Like this is a thing in Broadway lore anyway, lots of musicals put their biggest numbers in the first half and save one banger for the finale, but Wicked really peaks at "Defying Gravity." There's still fun to be had but the only number of note in Act 2 is "For Good." Which I do love even though I think the way Schwartz keeps throwing the word "good" in to contrast "wicked" is very hammy.

Godspell is the same way (also Schwartz) a couple super bangers and mostly filler

I'm a defender of Godspell in its entirety -- it preceded Wicked in the Joan Crawford to-and-from-school care and we listened to the revival version with Hunter Parrish & Lindsay Mendez daily for months. I think the only one I'd ditch is "Turn Back O Man" and even that's a gem in the right hands.

I just watched this, the film version, and oddly enough knew NOTHING about it going in (aside from “Defying Gravity”) and had to be explained the significance of _that amazing double cameo_. Over twenty years in the dark! but I really don’t like modern musicals

It was perfect!! 10/10! I anticipate watching it every Christmas forever. The music is underrated— melodically not especially brilliant but the lyricism is EXCEPTIONAL. I loathe when thesaurus-users throw unnecessary Ozymandian/Saponikans into their script, expecting the audience to do a google and a ponder, and I love when somebody rhymes “absurd degree” with “verdegris” and the viewer feels clever because they might not have been sure of what that word meant but they sure know now

I personally can’t imagine enjoying a musical film any more than I just did

defining verdegris

Yes lol

"shiz" what the actual fuck

hi I loved this holy shit

i read the gregory maguire book like a thousand years ago but never saw the musical idk why … the only thing i knew was that Kristin Chenoweth was Glinda in the musical

anyway looooooved the songs esp Cynthia Erivo’s singing, such a beautiful (and powerful!) voice you could feel every emotion ugh amazing
and Ariana Grande was terrific, could really feel the Chenoweth in her performance somehow? anyway she’s v funny, Nickelodeon comedic timing i guess

and sooooooo beautiful to look at wowee wow

Yeah I'm a big fan. It is hilarious that I remained in-the-dark about this musical for so long. I've seen it twice already and will probably watch it a third time tonight tbh

i’m going to rewatch tomorrow after work :D

Waiting for you two to camp out in line at the part two premiere. (Which is a good idea, you two should really do that!)

lol! PASS i will buy a ticket and attend a normal morning screening like an elderly human … i am too old for “lining up” and “camping out”

Me and my daughter all booked in for Part 2. Stoked.

I’m not stoked exactly due to the “famously top-heavy” properties of the stage show but I will see this in the theater

No I agree it's front loaded but I expect them to reprise their way around it to some extent plus the cast is just so fun

pt2 is just dreadful

Quiet you

It had its moments but dragged like crazy.

I loved pt 2, me.

Biggest drag was that the shoulda-been biggest conflict/tragedy was lame and dumb and bad (how Boq and Nessa went down)

By the end I was internally querying a better dichotomatic onscreen relationship than Elph/Glinda and came up none, great writing great characters

I was row 5 at an imax and so I could see all the stitching on every sequin and I do wish I could say “beautiful gowns” but man they should’ve variated the necklines on Glinda’s attire at least occasionally

yeah that was great, spent too long looking at necklines tho thanks to this post ^^^^

Ariana's shoulders did great work tbf