I mean, I don’t know if I’d flat out say awful, but it was one of the most disjointed odd film plotlines I’ve seen in awhile. My daughters were excited to see it and seemed to like it even if they didn’t quite follow. I just felt in awe of how sloppy and strange it all was.
Disjointed is a good word for it I think. The way it just jumps all over the timeline of wizard of oz is weird. It’s much faster paced than the first part, and burns through a lot of plot that I think is supposed to be taking place over months/years? It’s a bit confusing, I know this is a problem with the stage show too. But overall I had a fine time and the spectacle/performances are good enough to overlook a lot of it.
yeah it gets confusing having to remember this is completely non canonical to the Wizard of Oz and is basically fanfic, it was also confusing that Glinda is a political figure but all she does is do propaganda for the wizard which I guess is real life accurate
I wasn't confused at all watching it myself. I guess it takes place like half a year after the first film, but I'm not sure why that's relevant to understanding what's going on...
Five years per Google, and to me the fact that I don't know or care tells me how little it really matters to the plot.
I thought this was okay. Loved the production design and the set pieces. Wasn’t a big fan of how gloomy the film was in tone. Much prefer the feel good tone of the first film in comparison.
Watched it with my girlfriend last night and we were both wrecks by the end. I knew going in not to expect it to be quite on a par with the first film because, well, all the best songs are in the first half of the musical. But just like with the first one I went in a little bit unsure and left an emotional mess. There were a few things I wanted to see that weren't in this one (mostly I wanted to see more of the Wizard of Oz stuff), but I think there are legal reasons for why that was the case. Sucked that -----Boq's----- story arc ends without him getting reunited with --Elphaba-- The cast is definitely the strongest element. Erivo and Bailey in particular, I think Grande does better with Glinda's more comedic side which is (for obvious reasons!) not on display here. I don't know why they made such a big deal out of getting Colman Dolmingo to voice, like, five lines also they were transparently trying to avoid paying Peter Dinklage for two films which feels slightly iffy. I agree that it's gloomier, but there isn't really a way around that unless you completely rewrite the material... there are a lot of sequels that have failed to stick the landing, and this isn't one of those even if there were areas for improvement. Save that for the supposed sequels...
Thought this was mostly boring. It wasn’t bad per se but just felt like it was twice as long as it was.
Saw this today and left pretty indifferent. I walked into the first one having never seen the play and left impressed and wanting to see it again. This…I don’t think I’d feel the need to watch again. I did enjoy Dorothy being portrayed as a nuisance (“It’s always something with that girl”), but overall I just think it was a mistake to split this up into two movies. I get why they wanted to, but I now have a better understanding of why I’ve always heard the second act of the play isn’t as strong yet the play was beloved anyway. When you’re sitting down for one whole, complete viewing experience, that second act is easier to swallow when the far stronger first act is so fresh in your mind. With the films you leave off on that high from the first film and create new fans who have never seen the play…and then you make them wait a whole year with all this build up and anticipation for a second act that fans of the play spend that year telling them “just so you know…the second act is a lot darker and not nearly as good…” and then that’s exactly what they get. When you spend one whole movie in such a dour, tonal whiplash the audience is sort of left without that cathartic release. I kept hearing that the song “For Good” would have the audience in tears and it just didn’t really do much for me to be honest. The one song in this film that did have my attention and felt the most energetic was “No Good Deed.” The anger and rage in that song felt like the proper tone for what this second half had to offer rather than all of the samey ballads. I don’t know, I’m just bummed that the year wait was for something that left me feeling disappointed.
I guess I'm not sure why this being darker is leaving people disappointed. We know from The Wizard Of Oz this wasn't going to have a happy ending, and even still it did have a hopeful ending what with Glinda choosing to use her power to better Oz and Elphaba and Fiyero getting to be together in the end, even if it's in exile. I'm not sure what was expected here that would have made this different, and I'm asking that seriously.
I don’t think I have a good answer for that. It’s not even the ending that I mind. The ending was fine for me, although I was left feeling pretty disappointed with how certain character arcs like Boq’s came to a close. I also wasn’t entirely clear on why Elphaba says at the end that Glinda can’t know she and Fiyero are alive? I was just kind of sitting there wondering “well why though?” Otherwise it was really the overall tone and pacing of the whole thing that just really didn’t do much for me. I’ve got nothing to offer your question but the highest of shrugs I guess lol.
I think with Boq the problem is we're supposed to understand the events of The Wizard Of Oz happened, and so things happened to him offscreen that may have left his arc at least with a bittersweet conclusion. But the film is set on focusing on Elphaba and Glinda, so anything that is related to Dorothy and her crew is left on the cutting room floor because there's a whole other film all about that. The only parts we see of Dorothy are the ones relevant to Elphaba and Glinda. As for "she can't know they're alive", I think she knows anyway. I think the ending with Glinda getting access to real magic, I don't know if I was supposed to take that as a parting gift from Elphaba, but I did. But I think it was more that she couldn't risk going to see Glinda in person because if anyone caught them, then it would potentially ruin everything that they sacrificed for. I don't think it was meant to be that "Glinda can't know", I think it was meant to be "I can't risk personally going to Glinda to let her know".
I think my only problem with the Wizard of Oz explanation is that we’re meant to see The Wizard of Oz as the propaganda piece to Wicked’s true story narrative and so the Tin Man from Oz is difficult to square up with this angry, bitter character whose life has been destroyed in Wicked. It’s hard to imagine this version of the Tin Man being content with the wizard’s “gift”. I get that we’re only meant to see Elphaba and Glinda’s story, but the film - and I guess the play as well - is so overly reliant on the viewer’s familiarity of the Wizard of Oz stuff that it left me feeling like we were just haphazardly burning through a narrative we weren’t even seeing a third of because we’re supposed to have watched this other movie we’re simultaneously being told isn’t even true. That leaves me wanting to see more of the true version of that story with Elphaba and Glinda’s involvement because that story also involves Fiyero, Boq, and the lion cub that Elphaba and Fiyero rescued. Without seeing that, I can’t help but feel slightly unfulfilled.
That's an interesting take that I didn't really think about. I didn't think of the story of The Wizard Of Oz as being a propaganda film in this context, just as a companion film where this fills in parts we didn't see, where we didn't have the full story. Are we supposed to assume everything in The Wizard Of Oz is untrue? Or just edited?
Reading the plot of the film on Wiki and I completely forgot everything at the beginning with Toto biting the neighbor. Wild stuff.