For the past 22 years, audiences around the world have been “Dancing Through Life” to the award-winning broadway musical “Wicked.” The “Wicked” story begins with L. Frank Baum’s novel and its 1939 movie adaptation, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” that follows a lost girl named Dorothy. In the hopes of finding her way home, Dorothy travels through Oz to the “Wonderful Wizard,” ending in a confrontation with the “Wicked Witch of the West.” This “Wicked Witch” had her own prequel novel by Gregory Maguire, “Wicked,” in 1995 and an eventual Broadway musical by the same name starting in 2003, featuring actors such as Idina Menzel, Kristen Chenoweth and many more who helped bring the characters of Oz to life. 

The recent film adaptation of “Wicked” that was released in Nov. 2024 and its sequel “Wicked: For Good” that was released in Nov. 2025 combine aspects of both the Broadway musical and the novel, containing the plot from the first and second acts, respectively. Immense success and popularity of the Broadway show, a well-loved good vs. evil trope that resonated with many different audiences and important propaganda and ostracization themes are some of the key reasons this story was transformed for the theaters. 

We, Kara and CeCe, have provided commentary for each movie, with Kara giving expertise on the songs, acting and plot, and CeCe exploring the more technical cinematography, costumes and set design aspects. 

“Wicked” Vs. First act

The production of the movie first began in Dec. 2022 in England but was disrupted by the 2023 Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strike and concluded filming for both parts in Jan. 2024. Starring Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the first teaser of the movie “Wicked” premiered at the 2024 Super Bowl. 

We personally feared that one of our favorite musicals would be subject to modernization like the recent “Mean Girls” movie, which blatantly changed important plot points to appeal to online culture and younger viewers, missing some key themes of the original film. As it turned out, we didn’t need to be concerned.

Kara:

I was pleasantly surprised by how director Jon M. Chu stayed true to the pivotal moments from both the novel and the play that shape the characters of the story while allowing the actors to create new moments (whether through note changes in songs or moments of improvisation) and personalize the characters.

The acting throughout the film truly emphasized the emotions of the characters, whether through Glinda’s comedic relief in her time at Shiz or Elphaba’s pain, being illustrated through the flashback scenes. Unlike the play, we got flashbacks to Elphaba’s childhood and how people have always ostracized her because of her green complexion. Details like the closeups on Cynthia Erivo and her facial expressions during the new Ozdust ballroom dance really helped show Elphaba’s pain and draw more sympathy from the audience.

Various references to the origins of “Wicked” were also included by the actors. For example, Elphaba is seen riding a bike that looks like Almria Gulch’s, who in the original 1939 film is a “real world” representation of the Wicked Witch of the West. Gulch takes away Dorothy’s dog, Toto, in the original film, a scene that is paralleled in the new film with Elphaba using Gulch’s bike to help a lion cub escape. 

When it came to authentically portraying the characters, Ariana Grande put in a lot of work, especially in regards to training and method acting. In an interview with Zach Sang, Grande clarified that she had taken singing lessons for six months in preparation for her audition. However, she also received a lot of backlash because of her commitment to the role. People commented on how her regular speaking and singing voices were higher-pitched after acting in “Wicked.” Since Glinda’s voice is a different style than Grande’s original singing, I found her dedication to her role admirable. I felt like she was able to fit the bubbly yet fiery personality that Kristen Chenoweth originally gave the character. I also feel her facial expressions, especially when quickly transitioning from upset to happy, were done well and showcased Glinda’s shallow nature and habit of putting on a persona to please others.

As for Erivo, her calmness fits the role of Elphaba well. I enjoyed how she was able to unveil that hidden power and strength as the story progressed through stronger vocals. It was a close parallel to the character’s portrayal on stage: loyal and principled while also insecure. 

Another movie controversy was Michelle Yeoh’s lack of musical experience, though she wasn’t a primary character. Yeoh plays Elphaba’s mentor, Madame Morrible, and while she is only featured in one song in part one, the audience had a lot to say about it on social media. In comparison to Carole Shelly—who played Madame Morrible in the play—Yeoh’s take of the “Wizard and I” did not flow the same way, and her addition to the songs was an interesting mixture of slam poetry and amateur rap. 

Despite Yeoh, “Wicked” managed to keep the authenticity of the music from the original musical without changing the genre or beat of the songs. Also, all of the main cast had previous experience with music and performing on Broadway or The West End. Additionally, Stephen Schwartz, the original composer of “Wicked,” was brought back to assist with the composition of the movie, keeping the music consistent while adding necessary movie magic.

CeCe:

The cinematography and technical aspects of the film, in my opinion, provided a unique insight on the impact of cinematography on the story and success of films. 

The main goal of Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks and many other members of the technical team was to prioritize emotion in their filming. They wanted to emphasize the themes of light and darkness, along with good and evil, while still keeping the “Americana” vibe of “The Wizard of Oz.”

Throughout the film, some very interesting symbols were created through lighting. For example, color contrast is a very common occurrence in “Wicked”: Day and night, sunrise and sunset, pink and green. To illustrate, Elphaba both meets Fiyero and talks to the animals at night, and the majority of the climax of the film takes place during sunset. This contrasts to Glinda, who sings “Popular” during a sunrise and has most of her focused moments during the daytime. I think that this distinction makes it clear which moments were for which character and also reinforces the message that Glinda and Elphaba’s friendship is unorthodox.

The details of the set were also extremely carefully chosen, the moviemakers growing nine million tulips so they would show the right colors at the right time in the sun for Glinda’s tulip field scene. 

Chu wanted to authentically convey as much of the filming as possible rather than through digital formation like CGI. Brooks noted how the Emerald City and Shiz University sets were both created using thousands of lights and equated to the size of four football fields, with an entire working train station. I think that these choices were genius, making the film feel raw rather than pure fiction. This creative direction was very consistently purposeful and lived up to the grandeur of the musical set, like through Glinda’s shoe collection. 

There were a total of 17 practical sets that were all turned into soundstages for the musical scenes, allowing the vocals to be elevated when sung live. I love the balance between the live and recorded vocals as they gave more emphasis to the main voices of each part, such as those of Grande or Erivo. Production sound mixer Simon Hayes was able to brilliantly capture the vocals live while also working around the actors doing stunts at the same time, such as Elphaba flying while singing “Defying Gravity.” Combining acting with authentic singing, I found that the moment was more vivid than a simple performance. 

However, some of the costumes didn’t live up to our expectations. At times, both Kara and I believe that Glinda’s dresses seemed more prom dress-y rather than whimsical. The opening pink dress Glinda was wearing came across as tacky and like what a wannabe Disney princess would wear in comparison to her original blue dress that had more of a fantasy feel. I understand that the change from blue to pink was to emphasize the vibe that Glinda had in the original film, being very pink and feminine, but I think the blue was too iconic to be changed and wouldn’t have made a large difference to the image they wanted to convey. 

“Wicked: For Good” Vs. Second act

We were all holding space for “Wicked: For Good” and it definitely filled that void. While we think there were a lot of new additions to the movie version of the second act, much that stemmed from the novel, we felt it deepened the story and added greater insight. Although we found that this film sequel was less impactful than the first, we understand that the second act of the original “Wicked” play itself had fewer memorable moments than the first, so it was understandable that “Wicked: For Good” was also going to lack some of the oomph that “Wicked” had. 

Kara:

With the second movie came two brand new songs: “No Place Like Home” sung by Elphaba and “Girl in the Bubble” sung by Glinda. The addition of “No Place Like Home” was a great way to tie back to “The Wizard of Oz” film, being one of Dorothy’s most memorable phrases. It also brought back the relevance of the animals of Oz to the plot as Elphaba sings to convince them to stay in Oz. In the second act of the original Broadway show, the cruelty and freeing of the animals was slightly set off to the side, which differed from the novel in a way we didn’t love. 

They also included musical motifs and hidden melodies that pop up in many of the other songs into “No Place Like Home” which made it feel cohesive with the rest of the original soundtrack. As for Glinda’s new song, “Girl in the Bubble,” it was a nice opportunity to expand her backstory and her reasons to join the wizard. In “Wicked: For Good” we were given a lot more reason to feel bad for Glinda as we see she is being manipulated by Madame Morrible and succumbing to her constant desire for popularity (a theme introduced in the first film). 

Musical composition and lyrics make up a good amount of the criteria for a successful song, and Erivo and Grande didn’t fail to deliver for the second movie. I originally felt that Erivo’s voice was too calm and not powerful enough for Elphaba, and I hoped that it would develop with her character. Just as I’d hoped for, Erivo outdid herself in “No Good Deed” with her powerful vocals mixed with her high level of emotion in the performance. I enjoyed the rock-feel added to “No Good Deed,” providing an extra punch to the song while staying true to the musical genre. 

Grande also had an amazing vocal performance in “Wicked: For Good.” One of the biggest things I noticed was her use of shifts in her vocal tone in the song, “Thank Goodness,” to illustrate her facade. During this scene, everything around her seems to slow down and her feelings of losing her friendship with Elphaba are prominent as her high-pitched falsetto singing disappears. As the scene starts to pick up again, her voice shifts back, truly solidifying the audience’s understanding of Glinda’s fake persona.

I was most anxious for the song “Wonderful” due to the addition of Glinda in the scene compared to just Elphaba and the Wizard. I was pleasantly surprised, as it made Elphaba believing the Wizard more realistic. However, I felt the additions to the song, like the extra lines for the wizard, were unnecessary and felt like fillers that strayed away from the Wizard’s message of wanting Elphaba to join him.

Another addition to the second act I thought was unnecessary was the repetition of the phrase “in a clock tick” (meaning “one second”). Though it references the original book and the dragon head at the Broadway show, it felt forced. While there were many changes to language and creation of new words, this seemed more corny than serious. 

One of the plot adaptations I really admired was making Nessarose—Elphaba’s younger sister who is a wheelchair user—float instead of walk and the nod to the ruby slippers. In the play, Elphaba casts a spell on Nessa that allows her to walk, referred to as a “magical cure.” In a Variety article, Marissia Bode, the actress who portrayed Nessa in the films, said that the adaptations are “less harmful to disabled people.” It eliminates the idea that disabled people want or need to be “fixed,” which was very important to both Bode and the Directors as Bode was the first wheelchair user to play Nessa.

Erivo and Grande were also popularly known to have built a very close relationship during production, which allowed for authentic moments in the film. I could really feel the pain, love and joy they felt for each other, something that was really well-done for the development of the story.

CeCe:

I really enjoyed the cinematography and production design of “Wicked.” but “Wicked: For Good” knocked it out of the park in ways I did not expect. Having seen the play and already knowing what was going to happen, I was curious to see how the methods of filming for the first film would be continued or changed for part two, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how movie magic ended up with a conclusion even better than I had anticipated. 

While “Wicked” has a large focus on using the sun for its lighting as a representation of dreams and the desire for popularity, “Wicked: For Good” has substantially more mature lighting, being much darker and shaded. While the night and day dynamic was originally used to create a distinction between Elphaba and Glinda, much of the film being at night this time shows the darker themes of this movie: sacrifice, exclusion and internal conflict over right and wrong. 

My favorite part of the lighting was the consistent contrast between pink and green lighting. This is seen from the very beginning, where the title scene in “Wicked” had a blend between pink and green, but “Wicked: For Good” had a sharp distinction between the colors. Also, the song “Wonderful” where Glinda and Elphaba sit on a bench in a room that starts entirely pink before transitioning to green when Elphaba sings and then back to pink cleverly represents Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship and how they can be together but never truly blended.

There were also little hints throughout that helped with the messaging and themes of the movie as a whole. Glinda was seen in her flashback from the beginning of the film “making” a rainbow, paralleling the end where there was a rainbow to the left of the frame and darkness on the right. This offered a unique contrast that also connected back to her internal childhood conflict of wanting to be special and her reasoning for her actions throughout the film. 

I also really enjoyed the scene of the making of the Tin Man, with the camera switching from Nessarose’s reactions to Elphaba trying to save him to the transformation itself, the combination of the camera angles and music adding to the chaos of the moment. I think the practical makeup effects rather than the use of CGI for the Tin Man was perfect for the character and added to the realism of how he was made. As for the scarecrow, I find that he is for some reason comparable to Ryan Reynolds. With his face having a slight resemblance to Deadpool, being oddly scruffy and looking like it had a burlap sac texture, I don’t think the character costume worked well in the lighting he was in.

However, I enjoyed Glinda’s costumes, which had a more fairy-like and bubbly style than in the first film. They created a good transition between the pink image they painted in the first film to the more purple and blue second film, showing a transition from the image that Oz wanted to the image Glinda wanted for herself. I also understand that this transition made her more easily recognizable to the newer audiences who were unfamiliar with the play, as the transformation back to the pinks at the end of the film shows her solidification as the “Good Witch” as portrayed in the 1939 film. 

My favorite scene in the entire film was the wedding scene. The 360-degree shots parallel Glinda walking down the aisle to marry Fiyero and Elphaba walking down the stairs to the cages of animals, creating a very apparent and incredible to watch. The juxtaposition of the light colors of the wedding filled with flowers and grand architecture against the dark and dirty stairs of the hidden room was a great way to depict the important theme of fantasy versus reality. It allowed the audience to see how the animals in the cages could represent the Ozians and how they were being controlled by the Wizard and Madame Morrible, putting on a façade of fulfillment while simply disguising the dark reality of the narrative they were forced to believe. This, combined with the music in the scene, left me on the edge of my seat. And since in the play, Glinda never made it to the wedding with Fiyero, I think this was a perfect addition for the film adaptation.

Conclusion:

The movies were able to bring movie magic to parts of the musical while adding details from the book, creating the ultimate adaptation of the story. In comparison to the musical, we think the timeline and connections to “The Wizard of Oz” plot was more clear and made the connections easier to follow. Since the films are double the length of the musical acts, they were able to add more detail and plot that we feel benefited the story as a whole. The “Wicked” franchise gives hope to Broadway-loving fans who would love to see their favorite musicals on the big screen. The movies also welcomed more fans into the musical-loving community, and was overall a game-changing film in the entire movie industry.