Mary and I saw Wicked: For Good last night at the local theater. It was OK; we both thought it dragged a bit in parts, and the songs weren’t as good as the ones in part 1. We generally enjoyed it. But there was a weird moment. We were seated in the front row, and throughout the last half, there was an annoying sniffling sound rising from behind us. At the end when the lights came up and we stood up to leave, I discovered that the theater was packed, I was the only man in attendance, and most of the women were in tears or dabbing at their eyes.
I guess that wasn’t too surprising: it was a movie about two women building a close friendship in opposition to a very bad man, a con man and liar, a real cad, who was wrecking the country of Oz and banishing a whole class of people, who happened to be talking animals. He also didn’t like Munchkins. So yeah, it’s a movie for women.
One thing I didn’t like was, spoiler alert: they tacked on a happy ending for the Wicked Witch. It’s like they read Gregory Maguire’s book, that they claimed the musical was based on, and said, “This is way too dark and complicated and confusing,” so they threw it all out and kept the part about the relationship between two protagonists. That’s OK; I think Maguire’s book was a mess and wouldn’t have made a good movie anyway, and particularly wasn’t suited for a musical.
It was a fun movie, but if you go, be prepared to be enveloped in a cloud of estrogen vapors by the end.
It sounds Biblical.
The ending you speak of is in the broadway musical as well. It wasn’t something added to the movie, unless they embellished it a bit.
What IS interesting is that the songs can exist with or without it. It is part of the “book” of the musical, but not part of the song lyrics and score which make no direct reference to it at all. So yeah, those who first learned the musical from the cast album never got that until they finally saw the show.
#1 – Talking Animals is part of fantasy and has been for generations. The specifics of discrimination against animals because of the behavior of one talking animal has no biblical basis outside of The Serpent.
That part was to be an allegory. Just like Blade Runner’s glossing of ‘slavery’ of replicants. Fantasy and Sci-Fi have always been used allegorically (even when the author insists it wasn’t, such as the Scouring) in this way. That the Bible has similar types of stories is because it too is still a mythology (translation: a fantasy) and has allegorical concepts throughout – creating allusions to communicate situations and preferred behavior in those situations vs what we’re doing now (individually or as a society).
@3 acroyear
Balaam’s Ass.
More fun films. “Lesbian Space Princess” from Australia. Protagonist must avoid the hostile white Maliens.
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More interesting films. Intacto: about what would happwn if “luck” was a commodity that could be traded or stolen. Max von Sydow is always interesting.
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Longer films that require you are in the right mood: Anything by Andrei Tarkovsky. My favv film is the three-hour Solaris.
I’m the middle child, the only boy with four sisters. I’m used to estrogen vapors. Grew up during the era of big hair. Occasional access to indoor plumbing would have been nice.
Sounds like a movie for humans to me.