Wicked Part 1: legs start with showing y’all the trailers shall we?

Since this is a Universal film, Y’all know what that means? Cue Universal Logo!

Yeah, spoiler alert I absolutely loved this film, yeah I ain’t gonna beat around the bush this time. I’m just gonna say it right away, I adore this film. Keep in mind this is coming from someone who doesn’t like musicals and this film is a musical.

I cannot express this enough plz go see this film, I am sad though because this film is a Part 1. Yeah, none of the advertisements advertised this as a Part 1. So that might be a letdown for a few.

I remember hearing about early screenings where people went in and saw the title come up saying Wicked Part 1 and they were like (What!?)

I mean fair enough, it is kinda misleading and unfortunately, we have to wait now till November 21st of this year 2025 to see Part 2, that is so far away.

BTW Part 2 will be titled Wicked For Good, btw if u ask me that’s a stupid title.

Anyway let’s get into the rating before we get into spoilers, overall I absolutely loved this film I loved the soundtrack, the cinematography was amazing, and the acting was amazing. Plz go check this film out, I can’t recommend it enough.

BTW before we get to the rating I want to bring up a bit of a controversy that happened before this film was released, so to promote this film they released a recreation poster of the play poster which is such an iconic poster and the fans love it.

If y’all don’t know, the poster is of Elphaba staring at the audience with a smirk on her face, with her eyes covered in shadow. While Glenda is whispering something in her ear.

It adds to that ambiguous feeling of So who’s the truly evil one here? Is it the Wicked Witch? Or I’d it, Glenda? Is The Wicked Witch laughing at something because she’s about to do something bad? Or is she laughing at what Glenda is whispering to her? Or is Glenda evil and The Wicked Witch fund that she’s saying to be ironically funny?

Who knows but that’s how u attract your audience, now the recreation of the poster looked well it looks bad, it’s of The Wicked Witch starring at the audience with her eyes fully visible.

Also this time no smirk on her mouth, just a look of uhhh best I can describe it a mix between confusion and just natural.

Wow so ambiguous, so a fan made a fan edit to make it look more like the original poster. Instead of Cynthia Erivo going on the internet to praise the fans for what they did.

Encourage them and be grateful to see the fans getting excited for the film. She instead went on social media and essentially said “I don’t like that my eyes are covered, it’s degrading me. It makes me less empowered”

Wow just wow, so essentially she just said me me me me me and me, it’s all about me. Hey get off ur high horse for a minute and maybe be humble.

Not everything is about u, you are playing a character. U ain’t playing yourself, the Witch isn’t the embodiment of u. Also does it kill celebrities to be nice to their audience? It’s never the bright idea to degrade the audience and treat them like shite.

They are the ones who are paying y’all to go see the film, but nah let’s just make this situation about me and only me. FU fans for being passionate, I also get it, the edit could be seen as degrading.

Especially since try putting yourself in her shoes, she’s a black female actress. For centuries people of color have been looked down on, so I get it. What I don’t understand is making the situation about yourself and only yourself and then pissing on the audience who’s gonna be essentially paying u.

Yeah, that’s where I lose respect, anyways enough said. I won’t let that taint my opinion on this film.

The last thing I do like is this description of the film that I liked and agreed with, spoilers ahead for this note I’m about to share, but it’s necessary I put it here so some y’all who haven’t seen the film can get an understanding of what sorta movie ur getting urself into.

“Since the Wicked premiere was last night, I think now is a good time to remind everyone that Wicked is a story about a weak man gaslighting an entire land into believing a woman was their enemy, all because she had the guts to try to stop him from him silencing and stripping the rights of a significant part of the population. Inherently political, and unfortunately relevant.”

Unfortunately, that person wasn’t wrong, and when u lay out the script that way then yeah yikes the film is put in a whole new light.

I’ll give Wicked Part 1 a solid 10/10, warning spoilers ahead y’all been warned.
____________________________________________________

The film begins with the ending of Wizard Of Oz, where the Wicked Witch been killed, Dorothy and the gang is regaining to munchkin land, during then Glenda is being applauded at.

The city burns down a Wicked Witch wooden statue, one of the kids asks Glenda if it’s true that she and the Witch used to be friends, she says yes but that was long ago, so now we get to witness 2 hours and 45 min of the backstory of Elphaba and Glenda were friends.

So we start off by showing us how Elphaba was born, as in she’s always been green even when growing up. Yeah, she was just born green, btw the mother might had an affair with her husband because we see she has a one-night sex off with a random man who we don’t get to see his face.

Shhhhhhhh save that in y’all heads for Part 2, might be important there. Won’t say why or how.

Anyways the father is disgusted by Elphaba, to the point he asks his lady-talking bear servant to get rid of her, yes in the world of Oz there are Anthropomorphic animals in this world. Why? Idk I never read the book or watched the play.

So she grows up treated like a secondary citizen in her own house, instead of her sister who’s not green but has paralyzed legs. Is beloved by their father.

Wow, what a douchbag, anyways her sister’s name is Nessarose Thropp. Side note Elphaba grew up being treated poorly by people, she’d be mocked because of her skin color.

Pssssssss I think it’s a metaphor for racism, don’t y’all think? So when they get older Elphaba gets played by Cynthia Erivo.

Their father takes his daughter Nessarose Thropp to a school called Shiz University and gets ur head out of the gutter when reading that.

Anyway this is the start of the school year and the kids (I say kids but it’s more like teens) show up including Glenda (played by Ariana Grande).

She’s essentially the blonde popular girl who only thinks of herself, I never remember Glenda being a popular school girl who only thinks of herself.

Anyways Elphaba is forced to stay behind her sister while the ceremony introduction happens, the principal named Madame Morrible (played by Michelle Yeoh), yaps it up and talks about the school year.

BTW this entire school is just Hogwarts, let’s no longer deny it. At this school, just like Hogwarts u go to different classes and learn magic to get better at magic or potions. All the while ur put in different households.

Yeah, this is just essentially Hogwarts! “Ur, a wizard Elphaba”.

Sorry had to do that, I’m that much of a nerd. Anyways Elphaba gets picked on because of racists, she unintentionally uses her powers to levitate things. Madame Morrible defends Elphaba by saying she herself did that stunt to show y’all what taste is to come.

She talks to Elphaba secretly to the disdain of Glenda. After all, she wanted to be picked and noticed because she’s the popular girl, along with her 2 goonies who enable her.

Elphaba gets brought into the school and now is a student there yay. Btw so we don’t focus on scene by scene I’m gonna do a rundown of the entire middle act.

Elphaba gets picked on by everyone including Glenda including her goonies, heck there’s an entire song about how it’s unfair that Glenda has to share a room with Elphaba, pfffft.

Btw here’s a link to the whole album, I recommend listening to it. Such a great soundtrack, but that’s rare for me to say because I don’t like musicals.

Anyways like I said amazing, so Elphaba introduces this nerd guy named Boq ( played by Ethan Slater), he’s in love with Elphaba but her sister is in love with him.

So she gets Boq to ask her sister out to the prom that’s coming up.

Also, there’s a subplot in this film relating to talking animals being taken away and their voices being taken away, silencing them up, yanking them of their rights.

Ok is this staffing to sound political or is it just me?

This handsome prince named Fiyero Tigelaar (played by Jonathan Bailey) there’s a love triangle because Elphaba loves this guy and so does Glenda.

The thing is Elphaba and Fiyero have more in common than he. and Glenda, also he’s a rule breaker who doesn’t care for learning (which hey fair enough).

So Elphaba is in love with this guy, Glenda in love with this guy, with Boq in love with Elphaba but Elphaba’s sister is in love with Boq. How will this all play out?

As stated Elphaba gives Boq to her sister for the prom, wanna know what Glenda does? She gives Elphaba an ugly black witch hat that her grandma made for her. She says I’m not mean enough to give this hat to someone, then Elphaba shows up in their room and she gives her the hat.

Wow, what a douchbag move, btw remember that subplot involving animals? Well, one of their professors who’s a goat who Elphaba becomes friends with. Gets taken away and his voice taken from him.

They want to hush up animals, heck they replace him with a human teacher who right away tries to test a machine on a baby lion in a cage.

Oh u monster, he tells them the animal is happy to be there (lies) Elphaba gets angry and knocks everyone out except for Fiyero who has him help her save the lion.

Well, I say she asks him for help but he decides to be the good guy and save the lion. They ride him into the forest and let him go, awwwwww.

BTW Elphaba and him do kiss but he instantly regrets this because u know there’s Glenda.

So come the day of prom, everyone is dancing and having fun. Ms. Morrible gives Glenda a wand because as I quote Elphaba demanded her to give Glenda a wand because she badly wanted one, otherwise she wouldn’t continue to be Ms. Morribles’s apprentice.

Glenda realizes this wholesome thing Elphaba did for her, and she now feels ashamed that she gave her the ugly hat. Elphaba comes down the stairs and everyone stops and stares at her.

She starts dancing absurdly, then Glenda joins in with her and starts dancing to her goonies disprovel.

Anyways come the third act, Elphaba gets accepted to come visit the Wizard Of Oz. Ms. Morrible sent a note to the Wizard.

She gets a proper send-off by her classmates and her sister and dad before the emerald train comes to pick her up. As she gets on board she invites Glenda, so she tags along.

How sweet! So they get to The Emerald City where they explore around for a bit and enjoy themselves. Then they are invited into the Wizards tower, where they see some monkey guards, they can’t talk at all.

Awww, anyway they go into the wizard’s room, he greets them with the giant green head, but then he comes out from a curtain and introduces them to himself.

So Elphaba finds out he’s no Wizard, when Ms. Morrible shows up and they ask her to use the magic book. Which she uses and it ends up giving the monkey guards wings.

Side note the Wizard tricked her into doing that by saying see him over there? Yeah, he loves birds. Ohhhh u sneaky bastard.

She also finds out the Wizard and Ms. Morrible have been behind the animals losing their rights, so she steals the book and both Elphaba and Glenda run up toward the tower.

All the while the Wizard puts out a warning to everyone to not trust this Witch, she’s evil. Ms. Morrible tells the town folks the same, saying she’s a Wicked Witch. Don’t believe her lies, go after her guards unless u still want your jobs!

Oh this is horrible, so the film ends with Glenda giving Elphaba a broom that’s nearby so she can fly off on it, Glenda can’t go with her so she stays behind.

The guards make it up and surround them but Elphaba starts to sing and she flies off on the broom, it’s such a gorgeous ending.

And yes this is where the film ends, with Elphaba being framed as the Wicked Witch and everyone is against her. Oh, also Fiyero hears about this and goes on a horse to possibly go help her out.

The end, is to be continued. Yeah wow is right, I’m super stoked for Part 2 which comes out later this year at the end of November.
____________________________________________________

Now spoilers ahead for Part 2 that hasn’t been released yet, yeah I spoiled what is gonna happen in Part 2 to myself I just couldn’t help it.

Here are the highlights of what happened and trust me it’s a doozy,

Fiyero gets caught by the Emerald guards and is tortured then turned into the Scarecrow, yes Fiyero becomes the Scarecrow, dun dunn dunn!

That baby lion Elphaba and Fiyero saved? Yeah, it becomes the Cowardly Lion. The lion is vindictive against Elphaba even though she saved him, turns out he blames her for leaving him alone and becoming Cowardly, dun dun dun!

In a ditch effort to get Boq to love Elphabas sister, her sister decides to use a spell book to get him to love her. Instead, she accidentally makes his heart grow bigger to the point it explodes and as he is dying, Elphaba comes to save him. He gets turned into the Tinman, dunn dunn dunnn!

Remember how in The Wizard Of Oz how Dorothy’s house lands on the Wicked Witch’s sister? Well, that might not been an accident.

Turns out Ms. Morrible comes up with a plan to lure Elphaba out, the way she does that is by putting her sister in danger.

So she used her storm-controlling abilities (which in Wicked Part 1, it shows she has powers to control the weather, nice foreshadowing).

To summon a tornado that drags Dorothy’s house into Oz and lands on Elphabas sister killing her, all to lure out Elphaba, dun dunn dunn! Also, that’s pure evil.

Remember how the Witch dies in the original Wizard Of Oz,  by melting? Turns out she doesn’t die. She instead escapes in a trapdoor when she is quote-on-quote melting, as Dorothy and the gang are about to leave.

Scarecrow stays behind for a few minutes to make sure Elphaba gets out safe and she escapes Salley to live another day, yayyyyyyy! Especially after finding out her origins in this film I now root for Elphaba.

Glenda gets justice and gets Ms. Morrible arrested for the murder of Elphabas sister, good she deserves it.

Final twist which I saved until now. Turns out Elphaba’s real father is The Wizard, dun dun Dunn! Yeah, that mysterious man at the beginning turned out to be her biological father.

The man who had a one-night off stance with her mother, yeah he doesn’t find out about Elphaba being his daughter until after she quote on quote dies. He’s ashamed because if he knew this he’d have her work with him.

Glenda banishes the Wizard to leave Oz and never return If y’all can’t tell. Wicked Part 2 is more Wizard Of Oz heavy-focused. We get

Dorothy

Tinman

Scarecrow

Cowardly Lion

Glenda is the Good Witch.

BTW this puts things in a whole new light, in the Wizard Of Oz why did she refuse to give her best friend her sister’s slippers?

Why she was like begone Witch, these aren’t yours. They are now Dorothy’s? Such a good friend huh? Also since those slippers are Elphaba’s sisters, all she wants is it be given to her. Yeah just let Elphaba take it.

Anyway the end, hope y’all enjoyed this review, can’t wait to see y’all for Wicked For Good or Wicked Part 2. See y’all next time.