Admittedly, adaptations must satisfy fans of the stage show, striking a balance between preserving the brilliance of key moments while fleshing out the world of the musical enough to make it come to life on screen. In Wicked and Wicked: For Good, the ready availability of CGI makes it easy to give life to the vibrant world of Oz, but can film capture the magic of the storytelling that takes place on stage? As a fan of the musical, I think that the Wicked films are an example of how an adaptation can both be loyal to the original and transcend the natural limits of presenting a fantasy world on stage. Director John M. Chu’s inclusion of new songs and moments that are unexplored on stage feel like natural extensions that add to the well-loved story without detracting from or sacrificing what makes the musical so wonderful.
A huge point of the adaptation’s success for me is its incredible loyalty to the musical’s script. Instead of reworking the entirety of the writing, Chu clearly recognised the importance of many interactions and jokes from the musical, which retain their brilliance on film. What remains witty writing for new viewers also acts as a link to the original musical for fans that does not go unnoticed or unappreciated. Preserving these fan-favourite lines clearly establishes the duology not as films loosely based on the concept of the show, but truly as a transfer of the original musical to film.
...shows a true desire to mimic the staging choices of the original...
The capabilities of special effects allows the film to bring to life moments that the original musical had to find creative alternatives to stage, like Oz’s animals and Elphaba’s flight in Act One’s finale. Subsequently, Chu’s refusal to use CGI to present Elphaba’s ‘death’ is commendable. The musical stages Elphaba’s faked death by having Glinda upstage watching a series of shadows on a white sheet and the film cleverly repurposes this same shadow sequence against a castle wall, while Glinda watches from through a closet door. Although this is a seemingly insignificant detail, it arguably shows a true desire to mimic the staging choices of the original, using shadows so audiences can see Elphaba’s death from Glinda’s perspective but also as an act Elphaba herself must stage. Refusing to sacrifice the impact of this moment to the ease of special effects makes it more powerful from a fan’s perspective.
Wicked and Wicked: For Good stand apart from other musical adaptations for their incredible attention to detail and for the extreme care taken by actors and producers alike for preserving the spirit and content of the original musical. In an era when it can feel like adaptations are made for money or in the absence of original film ideas, the staggering accuracy of the duology suggests these films have been adapted not for the sake of it, but because there is more to the story that needed to be told.