Wicked: Part I (2024) – incl. musical & book comparisons

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[00:00:46] Welcome to the Lorehounds where we're taking you on a broomstick ride with a view of Oz for our Wicked one shot.

[00:00:53] I'm Alicia.

[00:00:54] I'm Marilyn.

[00:00:55] And I'm Nicole.

[00:00:56] And it's a Nevermind the Lorehounds and Rituals crossover event.

[00:01:02] Well done.

[00:01:03] Well done, Alicia.

[00:01:05] But we're here, of course, to talk about the new movie musical Wicked part one.

[00:01:10] And just FYI up front, our spoiler policy is that we will be starting with spoiler free hot takes.

[00:01:17] Talk a little bit about the background.

[00:01:19] And then after that, once we get into spoilers, we can we can talk obviously the movie that we've seen the first half of the musical and associated book.

[00:01:28] We can talk anything we want about the Wizard of Oz, Wiz or previous incarnations of this story.

[00:01:33] But we will not talk about the second half of the musical or the second half of the book.

[00:01:38] And there's a special section at the end, which I will timestamp in the notes where I will stick around and just point out a few things from the film that are kind of nods to the second half of the book.

[00:01:51] OK. Sounds good. Awesome.

[00:01:55] The story, just a log line real quick.

[00:01:58] This is the true story of Elphaba Throp, known to most as the Wicked Witch of the West and her friendship with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

[00:02:07] Marilyn, you haven't seen the stage musical, right?

[00:02:10] So this was your introduction to this version of the story?

[00:02:13] Yes, it absolutely was.

[00:02:14] I did try the book briefly and couldn't couldn't stick the opening part, which is really depressing.

[00:02:20] But I know you're going to talk about that later.

[00:02:22] Yeah.

[00:02:23] All my students, particularly the ones in the witchcraft class, were really keen on me because to read this and learn.

[00:02:29] I love it.

[00:02:30] They thought it was fantastic.

[00:02:31] But no, I just couldn't do it.

[00:02:34] Wizard of Oz, of course, the film iconic.

[00:02:39] Right.

[00:02:39] Definitely a part of my my zeitgeist, my background.

[00:02:44] And I only ever read the first Wizard of Oz book, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.

[00:02:52] And there's like 40 of them.

[00:02:53] But I think only about 14 or so were actually written by Elphraig Thorn.

[00:02:57] Mm hmm.

[00:02:58] But there's so many Wizard of Oz movie Easter eggs in this.

[00:03:03] It was just really a lot of fun.

[00:03:04] And I'm never going to remember all of them.

[00:03:05] But the whole opening Munchkin land scene.

[00:03:08] Right.

[00:03:09] The yellow brick road, the flying monkeys.

[00:03:11] Oz's character from the get go to my mind is almost identical to the one in the movie, except that he's nastier.

[00:03:18] Wicked, which is appropriate.

[00:03:21] And of course, the ruby slippers.

[00:03:23] Mm hmm.

[00:03:24] Silver like the book.

[00:03:25] Yeah.

[00:03:26] Yeah.

[00:03:26] Yeah.

[00:03:27] It is an interesting how they have both.

[00:03:29] We'll see.

[00:03:30] So, yeah.

[00:03:31] Do you want me to talk about Wizard of Oz a little bit?

[00:03:34] The film itself?

[00:03:34] Yes.

[00:03:35] I just want to point out one thing real quick.

[00:03:37] So you said the name L. Frank Baum, who's wrote The Wizard of Oz.

[00:03:40] Do you notice that if you say it really fast, it becomes Elphaba?

[00:03:44] Oh, interesting.

[00:03:46] Yeah.

[00:03:46] That's where the name comes from.

[00:03:48] No kidding.

[00:03:50] Wow.

[00:03:51] Is that ever a great hot take?

[00:03:53] Well done, you.

[00:03:54] Mm hmm.

[00:03:55] So, yeah, the The Wizard of Oz book came out in 1900 and the critics weren't all that keen on it because at this point children's literature was still in something of a moral phase.

[00:04:06] And they viewed fantasy with suspicion and didn't want the notion of good witches out there, even though clearly the bad witch was very bad in the film.

[00:04:13] I mean, in the book.

[00:04:14] Excuse me.

[00:04:16] He was something of a socialist.

[00:04:18] And I think that also led to people not really wanting to introduce this to children at large.

[00:04:25] Right.

[00:04:25] And as I said, he only wrote, I think it was the 14 of the eventual 40 books.

[00:04:32] I kind of think of it as the precursor to the Nancy Deuce indication.

[00:04:36] Yeah.

[00:04:37] Because it had multiple authors over the course of its lifespan and really fascinating.

[00:04:43] I don't know of anybody who's read all of them, but it might be an interesting study sometime.

[00:04:49] But, you know, obviously people came around.

[00:04:51] I'm sure the what was it?

[00:04:53] 42 film had a lot to do with that.

[00:04:56] And the Library of Congress has declared this work to be America's greatest and best loved homegrown fairy tale.

[00:05:03] And they did that in the year 2000.

[00:05:06] So you want to hear my hot take?

[00:05:08] Go.

[00:05:09] You both have to tell me if you agree or not.

[00:05:12] But I like The Wizard of Oz world more than Alice in Wonderland.

[00:05:18] Oof.

[00:05:20] I'm not sure I agree.

[00:05:22] I like The Wizard of Oz world quite a bit.

[00:05:24] I need to learn more about it.

[00:05:26] I didn't realize that there were so many books.

[00:05:28] I'm just learning this now.

[00:05:29] Right.

[00:05:29] No, yeah.

[00:05:30] So I think I might need a deep dive to be able to like back up my, but I just love the Alice in Wonderland world and the topsy turkiness of it all.

[00:05:39] But I'm starting to kind of fall in love with this Wizard of Oz universe.

[00:05:42] And I think I want to explore it more.

[00:05:45] Yeah, it's really hard to say because I know Alice in Wonderland was part of my childhood.

[00:05:52] It was read to me.

[00:05:53] And then I probably read it myself.

[00:05:56] I think my challenge with it is, and I'm speaking just the book now.

[00:06:01] Remember, there's also the film treatments and so forth.

[00:06:05] It really does seem to be written for the grownups in the room.

[00:06:09] Mm hmm.

[00:06:10] And I detect I was able to detect that sort of thing pretty early on as a kid.

[00:06:14] Maybe that's why I like it.

[00:06:15] Yeah, maybe that's why you like it.

[00:06:16] I didn't.

[00:06:17] I didn't like it in that respect.

[00:06:18] I certainly like all the imagery and so forth.

[00:06:22] I might have been a little disappointed that it was all a dream.

[00:06:26] Hmm.

[00:06:27] That's something that Tolkien, that's something Tolkien really dislikes, by the way.

[00:06:31] He says if it's a dream, it's not fantasy.

[00:06:33] But then, you know, it does in the subsequent books that I think I like actually the subsequent books more than the first one.

[00:06:41] I've read like the first I don't know how many like ages ago, but it gets more interesting when you know she goes back to the world and you get more into like Asma and the tick tock characters.

[00:06:55] Okay, you're speaking of us now.

[00:06:57] I was speaking of Wonderland.

[00:06:58] Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

[00:06:59] Oh, yeah.

[00:07:00] Okay.

[00:07:00] That's okay.

[00:07:02] So, um, Oz.

[00:07:04] Yes, I think I'm almost positive.

[00:07:07] I've read I saw in the movie before I read the book.

[00:07:11] But I really liked reading the book.

[00:07:12] I liked having the contrast, but I was certainly older than I was when I saw Alice in Wonderland.

[00:07:17] So it's really hard at this stage of the game because there's so many versions of these tales.

[00:07:23] Mm hmm.

[00:07:24] And one can really influence another in your mind and experience.

[00:07:30] And it's kind of like the oh, no, that happened in the book, didn't it not in the film?

[00:07:33] You know, yeah, common occurrence because Nicole, you know this, but I always told my students

[00:07:38] as well, the part of your brain that remembers the amygdala is much more trained to vision

[00:07:45] and to text.

[00:07:46] Mm hmm.

[00:07:47] And it's also right close to the emotional part of the brain.

[00:07:51] Yeah.

[00:07:51] And so if if you are seeing something that's giving you strong emotions, it's just going

[00:07:55] to imprint a lot more strongly than words on a text.

[00:07:58] The amygdala is right.

[00:08:00] I'm going to get nerdy for a minute, but go, go, go.

[00:08:03] The amygdala is right next to the hippocampus.

[00:08:06] And the hippocampus is what like takes our memories and like finds kind of like a filing

[00:08:12] cabinet in our brain to put it in.

[00:08:13] So when our amygdala is heightened, when we're really emotional, that hippocampus is like

[00:08:18] working overdrive too.

[00:08:20] It's like when you're, I tell my students, it's like when your next door neighbor's yelling,

[00:08:24] like you feel upset too.

[00:08:25] Sure.

[00:08:26] So when the amygdala is yelling, the hippocampus is like working hard to put everything in

[00:08:29] its place ferociously.

[00:08:32] And sometimes in those moments that like files them in the wrong place or kind of misremember

[00:08:38] certain things.

[00:08:39] Yeah.

[00:08:40] But we do, our brains are definitely wired to remember narrative over a fact and over

[00:08:46] like sequence.

[00:08:47] Right.

[00:08:47] Yeah.

[00:08:48] Okay.

[00:08:48] Yeah.

[00:08:48] Yeah.

[00:08:49] Yeah.

[00:08:50] It's really cool.

[00:08:52] Brains.

[00:08:53] So on the whole, brains are, brains are, wow.

[00:08:56] The best.

[00:08:58] They're, they're also evil goblins.

[00:09:00] Yeah.

[00:09:02] That's another podcast.

[00:09:04] I think on the whole, I'm, I know the wizard of Oz.

[00:09:08] Well, no, and that's not true.

[00:09:10] I just, I encounter the different ages.

[00:09:12] I, I don't, I'm not going to put one over the other.

[00:09:14] They're really, they each have their own beauty and strengths.

[00:09:18] So what, what, um, sticking spoiler free for now, what are you, what's your hot take

[00:09:24] on the overall film?

[00:09:25] Your high level thoughts.

[00:09:27] Oh, the film is fantastic.

[00:09:28] It's, it's, I went to Broadway musicals as a kid.

[00:09:31] We lived in there outside New York city.

[00:09:33] So that's been part of my zeitgeist.

[00:09:34] I'm not usually all that keen on movies, having people suddenly break into song.

[00:09:40] Unless it's a Disney cartoon, which I don't really do much anymore.

[00:09:44] Or, um, you know, it's a musical it's intended to that way.

[00:09:48] So films of musicals have always been fine for me.

[00:09:52] And, uh, wow.

[00:09:53] Talk about spectacle.

[00:09:55] Mm-hmm.

[00:09:55] There's one scene in a library that I don't know how much it is, but it's just, oh, wow.

[00:10:01] I was just, this is cool.

[00:10:04] Someone's been heavy in the promos.

[00:10:06] So yeah.

[00:10:07] They, they know that they did something cool.

[00:10:08] Well, why wouldn't it be?

[00:10:08] Why wouldn't it be?

[00:10:09] Yeah.

[00:10:09] I like the exploration of the characters.

[00:10:11] I had some uncertainties, which we'll talk about more, but overall.

[00:10:17] Yeah.

[00:10:17] I mean, I don't have to recommend it too highly because the critics are already going wild

[00:10:22] and the thoughts offices are growing wild and clearly everybody's like, okay, this is the

[00:10:26] one to see.

[00:10:27] Yeah.

[00:10:28] Yeah.

[00:10:29] And, and Nicole, I know you must like this film because you convinced Mark to do a Never

[00:10:33] Mind the Music episode about Defying Gravity.

[00:10:35] I convinced Mark.

[00:10:37] It didn't take much convincing because he loves a challenge.

[00:10:39] And if I kind of prompt him, he'll be like, okay, he'll like deep dive.

[00:10:45] Like he's been listening to every version of Defying Gravity that he can find, like trying

[00:10:49] to analyze it.

[00:10:50] Okay.

[00:10:50] He was like concerned about me coming on this podcast today because he thought that I would,

[00:10:59] I'm going to read you from some text messages.

[00:11:02] Um, I'm crying about how you're doing this podcast.

[00:11:07] Um, you betrayed me by doing this podcast.

[00:11:11] Save your witty banter.

[00:11:14] Compartmentalize your witty banter.

[00:11:17] So I need to save all of my Defying Gravity talk for our kind of, no, I understand.

[00:11:25] But yes, I am.

[00:11:27] Uh, I love musical theater.

[00:11:29] I have a, I'll say I have a background in it.

[00:11:31] That's overselling myself.

[00:11:32] Uh, I was did drama in high school, but I love it.

[00:11:35] Same.

[00:11:35] That's a background.

[00:11:36] It's a background.

[00:11:37] And I love going to, I go to musicals a lot.

[00:11:41] Um, especially recently more and more.

[00:11:44] And I love, um, when they turn into a movie, I just love it so much because it's much more

[00:11:50] accessible for everybody.

[00:11:52] And you can do things in cinema that you can't do on the stage.

[00:11:57] Um, and I think that they did a really, really great job, um, with this specifically.

[00:12:04] And the fact that they like live saying all the songs when they filmed it is just really

[00:12:09] amazing.

[00:12:09] And like, you never see that.

[00:12:11] It's incredible.

[00:12:12] And yeah, there's just like this.

[00:12:14] And conversely, like, obviously you can do stuff in a stage show that you can't do in

[00:12:18] a film, but I think that it just gives some liberties, um, in a way that's really nice.

[00:12:24] Despite having a, say background in musical theater, I've never seen the true stage production

[00:12:31] of wicked.

[00:12:32] So I, I know that you were just the pink and green slime.

[00:12:36] No.

[00:12:37] So you gave a little bit of a pause when I said, like, I don't want to stick around for

[00:12:42] the spoilers and it's because I've only seen wicked junior.

[00:12:46] So that's like, what's that?

[00:12:49] I, so they do this thing for kids, like children's theater that they'll scrub it a little bit and

[00:12:57] make it shorter and simpler.

[00:12:59] So like kids theater can produce wicked.

[00:13:03] I like my daughter's auditioning for Beetlejuice junior next week.

[00:13:08] Okay.

[00:13:08] So like they take it and they like PG it or G rating it.

[00:13:13] So there might be a lot in this in wicked, the full show that I don't know because I've

[00:13:19] only seen the junior version.

[00:13:21] So they start them early.

[00:13:23] I thought the full show was the junior version compared to the books.

[00:13:27] But so here's my question.

[00:13:29] Do, do you think that the movie is child friendly?

[00:13:33] Like what age would you say is appropriate for a child to go?

[00:13:38] Well, we took our 10 year old to it.

[00:13:41] Okay.

[00:13:42] And I, I can't stop being a teacher.

[00:13:46] So I scaffolded it for her a little bit.

[00:13:48] Like, especially after we talked about like, you know, do you see it?

[00:13:54] I explained to her what labeling theory is and like a very kid friendly way.

[00:13:58] Like, do you know that like, she wasn't, well, we can talk about it later, but that she was labeled a certain way.

[00:14:04] And you know, what, how bullying matters and things like that.

[00:14:09] She had questions about the first scene.

[00:14:14] And we'll talk about that.

[00:14:16] Like what was happening when having a baby and things like that.

[00:14:20] So there were some gaps there, but I did think compared to what I know about the books, the film was definitely more kid friendly.

[00:14:27] Oh yeah.

[00:14:28] Oh, for sure.

[00:14:29] Then the books.

[00:14:30] And it's, it's marketed that way.

[00:14:32] Um, you know, she's, my daughter's a big Ariana Grande fan, and she was like, Oh my gosh, she's in this movie.

[00:14:39] She was fantastic.

[00:14:41] She was perfect.

[00:14:42] She was perfect.

[00:14:43] And like, so funny.

[00:14:44] I couldn't stop laughing at everything that came out of her mouth.

[00:14:48] Um, so is it kid friendly?

[00:14:50] I think so.

[00:14:51] And I'm glad that they made it kid friendly because I think that it helped just expose kids to this world.

[00:14:57] It's just, it's really fantastic and magical.

[00:14:59] And they deserve it too.

[00:15:01] Has she watched the Wizard of Oz movie before your daughter?

[00:15:05] She has.

[00:15:06] So we got home from wicked and then she went on a deep dive.

[00:15:10] Okay.

[00:15:10] And she's like, Oh, like, well, let's watch this movie.

[00:15:13] But because she has like a tick tock brain, um, the pacing is so slow for her.

[00:15:20] Um, interesting.

[00:15:21] And I, we're seeing that, right.

[00:15:24] That like, it's just, isn't moving quick enough and isn't shiny enough.

[00:15:28] So I think she needs a little bit of time for that.

[00:15:31] She wants to read the books.

[00:15:33] She wants to see the whiz, which I think is a nice next step.

[00:15:37] Um, definitely.

[00:15:38] Yeah.

[00:15:39] Yeah.

[00:15:39] Yeah.

[00:15:40] She's probably a little young for the books, but yeah, for the whiz.

[00:15:43] For sure.

[00:15:43] Yeah.

[00:15:44] Definitely young for the books.

[00:15:46] One interesting thing about that whole child friendly piece.

[00:15:49] I vividly remember watching it on a TV set in the 1960s.

[00:15:55] Um, probably like, let's see.

[00:15:58] Um, could only be like 62 or three or four.

[00:16:03] And of course the big stick they have where they go from black and white to color.

[00:16:07] Mm hmm.

[00:16:08] They were so proud that this is the first, one of the first early color movies.

[00:16:13] And they wanted to do that to emphasize the drabness of Kansas versus the brilliance of, of Oz.

[00:16:18] Um, and so there's this commentator, um, talking directly to the audience before the film even starts.

[00:16:29] And he explains that, you know, don't worry.

[00:16:31] It's not your TV set broken.

[00:16:33] It's the, they did it on purpose.

[00:16:34] Oh, and by the way, right before we start, there's this really big why.

[00:16:39] And then it gives a really big growl, but don't be afraid.

[00:16:43] It's just a little pussycat.

[00:16:48] Yeah.

[00:16:48] When we watched the wizard of Oz, um, her and her friend were watching it and they were like very interested in the idea that it was the first movie that had like real color in it.

[00:16:58] And they like couldn't get over what it must've been like.

[00:17:01] And they really were, I mean, I'll say they were looking at it through like with a really great historical perspective, but.

[00:17:06] Well, that's good.

[00:17:07] Sometimes that helps.

[00:17:09] That helps.

[00:17:10] But those are my words.

[00:17:13] Uh, so obviously then your daughter must've liked the, um, must've liked wicked.

[00:17:19] And if she wanted to go home and deep dive into it, what did you think?

[00:17:23] I, I loved it.

[00:17:25] I knew I was going to love it.

[00:17:26] It would take a lot for me to not like it just because I love.

[00:17:31] I just, this whole world.

[00:17:32] Um, I thought the music was great.

[00:17:35] I thought the acting was great.

[00:17:37] Like the way it was filmed was awesome.

[00:17:40] Um, I loved, loved, loved, like thinking of the arc of wicked compared to what's happening politically now and making connections now about how.

[00:17:53] Uh, we marginalized certain populations and set certain populations as outcasts and we need to like.

[00:17:59] Find a voice to support those folks.

[00:18:02] And I, I just kept seeing a lot of connections and I was really, um, kind of tearing up to think like how perfect this is for people to see right now.

[00:18:11] Yeah.

[00:18:11] And whether or not they make those connections, it's fine.

[00:18:13] I know what's happening subconsciously.

[00:18:16] Sure.

[00:18:16] But like, just that it's kind of in the ether now, I think is really important.

[00:18:21] And I'm not sure if that was the motivation.

[00:18:25] Um, but it really, that really mattered to me and watching it.

[00:18:29] Um, I thought it was great.

[00:18:31] I have such a crush on Jonathan Bailey.

[00:18:34] Yeah.

[00:18:34] To see him like dance.

[00:18:36] He was great.

[00:18:36] Um, to see him like sing and dance and just be handsome.

[00:18:42] I was like very interested in that.

[00:18:43] And I thought the casting was awesome.

[00:18:46] I can't say enough things about it.

[00:18:47] I loved it.

[00:18:47] I'll talk about it all day.

[00:18:49] Literally.

[00:18:51] Good thing you're here.

[00:18:52] Yeah.

[00:18:52] Right.

[00:18:54] Um, yeah.

[00:18:55] So I came into wicked first through the books.

[00:18:58] I was just, I was a big Gregory Maguire fan when I was like a teens and twenties.

[00:19:03] And now I'm, I'm getting back into his books.

[00:19:04] I'm like, yeah, these are great.

[00:19:06] Um, so wicked was his first big book.

[00:19:11] It was released in 1995.

[00:19:12] So I guess that was the first one I read, I'm sure.

[00:19:15] And you know, I just, I liked his other books that I really like.

[00:19:19] I recommend, you know, like confessions of an ugly stepsister is a re-imagining of Cinderella,

[00:19:24] but set in Harlem and as in the Dutch Harlem during the tulip bulb crisis, you know,

[00:19:30] and he has like mirror mirror with the Borgias.

[00:19:32] Um, so it's no white with the Borgias.

[00:19:35] And, and he has like lost like combines Dickens and, uh, Jack the Ripper.

[00:19:41] So yeah, he, I was really into his books.

[00:19:44] And then suddenly I was one day, I guess it was in 2003.

[00:19:47] I was walking down the street in New York and I just saw a billboard for this musical.

[00:19:53] And I stopped in my tracks.

[00:19:54] It's like,

[00:19:58] so I was actually, I had to go back to Philadelphia and finish my last year of college.

[00:20:02] But then when I moved in 2004, I made sure that I got to see it.

[00:20:07] And, um, I, so I saw it after Kristen Chenoweth left, but while a Dina Mazzell, uh, was still in, in the cast.

[00:20:15] And yeah, I just, it was, it's such a completely different thing from the book, which I'll talk about more in a second.

[00:20:23] But, um, a, it's just a completely different tone.

[00:20:26] But I also, then I loved, you know, I love it for its own thing.

[00:20:31] Cause especially in the back half, which I'll mention some more later.

[00:20:34] Um, they make a lot of changes that are, that are like, oh wait, whiplash.

[00:20:40] Like, and then you realize, oh, they, how they are pulling the story together in a new way.

[00:20:44] And I just think when an app adaptation does that, it's lovely.

[00:20:47] Yeah.

[00:20:48] Yeah.

[00:20:49] And they, you know, brightened it up and yeah.

[00:20:51] Um, one of the things I was teaching in my, uh, fairytale classes was how an adaptation reflects the culture that's doing the adapting.

[00:21:00] Mm hmm.

[00:21:01] And asking why did they make these changes?

[00:21:04] Yeah.

[00:21:04] What was the intention?

[00:21:05] And, uh, get a lot of interesting discussions around that.

[00:21:09] Yeah, exactly.

[00:21:10] That is really interesting.

[00:21:12] I'm, I'm wondering how, you know, I'd like to hear more differences from the book cause I haven't read the book yet.

[00:21:19] Okay.

[00:21:19] Um, I, I'd love to hear you get into that.

[00:21:22] All right.

[00:21:22] We're going to get into, um, just before that, just my, my quick hot takes on the film itself is I also unsurprisingly loved it.

[00:21:33] Imagine my shock.

[00:21:35] I mean, you know, the production design, I can't stop thinking about the costuming, like just the details.

[00:21:41] I was just getting, my eyes were getting lost in all the details of, of, um, like, like how they have the same school uniforms more or less, but they all have different variations of it.

[00:21:52] I really noticed that too.

[00:21:53] And it made me wonder if they were making comments about gender variation.

[00:21:57] Mm hmm.

[00:21:59] Well, certainly.

[00:21:59] I forgot to note that.

[00:22:01] Oh, I'll make a note from my future discussion.

[00:22:03] They gender swapped one of the characters from the musical in the book, Fanny, uh, the one played by Bowen Yang.

[00:22:08] Interesting.

[00:22:10] But yeah, the, the voices, the casting, it was just all perfect.

[00:22:15] Um, I teared up when Glinda teared up in the opening number and then I was bawling at the end.

[00:22:21] I really loved, I giggled pretty much every time they did a word pronunciation.

[00:22:26] Like, they just did it so perfectly.

[00:22:29] Is that in the book?

[00:22:30] Just like blended it.

[00:22:31] No, not really.

[00:22:33] Interesting.

[00:22:33] So it's a whole new thing with the film.

[00:22:35] Huh.

[00:22:36] Yeah.

[00:22:36] Um, I can't remember, is it in the musical?

[00:22:39] I can't remember.

[00:22:40] But yeah, I just thought the, the movie was just a perfectly exactly the way it should be.

[00:22:44] I can't wait for part two.

[00:22:46] Um, and it was, I love that they divided it in half.

[00:22:50] Do you, do either of you have feelings about it ending on to be continued?

[00:22:57] I loved that it did.

[00:22:58] When I first was going to see the film, I was like two hours and 40 minutes is long.

[00:23:04] I was like, how am I going to, I can't sit still that long.

[00:23:07] And definitely my 10 year old can't, but it flew by and I wanted more.

[00:23:13] Right.

[00:23:14] And I, but I think that, um, it was great to leave it on it to be continued.

[00:23:19] And it was really smart marketing.

[00:23:21] Now we're going to be talking about it for a year and like waiting for the second half.

[00:23:24] So I think that that was smart on their part.

[00:23:27] Um, but I think.

[00:23:28] There's so much content and so much nuance that we need time to digest a little bit before

[00:23:33] we see the second half.

[00:23:35] Yeah.

[00:23:35] And I think it's going to give people time to read the book if they want to, so they

[00:23:39] can be maybe disappointed by the second half.

[00:23:42] I don't know.

[00:23:44] It's just very different.

[00:23:45] I'm not saying it's disappointing.

[00:23:46] They just combine things, but they combine things in the first half.

[00:23:49] We'll talk about it, but.

[00:23:51] Yeah.

[00:23:51] Am I correct that they ended it where the Broadway play ended at act one?

[00:23:56] Yeah.

[00:23:57] And I, and one of the things they said, I mean, one, they definitely, they want it.

[00:24:01] Cause the Broadway play it's.

[00:24:04] I rewatched, uh, um, bootleg recently.

[00:24:07] I'm sorry.

[00:24:08] I don't have, it's not playing locally.

[00:24:10] Excuse me.

[00:24:10] Yes.

[00:24:12] But, um, it's, it, I did that right after rereading the book and it was like giving

[00:24:17] me whiplash how fast the story goes.

[00:24:19] So I really am glad they split it in half and gave it more room to breathe and added

[00:24:24] some more elements.

[00:24:25] Like for instance, seeing Elphaba's childhood a little bit, things like that.

[00:24:30] Um, that's a major section of the book.

[00:24:32] Yeah.

[00:24:33] I really think that it was, um, a reflection of its Broadway origins in that final song.

[00:24:43] I mean, that's going to be the one that everybody is going to be talking about, including nevermind

[00:24:46] the music.

[00:24:47] Mm hmm.

[00:24:48] I don't see how they could have had anything come after that and not have it, you know,

[00:24:54] be a little flat.

[00:24:55] Exactly.

[00:24:56] A little stale.

[00:24:57] So yeah, they're ending, they're ending on the peak.

[00:24:59] So great.

[00:25:01] Perfect.

[00:25:01] Wonderful.

[00:25:02] And thank goodness.

[00:25:02] It's only one year for the next.

[00:25:04] Yeah.

[00:25:04] That's true.

[00:25:06] Yeah.

[00:25:06] It's not November already.

[00:25:08] Yeah.

[00:25:08] Think of all the extra revenue for rewatches, you know?

[00:25:11] Yeah.

[00:25:11] And they, they must've filmed it, right?

[00:25:13] Like they have it all filmed somewhere.

[00:25:15] They must've.

[00:25:16] I really hope they did.

[00:25:17] Cause you know, you can't really count on everybody looking exactly the same a year

[00:25:23] from now and acting the same and all the rest of it.

[00:25:25] So.

[00:25:26] Right.

[00:25:26] Well, in order with, with that high, you want to go forward from that and tell the

[00:25:30] rest of the story.

[00:25:31] So for them, it would definitely, I think the motivation.

[00:25:34] And, and the special effects, they must already be about to start though.

[00:25:37] So yeah.

[00:25:39] Seriously.

[00:25:39] It takes almost a year for a lot of special effects, heavy films just for those.

[00:25:44] So yeah.

[00:25:45] Yeah.

[00:25:46] They must've filmed them both at the same time.

[00:25:48] Yeah.

[00:25:49] Well, if they can take, you can make monkeys fly.

[00:25:52] You can take some wrinkles.

[00:25:53] Of our own.

[00:25:54] Our face.

[00:25:55] Right.

[00:25:56] Hollywood magic.

[00:25:57] Fair point.

[00:25:58] Fair point.

[00:25:59] So.

[00:26:00] Nicole, to answer your question about the book.

[00:26:02] I am going to go.

[00:26:04] I am going to make some comparisons as we go through to the book.

[00:26:07] I couldn't help it, but I just have to say the film is very much based on the stage musical

[00:26:11] rather than the book, but it does like take the stage musical and expands on it and adds

[00:26:16] more nods to the book story.

[00:26:19] So it's very different.

[00:26:20] Um, I'll highlight a few of those for those who are curious about the book.

[00:26:26] Yeah.

[00:26:26] It was Gregory Maguire's first adult novel.

[00:26:29] He wrote novels for kids only exclusively before that.

[00:26:32] And as we kind of said, emphasis on adult, it's much more darker.

[00:26:37] It's much darker.

[00:26:38] There's, um, I mean, it's people, people who complain about it most often complain about

[00:26:44] some sexy scenes, but like, come on, if you've read a romance novel, you're fine.

[00:26:49] Um, and yeah, for the musical, obviously sanitize the story for some family audiences.

[00:26:56] And, and of course they just truncated a lot.

[00:26:58] They chopped out storylines and pop, um, and plot lines and combined characters.

[00:27:03] And yeah, I'll point out a few of those, but, um, it's just interesting.

[00:27:08] You know, you were talking about the political side of the movie that definitely comes straight

[00:27:12] from the novel, which obviously is Marilyn.

[00:27:14] You pointed out comes from the original wizard of Oz.

[00:27:17] Uh, so just a sample from the book that this was published 30 years ago, but it feels apt

[00:27:23] today.

[00:27:24] This is something that Bach is saying in an alternate future timeline that doesn't exist

[00:27:28] in the musical.

[00:27:29] He says, I am a Munchkin Lander.

[00:27:31] He answered proudly.

[00:27:32] Look, Alfie, you've more or less convinced me what the wizard is up to the confining of

[00:27:37] animals back onto the farms to give the dissatisfied Munchkin Lander farmers the impression.

[00:27:42] He's doing something for them and also provide forced labor for the sinking of new wells.

[00:27:46] It's vile.

[00:27:48] So we see, yeah, there's too many parallels with giving the impression of doing something

[00:27:54] for them.

[00:27:55] Um, and then later there's a different conversation with the sentient cow and animals and pens

[00:28:02] have lots of time to develop theories.

[00:28:04] Said the cow.

[00:28:04] Wow.

[00:28:05] I've heard more than one clever creature draw a connection between the rise of tick tockism

[00:28:10] and the erosion of traditional animal labor.

[00:28:13] If we were made redundant in the workforce, it was only a matter of time before we'd be

[00:28:18] socially redundant too.

[00:28:21] Can someone please tell me if someone in China has read this book and latched onto the word

[00:28:28] tick tockism?

[00:28:29] I'm just, wow.

[00:28:31] It's like that ever hit me between the eyes.

[00:28:33] Right.

[00:28:34] It's like almost too on the nose, not to think of like strength theory and alternate universes

[00:28:40] and like how, I don't know.

[00:28:42] It's like, is it a simulation?

[00:28:45] Is it?

[00:28:45] Like, is that what's happening?

[00:28:47] Yes.

[00:28:47] The answer to that is yes, but.

[00:28:49] That's a different conversation.

[00:28:50] Yeah, for sure.

[00:28:51] Obvi.

[00:28:52] I haven't seen the matrix.

[00:28:53] I will confess now.

[00:28:54] One of these days I will sit down and watch it.

[00:28:56] I promise.

[00:28:57] Bring a weighted blanket.

[00:28:57] It's a sound scientific theory though.

[00:28:59] But, um, but yeah, in this case, tick tockism, they're referring to like robotics, which,

[00:29:05] but I can think of it as AI in the parlance of today.

[00:29:10] Yeah.

[00:29:10] Replaced by AI in the workforce, socially redundant too.

[00:29:13] So anyway, it's yeah.

[00:29:14] That's so the, this is why people love that book.

[00:29:18] Um, but if there is a lot of darkness, you know, Elphaba has a tough life and there's

[00:29:22] a lot of unhappy endings for different characters, but yeah, there was talk in 2009 and 2011

[00:29:30] of doing a TV adaptation of the book or the original plot, not the musical version, but we

[00:29:36] haven't heard anything since.

[00:29:37] So like fingers crossed that this film revives interest.

[00:29:40] Cause I'd really like that.

[00:29:41] We'll send it to HBO.

[00:29:42] They won't mind anything about the sex.

[00:29:44] Exactly.

[00:29:45] No, they'll love it.

[00:29:46] And they're like, Oh, you already wrote those scenes for us.

[00:29:48] Thank you.

[00:29:51] But, um, the book is actually, it's the first in a series.

[00:29:55] So there's the wicked years has four novels, wicked 1995.

[00:29:58] Then it's followed by son of a witch, a lion among men and out of Oz was in 2011.

[00:30:03] And then there's a followup trilogy, uh, called another day.

[00:30:08] And the three books in that published between 2021 and 2023.

[00:30:13] So yeah, it's, it's gone.

[00:30:15] And now this year, well, 2025, um, Gregory Maguire's publishing a new prequel called Elfie,

[00:30:23] a wicked childhood.

[00:30:24] And basically, and I have to respect this.

[00:30:26] He's like, you know, this musical things blowing up and I'm really glad that they have

[00:30:31] that version of the story, but I still want mine to be the definitive version.

[00:30:35] Right.

[00:30:36] Isn't it interesting?

[00:30:38] He's almost falling on the same pattern as Elf Frank Baum.

[00:30:42] You know, one book became so incredibly popular that he did another one and another one.

[00:30:47] And so it goes in cycles.

[00:30:51] Yeah.

[00:30:51] It was sparked to read wicked.

[00:30:53] Right.

[00:30:53] But now I see all these other books and I just don't have that kind of time.

[00:30:58] I'm halfway through a reread of the second one.

[00:31:00] And I'm, I know after I finished this book, I have to put them down because I need to pay

[00:31:04] attention to like Star Wars and Dune books and stuff.

[00:31:07] Oh, and Silo.

[00:31:08] Hmm.

[00:31:08] Yes.

[00:31:09] Well, I've read, yeah, I'm done rereading Silo for now.

[00:31:12] Um, but yeah, I just, I don't want to put them down because I'm so sucked into the world

[00:31:20] and I care about the characters so much.

[00:31:22] Mm hmm.

[00:31:24] But anyway, yeah.

[00:31:25] Novel 1995, hugely different from the, um, original novel and film, except for there's

[00:31:32] nods to both actually.

[00:31:33] So like Glinda in the wizard of Oz novel, she's from the South and there's another wicked

[00:31:39] witch in the North.

[00:31:40] And then this version Glinda is from the North, like in the film.

[00:31:46] Interesting.

[00:31:47] 39 film.

[00:31:47] Yeah.

[00:31:48] Yeah.

[00:31:49] Yeah.

[00:31:49] I had a question.

[00:31:50] Are we into spoilers yet?

[00:31:52] No, not yet.

[00:31:53] Okay.

[00:31:53] All right.

[00:31:54] I'll hold the talk.

[00:31:55] Okay.

[00:31:56] Just running through the back.

[00:31:57] So musical open on Broadway, 2003, one, three Tony's and a Grammy has broken box office

[00:32:02] records around the world.

[00:32:04] Of course there's that song.

[00:32:06] Um, what do you guys think of the other songs in the movie?

[00:32:11] I love the, I loved the other songs in the movie.

[00:32:14] And I mentioned before, like, I thought that the casting was really great.

[00:32:19] And I thought their voices really matched the tone of what I think of like the originals,

[00:32:25] um, which is the original Broadway cast.

[00:32:28] But, um, there were so, a lot of the songs have picked up a lot of popularity.

[00:32:34] It's like a funny wicked joke because of the song popular.

[00:32:38] Yeah.

[00:32:39] Yeah.

[00:32:39] Popular.

[00:32:40] On like social media and Tik Tok and things like that.

[00:32:49] Again, I can remember my students singing the songs when the Broadway first came out.

[00:32:54] Cause we had a lot of Broadway lovers that called, we still do big theater departments.

[00:32:58] So it was a big thing.

[00:33:00] It's interesting.

[00:33:00] I can remember, sorry, this is age again.

[00:33:04] I can remember when Broadway shifted from an earlier form of singing and vocalization,

[00:33:12] you know, sound of music, um, carousel, Oklahoma, that kind of thing to the belting it out phase.

[00:33:20] Mm.

[00:33:21] And I didn't like that change.

[00:33:23] I didn't like, you know, the, it, cause they all sounded the same to my ears.

[00:33:29] I wasn't familiar with, you know, the variations of it.

[00:33:31] And so it just kind of went along over time.

[00:33:34] I was, I never thought about that in the film.

[00:33:37] Right.

[00:33:37] It just wasn't an issue.

[00:33:38] You know, maybe because they were recording, they didn't have to do the belting quite so much, but it was still that same kind of.

[00:33:47] Sort of approach, which it's great.

[00:33:49] I mean, I love Wagner and opera.

[00:33:50] So what's the difference.

[00:33:51] Right.

[00:33:51] But there is a difference.

[00:33:53] So if anybody doesn't know.

[00:33:56] Um, so that speaks to me of how well they integrated the singing into the story.

[00:34:02] Yeah.

[00:34:02] And that's, what's so important to me.

[00:34:04] So often, you know, you're really drawn into the story and then, Oh, we got to sing a song now.

[00:34:07] Cause it's a music.

[00:34:08] Right.

[00:34:09] All right.

[00:34:11] These songs were a part of the story.

[00:34:14] And I think they really did that well.

[00:34:17] Yeah.

[00:34:17] It was very seamless.

[00:34:18] So it just kept like, um, progressing the plot in a very seamless way.

[00:34:23] Exactly.

[00:34:24] Exactly.

[00:34:24] Especially with the, the last song they, I was surprised they stretched it out for like 15.

[00:34:29] I'd like the song started.

[00:34:30] I was like, wait a minute.

[00:34:31] There's like 15 minutes left.

[00:34:33] I kept trying to sing along and getting like messed up, like singing along to this soundtrack

[00:34:37] in my car.

[00:34:38] I'm like, Oh wait.

[00:34:39] Okay.

[00:34:39] No, wait.

[00:34:40] No, she's revamping.

[00:34:41] Like she has to climb up to the top.

[00:34:43] But they've got a whole castle to play with.

[00:34:45] Of course it's going to take 15 minutes.

[00:34:47] So good.

[00:34:48] And I loved the song.

[00:34:49] I'm not sure if it was in the original because again, a wicked junior, but when they had all

[00:34:55] the songs this time were in the original next time there's two new ones.

[00:34:58] Yeah.

[00:34:59] That's cool.

[00:35:00] I like how they brought in.

[00:35:02] I don't know.

[00:35:03] Is this a spoiler?

[00:35:05] When they went to Oz and they had like the recap of the history of Oz and the two

[00:35:10] characters that were singing the recap.

[00:35:12] Mm hmm.

[00:35:13] Yeah.

[00:35:13] We're going to talk about that.

[00:35:14] Yeah.

[00:35:15] I love that too.

[00:35:17] I love that too.

[00:35:17] It was like so magical.

[00:35:19] And I watched, we'll talk about it later, but there was a lot of thought behind that.

[00:35:25] And I thought that that thoughtfulness was really lovely.

[00:35:27] So yeah.

[00:35:28] Yeah.

[00:35:28] And the other, the other than popular, the other one that sticks in my head is the loathing.

[00:35:33] Loathing.

[00:35:34] Anyway.

[00:35:34] I really mastered that choreography, by the way.

[00:35:39] Yay.

[00:35:39] Oh, good.

[00:35:40] So.

[00:35:41] I also had a brief career on the stage and in my early work years here in Maine, I was

[00:35:47] one of the cousins and sisters and aunts of the Admiral in, which is the Gilbert and Sullivan,

[00:36:00] HMS Pinafore, which has always all reworked into a Star Trek theme.

[00:36:05] So it's a lot of fun.

[00:36:08] A lot of fun.

[00:36:10] Yes.

[00:36:10] Very clever.

[00:36:12] Question.

[00:36:13] Are either of you familiar with the director John M. Chu's previous work?

[00:36:17] So he's in the Heights, Crazy Rich Asians, Step Up 2 and 3, not one, and some like Bieber stuff and other stuff.

[00:36:25] I loved Crazy Rich Asians.

[00:36:26] Okay.

[00:36:27] Yeah.

[00:36:27] That was fun.

[00:36:28] I actually, I actually have it on DVD.

[00:36:30] I liked in the Heights, but no, I didn't love it.

[00:36:34] Um, I'm curious to learn more about the Bieber stuff.

[00:36:38] I do have a case of Bieber fever and I'm wondering like, what?

[00:36:43] I know I'm trying to get it treated.

[00:36:45] It's a heroin disease.

[00:36:47] I have to look it up and talk about it in the, um, save, save, give that banter to Mark.

[00:36:53] Okay.

[00:36:53] I'm going to put it in our notes.

[00:36:55] So Bieber fever, Bieber.

[00:36:58] My notes to him.

[00:36:59] He's going to be so excited.

[00:36:59] He's like, what does this note mean?

[00:37:00] Yeah.

[00:37:00] He's like, what do these notes mean?

[00:37:02] They're just random thoughts that pop in my head.

[00:37:05] Bieber fever.

[00:37:07] Yeah.

[00:37:07] I was a little worried because I don't love in the Heights personally.

[00:37:12] Um, but nailed it.

[00:37:14] Nailed it.

[00:37:14] Nailed this one.

[00:37:14] Yeah.

[00:37:15] Um, the screenplay was by Winnie Holtzman who did the stage book and, uh, Dana Fox then

[00:37:20] worked with her to adapt it to screen.

[00:37:22] Uh, music was like the shit, you know, like the Broadway show by Steven Schwartz, who's

[00:37:28] also best known for like Godspell, Pippin, bunch of Disney songs.

[00:37:33] Um, we'll talk through the cast as we go.

[00:37:36] So of course, Cynthia, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are the two stars.

[00:37:45] Um, budget.

[00:37:47] What is a reported 150 million, which is always underreported, but still that's pretty modest.

[00:37:51] Huh.

[00:37:52] And then the, for a movie of this size, I mean, and then the box office so far as of, uh, this

[00:37:59] number is as of December 11th.

[00:38:01] So after it's been open 20 days in the U S but then, um, less than half that in Europe,

[00:38:08] it's almost 500 million.

[00:38:11] So it's got a long way to go in the box office.

[00:38:14] Uh, I mean, you know, it's still, it's not nearly done its run, but it's already one

[00:38:18] of the highest grossing musicals ever.

[00:38:19] Hey editor, Alicia checking in from the future to update and say that as of December 29th,

[00:38:29] the worldwide box office totals is standing above 635 million.

[00:38:34] And as of the day before this is released on December 30th, it has become the highest grossing

[00:38:41] musical movie musical of all time, um, surpassing Mamma Mia.

[00:38:46] So there we go.

[00:38:49] And it's gotten four golden globe noms already.

[00:38:52] And it's likely to be a big contender at the Oscars.

[00:38:57] So Marilyn, let me ask you as our final, final non-spoiler question to whom would you recommend

[00:39:04] this movie?

[00:39:05] Oh, pretty much anybody, but I mean, do you got to know your kids?

[00:39:09] I mean, some kids can handle it.

[00:39:10] Others can't.

[00:39:11] Um, you know, are they good enough to say, if you tell them a few things that they might

[00:39:16] see that they can say, no, I don't want to do that.

[00:39:18] Cause it's scary.

[00:39:20] Um, with that caveat.

[00:39:22] Yeah.

[00:39:23] I mean, there's a lot here for a lot of people.

[00:39:26] And again, as Library of Congress said, you know, the, the quintessential American fantasy

[00:39:30] story, although we don't see that story, which is kind of interesting.

[00:39:35] It's how Dorothy appears to be lurking in the background.

[00:39:38] They do one shot of, you know, the four of them looking for, so.

[00:39:43] She should be in part two more.

[00:39:44] Yeah.

[00:39:45] I mean, I was interested to know that.

[00:39:47] Oh, okay.

[00:39:51] So, but it's, this is, you know, the, the, uh, coming of age for a very crucial woman

[00:39:57] in the story before Dorothy came along.

[00:40:00] Right.

[00:40:01] Right.

[00:40:01] Exactly.

[00:40:01] Yeah.

[00:40:02] It's not Dorothy's story.

[00:40:03] That's for sure.

[00:40:03] Yeah.

[00:40:04] And of course, I mean, I, the equations to Harry Potter and Hogwarts and all that stuff,

[00:40:08] which I'll talk about more.

[00:40:09] Yeah.

[00:40:10] Oh.

[00:40:11] And Nicole.

[00:40:12] I would recommend it to almost anyone with the caveat of like, think of age appropriateness

[00:40:17] for certain audiences, but I was surprised.

[00:40:21] Like I wanted to see it.

[00:40:23] I'm a theater kid and my daughter's a theater kid, but I was most surprised that my husband

[00:40:28] who's like, I'll call him like a, he's a typical.

[00:40:33] A cisgendered man, macho guy.

[00:40:35] Right.

[00:40:35] It was like, we got to go see wicked.

[00:40:38] And he was like, we got to go.

[00:40:40] I bought us tickets.

[00:40:41] Like, should we wear outfits?

[00:40:44] What?

[00:40:45] What?

[00:40:45] And then he was like, you know, after wicked, he was like, we, you know, I'm trying to figure

[00:40:49] out the timeline.

[00:40:50] Cause it doesn't match up with the timeline of the wizard of Oz.

[00:40:53] And he's like looking up all these videos online of like professors dissecting like

[00:40:57] where wicked fits in like the arc of what was he's like, and you know what act two

[00:41:03] and then he like goes into like where that fits in this whole world and universe.

[00:41:06] And I was like, you are like, it's getting weird.

[00:41:09] How.

[00:41:11] Yeah.

[00:41:11] I like to see it, which I love to see it.

[00:41:14] So I think that it's, again, I like how this has made.

[00:41:19] So this is like wicked.

[00:41:20] It's like the ultimate theater nerd show.

[00:41:23] I think it's like in Les Mis status with me.

[00:41:26] Yes.

[00:41:26] Yes.

[00:41:27] Yes.

[00:41:27] And I think that it's bringing it to the masses in a way that like makes all the theater

[00:41:31] kids like feel seen and validated that like, yes, we were right.

[00:41:35] This is great.

[00:41:37] They held space for us.

[00:41:38] Yeah.

[00:41:39] I'm not supposed to talk about that on this podcast.

[00:41:41] Oh, okay.

[00:41:42] Okay.

[00:41:43] I have to, I have to think of John who's who likes to make fun of the press tour.

[00:41:50] So unhinged and awesome.

[00:41:53] I'm so into it.

[00:41:54] I was a theater kid too.

[00:41:56] So these are the.

[00:41:56] Oh my gosh.

[00:41:57] I went to school with talk.

[00:41:59] Yeah.

[00:41:59] And a lot of my students, a lot of my students were theater kids too.

[00:42:02] So this is beginning to make a lot of sense.

[00:42:06] All right.

[00:42:07] You emote.

[00:42:09] All right.

[00:42:10] So we're going to pause there, take a break.

[00:42:13] And then in the second half, we are unleashing the spoilers.

[00:42:17] So if you don't want to hear spoilers about only this first part, I will warn you before

[00:42:22] I launch into any spoilers for the second part, then check out now because part one spoilers

[00:42:27] begin right after these messages.

[00:42:29] We are Teresa and Nemo.

[00:42:40] And that's why we switched to Shopify.

[00:42:41] The platform, which we used before Shopify, has used regularly updates, which have led to

[00:42:46] some of the way that the shop didn't work.

[00:42:49] Our Nemo Boards shop makes so much better on mobile devices.

[00:42:52] And the illustrations on the boards come now much clearer, what is important to us

[00:42:57] and what our brand also makes us feel.

[00:43:00] Starte dein Testen heute, für 1 Euro pro Monat, auf Shopify.de slash radio.

[00:43:14] All right.

[00:43:14] So we're going to be talking through the major set pieces and characters of the movie.

[00:43:20] But before we do that, we heard from our Lorehounds co-host, Ron.

[00:43:24] You can find him online at Dungeons and Do-Rags.

[00:43:27] And this is what he thought.

[00:43:29] Speaking of, this is not only for women.

[00:43:32] So speaking of that, this is what Ron thought of the movie.

[00:43:35] I've never seen the musical Wicked, but I thought part one in the theater was wonderful.

[00:43:42] Ariana Grande was hilarious with the hair flips and her comical narcissism.

[00:43:49] And she did it just enough where it wasn't silly.

[00:43:53] Because that kind of thing gets silly if you don't do it right.

[00:43:56] And I thought she did it just perfectly.

[00:44:00] Cynthia Erivo was also wonderful.

[00:44:02] Just the depth of her character and just her eyes.

[00:44:07] The way she conveyed so much with her eyes, I thought was wonderful.

[00:44:11] And of course, the singing gives you goose pimples.

[00:44:15] It reframed how I look at Wizard of Oz because I don't know if this story is considered canonical or not.

[00:44:22] But let's assume just for shits and giggles it is.

[00:44:28] Obviously, it reframs the way you think of the witch because she starts out as actually a good person.

[00:44:36] A person who is fighting for the injustice of what's happening in the land of Oz.

[00:44:41] And there's a clear message about fascism and the overreach of power structures.

[00:44:51] And when I see the kind of things happening in our country today, our country being the United States.

[00:44:59] I can't help but think about some of those things when I watch this movie.

[00:45:02] But how at the end of the movie, she is demonized and called a witch because she wants to stand up.

[00:45:14] And again, it makes me think about demonizations that happen in our world when people are, when people do look different.

[00:45:27] I make a lot of content about my own personal journey as a now agnostic atheist.

[00:45:36] But I was a devout Christian for a long time.

[00:45:40] And there is a lot of demonization that happens in the United States from the evangelical right towards those in the LGBTQ community, for instance.

[00:45:51] Where they are literally called demons.

[00:45:54] And I can't help but think of that at the end of this movie when Professor Marble, Marble, I'm not quite sure how you pronounce her name.

[00:46:06] But I'm curious to see how part two is going.

[00:46:13] What's going to happen in part two.

[00:46:16] Another curious aspect with how I looked at Wizard of Oz is in the movie.

[00:46:22] Yes, she's called wicked.

[00:46:24] The wicked witch of the east and the wicked witch of the west.

[00:46:29] But if you were to look at the Wizard of Oz as the story that we know it now, as propaganda that's put out by whoever told that story, you could see wicked as this is the truth of what really happened.

[00:46:47] But the powers of Oz put out this other story.

[00:46:51] That's one way of reframing how you look at Wizard of Oz.

[00:46:54] Another way of reframing it is when you look at the motivations of the wicked witch of the west and Wizard of Oz.

[00:47:03] Because it was because she just wanted her sister's shoes.

[00:47:08] And again, I haven't seen the theater.

[00:47:12] I mean, I haven't seen yet the musical.

[00:47:14] But if I think it's a fair assumption to make as someone who's never seen the musical, that somehow there's going to be some explanation of how the Nessa character becomes the wicked witch of the east.

[00:47:28] Because they make reference to her shoes.

[00:47:31] Oh, okay.

[00:47:32] The silver slippers, which I know in the book were silver, but they were made red in the movie so that they could pop.

[00:47:40] That when you with that additional background, when you think about the movie, the wicked witch of the west just wanted her sister's shoes back after Dorothy dropped a house on her.

[00:47:51] I know she didn't do it on purpose, but.

[00:47:53] And so that motivation in and of itself is not evil.

[00:47:57] And I think she has it right to her sister's shoes.

[00:48:00] And she just wanted her sister's shoes and turned into this whole thing.

[00:48:06] So, yeah.

[00:48:09] Reframe so I look at Wizard of Oz.

[00:48:11] Anyway, love the movie.

[00:48:13] Can't wait to see what part two is like.

[00:48:17] And yeah, I think that did.

[00:48:20] I was trying to think of something clever to say at the end here, but.

[00:48:25] I have nothing else.

[00:48:27] But he said wait for after he says goodbye.

[00:48:29] That's it.

[00:48:32] Good day.

[00:48:33] What?

[00:48:34] Yeah, that's it.

[00:48:35] Bye.

[00:48:36] Oh, wait, I do have one more thing.

[00:48:40] Wizard of Oz and thinking about Glinda.

[00:48:46] It's kind of messed up that she didn't tell Dorothy at the very beginning.

[00:48:49] She could have just clicked her heels three times and gotten the hell out of there.

[00:48:55] That's kind of messed up.

[00:48:57] But knowing his backstory, I could see where I should do something like that.

[00:49:02] Okay.

[00:49:03] That was it.

[00:49:05] I'm dead.

[00:49:06] That's so funny.

[00:49:09] I'm glad he remembered what he was going to say because that's really perfect.

[00:49:14] And I love.

[00:49:15] Oh, gosh, go ahead.

[00:49:17] Sorry.

[00:49:18] I love the framing of it as propaganda put out by pro Oz.

[00:49:23] Mm hmm.

[00:49:24] The whole film, you know, the 1940s film that that's that's sweet.

[00:49:29] That is really sweet.

[00:49:31] And what do you think about the discussion of the reframing of Elphaba as you know that she's the word which is being used as a derogatory term that she claims?

[00:49:42] Well, I mean, that's so old.

[00:49:44] It's tired.

[00:49:45] Okay.

[00:49:46] You know, any woman who explained it expresses opinion displays power talks back anything soonerly that the W word is going to come at you.

[00:49:56] So, okay.

[00:49:57] Yeah.

[00:49:57] Yeah.

[00:49:58] And and in the film, it just it happens so way, you know, like, as the audience, you're so with her.

[00:50:06] Mm hmm.

[00:50:06] And then all of a sudden, like, all it takes is one.

[00:50:10] I mean, this is what it's all about, right?

[00:50:11] Like all it takes is one person in power to shift the tide.

[00:50:16] And it was just so it was an assault.

[00:50:19] So, you know, it was just so confronting so quick.

[00:50:22] And that's what made it so powerful to me when you realize, like, it only takes, you know, one powerful person to write all the more so.

[00:50:29] So, yeah, sorry.

[00:50:31] All the more so because Madame Morrible had been the one person who really seemed well did value her.

[00:50:39] But of course, it seemed like she valued her as herself when really she was just valuing her power for the purpose of being able to do these spells.

[00:50:48] And that's one of the most heartbreaking things of all.

[00:50:51] Yeah.

[00:50:52] When people who are supposed to care for you, you know, physically care, but also emotionally care, who have said, you know, spotted you, set you out as being something special.

[00:51:03] And then boom, 180 degrees.

[00:51:06] And it's just devastating.

[00:51:08] She was being groomed.

[00:51:10] I mean, she was being groomed to be put in that position to have that light carry that label.

[00:51:17] Absolutely.

[00:51:18] And it's sad.

[00:51:19] It's really sad.

[00:51:20] And I'll be interested to see how act two works that with with Glinda.

[00:51:25] Yeah.

[00:51:26] Right.

[00:51:27] So, Ron, I can assure you the book of Wicked, which is not a canon to the Frank L. Baum Wizard of Oz stuff.

[00:51:35] It's its own canon riff on it.

[00:51:38] But in that book, they do spend some time talking about why Glinda doesn't tell Dorothy about clicking her heels.

[00:51:46] Ah, I will show up in part two of the film.

[00:51:50] Yeah, I'll talk about it in the spoiler part that neither of you is going to listen to.

[00:51:55] But for anyone who is interested.

[00:52:00] But OK, so let's let's get into the different set pieces of the film.

[00:52:04] So we open at the end and that's the same way that the Broadway musical ends.

[00:52:09] Oh, sorry.

[00:52:09] Opens is though we do get this better view.

[00:52:14] That view of Munchkin land as they come in is amazing.

[00:52:17] Like they those were all real tulip field bulbs that they had very carefully timed to bloom at the same time.

[00:52:25] Oh, holy cow.

[00:52:27] Yeah.

[00:52:28] And then they that village in a bowl effect.

[00:52:31] That was really cool.

[00:52:33] And we, you know, we have to talk about Glinda and that classic dress in that bubble.

[00:52:38] Yeah, well, they couldn't present her any other way, could they?

[00:52:41] Right.

[00:52:42] Any anything you want to shout out about the opening scene, Nicole?

[00:52:45] I loved like Glinda in the bubble because in the Wizard of Oz is she, she's very ethereal, obviously, and floating and majestic.

[00:52:55] But Ariana Grande had like such more humility to her performance.

[00:53:01] And it was you could tell that she.

[00:53:06] I was kind of like an imposter, like kind of making her way through it a little bit.

[00:53:11] And I loved that there was like a vulnerability to her.

[00:53:16] And, you know, if you know the plot of what you're about to see, you can understand where that's coming from.

[00:53:21] And I just loved, I was really interested in Glinda masking her feelings.

[00:53:27] And I don't know, it was just a really lovely observation of like the human condition to me.

[00:53:33] And so I read too much into Glinda in the bubble because like she really is in a bubble, you know?

[00:53:37] No, sure.

[00:53:38] Bubble of her own thoughts and bubble of like this brainwashing that may presume she was under.

[00:53:43] So I really, you know, as usual, overanalyzed that piece.

[00:53:48] But it was, it was just visually beautiful as well.

[00:53:52] So I'm glad they lost the crown.

[00:53:56] Okay.

[00:53:57] From the, from the 1940s film.

[00:54:00] And I think that is part of what you're talking about, Nicole, is that this Glinda is not going to put on a crown.

[00:54:07] Have you seen that?

[00:54:08] There's that argument that went viral number of years ago where the guy is like, she's not a witch.

[00:54:13] She's a princess.

[00:54:14] Yes.

[00:54:17] No, I, you know, it's part of my life that I didn't.

[00:54:21] So that's, you know, you missed anything, but anyone who's curious could look that up.

[00:54:26] But yeah, in the beginning and the opening scene, like she's singing, you know, she's got this smile pace and Ariana Grande does this so well.

[00:54:33] She has a smile pace on her face.

[00:54:35] And she has to sing a song about being glad about someone who maybe people who are seeing it for the first time don't realize in the opening scene that this, how close they are, how important they are to each other in their life.

[00:54:48] And she has to be like, ding dong, the witch is dead.

[00:54:51] Smile, smile.

[00:54:52] But you can see someone says something mean about Elphaba and she just, her head just kind of like twitches that direction.

[00:54:58] Like she just does it and her eyes were watering up and my eyes were watering up.

[00:55:02] Yeah.

[00:55:02] She had to listen to those mean things.

[00:55:05] Yeah.

[00:55:05] And not only listen to them, like she was like, it felt to me that she was, she couldn't, she couldn't empathize the way that you would want to empathize when you lost, lose a friend.

[00:55:18] And that seemed like control, like she was being controlled by someone or something.

[00:55:25] Hmm.

[00:55:27] Hmm.

[00:55:27] Hmm.

[00:55:27] So that's what I read into all that, but her performance was beautiful and so nuanced in a way that you don't see from Glinda in the Wizard of Oz, right?

[00:55:37] You don't see that level of nuance.

[00:55:39] Oh gosh, no.

[00:55:39] Not at all.

[00:55:40] No, no, no.

[00:55:41] Right.

[00:55:41] So it was just such a different portrayal of a character that we all kind of know in a way that put her in three dimension.

[00:55:49] Yeah.

[00:55:49] That seemed really intriguing.

[00:55:53] That's interesting.

[00:55:53] I thought that the control was self-control.

[00:55:56] Mm hmm.

[00:55:57] I really will be interested to see how, you know, the second part handles herself.

[00:56:03] So she's clearly a different person from who we see in Chis University.

[00:56:08] So.

[00:56:09] Right.

[00:56:09] What, how did she work through all that?

[00:56:12] Oh, life.

[00:56:13] What were, what were, what were the levers?

[00:56:15] What were the levers that they used on her kind of thing?

[00:56:20] I don't know.

[00:56:20] I love that.

[00:56:22] I love that they make her, you know, and she's a good person in the end, but she's an imperfect person.

[00:56:28] She is a snob, you know?

[00:56:30] And, but she.

[00:56:31] Yes, she is.

[00:56:33] But she is also underneath.

[00:56:35] She has a heart that can be reached and, you know, and she feels things and she wants to be good and do the right thing.

[00:56:42] And it's not, she's not a bad person by any means.

[00:56:44] She's just.

[00:56:45] Imperfect.

[00:56:45] Self-absorbed.

[00:56:47] Yes.

[00:56:47] Very self-absorbed.

[00:56:49] Well, one scene that they added that I was super happy about is the flashback to the Throp sister childhood.

[00:56:57] Yeah.

[00:56:58] Yeah.

[00:56:59] So we got that scene.

[00:57:01] Well, there is in the musical, the song and dance with showing their mother, her name's Malena in the books.

[00:57:07] They don't really name her in the show.

[00:57:09] Boo.

[00:57:09] She's one more dead mother.

[00:57:11] Classic trope.

[00:57:13] Classic trope of the fairy stories, you know?

[00:57:15] In the, in the books, the first section of the book is mostly from her perspective, more or less.

[00:57:21] So she's a major character there.

[00:57:22] Interesting.

[00:57:23] But, and they, so obviously they've like drastically sympathize, simplified her story, you know?

[00:57:28] And I understand because they don't have time to go into how she is like the second daughter of this, da, da, da.

[00:57:35] And, you know, and she ran away with the reverends to, you know, kind of piss off her parents in a way.

[00:57:42] And, and so maybe she feels and yeah.

[00:57:45] Maybe we need another book from McGuire.

[00:57:49] Elfaba's mother.

[00:57:51] Yeah.

[00:57:51] Well, I mean, so she does, she, she's covered a lot in the first book that especially, and I assume the childhood book of Elfie is obviously going to have a lot about her as well.

[00:58:04] Sure.

[00:58:04] Sure.

[00:58:05] I miss, I, so one book difference is that the couple actually, so after this dalliance that we see with the green bottle that results in Elfie's green skin.

[00:58:15] I got that.

[00:58:16] I got that.

[00:58:17] I was really pleased.

[00:58:18] It resulted in me having a really awkward conversation with my daughter.

[00:58:23] Yeah.

[00:58:23] You have my sympathies.

[00:58:25] That's okay.

[00:58:26] It's all part of it.

[00:58:29] But yeah, you would have had to have a more awkward conversation if they kept to the book because then eventually the Elfie's parents end up forming a loving thruple with a character named Turtle Heart.

[00:58:42] And Nessa is as a result of that thruple.

[00:58:45] So we see, we see Nessa, she's slightly pink in the flashback because the quadlings are pink and Turtle Heart was a quadling.

[00:58:54] Interesting.

[00:58:55] Yeah.

[00:58:56] That's cool.

[00:58:57] I think we would have been okay with it.

[00:58:58] We're ready for it culturally.

[00:59:00] Okay.

[00:59:00] Okay.

[00:59:01] I don't know.

[00:59:02] I think probably.

[00:59:03] It's not in the musical.

[00:59:04] It's not in the musical.

[00:59:05] It's not in the movie.

[00:59:06] Yeah.

[00:59:06] It's in the book.

[00:59:07] I think they would have lost a lot of family viewers.

[00:59:10] Yeah.

[00:59:10] The kids.

[00:59:11] Okay.

[00:59:12] I hear you.

[00:59:12] I mean, you talked about it's part of the job.

[00:59:15] I mean, would you really want to explain a thruple to your daughter?

[00:59:18] No.

[00:59:20] No.

[00:59:20] I redact my statement.

[00:59:25] Yeah.

[00:59:26] And one, one other big difference with Nessa Rose in the book is yeah.

[00:59:29] So it's a similar sort of thing where she, she's taking a drug because she doesn't want another green child and it ends up with a birth, you know, Nessa has birth defects, but in the books, Nessa has no arms.

[00:59:43] So I can understand them transposing that to a wheelchair user, which is much easier to cast.

[00:59:50] And yeah.

[00:59:51] And to act and so forth.

[00:59:53] Yes.

[00:59:53] Yeah.

[00:59:54] And, and so basically, well, actually that's an act two thing.

[00:59:58] So I won't say that.

[00:59:59] Um, but yeah, the father giving too much milkweed to try, try to prevent greenness.

[01:00:05] It's it leads to Milena to the mother.

[01:00:09] I'm going to call her Milena.

[01:00:10] That's her name dying.

[01:00:13] And we have Alfie.

[01:00:15] This is also an addition, uh, Nanny Dulce bear.

[01:00:19] Hmm.

[01:00:20] Who's basically raising Elphaba.

[01:00:22] So Elphaba does have a nanny who's an important character in the books, but she's human and completely different.

[01:00:27] But I can see this change.

[01:00:29] Interesting.

[01:00:30] This is added, not in the musical, it's added for the movie.

[01:00:32] And it's a shortcut to explain why Elphaba is so passionate about animal with a capital A rights later.

[01:00:40] Mm hmm.

[01:00:41] See, this is the kind of thing to do an adaptation from a medium to another.

[01:00:46] Mm hmm.

[01:00:47] Just absolutely a perfect example.

[01:00:50] Of short cutting and say not having to have long exposition and not cutting out the whole thing altogether.

[01:00:56] That that's brilliant.

[01:00:58] I had no idea that was the case, but wow.

[01:00:59] Yeah.

[01:01:00] Chef's kiss hats off.

[01:01:01] Yeah.

[01:01:01] And that's why I'm glad they could expand a bit in the movie, you know?

[01:01:04] Yeah.

[01:01:06] Um, and then in the book, it's also, you know, their father's more, he's also, he's sweet to Elphi.

[01:01:12] He's kinder to Elphi in the book.

[01:01:13] He calls her Fabella.

[01:01:15] That's his nickname for her, but he's more focused on Nessa for a variety of reasons, including turtle hearts, that background, including her extra needs.

[01:01:23] And, you know, um, she, she's his little princess and you know what you'll find interesting, Marilyn, or probably we all will, is that in the books, the Throp title, eminent Throp.

[01:01:38] It's, uh, the, like the head of Munchkin land is a matriarchal title.

[01:01:42] So actually it comes through Milena through the mother.

[01:01:46] They kind of didn't really pick up on that thread.

[01:01:49] Did they?

[01:01:49] No, no.

[01:01:51] Too bad for that.

[01:01:52] Just one more dead mother, you know, that's the fairytale trope.

[01:01:56] Just leave it at that.

[01:01:58] Even if she is a matriarchal ruler, how well.

[01:02:00] Any more thoughts about the sister childhood flashbacks?

[01:02:05] I loved them.

[01:02:06] I thought they were, they really endeared you to the character and that was the point.

[01:02:11] And I think the exposition of setting up her allegiance or her affinity to the animals was really important too.

[01:02:16] It really did give context for things that happened later.

[01:02:20] So, yeah.

[01:02:21] Yeah.

[01:02:22] Yeah.

[01:02:22] No, it was, it was crucial.

[01:02:24] Mm hmm.

[01:02:24] Knowing as much about her background as possible.

[01:02:27] You know, this is, this is the, probably one of the underlying questions is how do people turn out the way they do and why?

[01:02:33] Right.

[01:02:34] Are we born wicked?

[01:02:36] Mm hmm.

[01:02:36] Or do we become wicked?

[01:02:38] Answer no.

[01:02:38] Answer no.

[01:02:39] Yeah.

[01:02:40] Spoiler.

[01:02:41] No, we're not, we're not.

[01:02:44] Marilyn, what did you think of the water entry to shiz?

[01:02:47] Oh, the university.

[01:02:48] Very dramatic.

[01:02:49] Very dramatic.

[01:02:50] That was a movie edition.

[01:02:51] I approve.

[01:02:53] So my first question is where in the world did the name shiz come from?

[01:02:59] I have so many connotations with this word that have probably nothing to do with higher education.

[01:03:04] So, um, that was kind of odd to me is, is there, is there a background of some sort?

[01:03:09] Um, I mean, it's just the city that they're in.

[01:03:13] It's the second largest city in Oz and it's called shiz.

[01:03:16] I honestly never really thought much about it, but I suppose, yeah, I can see where the connotations go.

[01:03:22] Um, it just seems like in general, he just kind of does.

[01:03:26] I don't know.

[01:03:26] It just sounds like an Ozzie and name quote unquote.

[01:03:29] I don't know.

[01:03:30] This is an invention of McGuire.

[01:03:32] Um, I think it might be.

[01:03:33] I'm not sure if, if anyone knows who's listening, whether there, there is a shiz in the.

[01:03:40] Original books, let us know.

[01:03:41] Because like I said, it's been years.

[01:03:43] I recently, I've been kind of rereading the original book, but basically that means I've been doing this.

[01:03:50] I have this app called sleepy bookshelf and.

[01:03:53] It's amazing.

[01:03:54] Tell me everything.

[01:03:56] So it's just, I mean, it's not even an app actually.

[01:03:58] It's just a podcast you can listen to on any podcasting app.

[01:04:01] And so they have the, they do these classic tales and the woman has a very soothing voice.

[01:04:05] Ah, ah, ah, ah.

[01:04:07] And they, they, um, they edit the story so that it's like as non disruptive as possible, you know, so you nod off.

[01:04:15] And then the beginning of the next episode recaps the episode that you fell asleep to last time and then continues from there.

[01:04:21] Isn't that really.

[01:04:22] It's perfect for me.

[01:04:24] I'm writing it down.

[01:04:25] Adding it to notes.

[01:04:25] So I've been just sleepy bookshelfing the original Wizard of Oz recently.

[01:04:31] It wouldn't work for me.

[01:04:33] I, you know, anybody's telling me a story.

[01:04:34] I am absolutely tracking.

[01:04:37] There's no way I can fall asleep.

[01:04:38] But her voice is so soothing.

[01:04:41] I'm sure it is.

[01:04:43] And she does the page sound.

[01:04:44] Yeah.

[01:04:44] Really?

[01:04:45] Oh, wow.

[01:04:46] No, I, I find need white noise.

[01:04:48] I use, uh, ocean sounds.

[01:04:50] Hmm.

[01:04:50] Okay.

[01:04:51] That's fair.

[01:04:51] Waves crashing on a beach gently.

[01:04:53] So yeah.

[01:04:54] And not with a pattern or a rhythm, because if it's a loop, I can figure it out.

[01:04:58] I mean, it's okay if it's a 10 minute loop, but if it's a, you know, uh, so yeah, she's

[01:05:05] university, uh, very bizarre.

[01:05:08] Um, but I adored the library.

[01:05:10] The library is so cool.

[01:05:12] Oh my word.

[01:05:13] And the fact that they knew of the importance of libraries to any academic institution

[01:05:18] to have a library be the central place to present one of the, the central characters who would

[01:05:26] have been the last person you would have thought would have been interested in libraries,

[01:05:28] given the role that he plays as, you know, the, the, you know.

[01:05:32] Oh, we're going to talk about Fiero in a moment.

[01:05:34] Okay.

[01:05:35] I have things to say.

[01:05:36] He's the biggest change from the books, but yeah, we'll talk about it.

[01:05:39] Okay.

[01:05:40] That makes sense to me.

[01:05:41] Um, and I also wondered, I guess it's not an exclusively magic university.

[01:05:48] No.

[01:05:48] Because only one professor of sorcery.

[01:05:51] So.

[01:05:51] She's the head of sorcery.

[01:05:53] So not the per se.

[01:05:54] Oh, okay.

[01:05:55] Yeah.

[01:05:55] All right.

[01:05:55] All right.

[01:05:56] So what else are they learning there?

[01:05:57] Sorry.

[01:05:58] Academic.

[01:05:58] Um, like now.

[01:05:59] So in the books, actually, Elphaba doesn't study sorcery.

[01:06:02] She studies natural sciences as does Bach in their classmate.

[01:06:06] Uh huh.

[01:06:08] Hmm.

[01:06:08] Interesting.

[01:06:09] I hear all kinds of subjects there.

[01:06:11] Uh, in any case, I'm, they really managed to avoid potterisms quite well.

[01:06:16] And I was appreciating on that.

[01:06:18] The costumes, we started to talk about this earlier.

[01:06:20] I also really tracked in the costumes because they were uniform, but they weren't uniforms.

[01:06:27] Mm hmm.

[01:06:27] And the differences that they had, I was wondering if they were implying, um, uh, by gender or,

[01:06:34] uh, a sexual or, you know, crossdresser or, you know, gender variant.

[01:06:40] I mean, they, you know, there were presenting male masculine figures wearing skirts that were

[01:06:48] not kilts.

[01:06:49] And then there was someone with a half skirt.

[01:06:51] Um, so I don't know what, what do you, what did you folks think about it?

[01:06:56] Um, so I'm sorry.

[01:06:58] I just, I'll pipe in the book thing real quick and then, uh, unleash you, but just to say

[01:07:02] that, uh, so it does seem like it's, it's, it's a modernization, you know, to be more respective

[01:07:07] of the range of, of genders, but also I have to say it alphabet in the book there it's left

[01:07:13] open to the reader's interpretation, but there are several indications.

[01:07:16] She may have been born intersex, but sorry.

[01:07:18] What were you saying, Nicole?

[01:07:20] Oh, talking about how it did seem that the uniforms were like a non-gen, non-gender specific,

[01:07:26] but, um, Galinda was always in pink and no one else was in pink and I couldn't unsee

[01:07:33] that.

[01:07:33] Like, and I wasn't, I kept overanalyzing it again.

[01:07:37] Is it, was it made just to offer more visual cues to the audience of where to look?

[01:07:42] Um, wasn't made to kind of establish her pink brand, but I, I couldn't get over that.

[01:07:49] Like everyone else had like, yes, all different mismatched blue tonal uniforms, but she never

[01:07:55] did.

[01:07:57] And I didn't understand why.

[01:07:59] And I really wanted to.

[01:08:01] So if you have any insight to that, having, having more backstory than me, I'd love to

[01:08:05] hear it.

[01:08:05] I think that's just a production design decision.

[01:08:08] I was going to say, even without the backstory, I think it's intended so that all eyes come

[01:08:12] to her.

[01:08:13] Yeah.

[01:08:13] Which also reinforces her character and her self absorption.

[01:08:16] Of course, all eyes would come to me.

[01:08:18] Why would I wear a uniform?

[01:08:19] I wish to stand out.

[01:08:21] Right.

[01:08:22] Yeah.

[01:08:22] She really does.

[01:08:23] I wanted it to mean more.

[01:08:25] I wanted it to mean more.

[01:08:27] I think it's, again, it's her personality.

[01:08:30] Exactly.

[01:08:31] It's a great visual shorthand for that.

[01:08:33] I'm really fascinated by the fact that the book hinted that Elphaba would be intersex.

[01:08:40] Hmm.

[01:08:40] And of course you said the character of Fiera is quite different.

[01:08:44] Well, that also would have to follow on given the way they develop him in the story.

[01:08:49] So when we get there, I'll be very interested to hear what you have to say.

[01:08:52] Well, I want to ask first, what did you guys think of her friends, Fanny and Chen Chen?

[01:08:56] Those are also her closest friends in the book and I thought they nailed it, but.

[01:09:01] Well, it was kind of over the top for me.

[01:09:03] Okay.

[01:09:04] Yeah.

[01:09:05] I loved it.

[01:09:05] I'm a big Bowen Yang fan.

[01:09:09] Bowen Yang.

[01:09:09] Yeah.

[01:09:09] I think he's very funny.

[01:09:12] And it was great to see him included here.

[01:09:14] But they were definitely over the top.

[01:09:16] I think they were meant to be.

[01:09:18] It was meant to be annoying and it worked.

[01:09:21] Right.

[01:09:21] Well, they're sort of the friends that Glinda grows out of, you know, as we see her getting closer.

[01:09:26] I'm glad to hear it.

[01:09:27] And I'm not surprised to hear it either.

[01:09:29] Yeah.

[01:09:29] I mean, we see it in this film already as she's getting closer to Elphaba.

[01:09:33] She's realizing there's more substance in the world.

[01:09:36] Right.

[01:09:36] I mean, as someone who was a target of that kind of, you know, abuse all throughout the

[01:09:42] teenage and not so much in college, but definitely, you know, through most of school,

[01:09:46] it's like, I just don't have time for this.

[01:09:48] Mm hmm.

[01:09:50] So the the entrance of Elphaba, by the way, and the entrance of her and her sister and

[01:09:55] the handing off of the shoes and the interaction with her father, that all being condensed into

[01:09:59] one scene comes from the musical.

[01:10:01] And I get it.

[01:10:02] I get it.

[01:10:02] Like that whole thing is like, I don't know how many chapters of the book.

[01:10:07] Really?

[01:10:08] Because Nessa's Elphaba goes to school first because she's the older child.

[01:10:12] And then Nessa joins later.

[01:10:14] Ah, she's younger.

[01:10:16] Sure.

[01:10:16] So they just kind of putting it all together.

[01:10:19] But I get it.

[01:10:19] I get it.

[01:10:20] Mm hmm.

[01:10:21] But added to that is the fact that the only reason why Elphaba is there was to make sure

[01:10:26] that she was happily installed.

[01:10:27] Mm hmm.

[01:10:28] She wasn't even going to attend in the first place.

[01:10:30] Did I get that right from the from the film?

[01:10:32] For it, that's how it is in the film and the musical, but that's not how it is in a

[01:10:36] book.

[01:10:36] Yeah.

[01:10:36] Yeah.

[01:10:37] Yeah.

[01:10:38] Uh, can I ask, uh, Nicole, what did you think of Madame Morrible?

[01:10:43] Did you, you saw the junior thing first?

[01:10:46] Mm hmm.

[01:10:46] So I guess you had an idea that she might not be all on the up and up.

[01:10:51] Yeah.

[01:10:52] I was suspicious of her from the start, even when I saw the junior version.

[01:10:57] I mean, the young eight year old that played her was remarkable.

[01:11:01] So she really conveyed the sense of like, there was, there's always an undertone.

[01:11:05] And I think she was cast really well in the film and she was acted really well.

[01:11:09] Yeah.

[01:11:10] Like Michelle.

[01:11:11] Yo.

[01:11:12] Yeah.

[01:11:13] So you got the sense that this lady had some secrets.

[01:11:17] Mm hmm.

[01:11:18] And this lady is also the characters here are all so three dimensional.

[01:11:22] And he got that with her, especially like, I wanted to know what she was like when she

[01:11:27] was alone.

[01:11:28] Right.

[01:11:28] Like what was going on when she was like all by herself, like where was her head at?

[01:11:34] Uh, but that's just very much my nature to have those kinds of questions.

[01:11:38] Um, but yeah, I didn't trust her.

[01:11:42] Mm hmm.

[01:11:44] Yeah.

[01:11:44] You, Marilyn, I think you felt the same.

[01:11:47] Yeah.

[01:11:47] I didn't trust her from the start.

[01:11:49] I mean, again, Michelle, you fabulous.

[01:11:51] Yeah.

[01:11:52] Excuse me.

[01:11:53] Fabulous, fabulous actor in so many roles.

[01:11:56] Um, but she just presented that it wasn't sickly sweet, but it definitely had the sense

[01:12:04] of there's more going on here.

[01:12:08] Mm hmm.

[01:12:09] There really is.

[01:12:10] And, uh, she stands out so much in that she singles out of a, where everybody else is kind

[01:12:15] of going.

[01:12:16] Mm hmm.

[01:12:16] So, I mean, that, that could be another, another marker that there's something going on here.

[01:12:21] I was also confused about the ruby slippers because they were, didn't Linda give them to

[01:12:28] Elphaba eventually?

[01:12:29] Um, I don't know that she gave them to her.

[01:12:31] She was showing them to her, but the, those are, we should note that, um, that Nessa got

[01:12:37] silver slippers from her.

[01:12:38] Right, right, right.

[01:12:39] You, you've explained that so that, that is all I'll go a whole lot clearer to me now.

[01:12:43] So then I guess I'll just call it, you know, I think it was an Easter egg.

[01:12:46] Yeah.

[01:12:47] It's an homage to the Wizard of Oz film for the 40th.

[01:12:49] For sure.

[01:12:50] Yeah.

[01:12:51] And she, she actually clicks them together three times when during that song.

[01:12:54] Yeah.

[01:12:54] Right.

[01:12:55] I'm wondering if, um, Madame horrible who I, you know, changed the first letter and she's

[01:13:00] Madame horrible.

[01:13:01] Exactly.

[01:13:01] Yeah.

[01:13:02] Is she going to become one of the witches?

[01:13:04] Hmm.

[01:13:06] Probably not the wicked witch of the East based upon things you've said.

[01:13:09] So already teensy spoiled, but I'm not worried.

[01:13:13] Well, Hey, that was actually what Ron said.

[01:13:15] So, Oh, that was Ron.

[01:13:17] Okay.

[01:13:17] Sorry.

[01:13:17] He's the, he hasn't seen the musical or anything.

[01:13:20] So, um, but yeah, I, I, in the book, Madame horrible's sinister from the jump and actually

[01:13:25] Elphaba shows up at school.

[01:13:27] She's already calling the wizard a dictator.

[01:13:29] So this whole, but I think it's nice.

[01:13:31] They give her this arc where she's like, she has this hope of like, Oh, it's someone

[01:13:35] who might understand me.

[01:13:37] And you know, and then, yeah, we's in a green city.

[01:13:40] So how bad can you be?

[01:13:42] Yeah.

[01:13:44] I'll blend right in.

[01:13:45] Ha ha ha.

[01:13:48] So they really fleshed out the character of Bach who's played by Ethan Slater, the Munchkin

[01:13:53] Lander.

[01:13:54] Um, what did you make of him, Nicole?

[01:13:57] I liked him.

[01:13:58] I thought he was cute.

[01:14:00] Oh, I know that that's kind of a pejorative term, but he was cute.

[01:14:05] He's supposed to be.

[01:14:07] Um, I felt not even empathy for him.

[01:14:11] I went right onto sympathy.

[01:14:13] Like I just felt bad for him.

[01:14:16] Um, it was, this is telling of me, I think, but it was fun to watch how easily he was

[01:14:24] manipulated.

[01:14:26] Hmm.

[01:14:27] Um, fun is a weird word to use there, but that was intriguing to me.

[01:14:31] Um, you know, I thought of like, you know, how he's just a nice subservient man.

[01:14:37] Um, and I like that.

[01:14:39] Um, and I thought he was sweet.

[01:14:43] Just thought he was sweet and well-meaning.

[01:14:45] Mm hmm.

[01:14:47] Yeah.

[01:14:48] Yeah.

[01:14:48] He, um, his last name, by the way, he got a last name in the movie.

[01:14:52] Now it's called Woodsman.

[01:14:54] So he's the plaza smaller role in the musical.

[01:14:56] He's a big character in the book, but in, he does have a massive crush on Glinda in the

[01:15:01] book.

[01:15:02] But the whole thing about Nessa having feelings for him is added the whole love triangle

[01:15:06] aspect, because in the book, Nessa is just a religious zealot.

[01:15:10] Basically like her father used to be a missionary and because of her, you know, she hides behind

[01:15:16] her zealotry basically because of her armlessness.

[01:15:20] Hmm.

[01:15:20] And then becomes a witch.

[01:15:23] Well, who knows?

[01:15:25] We haven't seen the second.

[01:15:26] Yeah.

[01:15:28] Okay, cool.

[01:15:30] Yeah.

[01:15:30] Something happens.

[01:15:33] How interesting.

[01:15:34] But she's not such a zealot in this version of the story.

[01:15:37] I think they took that part of her character out, but yeah, in the books, it all plays into

[01:15:40] each other.

[01:15:41] In lore hound world, we have a term for that.

[01:15:43] It's waffle waffle.

[01:15:44] Yeah.

[01:15:45] Watch and find out.

[01:15:45] Wait and find out.

[01:15:47] Just catch him on.

[01:15:52] So Marilyn, you were saying about Fierro that you're not surprised he was the most changed.

[01:15:56] Why is that?

[01:15:58] Well, I mean, if he's getting into a, you know, a love situation from what you were saying

[01:16:04] before, I mean, how does that track?

[01:16:06] Right?

[01:16:06] What do you mean?

[01:16:07] Um, what, what, what did you say before about, Oh, well, where did I pick that up from?

[01:16:15] Um, you said he was a different character.

[01:16:17] I'm trying to back up into our conversation.

[01:16:18] Oh no.

[01:16:19] Yeah.

[01:16:19] I didn't, I didn't really expand upon it yet.

[01:16:21] Uh, shall I tell, I'll tell, I'll tell you guys what, what the big changes.

[01:16:24] Um, so he is, again, they say he's a prince of the, of winky country and the, they call that,

[01:16:30] uh, the Vincas in the books, although it is pejoratively called winky country.

[01:16:34] Um, and he's actually, there's three tribes within the Vincas and he's a prince of the

[01:16:42] Arjiki tribe.

[01:16:43] And he is regularly described in the book as having dark ochre skin.

[01:16:47] Um, and he has these blue diamonds.

[01:16:51] It's unclear whether they're tattoos or paint, but it's blue diamond pattern all over himself.

[01:16:57] Um, so he really stands out when he shows up at school.

[01:17:01] And that's one reason why he and Elphaba, uh, form a bond because they're, they have this

[01:17:06] outsider, visibly outsider status that they share.

[01:17:09] Yeah.

[01:17:10] Um, I, I just thought it really hard to read.

[01:17:14] I mean, you know, he presents as this, you know, sophisticated, laze, full of on we spoiled

[01:17:24] prince kind of character who's not going to let himself be touched too deeply by anything.

[01:17:28] And then he helps Elphaba save the cub.

[01:17:31] Mm hmm.

[01:17:32] That really came out of left field for me.

[01:17:34] Yeah.

[01:17:35] And clearly he has feelings for her, but he still sticks with Glinda.

[01:17:39] I mean, you know, superficiality, you know, the, the, the visual, whatever.

[01:17:45] So somewhat contradictory to my mind, but you know, waffo, waffo, waffo.

[01:17:50] I also wonder if that cub that they rescued may turn out to be the future cowardly lion.

[01:17:55] Mm hmm.

[01:17:56] Don't have to say anything.

[01:17:57] That's, that's just me.

[01:17:58] I don't know.

[01:17:59] I'll put some internet points on it.

[01:18:01] How about that?

[01:18:02] I'll just say that the, um, in that classroom scene in the book, they named the cub burr

[01:18:06] because he's shaking.

[01:18:08] Yeah.

[01:18:09] I think I saw that somewhere.

[01:18:10] Hmm.

[01:18:11] I loved the Fiero character.

[01:18:13] I really did.

[01:18:14] And I know I talked about Jonathan Bailey before, but you know, even above all that.

[01:18:19] And I liked him for the reasons that you didn't, Marilyn.

[01:18:23] I liked that he was like, interesting.

[01:18:26] Yeah.

[01:18:26] That it seemed like a facade.

[01:18:28] It seemed like he was masking and like playing the role of someone superficial because that's

[01:18:34] someone of his stature.

[01:18:36] Ah, how they should be.

[01:18:41] Yeah.

[01:18:49] Huh.

[01:18:50] Interesting.

[01:18:51] Interesting.

[01:18:52] They have parts of themselves that they're masking and they're hiding.

[01:18:56] Right.

[01:18:56] So that's what I loved about the Fiero character was that, yes, they were charming and so very

[01:19:03] stereotypical Prince charming vibe, but there was depth that he wasn't allowed to show because

[01:19:09] he was trying to play the role.

[01:19:11] And I think that that's like a metaphor for masculinity in general.

[01:19:16] Sure.

[01:19:17] That was really intriguing to me.

[01:19:19] Right.

[01:19:19] Rich, privileged masculinity.

[01:19:20] Right.

[01:19:21] Exactly.

[01:19:22] I love that reading.

[01:19:23] I think you're probably right.

[01:19:24] Well, and I think, yeah, that may, that ties into what they actually did with this.

[01:19:28] So I told you what Fiero's like in the book, but there's actually also another character

[01:19:33] who's cut from the musical and this character is Bach's best friend named Averick.

[01:19:37] And Averick is from, it's from, you know, the same, the same area where she's is and where

[01:19:44] Glinda's from, you know, it's the wealthy area.

[01:19:47] And he is a high status guy and he is actually a bit superficial or he's actually quite superficial.

[01:19:52] And he, he calls out, he's like, yeah, people tell me I'm an asshole all the time.

[01:19:59] And so they combined, and that's the personality that they have Fiero.

[01:20:05] This version of Fiero uses a front.

[01:20:07] And then his real personality, this more tender person is behind that.

[01:20:12] So that is interesting.

[01:20:13] They layered these two book characters over each other to create one character.

[01:20:19] Oh, and I have to bring up that he's not with Glinda in the books.

[01:20:23] That's Glinda.

[01:20:24] Honestly, I won't say what happens to her later, even though that's completely different, obviously, than the musical.

[01:20:32] But the only person I really thought she ever might have romantic feelings for was Elphaba.

[01:20:38] Yeah.

[01:20:39] Elphaba.

[01:20:39] Yeah.

[01:20:40] I think you said that before.

[01:20:42] But this, yeah, I understand why they, they made this love triangle because it adds yet another wrinkle to the complexity of their, of their.

[01:20:50] Well, and you know, classic Hollywood, right?

[01:20:53] Yeah.

[01:20:54] I didn't hate it.

[01:20:55] No, no.

[01:20:56] Their courtship was so cute.

[01:20:58] No, like I said, yeah.

[01:20:58] They're beautiful and like funny together.

[01:21:01] It's a great adaptation because it does something completely different.

[01:21:04] It still touches on a lot of the core themes and messages, but also recombines things in ways that work in a much shorter runtime.

[01:21:12] Yeah.

[01:21:13] And we got the, yeah, the, the spinning library, definitely a movie edition.

[01:21:19] That was such a cool idea on their parts.

[01:21:21] So inventive.

[01:21:23] Unbelievable.

[01:21:25] I recommend going, you can find online, there's videos with the production designer talking through like all these things like, and, and also that, um, the map they walk into and on.

[01:21:34] And yeah.

[01:21:35] It's cool.

[01:21:36] The behind the scenes stuff is really, it's cool to check out for this, for the library scene specifically.

[01:21:42] Um, because Jonathan Bailey will say like, I'm not a singer.

[01:21:45] I'm not a dancer.

[01:21:46] Like what am I doing here?

[01:21:48] But he nailed it.

[01:21:50] Yeah.

[01:21:51] Yeah.

[01:21:52] He, he, you could fool me, but it's so the last major character we have to talk about in the shiz part of the story is Dr. Dillamond, the goat played by Peter Dinklage.

[01:22:04] This is actually, yeah, this is kind of the political core of the movie.

[01:22:07] Totally.

[01:22:08] Character from the books has a much worse, uh, storyline in the books.

[01:22:12] This is much kinder on him than the musical.

[01:22:14] Yeah.

[01:22:14] I can only imagine.

[01:22:15] Yeah.

[01:22:16] And it's about in the books, there's, there are animals with the lowercase a that don't speak and animals with an uppercase a that do speak.

[01:22:24] And he is researching.

[01:22:28] What is the difference between how did, uh, the speaking animals happen?

[01:22:32] Why are they again, as they show in this movie, why are some losing the ability to speak?

[01:22:38] Mm-hmm.

[01:22:44] Yeah.

[01:22:45] And make it into the movie.

[01:22:47] Um, I loved that they, they redid the thing where they, she walked in on the meeting.

[01:22:54] That's a little different from the musical.

[01:22:55] And I love what they did there that she comes across as clandestine meeting.

[01:22:59] What did you think Marilyn?

[01:23:02] Um, yeah, I really liked the character.

[01:23:05] I liked the way they're using them.

[01:23:05] I mean, once again, the, the adaptation for screen compression worked really well for me.

[01:23:14] Of course, I didn't know what they're compressing, but I think, I think they cover it quite well.

[01:23:18] Interesting about the whole Galinda, Glinda thing and, uh, wonderfully used to do this incredible stereotypical white feminist thing in solidarity.

[01:23:28] I will change my name.

[01:23:30] It's like, right.

[01:23:31] Oh, okay.

[01:23:31] Because he couldn't pronounce the gun her name.

[01:23:34] Yeah.

[01:23:34] But he goes into the explanation, you know, we don't have a pretty.

[01:23:37] And so there's another.

[01:23:38] Yeah.

[01:23:38] The real like centering of herself in the, in the narrative.

[01:23:42] Mm-hmm.

[01:23:42] Absolutely.

[01:23:44] Because she wants Fiero to see her as the champion of animal rights that Elphaba is after

[01:23:50] their, after their lion napping caper or lion freeing caper.

[01:23:54] Yeah.

[01:23:57] Yeah.

[01:23:57] And, and so, yeah, the, the heart of this is obviously it's the tale of these two friends,

[01:24:03] the, the forced roommates.

[01:24:04] We talked about the loathing song and then we see Glinda does some real bullying of Elphaba

[01:24:12] with her friends.

[01:24:12] Oh, it's awful.

[01:24:13] It's just awful.

[01:24:14] Yeah.

[01:24:15] And then we.

[01:24:16] In that, been in that position before on the receiving end.

[01:24:19] Hmm.

[01:24:21] What, what did you think of the, the ball, the Oz dust ballroom scene?

[01:24:27] I didn't love it.

[01:24:29] No, I didn't love it.

[01:24:30] I understood.

[01:24:31] Thank you, Nicole.

[01:24:32] I understood what they were trying to do.

[01:24:35] I understood the point of it, but it just like, it felt like that whole thing went in

[01:24:42] slow motion for me and the pace of the movie was such a good clip.

[01:24:47] Like everything, it didn't feel long in any part except for that scene.

[01:24:50] And I understand why, like, I understand why the choices were made, I think, but it just.

[01:24:55] Mm-hmm .

[01:24:56] Mm-hmm .

[01:24:56] Um, and I don't even have a recommendation or a critique, but I just, it didn't land for

[01:25:02] me.

[01:25:03] I liked it, but it was too long, too slow.

[01:25:06] What do you guys think?

[01:25:08] Well, I thought it was the pivot point, obviously for Glinda.

[01:25:12] And important to have.

[01:25:14] I just couldn't totally believe in her complete change of heart.

[01:25:17] Yeah.

[01:25:18] It just, it was, I mean, yes.

[01:25:20] What Elf admitted in this version is incredibly bold and brave and, you know, basically F you

[01:25:27] people.

[01:25:28] I am who I am and I dance my own dance.

[01:25:31] Mm-hmm .

[01:25:32] And so for Glinda to pick up on that showed a level of emotional empathy that I didn't

[01:25:41] really ever see in her before.

[01:25:43] And, you know, it would have been very easy for her to go along with the crowd and say,

[01:25:49] oh, for crying out loud, you know, just get out of here.

[01:25:53] And risking losing her cred, you know, with, with all of her, her chorus and her heroes.

[01:25:59] I mean, her worshipers and everything.

[01:26:01] Um, it was interesting, but immediately after we get the song popular and I thought,

[01:26:06] okay, now we're back to a more realistic form of development.

[01:26:10] She's like, oh, I'm so impressed with you.

[01:26:13] I'm going to take you over now and make you into my own image.

[01:26:15] Mm-hmm .

[01:26:15] So I can do this.

[01:26:16] I've done this before.

[01:26:17] This is my thing.

[01:26:19] So, yeah, clearly she's still, there's, you know, she isn't completely changed in her

[01:26:24] understanding of human relationships and people as individuals, but it was very dramatic.

[01:26:30] It was emotionally dramatic.

[01:26:31] I will say that for it.

[01:26:33] Yeah.

[01:26:34] And wonderfully done, but it, yeah, it, I don't know.

[01:26:37] I haven't, of course I haven't been in a ballroom and, you know, well, I've never been

[01:26:41] in a ballroom.

[01:26:41] I've been in a student dance, you know, well, maybe I never did go to one anyway.

[01:26:46] So the ballroom scene, that's definitely something from the musical, not from the books.

[01:26:50] And this is a thing where you have like in the book, there's so much more space for these

[01:26:54] two women to progress toward friendship.

[01:26:58] And there is, you know, there's not a ballroom that they go to in town, but they are regularly,

[01:27:02] you know, they're in this university town and the students are meeting at a coffee shop

[01:27:07] or, you know, going to the bar or there's something called the philosophy club that that's

[01:27:12] part of the adult entertainment.

[01:27:16] Oh dear.

[01:27:18] If those philosophers, you gotta watch out for them.

[01:27:20] They are wild though.

[01:27:23] The philosophy department's out of their minds.

[01:27:26] I say out of their minds, that's weird.

[01:27:28] But if you talk to someone who was disturbed by the book, they're probably going to say

[01:27:32] the philosophy club was what did it for them.

[01:27:34] Wow.

[01:27:35] Okay.

[01:27:36] But yeah, so the setting was, but it was, it was also, it felt like high school, you

[01:27:41] know, like the, like a high school dance.

[01:27:43] But that is, that's from, that's from the, um, the musical.

[01:27:47] It did remind me of Wednesday, although that Wednesday TV show came out after the musical.

[01:27:52] So it must've taken.

[01:27:53] Interesting.

[01:27:54] The dance idea.

[01:27:55] I have seen that one clip.

[01:27:57] I haven't seen the whole show, but I have seen that one.

[01:27:59] Yeah.

[01:27:59] So you're absolutely right.

[01:28:00] No wonder the vibes were familiar to me.

[01:28:01] Yeah.

[01:28:02] Cause I did see that.

[01:28:03] And also this is not how she got, there was a thing about like, um, Glinda was going to,

[01:28:10] she was mad at Fanny and Shen Shen.

[01:28:12] So she went back to her room and she's like, well, let's do something silly with Elphaba.

[01:28:16] So I have a story to make fun of her later.

[01:28:18] And she's trying hats on her.

[01:28:20] And she actually puts on like this purple, um, purple flat floral hats.

[01:28:25] And she's like, wow, that actually looks gorgeous.

[01:28:26] More like what we see later with a pink flower.

[01:28:29] And that's sort of a turning point for her where she starts to see Elphaba more as a

[01:28:34] person and realize that maybe she, this conversation they have, she's like, oh, maybe she has more

[01:28:38] substance.

[01:28:39] It's not a dance number, but a musical, you know?

[01:28:43] Yeah.

[01:28:43] Musical.

[01:28:45] But we also see Fiero.

[01:28:47] He's, he's eyeing Elphaba during this dance moment.

[01:28:50] So this is also a pivot moment for him too.

[01:28:52] I think.

[01:28:53] He values courage.

[01:28:55] Yeah.

[01:28:55] But I think one reason why she did it, you know, you were saying that you weren't sure.

[01:28:59] Why, why the quick turn.

[01:29:01] I think it, it comes down to Madame Morrible showing up there because it's a chain of events

[01:29:07] where she told Bach to ask Nessa to go to this ball.

[01:29:12] Um, right.

[01:29:14] And then Nessa told her like, oh, Glinda's being so nice.

[01:29:17] And she's like, oh, maybe I misjudged Glinda.

[01:29:20] And so she goes to Madame Morrible and says, I want Glinda to be a, she, it really means

[01:29:25] something to her to be, you know, in this sorceress workshop with us.

[01:29:29] So yeah.

[01:29:31] And she shows up at the ball, gives her the wand and tells her that.

[01:29:34] And that is definitely on her mind as she's watching like, oh, this person who just did

[01:29:39] the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me is now being humiliated.

[01:29:44] Hmm.

[01:29:46] Hmm.

[01:29:46] Yeah.

[01:29:47] And then what'd you think about the, were you excited when, uh, I was almost worried.

[01:29:54] Like I knew I was like, doesn't she go to Oz with Elphaba when the train's pulling out

[01:29:59] and they really save it to the last minute.

[01:30:02] Like, doesn't she go with her?

[01:30:04] That was very dramatic.

[01:30:06] Yeah.

[01:30:06] I enjoyed it.

[01:30:07] And then I thought like, she's going without luggage.

[01:30:11] Well, just one day.

[01:30:13] One day.

[01:30:14] One day and one.

[01:30:14] Just one day.

[01:30:15] Yeah.

[01:30:15] One short day.

[01:30:16] Okay.

[01:30:17] Yeah.

[01:30:17] That's, that's a book difference too, because.

[01:30:19] Well, here's a political thing in the book.

[01:30:21] She is the city intent.

[01:30:23] They have railroads to other parts of, um, of that part of the country, but they intentionally

[01:30:28] do not have a railroad to, to the Emerald city because they don't, they don't want

[01:30:34] the, they're trying to limit the influence of, um, the wizard.

[01:30:37] Oh.

[01:30:38] And so it takes them when they traveled, they take that trip together.

[01:30:42] It takes them like a week to get there and they're like sleeping rough or, you know, sharing

[01:30:46] a bed in an inn.

[01:30:47] And that's really a bonding moment.

[01:30:50] Hmm.

[01:30:50] Hmm.

[01:30:50] Well, not in the movie.

[01:30:52] You're right there on that green train.

[01:30:54] And next thing you know, you're in a dance sequence.

[01:30:56] Even in a two and a half hour movie, you know, from one dance sequence to another.

[01:31:02] Yeah.

[01:31:02] We are moving along.

[01:31:04] We've got to get people out in time for lunch.

[01:31:06] Right.

[01:31:06] Let's go.

[01:31:10] Yeah.

[01:31:10] So let's talk about that dance sequence.

[01:31:13] Uh, we already brought up, we have to call out that, uh, the originals, uh, Kristen

[01:31:17] Chenoweth and Idina Menzel show up to do that.

[01:31:20] Uh, the, okay.

[01:31:22] I, the propaganda.

[01:31:22] I can't question Chenoweth.

[01:31:24] I didn't know that, but that makes perfect sense.

[01:31:26] It was so good that I like cheered out loud that the people I was with, like, were like,

[01:31:32] you're embarrassing us.

[01:31:33] Like, so excited.

[01:31:36] I just didn't expect it.

[01:31:37] I was so like transported in this world that I kind of like not forgot about them.

[01:31:43] But when I saw them, it was just like, it just made me do a double take in the best way.

[01:31:48] Mm hmm.

[01:31:49] And then I went home and deep dived and listened to commentary from the director and the screenwriters

[01:31:54] that they knew they wanted to put those two in as a cameo somewhere, but in a way that

[01:32:00] wasn't just like superficial.

[01:32:02] They wanted it to be meaningful, but not like extract you from the story too much.

[01:32:08] Right.

[01:32:08] And I think that they did it in such a mindful way that just provided exposition and like really

[01:32:16] got us where we needed to go as an audience to have the information to forward.

[01:32:20] And it was just a fun break from some heavier commentary.

[01:32:24] Um, yeah, yeah, for sure.

[01:32:26] Yeah.

[01:32:27] I will pat myself on the back here and say, the minute I saw the first monkey guard, I

[01:32:31] said, ah, future flying monkey along with the rest of the cohort here.

[01:32:35] Okay.

[01:32:36] Um, but the flip is of course that it resulted from her saying the spell and it was painful

[01:32:43] and they didn't want it.

[01:32:44] And so, I mean, again, presumably part of the book and I'll be interested to see how that

[01:32:50] gets turned around in part two, or maybe it doesn't, I don't know.

[01:32:52] Completely different in the book.

[01:32:54] Um, not surprising.

[01:32:55] Yeah.

[01:32:56] I mean, it's just because, because so Chistory is the name of the main monkey and, um, Chistory

[01:33:01] is introduced in this whole other plot, like this whole huge section of the book just didn't

[01:33:08] make it into the musical because you know, they'd had, so they simplified by having this,

[01:33:14] tying this origin story to the wizard and to Emerald city.

[01:33:18] Yeah.

[01:33:19] Yeah.

[01:33:19] And I have to say that the, also, uh, Emerald city is, it's, it looks like the Emerald city

[01:33:24] from the wizard of Oz movie.

[01:33:27] Whereas.

[01:33:28] Yes.

[01:33:28] In the books when Glinda and Elphaba show up, they're like, Oh, it's not even as clean

[01:33:34] as shiz, you know?

[01:33:35] Really?

[01:33:36] Mm-hmm.

[01:33:37] That's.

[01:33:38] Interesting.

[01:33:39] Yeah.

[01:33:40] I love, I love that.

[01:33:41] I love that.

[01:33:42] I love it because again, it's this facade, right?

[01:33:46] This like propaganda.

[01:33:48] Sure.

[01:33:49] And I'm just.

[01:33:50] Well, like that whole opening song was musical propaganda claiming the wizard can read the

[01:33:56] book he can't read, but yeah.

[01:33:58] And also a callback to, um, again, to the 1940s film.

[01:34:02] Yeah.

[01:34:03] It was all sparkly and I was sorry they didn't have a horse of a different color.

[01:34:07] Yeah.

[01:34:08] That would have been a bit too much.

[01:34:10] Maybe act two.

[01:34:11] Yeah.

[01:34:12] Okay.

[01:34:13] Hopefully we'll see Dorothy go there or something.

[01:34:15] Interesting.

[01:34:16] Although I guess that's, yeah.

[01:34:17] I guess the story is really from Elphaba's perspective mostly.

[01:34:20] So.

[01:34:21] Yeah.

[01:34:21] Right.

[01:34:23] What did you think about, she got the, that personalized summons with the whole show

[01:34:27] in front of the entire college.

[01:34:29] Do you think that was about wanting her power for the book or what do you think that's

[01:34:33] about?

[01:34:35] Hmm.

[01:34:37] Yeah.

[01:34:37] I, I think it was, and I think it was a way to get her there for her to feel special.

[01:34:44] I mean, she was just kind of love bombed.

[01:34:46] Right.

[01:34:47] Like it's kind of called indoctrination.

[01:34:49] Like let's get her here.

[01:34:51] No one can do this, but you, we need you more than anybody.

[01:34:55] You're so special and different.

[01:34:56] And she's always been told that being different was bad, but now here's someone in power saying

[01:35:02] that being different is good.

[01:35:04] Um, and that can feel really good to someone that's been marginalized their whole life.

[01:35:08] Right.

[01:35:09] So yeah.

[01:35:09] And it also makes me think of if it sounds too good to be true.

[01:35:13] It probably is for sure.

[01:35:15] But when you're.

[01:35:16] Of course, she's going to, of course she's going to take it.

[01:35:19] She's a college freshman.

[01:35:20] You know, they have nothing but hopes and dreams.

[01:35:23] So pretty much.

[01:35:24] Yeah.

[01:35:26] This is the time they all get ripped away.

[01:35:28] Right.

[01:35:29] Uh, are either of you a Jeff Goldblum fan?

[01:35:33] I am.

[01:35:34] I, I recognize him and I couldn't think where, how, or what.

[01:35:37] Okay.

[01:35:38] He seems very similar character to whatever this other thing was.

[01:35:41] Well, like, like Jurassic Park is a big one.

[01:35:44] Oh, he was, it was in a Marvel.

[01:35:45] It was in a Marvel series.

[01:35:46] Oh, he's the collector.

[01:35:48] Yeah.

[01:35:48] Oh no.

[01:35:49] Sorry.

[01:35:50] Is that Penicill del Toro?

[01:35:51] No, he is the, um, the junk planet.

[01:35:54] Yeah.

[01:35:54] Where, where Thor eventually meets up with, um, Valkyra.

[01:35:57] From Thor Ragnarok.

[01:35:59] Yeah.

[01:35:59] I was going to say Scar, but cause that's the kid, but it's Sakar.

[01:36:03] That's why.

[01:36:04] Yeah.

[01:36:04] Scar is his son.

[01:36:05] Sakar is the planet anyway.

[01:36:07] And he's the grand master.

[01:36:08] And by the way, the grand master is the brother of the collector.

[01:36:12] Played by Benioff.

[01:36:13] Well, hence the confusion.

[01:36:14] Yeah.

[01:36:14] I think this, this role was really on brand for Jeff Goldblum.

[01:36:18] I think he was well cast.

[01:36:20] Um, even though he can't really sing that well, but that's part of it.

[01:36:24] Cause he's an imposter.

[01:36:25] Right.

[01:36:25] And he's like trying to be something he's not.

[01:36:29] And.

[01:36:30] Nice.

[01:36:30] Um, but just like this kind of quirky, eccentric, lovable character that you can tell has secrets.

[01:36:37] That's how I've always felt to Jeff Goldblum.

[01:36:40] And he was just, it was hard for me not to see him as Jeff Goldblum though.

[01:36:44] And to see him as.

[01:36:45] Yeah, exactly.

[01:36:46] He is that kind of actor.

[01:36:47] No, I think, you know, Jeff Goldblum can't sing.

[01:36:50] Well, neither could Rex Harrison.

[01:36:51] And he.

[01:36:52] Hmm.

[01:36:53] Created a whole new interpretation of the role as a result.

[01:36:57] Right.

[01:36:57] So, you know, it's not always a bad.

[01:36:59] Yeah.

[01:37:00] Yeah.

[01:37:01] Yeah.

[01:37:01] So, and we get this evolution also from Elphaba where at first she's just like wants to be

[01:37:07] de greenified cause she's tired of being the object of scorn because of it.

[01:37:11] And then, you know, when she realizes that what she really cares about is, is she wants

[01:37:16] Professor Dilleman back.

[01:37:18] She wants animal rights.

[01:37:19] Mm hmm.

[01:37:21] And, um, and then Morrible shows up and then, you know, things are going to get horrible.

[01:37:27] Dun dun dun.

[01:37:29] I just, I love everything about the production design and the props in the show.

[01:37:33] I loved that model on the wall they crawled into.

[01:37:35] And I really loved the design of the grimmery, the way it's like this diamond shape that folds

[01:37:41] up onto itself.

[01:37:42] Super.

[01:37:42] Absolutely super.

[01:37:43] Really cool.

[01:37:45] The model was really cool.

[01:37:47] And when they changed all the colors of the road, like I think yellow works.

[01:37:51] It was like, Oh, so great.

[01:37:52] You know?

[01:37:52] Yeah.

[01:37:53] Yeah.

[01:37:54] And the sound of the spell was very effective.

[01:37:59] It did not sound like any other abracadabra sort of thing I'd ever heard before.

[01:38:03] It was not based in Latin.

[01:38:05] Thank you.

[01:38:06] Mm hmm.

[01:38:06] Um, so it's, it's still had that sense of, yes, this is a coherent language and I can't

[01:38:14] understand it, which gives you more of the mystique of, Oh, this is something powerful

[01:38:19] happening.

[01:38:20] Yeah.

[01:38:20] And I also loved the animation of the book too, where you see, because they do talk about

[01:38:26] the, the book shows up differently because it's again, part of that whole other part that

[01:38:30] was caught up, cut out where she found history and stuff in the fingers.

[01:38:33] Um, but a, they talk about when someone tries to read the book, it's like the words are swimming

[01:38:39] over each other.

[01:38:40] So they represented that really well.

[01:38:42] And then when she's casting the spell, it's like there's wings pulling out of the page.

[01:38:46] It was just so cool.

[01:38:47] Yes.

[01:38:47] It was beautiful.

[01:38:49] Absolutely stunning.

[01:38:50] No.

[01:38:51] Were you surprised Marilyn?

[01:38:53] Um, when the wizard took a heel turn.

[01:38:57] No, I was just waiting for what's going to happen.

[01:39:00] It's no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[01:39:02] They were true to the, um, to the, to the original book.

[01:39:07] They were true to the film.

[01:39:09] Um, yeah, yeah, it was going to happen.

[01:39:12] And anytime anybody smiles that much and, and, uh, you know, Oh yeah, everything's wonderful.

[01:39:17] It's like, okay, smile lightly and look for the nearest exit.

[01:39:21] Yeah.

[01:39:22] Which they did, which they did.

[01:39:24] Well, I mean, but they really, they really put Glinda in the middle.

[01:39:28] Were you, were you worried Nicole that she might not follow Elphaba?

[01:39:34] No.

[01:39:36] I was, I worried.

[01:39:37] I don't know.

[01:39:37] Worried strong.

[01:39:38] I'm, I'm worried about going to the grocery store.

[01:39:41] So I'm worried about almost everything.

[01:39:43] But like, um, I, I knew she would follow her, but I knew she would follow her to try to convince her to stay.

[01:39:52] Because I had heard the song.

[01:39:55] Yeah.

[01:39:55] Right.

[01:39:55] So like, I knew like the narrative of the song and I was like, how are we going to get there from where we are?

[01:40:01] So that was what I was watching for.

[01:40:03] Like just getting to the high note.

[01:40:05] Right.

[01:40:05] At that point.

[01:40:07] Um, it was scary.

[01:40:09] Like it was scarier and darker than I expected them to go after seeing like a sugary sweet first half of the movie in some regard.

[01:40:20] Right.

[01:40:21] Especially with the Glinda character.

[01:40:23] I liked seeing some grit from her and some resilience from her.

[01:40:27] Yes.

[01:40:27] And I want more of that.

[01:40:30] Uh, and then when I came home and rewatched the Wizard of Oz, I was like, Oh, this Glinda's awful.

[01:40:35] Right.

[01:40:36] Well, just because it was so sugary and sweet.

[01:40:38] So I, yeah, I was interested in, in that, in the dang dynamic there, but I knew she'd follow her.

[01:40:45] I just didn't know what, uh, what would happen next.

[01:40:48] I guess.

[01:40:49] Yeah.

[01:40:50] It's interesting that you mentioned the, the forties film Glinda in this context, because I'm suddenly wondering if one of the reasons why they decided to make her so pink and sparkly with a crown and a magic one.

[01:41:02] Yeah.

[01:41:03] They were moving away from the image of which.

[01:41:05] Mm hmm.

[01:41:06] Mm hmm.

[01:41:07] Mm hmm.

[01:41:07] Again, thinking of the early reactions to the book where some people said, you know, we don't want a witch to be good.

[01:41:14] That is impossible.

[01:41:15] Yeah.

[01:41:16] And so perhaps, you know, there's plenty of fundamentalism around in the 1940s.

[01:41:21] Mm hmm.

[01:41:21] And maybe that's why she wound up the way she did much more like a fairy godmother, of course.

[01:41:26] Right.

[01:41:27] Yeah.

[01:41:27] A witch.

[01:41:28] Mm hmm.

[01:41:28] Um, so, and I've never liked pink.

[01:41:31] I'm sorry.

[01:41:32] I just, you know, my older sister was always dressed in blue and I was always dressed in pink and I didn't like it anyway.

[01:41:38] And that just made it worse.

[01:41:40] Yeah.

[01:41:41] I can imagine.

[01:41:42] I like how they kind of subvert expectations with the thwarted balloon escape attempt.

[01:41:49] Like you're like, oh, they're getting out.

[01:41:50] They're getting.

[01:41:51] No.

[01:41:51] Right.

[01:41:52] Right.

[01:41:52] Which is part of the callbacks to Wizard of Oz.

[01:41:55] Yeah.

[01:41:56] Right.

[01:41:57] Right.

[01:41:57] With the balloon.

[01:41:58] Yeah.

[01:41:59] Yeah.

[01:41:59] Yeah.

[01:41:59] And then we get, oh, the flying gravity.

[01:42:01] They stretched out for 15 minutes as we said with, but I mean, as it should be.

[01:42:06] And, and, and the goodbyes like, oh, did, am I the only one who sobbed?

[01:42:12] My husband sobbed.

[01:42:14] Yeah.

[01:42:15] I'm just kidding.

[01:42:16] He didn't.

[01:42:17] He didn't sob.

[01:42:17] Um, I get real.

[01:42:21] I think that that song is just really emotional.

[01:42:25] Um, I think it's very meaningful as a woman.

[01:42:28] Like the lyrics of that song are very powerful to me and have been for a long time.

[01:42:36] Um, and that's all I can say about it now.

[01:42:38] Otherwise Mark's going to get really mad at me when we talk about it in more depth.

[01:42:41] But I think that like, there is something about that, like, you know, I'm going to be me.

[01:42:48] And if you don't like it, that's okay.

[01:42:49] Um, that I find really powerful and brings a tear to my eye.

[01:42:55] Cause I just love empowerment generally.

[01:42:57] Yeah.

[01:42:58] Yeah.

[01:42:59] I'm with you on that.

[01:43:00] I was, I was watching more visually than I was listening to lyrics and there were no,

[01:43:04] um, sub towns.

[01:43:05] So I'm sure I missed a lot of words.

[01:43:07] I'll have to go back and look up the lyrics or something, but they really treated it.

[01:43:12] Well, you can tell that Elphaba does not want to leave Linda.

[01:43:18] Yeah.

[01:43:18] Mm hmm.

[01:43:19] Even as she knows she has to, but she doesn't put on this, this armor of, okay, fine.

[01:43:24] Yeah.

[01:43:24] You know, it's, it, you know, it's there.

[01:43:27] It's clear.

[01:43:28] It hurts.

[01:43:29] Yeah.

[01:43:30] And I think it also hurts for Glinda to say, no, please don't do this.

[01:43:36] There has to be a different way.

[01:43:38] The whole working from within the system or working outside the system.

[01:43:41] Right.

[01:43:42] You know, and can you come together in some fashion?

[01:43:45] Um, and golly, how many dear friends are having similar conversations, at least in the

[01:43:50] United States and probably elsewhere in the world all the time.

[01:43:55] What, what do you, do you have any thoughts on what might happen with Glinda?

[01:43:58] Glinda next?

[01:43:58] Because now Elphaba, she can fly off with her newly enchanted broom.

[01:44:02] Um, but Glinda is stuck with the wizard and Madame Morrible and the winged monkeys.

[01:44:09] And yeah.

[01:44:11] Yeah.

[01:44:11] I don't know.

[01:44:12] I really don't know.

[01:44:13] Um, I, I really hope that there is a sense of Glinda is going to be Elphaba's like inside

[01:44:23] agent maybe.

[01:44:24] Hmm.

[01:44:25] Although I don't know how they maintain contact.

[01:44:28] Hmm.

[01:44:29] Um, there may be a lack of backlash against Glinda from her friends who say, we told you

[01:44:34] so.

[01:44:35] You know, why did you ever, I mean, yes, poor thing.

[01:44:37] You had your room with her.

[01:44:39] Um, right.

[01:44:40] Right.

[01:44:40] But, um, cause Marible goes immediately over like, I don't know, Oz wide or at least she,

[01:44:47] I guess to the school.

[01:44:49] She, she tells everyone that Elphaba is the wicked witch and the student of students of

[01:44:53] shiz evacuate because they don't know where she's going.

[01:44:56] Yeah.

[01:44:56] And that doesn't make any sense to me.

[01:44:58] I mean, all right.

[01:44:58] So maybe, maybe the castle isn't defensible, but Hey, castle usually implies defense.

[01:45:03] And if it isn't, it should be.

[01:45:05] Um, but yeah, the whole panic inducing thing so that you can then come forward and say,

[01:45:12] you know, all us out on figure out what the greatest fear is and then tell them how they

[01:45:15] can overcome it.

[01:45:16] Right.

[01:45:16] I am your savior.

[01:45:17] We will protect you from this.

[01:45:19] Which is not evil.

[01:45:21] Hmm.

[01:45:21] And, and I really wonder where Fiera was going.

[01:45:24] And I guess since they've changed his character, so what, maybe it's not as clear.

[01:45:28] I mean, I know from the musical, but for the musical, of course, but yeah, he, we see

[01:45:33] him fleeing the school grounds on horseback on his own.

[01:45:36] So is he going to see what happened to Glinda?

[01:45:39] Is he, is he going to Emerald city?

[01:45:41] Is he going home to winky country to the West or what is he doing?

[01:45:45] Where is he going to go out and try to find Elphaba?

[01:45:48] Yeah.

[01:45:48] But where is she going?

[01:45:50] Yeah.

[01:45:50] Well, she didn't even know herself yet.

[01:45:52] Right?

[01:45:52] She said, she said, she said, she's to the Western sky.

[01:45:55] She's going to the Western sky.

[01:45:56] Okay.

[01:45:56] There you go.

[01:45:57] Right, right, right.

[01:45:58] Care to find me?

[01:45:58] Look to the Western sky.

[01:46:00] Yeah.

[01:46:00] There you go.

[01:46:01] I'm, I'm leaving an address.

[01:46:02] We know where she ends up in terms of direction.

[01:46:05] So.

[01:46:06] Yeah.

[01:46:06] So that's one thing.

[01:46:08] Wicked witch of the West.

[01:46:09] Wicked witch of the West.

[01:46:11] Oh, what happens to Glinda?

[01:46:13] Hmm.

[01:46:14] I think Glinda, I mean, I think that she's just going to be a pawn of the political machine.

[01:46:19] Hmm.

[01:46:20] I think, but that's.

[01:46:21] Well, she certainly is that at the end beginning.

[01:46:24] Hmm.

[01:46:24] Scene that we saw.

[01:46:25] Yeah.

[01:46:26] Yeah.

[01:46:26] She's got potential towards that.

[01:46:28] Right.

[01:46:28] Hmm.

[01:46:29] And this announcement, it seems to give Governor Throp the Elphaba and Nessa Rose's father,

[01:46:37] it seems to give him a heart attack.

[01:46:39] And so Nessa Rose watches this from their, in their home in Munchkin land as he gets the

[01:46:44] news about Elphaba going rogue.

[01:46:46] Any thoughts on what might happen next there?

[01:46:50] Big question, Mark.

[01:46:51] Yeah.

[01:46:51] I mean, we don't, he may survive the heart attack.

[01:46:54] Um, how does Nessa Rose feel about being abandoned by her sister who she is always up

[01:46:59] to this point, loved and cared for that could produce a real emotional whiplash.

[01:47:02] Mm hmm.

[01:47:03] She may, she may team up with Glinda.

[01:47:06] Yeah.

[01:47:08] Hmm.

[01:47:09] To be continued.

[01:47:11] Yeah.

[01:47:11] What do you, what do you, what do you, what do you, Lorehound say?

[01:47:13] If keep watching or something?

[01:47:15] Waffle.

[01:47:16] Waffle.

[01:47:16] It comes from the Wheel of Time fandom.

[01:47:19] Yeah.

[01:47:19] Watch and find out.

[01:47:21] Yeah.

[01:47:22] Or wait and find out.

[01:47:23] Yeah.

[01:47:24] Sometimes it's read and find out.

[01:47:25] So I consider W just mean wait.

[01:47:27] Yeah.

[01:47:28] Right.

[01:47:29] I like that one.

[01:47:30] That was the original actually.

[01:47:31] Yeah.

[01:47:32] Nice.

[01:47:33] Um, all right.

[01:47:34] Any other thoughts or scenes you want to call out?

[01:47:38] Hmm.

[01:47:41] I just think it's another cool thing.

[01:47:43] If you let me talk about Jonathan Bailey for one more second.

[01:47:46] Is that.

[01:47:47] Okay.

[01:47:48] That the horse that he.

[01:47:50] Wrote in on.

[01:47:52] Mm hmm.

[01:47:52] You know, this is an actor that worked on Bridgerton and it's the same horse that he

[01:47:57] used on Bridgerton.

[01:47:58] Oh, that's cool.

[01:47:59] He needed a horse for this movie and he's like, I know just the horse and it's like the

[01:48:03] same horse.

[01:48:04] And I just think that that's.

[01:48:06] Kind of lovely.

[01:48:07] There are adorable photos.

[01:48:09] Yeah.

[01:48:10] They're adorable.

[01:48:10] And especially when you think, I don't know, I'm overthinking it, but the whole thing

[01:48:15] about animal rights and animal activism and animals having a voice like this horse

[01:48:19] has a voice.

[01:48:20] Right.

[01:48:21] Nice.

[01:48:21] And there's like.

[01:48:23] Something there.

[01:48:24] Jonathan Bailey.

[01:48:25] I'm into it.

[01:48:26] I'm not overthinking.

[01:48:27] That's amazing.

[01:48:28] That's a lore cut.

[01:48:30] There's threats.

[01:48:31] So yeah, absolutely in the right place here.

[01:48:32] Yeah.

[01:48:33] I didn't know until I looked it up.

[01:48:34] I kept watching this guy and saying, I know who this is.

[01:48:37] Where have I seen him?

[01:48:37] Of course it was Bridgerton.

[01:48:38] Yeah.

[01:48:39] Right.

[01:48:39] I was glad when I got that cleared up.

[01:48:41] He made an impression.

[01:48:42] Yeah.

[01:48:43] Yeah.

[01:48:44] I'm, I can't wait for more, but I'm going to have to.

[01:48:48] So.

[01:48:48] Yeah.

[01:48:50] Only a year.

[01:48:51] Only a year.

[01:48:52] Should I read all the books?

[01:48:54] Should I read all the books between now and then?

[01:48:56] I mean, I don't know if that will help or hurt, her hurts your enjoyment, but I mean,

[01:49:03] it is just, it's a, it's a different animal from the books, but it, and especially in the

[01:49:07] back half, it diverges wildly.

[01:49:10] So.

[01:49:11] Hmm.

[01:49:12] Hmm.

[01:49:13] Hmm.

[01:49:13] Hmm.

[01:49:13] But you are going, you are holding space for defying gravity.

[01:49:17] So tell us a bit about, uh, nevermind the music and what's what's going on over there.

[01:49:22] Um, well, Mark has a master plan to really break down.

[01:49:26] Defying gravity.

[01:49:27] So our, our pod, nevermind the music talks about like intersectional themes of music

[01:49:32] and psychology.

[01:49:33] My co-host Mark is a, he's a music guy.

[01:49:38] He would hate that.

[01:49:39] I said that.

[01:49:40] Um, but he knows so much about music and like the elements of how music is composed.

[01:49:45] Um, and he's really, um, gets hyper-focused on stuff.

[01:49:49] So he's been really digging around all this defying gravity cannon and trying to kind of

[01:49:54] find threads about, you know, maybe to determine what is the best version of this song and what

[01:49:59] is it?

[01:50:00] And I love, which we're going to, but he hasn't told me, like he likes to not tell me.

[01:50:06] So maybe that's not even what he's plans to talk about.

[01:50:08] Um, we'll have to wait and see.

[01:50:10] Um, I love the idea of the, the lyrics behind define gravity and this idea of holding space

[01:50:17] for them and kind of honoring this idea that as women, we can be strong and vulnerable

[01:50:25] all at the same time.

[01:50:27] And maybe find our vulnerability is our strength.

[01:50:31] Right.

[01:50:31] And absolutely.

[01:50:32] And female connection, you know, when they're saying goodbye at the end there, they love

[01:50:38] each other and whether that's a romantic love or not.

[01:50:41] Right.

[01:50:42] That's secondary.

[01:50:43] Like the fact that you can love someone and still feel fundamentally different from them

[01:50:50] in a number of ways, I think is a really powerful idea, especially right now.

[01:50:54] So I'm really eager to dig into those themes.

[01:50:57] Um, when, um, when we talk about define gravity is the song we're going to put it out with

[01:51:02] when, uh, wiki comes onto streaming services.

[01:51:05] Great.

[01:51:06] I can't wait to share it.

[01:51:07] Yeah.

[01:51:08] Check it out, please.

[01:51:09] It's been a really great, great time, uh, working on that podcast.

[01:51:12] And it's been really fun to hop into some of these one shots with you guys too.

[01:51:15] So, um, I really appreciate you.

[01:51:17] Thanks for letting me join the club here.

[01:51:19] Yeah.

[01:51:20] It's delightful having you and I appreciate all your additions, including listening to

[01:51:24] you now just made me realize, okay, this is a film that absolutely passes the Bechdel

[01:51:29] test.

[01:51:29] Oh yeah.

[01:51:30] And it could have gone in so many other directions, you know, with the triangle and all that other

[01:51:36] stuff.

[01:51:36] So really glad it didn't.

[01:51:38] Yeah.

[01:51:38] It tows the line of both like, you know, mining the political nature of the original story

[01:51:44] and, and, you know, the complexities of this friendship, but also adding the more commercial

[01:51:50] elements that just make it go down with a spoonful of sugar.

[01:51:54] Yeah.

[01:51:55] Unless it's one of those dolls, you know, with the website on the back.

[01:51:58] Oh yeah.

[01:51:59] Yeah.

[01:51:59] We didn't mention that, that they put accidentally put a porn website instead of the movie website.

[01:52:05] But to be fair, I mean, good on that porn website for getting wicked.com.

[01:52:13] It seems fairly obvious, but you know, whatever.

[01:52:15] The resale value of those misprinted boxes are out of control right now.

[01:52:20] But that's a story for a different time.

[01:52:22] I have to, I think I worry about the copywriter who is in charge of that.

[01:52:25] I was like, I hope they didn't.

[01:52:27] Oh gosh.

[01:52:28] We're so underpaid these days.

[01:52:29] I hope they didn't take the brins of that.

[01:52:32] Oh, buddy.

[01:52:34] Um, uh, so Marilyn, we, we're now we've wrapped up the second season of rings of power.

[01:52:41] Yeah.

[01:52:41] Are you in Sarah planning a second season of rings and rituals?

[01:52:46] Absolutely.

[01:52:47] Unquestionably.

[01:52:47] Um, it, we didn't actually start the first season until like over a year, I think after it had finished.

[01:52:58] Um, I think that was good because it gave a lot of things like distance and time to marinate and so on and so on.

[01:53:05] Um, I think both of us could be ready to do it really soon.

[01:53:09] But on the other hand, our schedules are mad.

[01:53:12] They're just absolutely mad.

[01:53:13] So I'm holding off on, um, my colleague, Dr.

[01:53:17] Sarah Brown has been presenting at all kinds of conferences.

[01:53:21] She was the Tolkien society's oxen root, uh, keynote speaker.

[01:53:26] So she's got a lot going on in her life and I just want to make sure that it is not, you know, one thing that puts us both over the edge kind of thing.

[01:53:36] Um, but so don't really have any specific plans right now.

[01:53:39] So exactly when, but yes, it will definitely happen.

[01:53:42] Okay.

[01:53:42] Is the best I could say for now.

[01:53:44] So watch the space.

[01:53:46] Well, thank you both for joining me today on this Friday, the 13th, we should say, which is one of my favorites.

[01:53:52] Uh, I love Friday the 13th.

[01:53:55] It's a lucky day.

[01:53:57] Maybe, maybe that's why.

[01:53:58] Yeah.

[01:53:59] I had that little technical snafu.

[01:54:01] Mercury is also retrograde by the way.

[01:54:03] So there you go.

[01:54:04] There you go.

[01:54:05] Um, well, so we're gonna, I'm going to let you go, but listeners stick around until after the break.

[01:54:11] If you are curious to hear, um, some of the things that came up in the first movie, they give us hints about what's going to happen in the second movie.

[01:54:19] And then, you know, just talking a bit more about what's going on in the network.

[01:54:23] So be right back with you after a quick break, but saying goodbye to Marilyn and Nicole.

[01:54:29] Bye.

[01:54:30] Goodbye.

[01:54:30] Thanks.

[01:54:31] Thanks so much.

[01:54:32] Thank you.

[01:54:44] Hi, and welcome back.

[01:54:46] Quick upfront notes.

[01:54:48] It's almost New Year's Eve in Amsterdam as I'm recording this part of the episode.

[01:54:52] So don't mind any bangs you hear in the background.

[01:54:54] My city is not under attack.

[01:54:56] Its citizens just really love to take advantage of the looser personal fireworks rules for this holiday.

[01:55:02] So just to run quickly through a few more spoilery elements that, that come from, you know, the second half of the musical and a little tiny bit from the second half of the book that I couldn't talk about with Nicole and Marilyn.

[01:55:16] So again, if you don't want to hear this part, skip forward a little bit.

[01:55:22] I will put timestamps in the show notes so you can see exactly where to skip to if you just want to hear the outro.

[01:55:28] So, but okay, here we go.

[01:55:31] So I was, I'm speaking slowly so people can leave.

[01:55:36] Okay.

[01:55:36] I was really interested to hear that nobody said anything about the man who came by to sing and dance with Milena with a green bottle with Elphaba's mother at the beginning of the show that he maybe sounded a little bit like Jeff Goldblum.

[01:55:50] And also, I just want to point out for those in the know that they did a really good job toward the end once Elphaba met the wizard of him just really leaning into wanting to be a father, you know, in general, wink, wink, wanting to be a father, but the way he looks at Elphaba.

[01:56:08] And that explains so much also of the favoritism that he shows her and his interest in her is that he, unlike the books where he only finds out after she's gone, he does know that he is her father and he is interested in, you know, that sort of relationship as well.

[01:56:26] In the book, and this is definitely different in the musical and thus also the movie, it seems, in the book, the Grimmery, that magical book, the reason that Elphaba can read it is because she, as his daughter, she's half from our world.

[01:56:43] And in the books, the Grimmery comes from our world.

[01:56:47] And so he can read it in the books, but in the show, they just kind of simplify it and say that, you know, it's really about your level of magic.

[01:56:54] So this shows that he's a fraud.

[01:56:55] He's not a magician, really.

[01:56:57] He's not a wizard.

[01:56:59] Just to, yeah, we did already kind of mostly talk through this, but just to clarify, yes, Nessa is the Wicked Witch of the East.

[01:57:08] Like the Wizard of Oz 1939 movie, there is no Wicked Witch of the North in this version.

[01:57:14] And, yeah, West is winky country.

[01:57:16] So this is where Elphaba and Fierro come together again.

[01:57:20] I really hope that we will get maybe, you know, like the way they expanded some elements of this movie and showed us more of her childhood.

[01:57:28] I hope maybe we'll get some more nods to the Finkus part of the story from the book in the second half as well.

[01:57:36] That would be really cool.

[01:57:37] And they could do some really cool visual things with that as well.

[01:57:41] As Marilyn guessed, Burr, the lion cub, it does indeed grow up to be the cowardly lion.

[01:57:48] But some other major shortcuts, huge changes from the book is that we have already met the scarecrow and Tin Man as well.

[01:57:56] In the books, the Tin Man is a sort of random person that Nessa later curses to because she's basically requested to punish him for cheating on someone.

[01:58:11] But in the show, the Tin Man, it's Bach.

[01:58:15] Nessa turns Bach into the Tin Man, basically.

[01:58:18] And we'll see that in the second half.

[01:58:19] And the scarecrow, that is Fierro.

[01:58:22] And in the book, Fierro dies.

[01:58:28] He is killed, basically, for his association with Elphaba.

[01:58:32] And at some point, you know, as Dorothy and her entourage are approaching her castle, which is Fierro's old castle, she is thinking to herself,

[01:58:44] we don't know who is under that hood of the scarecrow.

[01:58:48] Could it be Fierro?

[01:58:49] But that's just really wishful thinking on her part, she realizes.

[01:58:52] It's just a man of straw.

[01:58:53] A straw man, so to speak.

[01:58:55] Ha ha ha, get it.

[01:58:57] But so the show, they really did make that character Fierro, which I think is kind of lovely.

[01:59:02] Like I said earlier, a lot of the characters get much kinder endings in the show versus the books.

[01:59:08] And indeed, there's a happy ending overall, unlike the book.

[01:59:12] So we notice that in the book, there's a huge deal made about the fact that Elphaba's really allergic to water.

[01:59:20] She avoids it her entire life.

[01:59:21] She bathes in oils.

[01:59:23] And in this show, what I noticed, which was curious, sorry, in the movie, rather, what I noticed, which I found very curious,

[01:59:31] is that at one point, it starts raining, and Madame Morrible does put an umbrella up over her,

[01:59:37] but she is not at all shying away from the splash of the rain.

[01:59:40] So I think the implication is that this version of Elphaba is actually not allergic to water.

[01:59:46] And that would explain how she, spoiler, spoiler, survives at the end.

[01:59:52] But we'll see that all play out.

[01:59:54] And I hope, yeah, I hope they give us a nice, satisfying, romantic ending that we don't get in the book,

[01:59:59] but we do get in the show.

[02:00:01] But I hope that they lean into that even more.

[02:00:05] As far as the question of why Nessa doesn't tell Dorothy about the shoes,

[02:00:10] the book's explanation, which maybe they'll go into a little bit in the show,

[02:00:14] is basically she's just trying to stall Dorothy.

[02:00:19] She's trying to, you know, she's killed Nessa and dropped a house on her, even though it was by accident.

[02:00:26] And so Glinda's like, well, what do I do with this girl?

[02:00:29] She's like, well, let's send her off to the wizard.

[02:00:32] And as she's going on this whole journey to the wizard,

[02:00:35] it buys me time to kind of try to figure out how to handle the situation.

[02:00:41] And not that she ever really does.

[02:00:43] It just leads to her and Elphaba fighting more.

[02:00:47] Elphaba's still around and has some more talks with her father and stuff at this time.

[02:00:53] And this is the quote that I read from Bach and Elphaba earlier comes from this moment.

[02:00:58] So basically that's why she's, she doesn't tell her because she's trying to stall her.

[02:01:05] About the question of Glinda being controlled though, that is a very interesting one.

[02:01:10] Because what does control mean?

[02:01:13] Is it direct?

[02:01:14] Is it indirect?

[02:01:15] Does Glinda, you know, we see her sort of a vapid version of her former, already kind of vapid self by the end of the book.

[02:01:27] But there's that sadness like that we see in the opening scene where she's smiling, but there's tears in her eyes.

[02:01:33] And I do wonder if they're going to give us more overt information about what her relationship is with the wizard and Madame Morrible with Glinda gone.

[02:01:44] Now that they have more space to do that.

[02:01:46] So cannot wait for the second part.

[02:01:48] And by the way, anyone skipping spoilers, you're now safe to come back.

[02:01:52] And this episode is dropping on December 31st.

[02:01:56] As is, by the way, the Nevermind the Music Defying Gravity episode that you heard Nicole talking about earlier.

[02:02:01] So you can find that episode in the Nevermind the Music feed and I will paste a link in the show notes here as well.

[02:02:08] And the reason why both of these episodes are releasing today of all days is because today is the day that they've also released Wicked for home viewing.

[02:02:17] So it's now on digital video on demand.

[02:02:20] So you can watch it at your home if you like.

[02:02:23] So I definitely recommend doing that or re-watching it if you like.

[02:02:28] Also, do check out all of the other things we've recently published in the Lorehounds feed.

[02:02:33] David and I just wrapped up the Dune Prophecy.

[02:02:36] We're also going to have two extra wrap-up episodes with feedback and another crossover with the new Dune Minute podcast.

[02:02:42] John and I just did a Doctor Who episode about the Christmas special.

[02:02:46] And there's also a series of Netflix Christmas specials on but one in the public feed and two for Supercast and Patreon subscribers.

[02:02:54] And do check out our Pachinko Part 3.

[02:02:58] We just finally wrapped up the Pachinko.

[02:03:00] You can listen to Part 1, by the way, without having watched Season 2.

[02:03:04] John and I did a Comics vs. episode about Joker Folia 2 and Joker vs. Madcap.

[02:03:10] And tomorrow, New Year's Day, Agatha Coven Quiz coming your way with best wishes for a Happy New Year.

[02:03:17] And now, as I said, there is an extra Supercast and Patreon with additional episodes and other bonuses.

[02:03:23] And you can find all the information for that in the link tree, in the show notes.

[02:03:27] But if you're not interested in subscribing, we're just really glad that you listened.

[02:03:32] And if you got something out of this episode, please do share it with anyone else you think might be interested.

[02:03:36] And we would really love if you could leave a positive review wherever you're listening.

[02:03:41] There have been a few nasty reviews that have popped up recently.

[02:03:44] So if you feel differently, if you do enjoy our coverage,

[02:03:49] then your kind words on Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen would go a long way.

[02:03:54] Also, of course, I have to shout out my other podcast, Wool Shift Dust,

[02:03:59] which is currently in the midst of weekly silo coverage.

[02:04:02] And also, we just wrapped up a special mini-series of A Christmas Carol for the holidays.

[02:04:09] Radioactive Ramblers is covering the Red Rising series.

[02:04:14] They just finished Arcane.

[02:04:15] They're doing Ghibli coverage.

[02:04:17] Properly Howard is doing a few good film series.

[02:04:19] And do check out the Severance feed to prep for the new season starting in January.

[02:04:26] And join the Discord to talk about all these things and whatever else you're playing,

[02:04:30] listening to, reading, watching, whatever.

[02:04:33] You'll find a link tree in the show notes with links to all of these podcasts,

[02:04:37] to the Supercast and Patreon, to everything else I'm talking about,

[02:04:41] and the Discord, of course.

[02:04:43] But, as always, I want to end with a special shout-out to our Discord server boosters,

[02:04:49] and most especially to our Loremasters, our highest tier of subscribers.

[02:04:53] Thank you, Discord server boosters,

[02:04:55] Aaron K., Tiller the Thriller,

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[02:05:04] And thank you, most especially,

[02:05:07] to our Loremasters,

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[02:05:18] Frederick H.,

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[02:05:23] DJ Miwa,

[02:05:24] Andra B.,

[02:05:25] Kwong Yu,

[02:05:26] Dead Eye Jedi Bob,

[02:05:27] Nathan T.,

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[02:05:30] Sub Zero,

[02:05:31] Aaron K.,

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[02:05:35] Kathy W.,

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[02:05:36] Jeffrey B.,

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[02:05:41] and always last,

[02:05:43] Adrian.

[02:05:44] Thank you all,

[02:05:45] and go and listen to Nevermind the Music.

[02:05:47] See you again soon.

[02:05:50] The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds.

[02:05:53] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact.

[02:05:59] Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds Podcasts at patreon.com.

[02:06:03] The Lorehounds.

[02:06:05] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.

[02:06:10] Thanks for listening.

[02:06:13] Wir sind Teresa und Nemo.

[02:06:16] Und deshalb sind wir zu Shopify gewechselt.

[02:06:18] Die Plattform, die wir vor Shopify verwendet haben, hat regelmäßig Updates gebraucht,

[02:06:22] die teilweise dazu geführt haben, dass der Shop nicht funktioniert hat.

[02:06:25] Endlich macht unser Nemo Boards Shop dadurch auch auf den Mobilgeräten eine gute Figur.

[02:06:29] Und die Illustrationen auf den Boards kommen jetzt viel, viel klarer rüber,

[02:06:32] was uns ja auch wichtig ist und was unsere Marke auch ausmacht.

[02:06:36] Starte deinen Test nur heute für 1 Euro pro Monat auf shopify.de slash radio.