I've never seen Wicked. I'm not a huge fan of the Wizard of Oz movie. I've read a couple of the books and they never grabbed me. So this is all me and just about the movie, or movies since I'll have to refer back to the original Wicked at times.
The whole movie is about politics. Then again so are the books. Anyone who complains never got the point of the whole thing. The Wizard manipulates the people of Oz so that he can continue to do as he likes. He's good at it and has good help. People want to believe him, because to do otherwise means calling so much of their behavior into question.
This movie picks up with Elpheba on her campaign to expose the wizard as a fraud. She's the one he's using to unite the people against a common enemy. Glinda is powerless but is presented as the foil for the evil that's out there. She's kind of aware of her role as mouthpiece but also doesn't seem to mind it because it gets her the attention she craves.
I was working on going through the plot points here but got myself tangled up. Pretty much it's the bad witch, who can do real magic, and the good witch, who can't do magic but has excellent PR as a foil. Add in the prince who was going to marry Glinda but ends up going with Elpheba, only to be pretty much beaten to death by his own troops as a traitor.
Elpheba and Glinda are still friends through this. Glinda wants Elpheba to stop being evil. Elpheba wants to get Oz out of the grip of the wizard. They work together when they can.
The tinman is a munchkin that Elpheba's sister almost killed witn trying to use the spellbook but Elpheba scrapes out a spell to keep him "alive" without a heart.
The scarecrow is the price that Elpheba wanted not to die. If you think about it not having a brain means that while you can't live you can't die. Something like that?
The cowardly lion is the cub that Elpheba and the prince rescued in Wicked and set free. He's been used as an example of what happens when people don't treat animals as animals.
So all three of those were created by Elpheba and have a good reason to go after her when the wizard gives them their quest.
The tinman and the cowardly lion are kind of abandoned in the story at this point. The books go on with their stories but the movie used them to show the Dorothy band setting off and then set them aside. Which happens when they're not main characters.
Glinda works with Elpheba to stage her "death" by Dorothy. The wizard is exiled from Oz after finding out that Elpheba is his daughter. Elpheba and the prince-scarecrow leave Oz to live a new life. Elpheba seems to have given Glinda the ability to do real magic. Good wins all around.
The sets are just as brilliant. The songs are kind of forgettable. The characters seem to peter out in development as their stories are wound up. I have to agree with the bulk of the reviews that say this one isn't as good as the first movie. It feels too crowded and rushed. The character development that was done in the first movie stalls out here since they're coasting on what they've got.
I find it funny that people are giving the costumer grief for a grey knitted sweater Elpheba wears (the "sex sweater" since that's what she puts on before she and the prince have sex). I liked it. It was a nice shift from her wearing all black to moving to grey. In a way I think it's the best way they showed character development in the whole thing.
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