Wicked: For Good has surprised many – widely regarded as the worse of the two film adaptations, the sequel has still been hyped nonetheless.
It’s been a a year since the first film adaptation of the Tony-winning musical Wicked, based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Now, Wicked: For Good follows a storyline similar to the musical’s second act. The sequel charts Elphaba and Glinda’s transformation into the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good, giving fans the closure they’ve waited for – along with several changes created specifically for the film.
However, there are a few changes that fans of the musical will have noticed, including the huge difference to the storyline of Nessarose in Wicked: For Good.
Nessarose doesn’t ever walk in the film, unlike the musical
In the stage version, the silver slippers Nessarose inherits are enchanted so whoever wears them can stand and walk. She begs Elphaba to cast the spell, singing about wanting to “kick up my heels”. Thanks to the spell, Nessarose is able to walk for a brief time in the usical.
But the film takes a different route. Instead of showing Nessarose asking for her disability to be “fixed”, her wish is tied to the feeling of “floating on air” she had when she danced with Boq at Ozdust. Elphaba recreates that moment with magic before Nessarose returns to her wheelchair.
The change is widely viewed as a deliberate choice to avoid portraying Nessarose’s disability as something that can be temporarily ‘fixed’ through magic.
She added that the change to the Nessarose storyline in Wicked was one of her first conversations with director Jon M Chu, who told her the rewrite was made to avoid the moment feeling like a “fixing one”.
“You don’t have to be fixed,” Melissa said, “but you can be powerful.”
Featured image via YouTube
