Wicked Story Line

[Tap16]

Posted: 12/20/05 at 11:14pm

I kinda woulda liked it if the story of the musical made more sense with the movie, like the whole living with the scare crow thing, or how she died, seeing dorothy at the yellow brick road when she first gets there.. & just stuff like that just didn't add up, i think woulda made it more relatable or something, i dunno...what do YOU guys think?

[OddExoticCreature]

Posted: 12/20/05 at 11:21pm

I'm just going to say two things. It's not based on the movie, and Dorothy could not be shown due to rights.

You really should research things before you pose questions. There are a lot of resources out there.

[Tap16]

Posted: 12/20/05 at 11:29pm

I was just curious as to what other people thought, i wasn't demanding an explination or anything like that. =)

[Tap16]

Posted: 12/20/05 at 11:32pm

I know its not based on the movie and stuff like that, but if its a character from a movie a big as the wizard of oz, i think it'd be more intresting to incroparate the two stories alittle more so when we look back at the wizard of oz we can be like.."o so thats why ....", but thats just what i think.

[ChenoInTraining]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 12:13am

Wicked is its own story. Yes it happens to tie into the wizard of oz in some ways and brings new conclusions, but I appreciate the fact that it's different. It wasnt meant to tie in. It was meant to bring up the issues of what makes someone evil and how it is decided and various other topics along those lines.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 12:40am

I cannot even decipher the original questions posted in your first post.

[RENThead414]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 12:50am

....Wicked was based on Gregory Maguire's book of the same title, which was "loosely" based on the movie "The Wizard of Oz," but told from Elphaba's perspective.......so yes, some things are different.

[cubbiegirl]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 12:55am

As a matter of fact, that is what I like most about Wicked, both the novel and the movie.

It's very interesting if you consider that life is the same way. Life is viewed through our own set of eyes and what is reality to other people might not be our reality.

And interestingly enough, that is a prevalent theme in the stage show as well..that not only are there two ways of seeing the "same" story, but also that people are misrepresented..as the Wizard says I believe..that is history is written by the winners.

[aegeusrocks]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 12:55am

And there's also the fact that the musical is very different from Maguire's book. In his book, she does die, we do see Dorothy, and everything makes much more sense than in the musical, and there's two whole characters that the musical merged into Fiyero...

[MLE]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 12:59am

Some aspects of the Wicked novel (and therefore musical) were also based on the Wizard of Oz book.
The only one I can really think of this late is the silver slippers though.

[Celestial Entropy]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 1:30am

Just as the Wizard of Oz movie did not exactly follow the BOOK it was made from, to a t, Wicked the Musical is the same way.

Some say that the Oz movie was softened from the dark undertones that are in the novel... this can be applied to Wicked, as well: Wicked the book is a dark adult novel... the musical is light in contrast and was obviously made to appeal to a wider age range. While I do like the musical, I prefer the book over it and hope that if it is ever made into a movie, the musical won't be the sole origin of the storyline. But I'm sure that's not the majority opinion... seems a lot of people prefer the lighter musical version over the book.

[FabalaYero85]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 1:32am

Wicked the BOOK by Maguire is based on "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. The ONLY thing that has to do with the 1939 film is the fact that the Wicked Witch (who some refer to as Elphaba) is green. She was green in 1939 due to the fact that they wanted to take advantage of the new technicolor.

The musical took advantage of the movie and made costumes and characters and lines slightly similar to what we see and hear on our tv screens at home. Alot of stuff they couldn't do because of rights needed from Turner, Warner Bros, MGM, the Garland estate and the Baum estate.

Please do yourself a favor and go to the bookstore or the nearest library and get "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and read it. and then reread Wicked. That will get you more of an understanding of the Oz world and you would understand the differences between everything and how they need to stay different

[MLE]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 1:35am

Personally, I'd rather see a movie based on the book, too. Although it would be really hard to fit everything into a 2 hour film. There are some pretty complex themes in the novel. Maybe a mini series or something. That could work! :)

[aegeusrocks]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 1:39am

The book and musical are each amazing, but in respectively different ways. I personally enjoyed the book, and for those of you haven't read it yet - read Son of a Witch. I found it just as if not more intriguing than Wicked! It's possible that he felt less constrained by rights. I swear that he's making this a series or a trilogy, or I will scream in frustration from the suspense left at its ending...

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 1:40am

I love that it is a musical that is VERY loosely based on a book that is loosely based on a much older book. And exactly, other than Elphaba's color and Glinda's bubble, there are very few similarities to the film.

Posted: 12/21/05 at 1:55am

I'm going out on a limb and am going to say that the original poster noticed (as did I) how the musical went further than the book did to tie in elements to the film that would be recognizable to audiences who are so well familiar with the movie.
I respect all three ententies as seperate works of art that are the based on the same theme, but I would say that the Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holtzman went so far as maybe 80% close to tying in what they created to the film... some loops are what he/she mentioned in the first post here.
I don't loose sleep over it, but I sometimes think about how they could have gone that extra step, mainly because the tag line to Wicked on so much promo. materials is "so much happened before Dorothy dropped in", and everyone knows Dorothy and her travels in Oz due to the movie, not L.Frank Baum's original books (because of all his 20+ books, Dorothy is only in the smallest fraction of them). That being said, I understand Tap16's "grievence" if you want to call it that.
That's all!
-dt

[aegeusrocks]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 1:59am

DT, you do know that Dorothy is almost never mentioned in the actual show, while in the book she has multiple appearances as "the girl in gingham with an annoying, yapping little black dog"?

Posted: 12/21/05 at 2:07am

Totally - I think that's my point in supporting Tap16... they took liberties in straying from the book (which is fine... I know it was "based on" only) but made sure to tie in Dorothy in the advertising only. That triggers the thought of Judy Garland's character in the movie yet they (the show's creators) at times are sure to tie things to the movie, yet at others go off in a totally different direction.
After reading the book, I never thought "Oh, that doesn't make sense based on the movie"... maybe because Gregory Maguire took things into his own hands enough to craft a world where his version could have easily existed alongside the story of the movie. Yet after seeing the musical, I thought, hmmm... they finished that circle to have it make sense based on what we know thanks to the film, but left other storylines/circles totally open.
Maybe I'm not understanding your question, but I was just trying to agree with Tap16. Maybe that was my mistake... lol
xoxo,
DT

[aegeusrocks]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 2:19am

I was just confused because you said the musical went further to tie in elements to the original movie, just through the advertisements. I feel the ads don't do as much as the book does, but that's just IMO.

[Urban]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 8:03am

Stupid question but I would assume 'Dorothy' the character would be in public domain now and not subject to any copyright involving MGM/Turner/Garland et al. Technically the only thing I could imagine that would be copyrighted is the Ruby Slippers. Was there some latent copyright I am missing or something?

[Fosse76]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 9:38am

Actually if you've read the book, it doesn't correlate to the movie at all (at least not noticeably). It correlates to the actual Baum novel.

[Elphabuff2]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 5:31pm

Urban's right. I was going to ask, "Why does everyone seem to think that Dorothy Gale is property of MGM?" She is not. She was created by Baun. Her pigtails, her dress and dress color, and Toto were creations of Baum, not of MGM. Dorothy does have MANY "costume changes" in the book in comparison to the movie, however the book does mention her blue and white gingham dress. Ruby slippers, obviously that's another story. Dorothy's physical absence is not due to copyright. I believe it has to do with maintaining focus.

[greeneyed_one]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 5:43pm

Everyone has interesting opinions but I think we aren't really answering the original posters question. What I noticed in the muscial is that they tried to tie the story lines back into the movie (ie creation of the tin man and scare-crow, both of which were not in Maguire's novel) The biggest diference I noticed was that Glinda sends Dorothy on her way down the yellow brick road and then Elphaba shows up. In the movie the Wicked Witch appears and threatens Dorothy before she heads down the yellow brick road. Of course I don't feel like the musical should match of with the movie completely but it is something I noticed. I don't think things like this were really a problem in my enjoyment of the play and I like the fact that Dorothy is never actually in the show. I hope that made sense.

[MLE]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 5:49pm

The Tin Woodman (as he was also called in Baum's book) and the Scarcrow were mentioned in the Wicked novel.

[SirLiir]

Posted: 12/21/05 at 6:00pm

Kudos for catching the Fiyero reference. I wondered if anyone else realized Fiyero was actually a mix of Book Fiyero and nasty party boy Avaric.