How Part I is longer than the entire Broadway musical.

The first thing you need to understand about the new movie version of Evil is, despite the fact that it is only Part I of a two-part adaptation, it is actually longer than the entire blockbuster stage musical on which it is based. At two hours and 40 minutes, it is approx 10 minutes longer than the original two-hour-and-30-minute Broadway musical — the actual running time, if you discount the show’s typical 15-minute intermission. The film doesn’t even make it in time for such a break (this isn’t the ’60s), but it ends right at the plot point that serves as the musical’s famous Act 1 finale: “Defying Gravity,” the song belted out by an unfairly persecuted Elphaba when she finally rides into the sky on her broom, destined to be forever reviled as the Wicked Witch of the West. You could be forgiven for not realizing that it’s all fair Part Ias marketing has tended to advertise it as simple Evil. But even as an adaptation of the show’s first act, as usual at 90 minutesit almost doubles the length. There are many of them Evilbut here’s a surprise – it’s actually kind of working so far, and I’m very much in line with my colleague Dana Stevens’ rave.

In the years up to Part Is release, a flurry of news stories teased all sorts of new tidbits to be included in the film: additional songs from composer Stephen Schwartz (probably with i Second partout next November), more plot lines and details from the eponymous 1995 novel that inspired the musical, and various “added items” to the beloved songs. But how exactly does it contribute to one Part I that’s a whole hour longer than Evilfirst act? We break it down below.

The plot

Wicked: Part I makes the smart decision not to add many side plots. Instead, it uses much of the extra playing time to flesh out its main characters – and the complex relationships between them. This begins right from the moment Glinda’s opening flashback recounts Elphaba’s unfortunate upbringing. The illegitimate baby, born with green skin and subsequently despised by his parents, is then shown to be raised mostly by a nanny bear (voiced by three-time Olivier Award winner Sharon D. Clarke) who never appears in the show. The film also changes how she ends up at Shiz University to further highlight her place as a neglected outcast in the family. In the musical, Elphaba and her sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) sign up for Shiz together, but in the film it is precisely Nessarose who must participate; it’s only after their father (Andy Nyman) pushes Elphaba to make sure Nessarose gets to her dorm safely that Elphaba follows her to a gathering place on campus and ends up with an unexpected invitation to the school. This happens when, in a moment of worry and panic, she casts a spell that lifts Nessarose into the air and carries many surrounding objects with it, causing a huge mess and embarrassing Nessarose, who rolls away in a rush. Shiz headmistress Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) witnesses this and, impressed, not only admits Elphaba to the school, but also offers to give her private magic lessons – sessions we see throughout the film, though never shown in the musical . (In the show, Elphaba simply pulls Nessarose’s wheelchair away from Madame Morrible, who then has Glinda room with Elphaba.)

We also see more of the repressed, talking animals at Shiz University. In the first act of the musical, the goat professor Dr. Dillamond (voiced by Peter Dinklage) the primary animal character.

There’s more of him here, and several of his animal counterparts, including a tamarin monkey, an owl, a deer and a shoebill. The “Something Bad” sequence, originally just a classroom duet between Elphaba and Dillamond, becomes mostly a solo song for the latter in an added scene where we see him meeting with other animals to discuss Oz’s escalating discrimination of its non-human inhabitants. Elphaba sneaks outside their conference room and eavesdrops, but is eventually noticed and welcomed by Dillamond. Another new bit involving Dillamond: A movie-only character, Miss Coddle (The greatest showman‘s Keala Settle), is portrayed as a Dolores Umbridge-style heel who forces Dillamond out of the university as Oz banishes its animal populations from public life.

Another character that gets a bit more shine during this middle section: Fiyero (Bridgerton‘s Jonathan Bailey), the shared romantic interest between Glinda and Elphaba. After Dillamond is fired, the new rules for how animals should be treated at Shiz are made clear when a new professor wheels a lion cub (the future Cowardly Lion) into a cage. In the musical, Elphaba flies into a rage at the scene and runs off with Fiyero, taking the kid with her; in the film, Elphaba hatches a separate plan with Fiyero outside of class to sneak into the classroom, take the kid, and free him in the surrounding woods, where Fiyero and Elphaba happened to only meet a few scenes back. (In the show, their first meeting is at Shiz’s campus.)

Part I‘s climax is also extended and given more of the action audiences can expect from a Hollywood finale. It starts with Glinda and Elphaba visiting the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum), who explains his vision for a fancy brick road; the young witches settle on yellow as an appropriate color, a lore-building moment absent from the stage production. The ensuing escape sequence does nothing, showing Glinda and Elphaba failing to take the wizard’s hot air balloon out of his castle (a plot point that does not appear in the show), and the latter struggling to fly at first, before she masters her skills and takes control of her diet. In the show, she takes off pretty much immediately. The song that plays throughout the sensational event (you know, “Defying Gravity”) has been stretched to accommodate the changes that bring us to…

The songs

Wicked: Part I doesn’t feature new music, but the beloved songs all get a significant boost, with Fiyero’s “Dancing Through Life” getting an extra special boost. Although the musical stages the song at the party where Elphaba and Glinda finally cement their friendship, Jon M. Chu, who made his name as the director of Step up film, gives “Dancing” much more bombast, prolonging the song, slowing its rhythm and placing the choreography in different cinematic settingsa huge rotating library among them. (To get a general idea of ​​how the film’s soundtrack differs from the cast recording, just compare corresponding track lengths(many of the film’s versions are at least a minute or two longer.)

I’ve mentioned the reasons why “Something Bad” and “Defying Gravity” are longer than expected, but “One Short Day,” the catchy ballad that soundtracks Elphaba and Glinda’s trip to the Emerald City, also gets an extra job: More lines are added to explain Grimmeriea mystical spellbook owned by the wizard (and later read by Elphaba when he casts the spell that causes a monkey to painfully sprout new wings). The stage version, which Evil fans well know, is more narrowly focused on the awe-inspiring wonders of the Emerald City. If the conventions of modern big-budget filmmaking call for a bit more of an exposition dump, I suppose you might as well do it in song.