A year after Part I, the Wicked movie franchise returns with For Good, an adaptation of the second act of the Broadway musical. In this episode of Hyperspace Theories, Tricia Barr and B.J. Priester examine how Wicked: For Good takes advantage of the movie format, and the passage of time since the original musical was written, to strengthen the character arcs of Elphaba, Glinda, and Fiyero in tandem with the story's themes. Like Part I, For Good also maximizes the opportunity to include locations, action sequences, and other visual elements which wouldn't be possible in a Broadway stage production.
The two new songs written for Wicked: For Good, Elphaba's "No Place Like Home" early in the movie and Glinda's "Girl in the Bubble" near the end, reinforce the two characters' motivations for their crucial decisions in the story. Each song also feels especially timely, directly addressing themes of resistance to oppression, the influence of propaganda, and the emotional and psychological obstacles that sometimes must be overcome to make the right choice and do the right thing. Although the characters had similar motivations in the original Broadway show, the new songs for Wicked: For Good reflect the impact of recent political and social events to drive home themes that perhaps felt a little more abstract and distant to many listeners two decades ago.
Along the path of their own respective journeys, Elphaba and Glinda also change the other Wicked characters around them, and ultimately Oz itself. Yet For Good also takes place in the background of The Wizard of Oz in a much more direct way than Part I's story. If there's a weak point in For Good, it's that this movie leans a bit too heavily on the assumption that its audience remembers the details of Dorothy's plotline from the earlier film, an assumption that may not be as workable for a mainstream movie release in 2025 compared to the theatrical musical attendees at the turn of the twenty-first century. Together, though, Wicked: Part I and Wicked: For Good tell a complete story for Elphaba and Glinda, and how they changed each other forever.
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