#WE ALL KNOW GELPHIE IS PRACTICALLY CANON

[victoriously-wicked]

Okay no big deal, Jade and Tori only went and dressed up as LITERAL GELPHIE in the April Fools episode. Totally not a big deal at all . . .

[ragana62]

So I finally watched the Wicked movie...

Obviously I have thoughts about the ways they're sort of edging towards a more explicit Gelphie and not just in the press tours without invalidating the canon relationships with Fiyero, about some of the changes made between stage and movie, but honestly my biggest thought just kind of won out over all of it:

It's really nice seeing movie musicals made by theater kids for theater kids.

Being able to trust that changes being made between the musical and the movie version will be made in good faith and for the benefit of the story instead of because the director secretly hates musicals? Fantastic.

A main cast that was cast specifically because they can do musical theater, not just because they can sing so hopefully they don't look too stiff or because they can act and we can just dub the voice? Amazing.

Splitting what was one piece of source material into two movies, not because we want to make a lot more money off of people but because we actually are making use of the extra time and mainstream audiences probably aren't ready to commit to 5 hours in one sitting at the movie theater? Where was this in the mid to late 2000's YA adaptations era?

Knowing that your cast needs physical sets and practical effects to interact with if you're going to do these choreographed numbers and make them feel tangible and then actually building them instead of doing everything on a green screen with a few little tables to run around on? Wonderful.

Anyway, like I said, I know I'm going to have more thoughts on Wicked (the movie), but I just really enjoyed being able to walk in knowing that it was a movie musical that understood and appreciated musical theater instead of just wanted the known IP but didn't actually want to make a musical/wanted to make everything into radio-friendly pop songs for no reason/whatever other lazy cop-out we've been getting lately, and then not being disappointed. That was nice. More of that please.