#sorry i've sat with these ill feelings forever on why i think disney took a bad turn in quality for years and i blame envy for wicked

[jimmythejiver]

I don't have the citations and receipts to prove it, but I swear most creative decisions in the post-Eisner era of Disney has been fueled by the fact that their biggest rival Universal owned the rights to Wicked.

Think about the fact that they had Stephen Schwartz on Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame during the Renaissance and got him for their send up Enchanted which like Tangled and Frozen would not be what they are without Wicked from the stupid titling scheme to initially hiring Kristen Chenoweth as Rapunzel before replacing her with Mandy Moore and ultimately hiring Idina Menzel for Elsa and deciding she ain't so bad after all and hell let's delete Kai and invent Anna the plucky contrast to her to really drive it home.

How about the fact that they bought and made a meh adaptation of Into The Woods, the original 'Kind is not Good' fairytale subversion broadway show. The okay that was a thing Maleficent movies where the king rips off her wings and Mal was misunderstood she was Briar Rose's real protector, see.

The fact that they sure love to market their villains, but boy do they not like to make new ones that aren't corrupted forces of nature that need their heart back to be good again or c.e.o.'s who gave us utopia only to find out he killing the planet oopsies or deceptive seemingly trustworthy Wizard-like authority figures who will stab you in the back in their best interest. A villain is either a twist to be subverted or is the hero you followed along, see. Something tells me the Mufasa movie is their half-apology or reasoning for why Scar is like that when the new Aladdin and Little Mermaid did shit for Jafar or Ursula but make them bland because they didn't have time to bake another uwu, babied misunderstood anti-villain so they made sure they can't chew the scenery or have too big of personalities to latch onto by children either, that be irresponsible.

Disney wants Elphaba and they're mad they don't have the special sauce that Broadway somehow wrangled out of a confusing book full of misdirection that pleased no one but the author and people who hate the Judy Garland film and would never read Frank L. Baum anyway to understand these characters are just different from that film and the shoes were not the Wicked Witch's birthright she wanted their power, it was not that deep, but so much of Maguire's decisions don't work once you account for Baum's that never accounted for the future MGM's art and costuming department, casting and script consolidations, but all Disney sees is, 'That Judy Garland movie should've been ours and fuck these people making sequels and prequels, those should've been ours.'

We see the root of this problem that existed before Eisner took over with Return to Oz under Ron Miller. As a company they've never forgiven anyone for having piece of the Oz pie. Oh, post-Eisner they swung their dick again and made that forgettable James Franco prequel, I almost forgot! A warning to Universal who guarded Wicked's movie rights for decades and the anger they have that Warner Bros. still owns the rights to the Judy Garland film while all of Baum's books are in the public domain before Eisner's lawyers could lobby with Senator Bono to extend copyright law in the 90's.

Eisner cooperated with Warner Bros. to license an Oz sequence with an advance for it's time Wicked Witch animatronic in the Great Movie Ride, in fact a majority of the films i. Thatbride came from WB's vault. Bob Iger let that ride get scrapped for Pirates of the Carribean's update for Red. You know what else Eisner didn't do that Bob Iger did? Not make a stupid Cruella prequel to explain why she's so misunderstood, just a straight live action remake of the cartoon and Jungle Book that was boring, and not a whole lot of these were as churned out in his era as there was bad sequels to the cartoons, but oops Iger's doing that too.

Real point is Wicked the musical premiered in 2003, Eisner stepped down in 2005. Eisner and his people couldn't figure out the Snow Queen as anything but a romantic comedy co-starring a villain love interest because he forgot Ariel existed as a misunderstood and manipulated hero who could have served as a template for another similar Andersen character. Under Iger's people they casted og Elphaba and decided halfway they needed to not make her a villain after all. Coincidence? I think not!