Movies “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good” are based on the two hour and 45-minute Broadway musical “Wicked” yet split into two separate movies with a combined runtime of over five hours. While the added images of the dangers ofpropaganda and its influence were welcome, the movie did not need this long of a run time and could have been combined into one wonderfully wicked feature.
The first movie was released Nov. 22, 2024, and almost exactly a year later, “Wicked: For Good” was realized on Nov. 21, 2025. The year that separated these movies was filled with promotional hit after promotional hit. The faces of the two leads, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande can be found on just about every piece of promotional material you could think of, from water bottles to laundry scent boosters. All this to say, the movie was incredibly hyped. This hype was also heightened by the utter success of the first installment.
“Wicked” told the story of the first act of the play. It followed Elphaba Thropp, who was born green, and Glinda Arduenna Upland. Originally enemies, the girls find friendship at their boarding school, Shiz. Elphaba, born with special powers, gets special lessons from a professor at the school, Madame Marable, played by Michelle Yeoh. Elphaba learns of the mistreatment of animals in Oz, and she wants to petition the Wizard, played by Jeff Goldblum for help. Marable, a friend of the Wizard, believes Elphaba would be very successful with the wizard. The movie ends with Elphaba’s dramatic break with the wizard.
In the second movie, the most powerful message the movie conveyed was that of the power of propaganda. Repeatedly, propaganda is disseminated to the citizens of Oz- banners, leaflets, speeches- which strengthens the unwarranted hatredthey feel toward Elphaba, who is dubbed the “Wicked Witch of the West.”
In his analysis for CNN, Dan Heching says, “those who take issue with the film for getting political, frankly, have greatly missed the point of the work in all its forms.”
The aesthetic inspiration for these posters seems to be McCarthy-era Red Scare, reading things like “Beware the Wicked Witch,” but being contrasted with positive posters for Glinda reading “Glinda the Good.” The people of Oz were continuously fed malicious propaganda about Elphaba, on the orders of Marable and the Wizard, to garner hatred for her. This is a parallel to the world that exists today. Political rivals and power-hungry autocrats spread all sorts of demeaning ads, social media posts and posters about their opponents. This was an important message, and I hope everyone understood that.
“Wicked: For Good” included two extra songs, “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble.” Both songs were wholly unnecessary and did not add anymore complexity that was not already obvious. In “No Place Like Home,” Elphaba is trying to convince fleeing animals to stay in Oz and fight. They do not. “The Girl in the Bubble” tries to deepen Glinda’s character, explaining that she is more than how she appears and she has hidden troubles, things that would never be accepted by Ozians. This message was already obvious through dialogue with other characters.
I believe the two movies were unnecessary and hint toward another motivation of Universal Pictures. I think there are some reasonable arguments for why it should have been- deeper plot lines and more details- I agree more with the idea that the two 90-minute films served as an award and cash grab, only heightening an already immense success.
