Saturday, November 23, 2024 is National Fibonacci DayAt 12:30pm: I walked across the street to the movie theater. I bought my ticket and went inside that theater room #5, which was empty because I was a little early. I played with my iPhone until 1:20pm. The room filled up.
The movie, Wicked Part 1, was an interesting musical, but many things were changed. It is what I expected. Hollywood always changes movies that are based on novels. It seemed different from what I read in the novel about the story. For one thing, Alphaba’s mother was white and vain in the novel, but she is black in this movie. Alphaba’s sister didn’t have arms in the novel, and she had a nanny with her; in the movie, Alphaba’s sister is in a wheelchair and by herself. But her stepfather or her mother’s husband already gave her the magic shoes. In the movie, Alphaba’s sister was very white in the novel, similar to Galinda and the rest of the students. But in the movie, Alphaba’s sister looks Latina, and the school looks multiracial.
The movie appeared to be a different era from the novel because the movie had different cultures and different sexual orientation students, which seemed very current. But the sorcery college reminded me of a cross between Harry Potter school and scenes from Disneyland. The wizard, played by Jeff Goldblum, reminded me of Walt Disney as well as a little bit of Willy Wonka. Galinda, played by Ariana Grande, always dressed in pink. Her bedroom was filled with pink. She was almost similar to Barbie. But I remember her saying something about "Devil Wears Prada." when she was inside her dorm room, chatting with her friends. I feel she was referring this devil to herself because of all the expensive clothes she owned, and she took over 75% over the dorm room, giving Alphaba only a 25% corner to call her own space. It also explains that Galinda is two-faced, willing to do anything for her future materialistic success.
Some ideas from the novel were still used in the movie. Alphaba’s hatred for Madame Morrible and the Wizard was displayed in the movie because she realized that they are both corrupt liars, trying to use her and her powers to destroy the animals and the earth for political reasons. She refused to be a part of their plan. At the end of the movie, she flew off on her broom. Galinda refused to go with Alphaba because Galinda sold out to the Wizard and Madame Morrible for money and materialism. Alphaba seems down-to-earth because she has a strong interest in helping the animals and Animals.
Fiyero is in this movie, and Galinda pursues hm and they date, but he seems more interested in Alphaba. In this Wicked Part 1, Alphaba is best friends with Galinda, who is also her roommate, and she becomes friends with Fiyero. But in the novel, there were more people at the school, and they all often partied together and hung out together at different places, like many college student excursions. In the novel, Galinda had her clique, but Alphaba mostly hung out with her goat professor friend.
Therefore, Wicked Part 1 appears to be modernized for current society. The story in the novel felt like it was taking place in the fifties or even earlier, because it felt old-fashioned and rural.
I had more fun reading the book because the novel was similar to a soap opera. Something crazy always happened to the characters to push the story forward to the next level. The book was a page-turner. In the movie, when the police went to the college to take away the goat professor because animals no longer can teach and they were losing their rights to exist, it was sad but different from the novel, which was even worse. In the novel, the goat professor was found dead, or murdered, because he was working on a cure for something. Alphaba knew Madame Morrible and the Wizard had collaborated in getting him killed, which is why she drops out of the college and moves to a downtown area to meditate and be in solitude. Her friends called her a conspiracy theorist, but she knew it was true.
But I don’t remember Alphaba turning monkeys into flying monkeys in the novel. At least the movie kept Alphaba's true character, which was an intelligent activist who wants to help the animals. She wasn’t wicked. Rather, she was being demonized by Madame Morrible and the Wizard because she didn’t want to a part of the corrupt plans. So, they labelled her as wicked and made everyone hate her or be afraid of her. But her friends at the college knew she wasn’t like that.
The movie was still interesting, but it had its own Hollywood agenda, promoting certain current ideas to the masses. Galinda's monochromatic pink outfits as well as her aspirations to be Devil Wears Prada, and Alphaba's monochromatic black outfits. Although the movie was three-hour long, it had good pacing and it didn’t lag. When I walked outside, I noticed it had rained when I was watching the movie. When I walked in my neighborhood, I noticed lots of black birds were hanging out by my townhomes entrance area, waiting for something.
