Spoiler alert: It’s not!

“Wicked: For Good” didn’t change us for the better. Frankly, it didn’t change us at all. Following its successful and well-received predecessor, it came as a flat follow up that just messily “tied up” loose ends. From a world with confusing magical rules, to forced tie-ins, to “The Wizard of Oz”, it felt like the movie did a better job asking questions than answering them, which left us feeling confused and unfulfilled when leaving the theater. Despite these harsh criticisms, that doesn’t mean all aspects of this movie were bad. Some actors from the first movie surprised us with their improved acting along with some show stopping performances.

Shelby Shultz ‘27 said, “[Wicked: for Good] was okay, the second act of the show in general is notoriously slower than the first act but they did good with what they had to work with.”

Let’s start with the most difficult part of the film to wrap your head around: the plot. The film begins roughly five years after the end of the first film. Elphaba attempts to expose the Wizard of Oz, Glinda is being used as a public figure to oppose “The Wicked Witch” and Fiyero is the head of the Wizard’s royal guard. This time skip immediately makes you feel disjointed from the timeline and the film gives you very little information as to exactly what occurred in this time period you missed. We feel as if the plot of this movie was hindered by its connection to “The Wizard of Oz” with most of the integration feeling more forced than natural. For instance, the explanation for the Scarecrow feels rushed and doesn’t make the most sense because at the end of the film, Fiyero remembers Elphaba but he goes with the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion to go kill her. That never gets explained and feels very brushed over. Moreover, we thought that the explanation for the Cowardly Lion was just plain stupid. It doesn’t make any sense that the lion being freed from its cage would make him become cowardly. But on the other hand, the explanation of the Tin Man was more to our liking as we found his scenes to be very interesting and intimidating. The only slightly questionable thing is the fact that in the original musical, the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion all don’t know the Wicked Witch which makes it quite odd that they all remember her and have vendettas so it kind of rewrites the first film.

Zoe Peterson ‘26 said, “I think the first half was more enjoyable, just cause the songs are more widely known and it was brand new.”

Overall we would rate “Wicked: For Good” a 6.5 out of 10. There were elements that were lacking but overall we still enjoyed going and watching.