Includes SPOILERS for Wicked: Part 1!Wicked's cast as Elphaba, the girl who would one day become the Wicked Witch of the West, following her story in the Shiz University with Glinda the Good (Arianna Grande). Elphaba stands out in the story as a highly powerful magic , a rarity in Oz at this point in the story. Wicked is based on the musical of the same name and the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire, which provides some added exposition.
The movie begins with Glinda, following the events of 1939's The Wizard of Oz story and the death of the Wicked Witch, explaining Elphaba's story to the Munchkins. Glinda shares the shocking event of Elphaba's birth and how she was inexplicably green, establishing the would-be villain as a sympathetic outcast who was bullied as a child for being different. This bullying continued into her time at Shiz until she eventually befriended Glinda, building toward Wicked's climactic ending in the Emerald City, which saw Elphaba's magical powers unleashed.
The Origin Of Elphaba's Magic Powers Explained
Elphaba Has Had Powers Since Her Birth, But The First Movie Doesn't Explain Why
In a scene from her childhood, she's shown causing rocks to levitate when local children bully her younger sister, Nessa (Marissa Bode), but she doesn't use the power then for any violent result. Later, at Shiz University, she becomes outraged when Miss Coddle for being overbearing on Nessa and accidentally uses her magic to tear up the main hall of the school, creating a scene in front of all of her future classmates. Luckily, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) takes credit for the instance, saving Elphaba from public scrutiny.
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As of Wicked: Part 1, Elphaba's magical powers are inexplicable. She was born with abilities she's not entirely able to control, and she describes it in the film as a burden for herself to bear that she's tried to hide. However, once Madame Morrible takes an interest in her, she grows hopeful that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) will understand her powers and be wise enough to view them as gifts rather than abnormalities. The Wicked play and novel explain Elphaba's powers via her parentage, and it involves spoilers for a major twist that Wicked: Part 2 will likely follow.
Madame Morrible Trains Elphaba To Control Her Magic
Morrible Helps Elphaba Harness Her Emotions
Madame Morrible is, at first, a seemingly benevolent professor at Shiz University who looks to guide Elphaba in training to control her magical abilities. Elphaba is able to activate her powers through rage and moments of great emotion, which Morrible realizes. After Elphaba fails to lift a coin by controlling her magic, Morrible uses Elphaba's social situation at Shiz to trigger her feelings, helping her activate her abilities which launches the coin across the room. It doesn't seem like Morrible ever actually helps Elphaba use her powers more efficiently.
Wicked's greatest lesson is perhaps that anyone whose name rhymes with "horrible" is not to be trusted, as Morrible is later revealed to be an agent for the Wizard, using her platform as a professor to recruit spies for his cause. She's the one who writes that animals should be "seen and not heard" in Dr. Dillamond's classroom, and later causes him to be replaced. The Wizard's agenda is to turn the people of Oz against animals so they'll unite under him, eventually elevating his status of power as a deity.
How Powerful Elphaba's Magic Powers Are Compared To Wicked's Other Magic s
Elphaba Is Extraordinarily Powerful In Oz
As it's revealed in both The Wizard of Oz and Wicked: Part 1, the Wizard isn't actually a magic . He's a man from the real world who traveled to Oz in a hot air balloon and used his tricks as a con man to convince the denizens of the enchanted land that he's a wizard. He does have heightened technology compared to the rest of Oz, which allows him to feign a magical perception. Similarly, the other students at Shiz don't have any innate magical powers, including Glinda, who's shown in the movie only to have abilities from her wand.
It seems that Morrible's powers are more refined from years of polishing and practicing her craft, while Elphaba has more significant intangible abilities
Madame Morrible is the only character in the film so far who's been shown to have authentic magical powers. However, when it comes to reading the Grimmerie, which would fulfill the magical prophecy, she can only read a small portion of the mysterious text. Elphaba, on the other hand, is able to absorb information and read the spells as soon as she first opens the book. It seems that Morrible's powers are more refined from years of polishing and practicing her craft, while Elphaba has more significant intangible abilities, making her special.
Wicked's 19 Wizard Of Oz Easter Eggs
Wicked features many overt references to The Wizard of Oz, but there are a variety of more subtle Easter eggs from the 1939 movie to be found.
The movie only briefly demonstrates Madame Morrible using her own powers, even when training Elphaba. She takes ownership of the incident earlier in the film, but she's not shown to be able to activate magic in the same way. For her to train Elphaba, she must know these specific abilities in some capacity, but it's not explicitly clear what Morrible's powers are outside of controlling the weather at one point. If they were anything significant, she may have used them to stop Elphaba from escaping in the movie's climax.
How Wicked Changes Elphaba's Magic Powers
Elphaba Has Visions In The Movie
Given that it's a massive Hollywood movie with CGI and effects that a stage musical simply couldn't have, so Elphaba's powers are slightly changed for the movie. For one, Elphaba in the film seems to have visions of the future, like the one of Dr. Dillamond trapped in a cage, foreshadowing the Wizard's oppression of animals in Oz. Visions would have been rather challenging to produce in a play, so they're a new element introduced by Jon M. Chu's movie, and it'll be fascinating to see how they tie into the story's resolution in Wicked: Part 2.
More so, the stage musical only really alludes to Elphaba's other powers, suggesting that she's a magical being. The idea of her hurling rocks around or shattering windows is fresh for the movie, and it offers a more visceral sense of what she's capable of. These seem to be highly dangerous powers, which helps contribute to the idea of her being an outcast and essentially a phenomenon in the world of Oz. Wicked sets up Elphaba to be an exciting character in the eventual sequel.
Wicked adapts the Broadway musical into a two-part film, following the unlikely friendship between Elphaba, born with green skin, and Glinda, a popular aristocrat, in the Land of Oz. As they navigate their contrasting paths, they evolve into Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.
- Cast
- Cynthia Erivo, Peter Dinklage, Aaron Teoh, Grecia De la Paz, Colin Michael Carmichael, Adam James, Andy Nyman, Courtney Mae-Briggs, Sharon D. Clarke, Jenna Boyd
- Runtime
- 160 Minutes
- Director
- Jon M. Chu
