Walls Down

not only because it was so incredibly beautifully done, and truly benefited from the ability to linger in closeups on expressions and show just what each character was thinking and feeling and the journeys they were on in a way the stageplay simply isn't able to do with the tools it's got

but also because of a shot I'd missed initially - a closeup on Fiyero.

historically I've always been very "yeah and Fiyero's there too" about the musical, and part of that's been that I've never really emotionally felt his attachment to either Galinda/Glinda or Elphaba.

but this shot I'm talking about - god I wish I had it to include here - is of Fiyero watching Galinda submit herself to potential humiliation to try to fix something she'd done to humiliate someone else. She's defiant of the crowd and her "friends" and surer of herself by the moment. She's becoming someone different right before his eyes. She's not the same girl he met even earlier that day. She's earnest. She's stripped herself of artifice. She's acting, probably for the first time in her life, in spite of what people are thinking or saying about her.

And he's breathless watching her.

I always laugh at the "you're perfect", "you're perfect!" "so we're perfect together!" because omg, they are. the worst. but more importantly, in that moment they're the same: genuinely self-absorbed, deeply shallow. Fiyero went along easily with Galinda pursuing him because he understood her.

But now Galinda, someone very similar to him, is modeling something new for him for the first time - something he's actually (surprise!) very attracted to. And watching his reaction to watching her, transfixed, it's obvious that this is the moment that he actually catches real feelings for her.

And with regards to the Galinda/Elphaba/Fiyero love triangle throuple relationship, I love that the movie gives us this small beat that actually blows everything else about their character development individually and in relation to each other wide open. That Galinda was actually the one to nudge Fiyero off of his "dancing through life" attitude? in this moment? and the implications that has for the entire rest of the play?

Basically Chrono Trigger meets Doctor Who.

Protagonists:

History student from the “present day” steampunk era

Knight girl from the medieval era, aka typical fantasy setting

Legendary hunter from the ancient era, resembling ancient Greece/Egypt/Rome/Mesopotamia

The Chronomancer, the old wizard who sends them on missions throughout history.

They live in a weird sanctum outside of normal time. They help fight aberrations in history, rogue time travelers, and an evil organization trying to bring about the end of the world.

Episode ideas:

Bad guys mutate a Hydra so its heads never stop splitting and growing, creating an alternate timeline where the Hydra covers the entire world

In the dawn of time when gods, spirits, and mortals walked freely, something is killing all the gods ahead of schedule

Knight girl’s dad is implicated in the assassination of a king as a young man before he met her mother. The other two must clear his name and make sure their friend gets to be born.

In land inspired by Feudal Japan, somebody introduced future technology several centuries early and it’s upsetting a delicate political balance

But! It's not just grief! It's a decision. It's a character point! It's very much akin to the moment where a young Galinda stepped onto the floor of the Ozdust and started to dance opposite a young Elphaba... and just as delicate a moment.

Because what we definitely don't talk about enough is that Glinda is telling this story in a way that explicitly breaks a promise she's just made to Elphaba near the end of the story. Glinda, panicked and distraught at realizing what's about to happen and her own inability to stop it, cries, "I'll tell them, I'll tell everyone the truth!"

To which Elphaba immediately says, "No. They'll only turn against you."

"I don't care!" Glinda says.

"Well, I do!" Elphaba retorts. "Promise me you won't try to clear my name."

Overcome, Glinda promises in the face of Elphaba's fervor for her safety... and then turns around and immediately breaks that promise.

The thing I also love about this is that we don't see the reprecussions of her decision. We have no idea how it goes for her - if in fact "they" turn against Glinda. Chronologically, the last we see of Glinda in the show is her hovering on the decision to tell the story. "Yes, I was her friend. Yes, I loved her. This is how it happened, and this is what it meant."

"Now I've shot so many Nazis, Daddy will have to buy me a sable coat." (From his Wikipedia article).

Neil Munro "Bunny" Roger

June 9, 1911-April 27, 1997.

Bunny Roger killed a bunch of Nazis and then invented Capri pants.

He was expelled from Oxford for his indiscrete gayness (discrete gayness being perfectly fine at Oxford and part of the curriculum until...today probably, at least like 1992?). Then, having been sent down to London, he started his own fashion business, and his first client was Vivien Leigh.

Bunny served in WWII, killing fascists in North Africa and Italy, and often wearing a mauve scarf in the field. Roger claimed that he had gone into a battle brandishing a rolled-up copy of VOGUE and commanding: "When in doubt, powder heavily!"

Roger was known in high society for his themed soirées; Diamond, Amethyst, and Flame Balls were held to celebrate his 60th, 70th, and 80th birthdays. He wore a curious plum colored catsuit with a feathered headdress at his 70th birthday ball in 1981. At his 80th, he made his entrance in a catsuit of scarlet sequins with a cape of orange organza, greeting his guests from behind a wall of fire. His parties were covered by the newspapers, including a New Year's Eve Fetish Ball where the proper upper class mixed with young guests in rubber S/M gear.

From an obituary: "Beneath his mauve mannerisms, Bunny was stalwart, frank, dependable and undeceived; to onlookers a passing peacock, to intimates, a life enhancer and exemplary friend."

From another obituary:

And this in-memoriam piece.