#musicalthoughts

short answer, it'd be hard to adapt. TV -> musical is a tricky way to go because TV tends to have SO Much in terms of both length & volume of characters that it's hard for it to feel the same... you kind of inevitably have to trim it down to like, an alternate universe with a very condensed and simplified take on the plot.

it's hard to decide exactly what angle on The Boys plot would work best for a 2-2.5hour musical narrative, but my gut is saying it'd be a tweaked take on season 1 + season 3. start with the same setup as s1, with annie joining the seven, hughie losing robin, butcher recruiting him to go against the Seven... but then quickly pivot towards a plan that is similar to s3's, most likely involving some macguffin that allows removal of superpowers that they want to use on homelander (similar to SB's blast, in that it'd be dangerous and morally questionable to employ it because it'd involve collateral damage, but not Soldier Boy himself, just make it a standalone bomb or something). you might also be able to put Temp V in to some extent for that juicy "becoming the monster you fight" angle. and i honestly don't know what kind of ending it'd have, it's hard to say until next week when we see what route the show goes, but I lean towards it'd be a mostly optimistic ending with a little bit of sacrifice or cynicism thrown in. maybe something along the lines of they wipe out Homelander and The Seven (at the cost of someone's life, probably butcher's) but Supes still exist and the question is, can someone like Annie be a figurehead and set a good enough example to truly change the tides, or will it go back to how it was in a few years with some new asshole instead of Homelander?

the character roster would be GREATLY reduced. or like, most of the main characters on the show would be reduced to one scene wonders/featured soloists/ensemble members with special costumes. i'll just say now, Queen Maeve is probably a non-factor in a pragmatically crafted The Boys musical. AT MOST she's a sort of featured soloist who might appear as a sounding board for homelander in his scenes. she might still retain a similar role as she does in s3 to hand The Boys Temp V/power removal macguffin but with very little characterization other than a general "fallen hero redeeming herself" implication. MAYYYYBE there's a version where she gets the eleven o clock encouraging the protagonist number, a la "Take it from an Old Man" (i cringe saying that but that's the best/only example coming to my mind at the moment!) - akin to her pep talk in 108 to Annie. BUT, the thing is, if the ending of the narrative is more based in s3 than s1, there isn't time for a Queen Maeve character to "earn" the heroic sacrifice role in such a condensed narrative - it'd have to focus on some combination of butcher, annie, and hughie in the climactic battle.

it's already so hard to consider how to service even a reduced main cast! like, i think butcher, homelander, hughie, and annie are kind of the obvious non-negotiables, they'd be lead characters with multiple solos and notable arcs. but the rest of the Boys? It's so hard to say. I think there's a version that can feature Frenchie/kimiko as a secondary romance. But then I wonder how you get MM in with any kind of meaningful arc, and it certainly feels shitty if he ends up as the only one of the Boys who is cut/reduced to a background character. so that would be something pretty hard to balance in this hypothetical adaptation. Maybe if you play your cards right you can get your frenchiko romance + one GREAT solo song for MM while the boys do some mission so it at least feels like a good memorable role even if there's less room for a fleshed out arc? making those calls just feels sad.

as for the seven, already covered homelander and maeve - I think A-Train definitely exists to make the inciting incident of killing Robin, but would be pretty reduced from there - actually they might kill him early on instead of Translucent, sorta combining their narrative roles into one, because there just wouldn't be time for a drawn out arc for him nor for Hughie's feelings towards him. The rest of the Seven are probably glorified ensemble members. Although, if this was a legit adaptation funded by amazon and catering to fans of the show, I think there would be heavy pressure to feature Deep with one comedy song that's really memorable/marketable/funny even out of context of the show... which doesn't interest me very much, but like, it's true that having one of those wide appeal funny-for-its-own-sake songs can really help a musical. I do think whether or not that happens there's a large chance that the plot of Deep raping Annie would be cut or severely downplayed (maybe just him making "inappropriate advances" that don't go anywhere to show he's a scumbag, but without killing the mood for a character they want to have a comedy song later).

a lot of other plots would be cut or greatly simplified. I think the whole Homelander/Becca thing would have to still be a thing, established at one point thru exposition and/or a moving song from Butcher, because that's kinda key to the whole motive, but honestly I don't think there's room for Ryan. I think it'd have to go with what I THINK is the comics version, where Homelander raped and killed Becca, no kid.

it was so long. that's my headline. it was so fucking long. and I heard from some friends who saw it before me that it "didn't feel long," but sweet oz, it felt sooooo fucking slow to me. maybe that's because I know the stage show pretty well; maybe it's because i have an innately low tolerance for movies over 2 hours and every minute that it goes further past 2 hours it requires more and more brilliance to justify that length in my mind.

but i'm so baffled. "they're adding stuff from the book!" people said, attempting to justify that absurd runtime. "they're adding more DEPTH. because wicked on stage is so FAST and the storylines are so RUSHED."

i suppose you could say it's less "rushed" when they pad things out with extra exposition, super long reaction shots, and then give you a YEAR LONG INTERMISSION. I suppose you COULD say that. but in my humble opinion you don't fix pacing by just arbitrarily slowing things down. (in my humble opinion, wicked the musical doesn't have that much in the way of pacing issues, either; it's intentionally a fast broad-strokes story because that's a big part of what helps it work in that format.)

anyway, there was a LOT of good. good performances, especially from cynthia erivo and jonathan bailey; jeff goldblum and michelle yeoh were expectedly excellent as well. BEAUTIFUL sets, costumes, cinematics. I loved the richness of the orchestrations with even more musicians than the live show... (when i wasn't getting blue balled. more on that later).

i'll just bullet point thoughts about each part now so i don't forget shit

absolutely furious at the omission of the line "that depends on what you mean by 'friend.'" like, wtf? they cut sooo few things from the musical so why that line? it's fucking iconic

likewise, confused (though not upset) at the change from "it's atrocious!" to "It's uncanny!" in no one mourns the wicked. it just distracted me sooo much because they made sooo few changes or cuts to the music/lyrics, like SHOCKINGLY few (other than EXTENDING sequences). and I remain very confused as to why that one word was changed. it doesn't exactly "soften" that sequence, they're still calling baby elphaba "it," they're still calling her ugly for being green. idk how changing "atrocious" affects... anything

this is sooooo a me caring about the books thing, even though it's objectively beautiful and i get "WHY" they did it. i was like: SHIZ IS NOT NEXT TO A FUCKING OCEAN??

also i'll rant about this now even though it's a little early; it bugs me that they acknowledged the geography of oz a tiny bit and mentioned like, several times unnecessarily that Fieryo is a prince of "Winkie Country" while still having him be, yknow, white, and with 0 backstory or depth. like, are we meant to just think Winkie Country is like, the Posh England of Oz? I was not expecting this movie to rewrite Fiyero's character but the repeated mention of that just grated on me

Also like. did anyone else find it weird that in this version, they had actors from a variety of backgrounds (as they should - that is objectively a good thing) but like. then the implication is like. Oz is a post-racial world EXCEPT they still do FANTASY racism!!! but ONLY fantasy racism!!! these people of oz just loooove to get up and arms and be racist against Animals (or green people) but they have no issue whatsoever with any other difference between human beings! that combined with above complete pretending that nothing was ever whitewashed with fiyero just feels.... weird to me! it's not like I think they could've or should've tried to bring ALL the sociopolitical stuff from the books in, but i was just like. idk you could let Fiyero be vaguely from the same "rich white person country" that Glinda is from, instead of namedropping "Winkie Country" so many times??

okay back on track. i totally get why they had animals in the early scenes, and Elphaba's Nanny being a Bear. I get it. but i also kinda resent it because 1) it feels so on the nose to be like 'she had someone close to her who is an Animal, that's why she cares for Animals' when idk i feel like her genuine empathy and also being able to relate to being treated with revulsion is enough? and also 2) Nanny is one of the best characters from the books! it got me so excited for a minute that Nanny (or this Bear version of her) would actually be relevant in this movie but like. nope. lmfao

Okay there was stuff i liked i swear.

I liked The Wizard and I a lot. Especially that shot right on "...if i degreenify you?" - that was super fucking cool.

I really liked everything they did with "What is this Feeling?" - excellently staged and made it feel so alive.

Dancing Through Life was... Fun, and beautiful to watch... even if it could've been sooooooooo much shorter.

And then there was stuff i ... didn't like so much

i didn't like Popular. I don't think Ariana Grande was doing a BAD job by any means. she was mostly fine and at some moments quite good. even if i spent much of the movie wondering if she has had work done that makes her face not move very much or if it was just an acting choice i didn't love. But I didn't love popular for reasons that are mainly not her fault. there was sooo much prop work and the number was sooo busy and i get that it's a movie and they kinda HAVE to make it exciting to an extent but that's a number that can be so fun if you just let the performer take the reins, yknow? and maybe the reason i was unimpressed with her performance overall is because i am someone who used to look up "glinda toss toss" or "popular" clips on youtube with different actors to see all the versions and so i have very high standards for what glinda can be. and it's a HARD role. perhaps harder than elphaba, in many ways. so I don't think she did badly, but I didn't love watching her, and also found it impossible to forget it was pop star ariana grande. but anyway, popular i hated mostly bc of the staging and the weird key changes + riffing at the end.

I am actually so glad that i had not been following news about this film closely and had filtered the tag on tumblr so i was able to get my genuine reaction of surprise to seeing Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth come out. I will say: it was incredibly amusing to me to see them there, to see them play off each other, to hear Idina do the Defying Gravity Riff, to hear Cheno hit high notes and see her put her hand over Ariana's mouth. It made me laugh a lot. however, i don't think it was good for THE MOVIE. for people who don't recognize them, it was a weirdly long and distracting sequence; for me, it pulled me out of it even if i also laughed. like i loved it but in a "i cant fucking believe this" kinda way, not in a "this is great for the movie i'm watching' way.

also that mini-song in the middle of One Short Day, the bit about the Grimmerie that Idina and Kristin did. that kinda sums up my complaint about much of the content that made the movie so long. SO MUCH GODDAMN EXPOSITION. i get maybe a LITTLE more exposition in a film than in the show. but there was SO MUCH of it. "did you know that elphaba has magic powers" "did you know" "Did you remember she has powers" "do you remember she can't control them but they come out when she feels strong emotions" "did you know the wizard is a wizard. he has a magic book. you're about to get the magic book explained in the next scene but let's sing about it for 2-3 minutes also just to hammer it home." etc etc.

Like there was almost nothing (or maybe literally nothing) NEW in this movie that isn't in the stage show. the extra length was completely from repetitive scenes that hammered home exposition OR long cinematic shots. and i get that both of those things are necessary in a film adaptation TO AN EXTENT. but many successful movie musicals have been made that work in the medium of film without doubling the length of the fucking shows! it was not necessary! people were like 'oh they're gonna add more depth to boq and nessa and--' those two had literally the same fucking lines they have in the show! and tbh felt even LESS present and relevant in this than in the show because the whole thing was twice as long and they had the same amount of material! and it wasn't like the time added onto other people, either, it was just... so damn slow!!!! for no reason!!!!

Defying Gravity was cool and all but god it was so fucking long, so fucking slow, and i recognize this is not an issue people new to Wicked would have, but it blueballed me so many times, I would just be getting hyped up and swept into it only for them to just drop out right before the next bit of the song and do a needlessly long cinematic shot. the one that killed me the most was right when she smashes out the window and the chords are hyping up to the final verse and then it just cuts out and there's like a minute long sequence of her just FALLING. i hated that. JUST LET THE MUSIC HAVE ITS MOMENTUM!!! by trying to make it be "cinematic" you're killing some of the amazing grandeur you have ALREADY if you would just TRUST THE MATERIAL!!!

anyway yeah. they did a lotttt so well. which is why it pains me that they insisted on making this two movies and padding out the length soooo insanely to try to justify it.