Wicked: For Good Confirms Everyone's Worst Fears About Splitting The Story In Two

This article contains spoilers for "Wicked: For Good."

The trend of films being split up into multiple parts is a highly problematic one, and it's something that I've said my piece on before. Though there have been arguments for this splitting practice to continue, and the most major creative reasoning for it (because we all know the financial reasons in its favor) has to do with how much room it gives stories to breathe, especially when it comes to adapting lengthy and dense source material. When it comes to "Wicked," the musical based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, /Film's own BJ Colangelo made an impassioned case last year for why the split between "Wicked: Part One" and this month's "Wicked: For Good" was overall a good idea. At the time, most folks — including me — agreed, given the relative strengths of "Part One" and what it seemed to promise.

Sadly for myself, this hope was diminished upon seeing "For Good," which suffers from being divorced from the first act of its story by an entire year. Of course, issues of recapping the events of "Part One" and a sense of continuity could be easily rectified by simply rewatching "Part One" beforehand, but "For Good" is done more harm by the split than it just being a blatant second half of a story rather than its own distinct work. While "For Good" is scripted as the second part of what began in the first "Wicked," the film's tone feels calibrated strangely in the manner that many a misguided sequel has been before. In other words, it's attempting to surpass its predecessor and appeal to the core audience that the film gained, only to feel muddled as a result. Thus, our worst fears have been confirmed, and the films never should've been split.

Last year, after "Wicked: Part One," I compared the film to George Lucas' "Star Wars" prequels. "For Good" doesn't dispel this notion so much as it puts into stark relief how much "For Good" is a missed opportunity. For indeed, much tragedy befalls the land of Oz as Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), Galinda (Ariana Grande-Butera), and their friends/relatives from their Shiz University days are unstoppably transformed by a whirlwind of events (and, of course, an actual whirlwind). While most of these changes are ultimately for good, that isn't apparent right away, and director Jon M. Chu seems to understand this weightiness at times. Yet moments like Dulcibear (Sharon D. Clarke) leaving Oz feel like an afterthought, and the fight between Elphaba and Galinda after the death of Nessarose (Marissa Bode) is played almost totally for laughs. Imagine if Lucas scored the Anakin and Obi-Wan fight on Mustafar with Carl Stalling-style Looney Tunes music.

All of these awkward, poor choices would likely not have flown had "Wicked" been allowed to be a single film. Instead of the story paying off as it was intended to, by letting these characters and their arcs develop and change over the two acts of the play, it feels like Chu and company have made choices that serve each moment more than an overall narrative. So, some of it works, a lot of it doesn't, but the rub is that all of it could've worked better had the filmmakers been keeping an eye on the story and less on the marketing. Two films may sound better than one, but that means little if you're going to try to make Act Two as much like Act One as possible, thus spoiling both in the process.

Not only does the splitting up of "Wicked" leave "For Good" making some bad calls, but it also feels less like its own film and more like an obligation. In contrast to other multi-part films, like "Kill Bill Vol. 2," there's no cheeky recap of "Part One" at the beginning, and unlike "It: Chapter Two," there's no significant time jump, casting change, or perspective shift to make the split feel more natural. Another huge issue that hurts matters even more is Universal's insistence on releasing "For Good" almost exactly a year after "Part One," for no better reason than it being the holiday season. It's particularly naked branding; you can bet that, if these rumors about a third film come to fruition, we'll see "Part Three" in another late November, too. The shame of it is that, had the studio not been so rapacious, they might've released "For Good" earlier this year instead, thus making some of this awkwardness go away.

In my prior piece on multi-part films, I offered some experimental ideas on how long-form storytelling and the demands of exhibition could try to reach an equilibrium, and these ideas still apply here (you know that, had a "Horizon"-style "Wicked Passport to Oz" ticket bundle concept been implemented, the stans would've flocked to it in droves). All I have to add now is a plea to filmmakers and fans to remember a couple of key adages: there can be too much of a good thing, and necessity is the mother of invention. Yes, it's nice if you can have everything you want in a film by turning it into multiple movies, but it's an important art lesson, as in life, to discern between what you want and what you need.

"Wicked: For Good" is in theaters now.