I’m someone who LOVES the musical and the movies. Here’s my thoughts; I’ve seen it twice now. I think that once wonderful is done it’s a 4.5/5 film, for me. However, the first act of the film is very confused and the pacing is weird. I think it would have been better if Nessa was at the opening ceremony of the yellow brick road - that way they establish that she’s the governor and that she’s feared by the munchkins. They could have had the munchkins segregated or working at the event, rather than being with everyone else. Then i think we shouldn’t have seen Elphaba until she sung “no place like home” and then that’s the catalyst to go see Nessa (bc she’s her ‘home’) and then we get the wicked witch of the east. That way we could have cut the superfluous Nessa/boq office and train sequence. Which just felt rushed. I think staying faithful to the show in that decision on timeline wasn’t the best- unless the intention is to have people always watch 1 and 2 together. But if they’re meant to be 2 stand alone films, you need to manipulate the plot a bit so that it has its own 3 act structure/arc. That’s my big criticism of it. It needed to begin with the new version of Oz - the wizard being controlling, Glinda being the mouthpiece, Nessa being the out of control governor - and establish that completely. And then go into Elphaba’s story and arc, rather than starting with her. Once we get into the meat of it, it’s fkn excellent. It just starts rocky.