Wicked's Biggest Change From the Musical Makes One Character Significantly Better

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Wicked.One of the biggest strengths Evil is that it manages to follow the story of the musical very well, although a change makes a character more important. While its story largely follows canon, there are many changes that were necessary simply due to the change in medium from the Broadway musical to the film, and many of them further improve the story being told. One of EvilThe characters, who were still great in the musical, are even better thanks to a major change in the film's story.

Evil tells the story of Elphaba Thropp, a character who eventually becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, who first appeared in The Wizard of Oz. The film is based on the 2003 Broadway musical, which in turn is based on a 1996 book by Gregory Maguire. Evil has received rave reviews since its release, with most of the praise directed towards the performances, even the smaller supporting cast members make the film better. Madame Morrible is one of these secondary charactersand the changes made to her character in the musical made her much more interesting.

Madam Morrible from Wicked

The character is very important to the film

Madame Morrible is played by Michelle Yeoh in Eviland she is one of the most interesting characters in the film. She is the dean of sorcery studies at Shiz University and is the one who invites Elphaba to train her magic at the school. However, Madame Morrible's main objective in the film is to act as a villain when the Sorcerer's betrayal is revealed. and become one of the main forces acting against Elphaba when she becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.

Morrible is a great character, and one of the biggest reasons for that is how she turns the classic mentor character archetype on its head. She is initially introduced as the exact person Elphaba needs in her life, someone who is willing to look beyond Elphaba's exterior and see what's really inside, which is true to a point. However, when EvilWhen Elphaba's twist is revealed, Morrible becomes the exact opposite, telling the world how evil Elphaba is, explicitly saying that her green skin is an indicator of her evil nature.

How Madame Morrible is different in the original Wicked

The character is very different between the two versions

Although Morrible is given the role of a villain in the film, the original Broadway musical presented her as a more obvious villain from the beginning. She is portrayed as a bit headstrong in the film, but someone who cares about nurturing Elphaba's talents at least before the third act and EvilThe twist ending. In the Broadway version, Madame Morrible is more sinister from beginning to endacting threateningly towards Dr. Dillamond and clearly only wanting Elphaba's power, even in her initial interactions with the main characters.

The central reason for this change is the fact that the film has much more time to delve into the character over a much longer running time. The original Evil The Broadway musical had to move very quickly to fit the entire story into two and a half hours, and so there would have been very little time to develop Morrible as a character before she turns into a villain. The musical version of Morrible worked very well for this medium, but the film made the perfect changes to ensure that Morrible would work in this adaptation as well.

The new Madame Morrible is a great addition to Wicked

The character brings another layer to the story

Madame Morrible being a villainous twist is a great continuation of the film's themes around appearances being deceptive. Obviously, the main message revolves around Elphaba, as her green skin is seen as a sign of her evilness, even though she is fundamentally a good and caring person. Outside, Morrible appears to be a solid mentor for Elphababut eventually, it is revealed that her outward appearance is also a false representation of what kind of person she is, as she only cares about keeping herself and the Wizard in their positions of power.

EvilThe big twist is an integral part of the film as a whole, and Morrible's role in the twist makes it more engaging, as she is a character the audience is familiar with, unlike the Sorcerer, who was only introduced at the end. . Madame Morrible's expanded role also helps the film, giving the excellent Michelle Yeoh a bigger role to sink her teeth into. Her performance is essential to selling the character before her transformation into a villain, and the final revelation of her true nature makes EvilThe ending is even more pleasant.