Warning: This article contains spoilers for Wicked the Broadway musical.Wicked: For Good will need to resolve a storyline that was altered from the Broadway show for the first movie, potentially with some intense and effective results. 2024’s Wicked and its follow-up are based on the Broadway musical, which itself is based on Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Broadway mᴀssively changed the story, while the movies are largely faithful to this show. However, Jon M. Chu’s Wicked still makes some changes from the musical, taking advantage of additional screen time to flesh out stories and lean into the cinematic experience.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande dazzlingly portray Elphaba and Glinda, the future Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good, bringing to life the journey that sees them ᴀssume these roles. We learn that the Wicked Witch label is the result of a smear campaign rather than Elphaba’s supposed villainy, but there is still an expectation that things will eventually end up in the right place for The Wizard of Oz. One such element is that Elphaba will take up residence in a castle, alongside her guard of flying monkeys — the plot point that the movies have complicated.
Elphaba Is Supposed To Return To The Emerald City To “Free” The Flying Monkeys
The Monkeys Were Actually Imprisoned In The Wicked Show
In the Broadway show, Elphaba returns to the Emerald City the night a ball celebrating Glinda and Fiyero’s engagement is being held. While she may subconsciously be thinking about telling Fiyero how she feels about him before he is married, her primary goal is to free the flying monkeys. In the first act of the show, while the Wizard and Madame Morrible still mention the possibility of using the monkeys as spies, they aren’t presented as the Wizard’s formidable guard, just animal servants. Only the human guards chase after Elphaba and Glinda during the “Defying Gravity” sequence.
The Wizard catches Elphaba sneaking around the night of the ball and tries to persuade her to join him. She will be celebrated as a redeemed villain and have more power as the Wizard’s ally; he also insists he is only acting as the hero the people of Oz want him to be. She actually agrees, on the condition he frees the monkeys, which he does gladly. However, Elphaba then discovers Dr. Dillamond in the palace, having been imprisoned and lost his ability to speak. With help from Fiyero, Elphaba flees again, and the freed monkeys join her.
The Wicked Movies Present The Flying Monkeys As A (Coerced) Army
It Would Appear That The Monkeys Technically Can Leave
However, the first Wicked movie depicts the monkeys as a terrifying army guarding the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). When the Wizard has Elphaba perform a spell, she still accidentally gives them all wings. But then, once Elphaba and Glinda start running, it is the monkeys who are pursuing them. Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) threatens them all, saying that they are expected to catch Elphaba for the Wizard if they want to keep their families safe. They are another branch of the Wizard’s power, though less willing than the separate guard of human soldiers led by Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey).
The extended chase sequence in Wicked‘s ending and Glinda’s warning to Elphaba that the “monkeys will spot her” in the Wicked: For Good trailer highlight that the flying monkeys aren’t physically imprisoned in the movies. The monkeys only stay because their loved ones are being threatened, and they are presumably not confident that they could get them away from the regime if they choose to desert. However, the Wicked Witch of the West is famous for her ᴀssociation with the flying monkeys, so they will have to get to this endpoint by another means in Wicked: For Good.
Why Does Elphaba Return To The Emerald City For The Wedding & Why Do The Monkeys Leave With Her?
Wicked: For Good May Feature An Animal Uprising
Under these circumstances, the flying monkey guard has to, at some point, be inspired or angered enough to revolt and become Elphaba’s guard instead. I am ᴀssuming that the event that prompts Elphaba to return to the Emerald City is now the wedding instead of an engagement ball, for a mix of personal and political reasons. There is a brief sH๏τ in the Wicked: For Good trailer of a storm of animals stampeding through a part of the palace, knocking over floral displays, suggesting it is also at the time of the wedding.
So, Elphaba may be there as well because she knew the animals were planning an uprising if she is a leader rather than a criminal in their community. With Elphaba there to help the demonstration and mitigate collateral damage, the monkeys may then be motivated to risk leaving with her. If the animals still living in the city (likely in positions of servitude) are rising up, the monkeys would logically join them. The resulting chaos might even give them the time to move their families to safety.
There would then be a mᴀss exodus of rebels from the city, and the monkeys ally themselves with Elphaba later. Wizard of Oz iconography dictates that the Wicked Witch has to end up flanked by the flying monkeys in Wicked: For Good, but the movie could be constructing a more interesting and powerful story to get there. This tweaked storyline would give the monkeys and the rest of the animals more agency, depicting and contextualizing a meaningful rebellion, of which Elphaba is only one part.
