WICKED MOVIE REVIEW from a Wicked Musical SUPER FAN! - Hollywood Premiere review

I went to the Hollywood premiere of the Wicked movie and I am still not okay. Will I ever be okay again? No. Hey friends, it's Tyler. If you've been following me for a while, you will know how Wicked is my favorite thing in the world. Wicked has been one of the biggest things in my life for the past 21 years. It has shaped and inspired so many things I have done and I truly believe I wouldn't be where I am right now if it wasn't for that show. I've been waiting for this movie for quite some time. I was so, so fortunate to be invited by Universal to go to the Hollywood premiere. Universal also let me go on the actual sets from the movie, but I'm gonna make a completely different video about that because there's just way too much to say. I wanna tell you guys about my experience going to the premiere and then I'm going to give you a spoiler-free review of my first thoughts. Let's go! So just a very little bit of context. I've seen the stage show over 100 times. I worked at one of the theaters where the Australian cast of Wicked was playing and I got to see it many times then. But then I've also gone as a patron so many times. Broadway, National Tour, Australia, New Zealand. I know the show inside and out. I know every single line. So I knew whatever this movie was going to be, I was gonna be highly critical. So I'll just let you know that. The premiere itself was the biggest one I have been to so far. The most incredible thing was that I got to be there with so many of my social media friends who I have met in person and some who I have been friends with for like five years now but we've never actually met in person. I met Trisha Paytas and we had a really good conversation and she is so, so amazing. I love her so much. Dylan Mulvaney, we've been friends for a long time but that was the first time we met in person. I met Troye Sivan, which was like wild. We arrived at the carpet and I got to walk the carpet and see so many incredible fans. I knew the one thing I wanted to do for this premiere was I was like, I have to show my alphabet tattoo. Like, when else can I show this? And it makes sense. So I got a shirt designed specifically with a cutout in the back to show my tattoo which was really cool. I was really happy with the way it turned out. Metta hosted a pre-party where I got to hang out with a lot of my friends, where I got to meet a lot of people. There were like so many celebrities. They're both like social media celebrities and like movie people and singers and very, very overwhelming and so, so much fun. And the best thing was everyone there loves Wicked. So many people there are like theater kids, Broadway kids. Everyone was just so, so excited to see the movie. And so that was amazing. And then we headed up to the theater and guys, I started getting really nervous. Like walking the carpet is always fun. It's like, it always makes me like a little bit nervous but that's fun. I love going to like the parties and meeting everyone. This is the first premiere that I've been to that I was like really nervous because I was like the years and years of expectation. And I was like, what if I'm disappointed? And I really, I had very, very few doubts that I was gonna be disappointed, but I was nervous. I will tell you that from the moment the movie started until the end of the movie, it was like I was just so overwhelmed the whole time. Like I was, I like walked out like like my brain trying to process everything. It's been almost a week since I've seen it and I just have to see this movie again. Like immediately, like today I wanna see it again because my brain was like in overdrive processing everything. But I'm going to give a spoiler free review. Once the movie comes out, I can deep dive into more things. And once I've seen it again, so I can like process things a bit better. I will say this though. It was incredible. Just like everyone has been saying, I think it was the perfect adaptation to film of the musical. I obviously have so many thoughts, but I think that anytime you adapt something to a movie, whether that's a book or a musical or anything, it's always gonna have so many challenges, right? Because when you make it into a movie, it's a completely different medium. Something I really, really understood quickly while I was watching this was that, unfortunately I'm a huge theater kid, but unfortunately for us theater kids, this movie can't just be for us. Nor should it be, it should be for everyone. And so it has to be able to relate to people who might proclaim to hate musicals or people who've just never seen a musical before in their life. And I think it was the most perfect way to adapt it to the medium of film while keeping all of the integrity of the stage musical, but making it more accessible for a much wider audience than just people who would go and see a musical on Broadway. First of all, I will say, I think that making it into two parts is a very, very smart idea. I do think one of the things with the stage musical is that you have to kind of fill in some gaps yourself using either what you know from The Wizard of Oz or just the more times you see the show, more things kind of make sense. But because they took the time with this, they were really able to delve much deeper and explain things more and just fill in those gaps that the stage musical just doesn't have the time to do. The biggest thing that my fiance said is that I took him to see the Broadway version for the first time six years ago, maybe. I was like, can't be in a relationship with me if you haven't seen Wicked. He loved the stage show, but I remember when we saw it, he asked me like so many questions. He was like, I didn't like get this. And like, I didn't get that. What was this? What was that? Seeing the movie, his biggest thing was like, he said it just all just made a lot more sense to him. Those gaps were filled and the world was more expanded, which I think is going to do very, very well for the movie itself. I will say, I don't think, was this a spoiler? No, this isn't a spoiler. I really, really believe everyone who was a part of this movie, obviously, especially John Chu, the director, of course, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, is that they know the original so well, like as well as the fans do, well, because they're fans themselves. What I really, really appreciated is all of the changes that were required for the film made sense and only built on what already existed. As we all know, all of us who read Harry Potter and the Hunger Games and all of these things know that often in the films, they make quite dramatic changes. Like they might completely miss out a character or they might completely just change someone's storyline. Nothing was changed in that way in this movie. Like it just built on what we already know. The script was basically the Broadway script, just adapted. So the dialogue was pretty much the same, only added more than taken away. That's my slogan for this movie. Added to the stage show, not taken away. My biggest thing was going to be how I felt about the music because I, this music is like everything to me, you know? I've been listening to it constantly for the past 21 years. And not only that, I've also just heard so many different vocal choices from the live shows I've seen. And then I think so many of us have watched all of the like Defying Gravity compilation videos where you listen to the different riffs and stuff like that. And they honored the music so well. I'm super, super skeptical about like the live singing in films from, let's just say, some other musical movie adaptations that have done live singing that I didn't think worked very well. But I have seen this work really well. One of my favorite movie musicals is The Last Five Years. A lot of that was sung live. When you get Broadway performers like Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan, you can have them singing live because they're such vocal technicians in what they do and it works. And 100% was the same with Wicked. All of the performers are such incredible singers. It was totally justifiable for them to be doing it live. It like does bring a different sound. This isn't really a spoiler because there are lots of clips out now, but you will. There was much less reverb than you would get from the stage show. Or a lot of it sounded less kind of that musical theater tone. I feel like there was a lot less vibrato. There was like so much straight tone in it, which is like, I get it. It's much more accessible to everyone because we're so used to that with pop music. But also a lot of musical theater tone as well. So both, both. Everyone was so, so well cast. I know that there have been many Ariana doubters, but as I said on my previous videos, my biggest thing about Ariana was that I just, I am so, so grateful that the role went to someone who deeply, deeply cares about this. And I'm not saying that someone who doesn't care as much about Wicked or isn't as big a fan wouldn't have done a good job, but you can, you can see it like in her performance. She, she just knows it so well. She knows all of the Glindas who have come before and she made it like her own, but it was still very, very true to the original. Cynthia Erivo is like just insane. I don't, so, so effortless with her vocals. We like see Elphaba in a new way. I'm just, I care so deeply about the Broadway show, obviously. And I've seen so many different performers and casts and different choices. And for me, this is my acting note, I'm always, the stakes need to be so high in everything. Like every scene needs to be like life or death for me. There are some really funny moments like in the show. To me, it all has to be genuine. It has to be so genuine. And I've just seen different choices that may work for other people, but that didn't work so much for me. So I think I've spoken about this before, but the first time I ever saw the show, if you're familiar with the show, the Ozdust ball scene, if you know, you know, I like, I sobbed when that happened because I knew exactly how Elphaba felt. I was like crying and the entire audience was silent when I saw the stage show for the first time. And it was just like, everyone's heart was breaking for Elphaba. Then I think almost every other time I've seen it, especially in the past 10 years, during that scene, there's so much laughter from the audience. And for me personally, it's never kind of felt that way that it felt the very first time I saw it when the audience was dead silent because everyone was like laughing and sure, like some of it's awkward laughter, but that moment has been played quite comically. But in the movie, they went for the real, the very deep, high stake emotion. Everyone around me was sobbing. And I think that kind of continues throughout the whole movie is that everyone was crying. I mean, like I could just hear people all around me crying. I was crying throughout the whole thing from no one mourns the wicked. I was like bawling my eyes out, which I never usually cry in that song when I see it in the stage show. It's so hard for me to say anything else without spoiling it. But once the movie comes out, we can talk more. We can talk more about this. My advice for you all. If you've never seen Wicked, I think you're going to have an incredible time. I think the story is told so well and I'm so excited for you guys who have never seen Wicked to be seeing it this version for the first time because it really reminded me of the first time I saw it and how I felt the first time I saw it and how much it impacted my life then. And if you're like a crazy person like me and I've seen Wicked a million times, I would say go in with an open mind. My very good friend Samantha Sharp had to tell me this many times because we've been talking about this for months. And it's like, it's so hard, but you do have to like separate the Broadway show and the movie because it's just, it's never going to be the same thing. So if you are a huge fan of it, I would just say go in with an open mind. Like you know nothing about Wicked at all. The movie is coming out on November 22nd. So we are very close. And once the movie comes out, I would love to hear all of your thoughts, opinions. I'm going to be making much more Wicked content and I just can't wait to have these conversations. I'm like, I need to talk about it. I need to discuss it. I need to talk about it. Thank you guys so much for watching this video. Let me know if you have any spoiler-free questions I can answer. If I feel like it's spoiler-free, I'll reply. I'll reply. Love you guys so much and see you later. Bye.