Wicked: For Good

We’re less than two months out from the theatrical release of Jon M. Chu’s epic _Wicked: For Good. _Let’s check out the film’s Final Trailer, which Universal released last week. We’ll see how it compares to the film’s Official Trailer that we analyzed back in June.

The new Wicked: For Good trailer follows roughly the same three-part structure as its Official Trailer from June: first introduce Glinda (Ariana Grande) in her newly appointed role as Glinda the Good Witch, then show Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) being demonized as the “Wicked Witch,” and finally, highlight the enduring friendship between these two (set to the musical’s closing ballad, “For Good”).

Off the start, this new trailer has minimal music other than the songs. Accompanied by a single high register piano note drenched in reverb (ubiquitous in trailers these days), we hear Glinda sing the line “Couldn’t be happier,” from “Thank Goodness”–the first song from Act II of the Broadway musical Wicked. As we hear Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) mentoring Glinda, these first 18 seconds of the trailer feature no other music to speak of besides four more strategically placed high register piano notes. It’s almost eerie how absent the music is.

But then at 0:18, when Glinda excitedly presses the footswitch to make the bubble appear on her flying couch-sphere contraption, we hear the opening fanfare from “Thank Goodness.” But it cuts out abruptly at 0:24 for comedy’s sake as we see Morrible’s exasperated expression. From 0:29 Glinda’s vocals continue a verse from “Thank Goodness,” accompanied by a sparse arrangement, mostly accents on big drums.

However, the mood shifts at 0:40 as Elphaba carves the words “OUR WIZARD LIES” into the clouds. Musical minimalism continues until 0:55, when Elphaba launches into the chorus hook from “No Good Deed.” This one phrase is repeated twice more (at 1:12 and at 1:30), accompanied by accents on large drums, sustained chords from a choir, and string ostinati. Visually, we see conflict between Elphaba and Glinda, and we hear Elphaba describing the tornado that brings Dorothy to Oz (orchestrated by Madame Morrible).

All these musical forces pause at 1:47 in order to leave sonic space for a tender moment of connection between Glinda and Elphaba. Then, at 1:56, like in the film’s Official Trailer from June, the trailer lands on the heart-warming duet “For Good,” which lasts for most of the rest of the trailer.

Lately trailer editors like to have an intense climax in the second half of the trailer in which a plethora of shots are synched to the beat of the music, to maximize both cohesion and exposition. A great example is this technique can be seen in the recent trailer for Ballad of a Small Player. In the Wicked: For Good final trailer, from 2:11-2:55 we have a sequence of 45 shots synched to the rhythm of the music, each lasting for one or two beats. All the while we hear Erivo and Grande singing “For Good” accompanied by swelling orchestral chords and string arpeggios. To me, the really impressive part about this editing sequence is that the choreography for three distinctly different moments in the film are all edited seamlessly together also to fit the beat of “For Good”: a Glinda + chorus choreo at 2:47, a Glinda + Elphaba choreo callback to Elphaba’s Oz Dust Ballroom routine at 2:48, and some ballroom dancing with the Wizard, Elphaba and Glinda at 2:50.

The trailer closes with one final moment of tenderness between Elphaba and Glinda, and then one last shot of Elphaba riding a broomstick with flying monkeys (the same final shot from the end of the Official Trailer in June).

Suffice it to say that Jon M. Chu’s Wicked franchise sets a high bar in so many aspects of film, from choreography to set design to musical performance. While the music for this new final trailer might not be as developed or as compelling as the June trailer, there is some mastery at work in the trailer editing in the second half, and some tasteful integration of soon-to-be-hit songs from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande (“Thank Goodness,” “No Good Deed” and “For Good”) sure to be in high demand on the charts, playlists, and karaoke requests once the soundtrack is released.

Wicked: For Good is in theatres November 21. Get your tickets. Seriously.

— Jack Hui Litster