Wicked and disappointed

[The Folk Prophet]

Is this title click bait? Depends on how you read it, I suppose.

Am I saying I'm wicked and disappointed? Am I saying other others are wicked and it's disappointing?

Or am I talking about the fact that I finally saw the movie musical Wicked and I was disappointed?

Just up front...the movie is good. It's well made. It's well acted. The story is solid. It's a good movie. But....

I had to fight back tears in the end, not because it was an emotional movie. I suppose the emotion of the music (which is pretty solid in the end...more on that) primed me for being emotional, but I was not emotional about the movie or the plot. I was emotional at disappointment.

Alright...getting into it:

Wicked was a good move. Very good.

But several things were disappointing, one being an absolute dealbreaker for me.

First, Wicked as a "music"-al.... The music.

It's...okay. I've never loved it. It has 2 or 3 okay-ish songs, several "meh" songs, a couple of garbage songs, and 1 or 2 great(ish) songs or musical moments. However...

Second, the orchestration choices and style of Wicked STINKS! I've always hated it. I'd hoped they'd fix it for the movie. And...a little bit they did. But mostly, nah. Still stinks.

I mean, If you were going to put a style of music to represent the Land of Oz, what style would you choose? Would it be pop/rock? Would it?

NO!

It's garbage. That's all I have to say on that.

Third, the choreography was (along the same lines) TERRIBLE in the same way. It didn't, for the most part) feel in any way appropriate for Oz. It might have (sort of) fit the music style. It was very modern and...you know... pop/rock-y. But it was bad.

Fourth, and this is the big one, it was...how do I put it delicately? Nah. Forget delicacy. It was GAY! And I've always hated that about Wicked. Now...just to be clear... I'm not using "gay" as a pejorative expletive here, like was done in the 80s. As in, "That's so gay, man!" I mean it simply as a stylistic thing. It's stylistically gay. And it's not to my taste. I do not like stylistically "gay" entertainment. It ain't my cup-o-joe. And I've always felt that way about Wicked. Certain musicals fall into that category. A lot of them are, indeed, filled with homosexual stuff. But that's not even what I mean by the "style". It's just a style of music and acting and presentation and etc., etc. that doesn't appeal to me. And I don't quite know how to describe it other than being "gay". It's like the put-on way "gay" men act that's supposedly "effeminate" but is nothing like females actually act. It's just a stylistic gay men thing. Like the gay lisp or limp wristed cliches. And, in music (musicals in particular), it's not a lisp or a limp wrist or something like that...but it still has a sense of that. There's a feel to certain shows that comes across, stylistically, as.... like I said...I don't have a better word....gay.

Now...I realize...to some, ALL musicals are gay. Fair enough. Fine. I know there's subjectivity here. And it's hard to really put my thumb on what it is about certain musicals that stylistically does not appeal to me in that way. Wicked is not the most egregious here. I've never hated Wicked's music. I just haven't ever loved it. That being said, I understand why some do. The same way I understand why some love Hamilton. Rap's not my thing. But I see the art. I get it.

But then -- and I don't know how this compares to the stage musical, having never seen it -- they added legit crossdressing and homosexual implications in the movie. Like I said...maybe that wasn't added. Maybe the stage musical has always had that too. But THAT's the big dealbreaker. Not buying. Not letting the kids watch. Nope.

And that is extremely disappointing, because what is a, legitimately, GOOD movie -- and I'm always looking for new, good, movie musicals (they're rare nowadays) -- becomes a no go for me because of woke crap inserted. And...just like my annoyance with the pop/rock music style and how it doesn't work for Oz...it's the same thing here. Dudes in full make-up and dresses, and others flirting and infatuated with other men, and the like, feels SO out of place and wrong in what should be an innocent written-for-children world. And...yes...I get that Wicked is a grown-up deconstruction of Oz, but open drag and open homosexuality? Nope. Does not fit. It feels like nothing more than the injection of modern leftist politics into it, and it harms the show -- even if I put aside my moral objections. It doesn't work. But the deal-breaking part is the moral objection.

So....I'm disappointed. Particularly because Wicked was, indeed, a good movie. Very good.

Anyhow...the emotional reaction (having been primed by the legitimately good music moments at the end of part one), were tied into more than just my disappointment from Wicked. It was like all the disappointments I've had in entertainment over the past 30 years came crashing down on me and it was upsetting! Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Lost, cancelled series after cancelled series, Michael Jacksons last few albums, Andrew Lloyd Webbers musicals after Phantom, everything Claude-Michel Shoenberg and Alain Boublil did after Les Miz and Miss Saigon (which is only 2 shows...but still....The Pirate Queen? Garbage! So bad! What the stink?!). And myriads of movies and shows and musicals that excited me in concept and then turned out to be garbage. Etc., etc., etc., etc. SO...MANY....DISAPPOINTMENTS!

Sigh. I mean, I got over it quickly. But it was pretty emotionally upsetting for about 10 seconds. And then even though I got over it, still upsetting enough to complain to my wife for an hour and then write up this post.

[The Folk Prophet]

Oh...and...

The other one we saw.

Moana 2.

What a disappointment!

What a garbage movie!

Nothing woke-offensive*, per se, there. But just a bad movie. Bad story, bad writing, bad songs. Bad, bad, bad!

*not really "woke", but the lyrics to the song Get Lost are pretty evil**, in the same way Let It Go's*** lyrics from Frozen are evil. And...surprise, surprise, when we finished I asked my daughter what her favorite sone was and.... yeah. Which...whatever on the "evil" lyrics. That's not why she liked it. But it bothers me a lot more because, lyrics aside, it was easily the worst song in the movie. It's like how my least favorite song in Encanto (What Else Can I Do?) is my daughter's favorite.

Yeah... I know....just wait till she's a teenager. Dad not liking his daughter's music is a cliche.

**
Get lost, cut loose, and lose your way
There ain't no fun in holdin' back, babe
You gotta enjoy the thrill of livin' dangerously
You've got a long, long way to go
Keep playin' safe, you'll never know
The rules are ours to break
Come on, babe
It's time to get lost

*** Let It Go's lyrics might be as evil, but quality and skill of lyric writing...heads and tails better than the garbage in Moana 2. SO......BAD!!!!

[NeuroTypical]

Yep.  Pretty much 100% agreement on Wicked.   There's representation, and then there's crowbarring social justice messaging and cultural change down the audience's throat.  

I'm thinking about Star Trek Discovery.  They did the same thing.  It wasn't just having some rainbow people be part of the crew and involved in plot.  It seemed like the entire point of some seasons was to help usher in a new American cultural revolution of inclusivity and acceptance, and oh, yeah, maybe some phasers too.  I think I got some account violation dings in various social media platforms for being snarky.  "I'm worried that trans actor Blu Del Barrio's trans trill character isn't getting enough screen time.  I've only counted three or four scenes where Stamets and Dr. Culbert stand smilingly affirming Adira Tal as they continue their journey of self-discovery and acceptance.  There should be at least five more such scenes."  Yeah, not just account dings, but I also got offers of violence and requests to go drink bleach and unalive in a hole.  It was so nice to see the woke mind virus lose much of its power over the last year or two.   1 out of 5 stars, do not recommend.  Even though they apologized and tried to do classic Trek in the final season, nobody cared. 

Star Trek has done it better in two different shows. Lower Decks' main character Ensign Mariner was one of the rainbow letters, but that's not why she was there, and it hardly defined her character in any meaningful way.  Her relationship arc with the orion chick spanned a season, but as relationship arcs go, it was fun and relatable.  

The latest direct-to-Paramount Section 31 movie did it right also.  Not classic Trek, but they managed representation in an engaging way.  Dude has "mecha-dysmorphia", but gets insulted whenever someone brings it up.  The show pairs him up with the most offensive sarcastic character in the show and the potshots they take at each other make the thing enjoyable.  Character development vs. preaching - it can be done.

 

But yeah, Star Trek Discovery?

Edited April 7 by NeuroTypical

[Backroads]

I honestly thought the Wicked movie was an incredibly piece of filmmaking and thought it was a strong contender for Best Picture. 

My kids are finally ending their Moana 2 phase and thank goodness. I still don't know what the plot is, but the music is awful.

[The Folk Prophet]

14 minutes ago, Backroads said:

a strong contender for Best Picture.

A pretty low bar to contend for though.

[Backroads]

50 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

A pretty low bar to contend for though.

You're not wrong.

[JohnsonJones]

Thanks for the write up on Wicked.  My Son and Daughter in Law and my grandkids all saw that movie, and then they went to a travelling broadway (or something like that) stage production of it. 

I find it ironic.  They are about as far Right and extremely Conservative as one can get, so if it has everything you review it with, I don't understand why they loved the stage production (and also enjoyed the movie).

I enjoy musicals and had thought about seeing Wicked.  I think you saved me time and money as it sounds (from your review) as a movie that I would not enjoy (I'm somewhat picky on movies, most movies today have too much language and violence for me, even those people say don't have that much are normally too much for me to enjoy).  I appreciate you taking the time to share this.

7 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

The latest direct-to-Paramount Section 31 movie did it right also.  Not classic Trek, but they managed representation in an engaging way.  Dude has "mecha-dysmorphia", but gets insulted whenever someone brings it up.  The show pairs him up with the most offensive sarcastic character in the show and the potshots they take at each other make the thing enjoyable.  Character development vs. preaching - it can be done.

I have not seen these shows, but Star Trek has always been somewhat liberal.  It became even more liberal with the 80s onwards shows, and from what I understand, has continued that trend today (I cannot say I know this personally, as I haven't seen the shows, but it is what I've understood).

From those same sources I heard that this movie was terrible though (Section 31).  I'm not sure why, but overwhelmingly it seemed like people reviewed it badly. 

[LDSGator]

8 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Now...I realize...to some, ALL musicals are gay. Fair enough. Fine

As a joke, Melissa always said I should start a support group called “Heterosexual, married men who like musicals” because I was the only one out there. 

[LDSGator]

And I’ll be the first to admit-my knowledge of the genre is a tiny bucket of water compared to yours, which is an Olympic level swimming pool, @The Folk Prophet.

[LDSGator]

My take on Wicked-haven’t read it, haven’t seen the movie/musical in full-but I think Defying Gravity is a modern day classic. 5 star song. Up there with I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miz 

[NeuroTypical]

54 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

From those same sources I heard that this movie was terrible though (Section 31).  I'm not sure why, but overwhelmingly it seemed like people reviewed it badly.

Yep, it was very much not even remotely like classic Trek.  More like a cross between an Eddie Murphy cop movie and a cyberpunk first-person shooter game, set in the Star Trek universe.   I wouldn't have liked it except for my general love of anything Trek.  I'll set a lot aside for Trek, except being lectured on how to be a better white man by Trek.

[The Folk Prophet]

14 hours ago, LDSGator said:

And I’ll be the first to admit-my knowledge of the genre is a tiny bucket of water compared to yours, which is an Olympic level swimming pool, @The Folk Prophet.

Not really. My tastes in any given thing are generally narrow. I'm not the kind of person who likes/loves ANY musical theater. I like what I like. And if I don't care for certain things, I'm not very knowledgeable. There's a whole lot of musical theater works that, upon sampling, I didn't care for, and don't know much about, beyond that I didn't care for the sample.

Edited April 8 by The Folk Prophet

[The Folk Prophet]

14 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

(and also enjoyed the movie).

Because it's good. Simple enough. I let a lot of stuff slide, morally speaking, in my entertainment loves, because I enjoy the movies. Like how my favorite movies of all time (which are, generally, the classic 80s movies. Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Karate Kid, etc...) are filled with 80s level cussing and I just ignore it.

And I'm not sure how to feel about that.

I'm hyper sensitive to gay/trans stuff though. And even more hyper sensitive when my children are potential consumers. All in all, it wasn't THAT on the nose in Wicked. When the handsome prince arrives several men are fawning over him (which could be taken as hero worship vs a desire to do gay stuff (though that is clearly not what was intended)), and the men in drag-related wear are background characters/dancers in a fantasy, otherworldy, quicky, everyone-dresses-a-bit-funny world. I can understand people looking past it. I'm overly sensitive, for sure.

[LDSGator]

1 hour ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Not really. My tastes in any given thing are generally narrow. I'm not the kind of person who likes/loves ANY musical theater. I like what I like. And if I don't care for certain things, I'm not very knowledgeable. There's a whole lot of musical theater works that, upon sampling, I didn't care for, and don't know much about, beyond that I didn't care for the sample.

Don’t sell yourself short bro. You’ve made musicals yourself. That requires a high level of knowledge and understanding of the craft. 

[Just_A_Guy]

I grew upon Rodgers & Hammerstein plus Phantom and Les Mis, and in college I got into Scarlet Pimpernel and Jekyll and Hyde.  Those—either due to the music or the story— all seemed to have an “epic” quality that the newer stuff (even Wicked*) seems to lack.

 

*Full disclosure:  I never liked “The Wizard of Oz” in the first place—it just seemed freakish—so in my book “Wicked” was already starting from a hole it was never able to climb out of.

And rap may be a technical skill, but it is utterly without beauty and thus I reject it (and by extension “Hamilton”) as an art form.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Edited April 8 by Just_A_Guy

[NeuroTypical]

7 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

And rap may be a technical skill, but it is utterly without beauty and thus I reject it (and by extension “Hamilton”) as an art form.

Understandable.  But Epic Rap Battles of History surely have some educational value.  

And  a good Yo' Mamma fight can be quite entertaining, even when set to music. 

Edited April 8 by NeuroTypical

[The Folk Prophet]

3 hours ago, LDSGator said:

Don’t sell yourself short bro. You’ve made musicals yourself. That requires a high level of knowledge and understanding of the craft. 

Oh...yeah. I understand the craft. Very much. I'm just not into all musicals, like some people I know.

In my opinion, to be into all musicals, one has to have, essentially, no taste.

[The Folk Prophet]

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I grew upon Rodgers & Hammerstein plus Phantom and Les Mis, and in college I got into Scarlet Pimpernel and Jekyll and Hyde.  Those—either due to the music or the story— all seemed to have an “epic” quality that the newer stuff (even Wicked*) seems to lack.

The "epic" musical (otherwise termed the "megamusical") ate itself...in the same way Hollywood ate itself with "blockbuster" superhero extended universe movies.

Instead of writing great musicals with great music, plot, singing, etc.*, they felt like the reason Phantom, Les Miz, Miss Saigon, and so-forth were "epic" was because they were staged with huge budgets and had chandeliers come crashing down, barricades descend like magic from the ceilings,  and helicopters landing on the stage.

And so when they flopped, they flopped HARD, because they cost so much to make. A couple of moderately successful examples didn't make their budgets back because their budgets were ridiculous. Sound familiar (*cough* Disney)?

And so instead of deciding to write great musicals with great music without all the money into it re staging and effects and the like, they decided to go with "known properties" (Sound familiar, (*cough* Hollywood)), and hence we get the "jukebox" musical and/or the Disney musicals based on the successful and already highly popular property.

* To be fair...doing this is harder than it sounds. Even the greats of the "mega" musicals (Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Claude-Michel Schonberg/Alain Boublil) couldn't replicate it. After Cats (which sucks...but no question, was a huge hit) and Phantom, Lloyd-Webber had Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard (awesome, but not a hit), Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, The Woman in White, Love Never Dies, Stephen Ward, and Cinderella (with an "additional music by", The Wizard of Oz in there too).

Any of those sound like huge hits you've heard of? Maybe Sunset Boulevard. But it lost money ultimately, because of how much it cost to stage.

Schoberg/Boublil followed up Les Miz with Miss Saigon. Maybe my favorite musical...but nowhere near as successful as Les Miz. Then they did Martin Guerre and finally The Pirate Queen. Both flops. And for good reason, particularly with The Pirate Queen. Martin Guerre has some great music, but then never could bring it all together to make a solid show. Then they, apparenly, gave up and faded into "resting-on-our-Les-Miz-laurels". Too bad. What could have been if they'd written as many as Rodgers and Hammerstein. But...too expensive. And Cameron Mackintosh, essentially, dropped them. The Pirate Queen was done off Broadway under a different producer.

Their protectory reminded me a lot of Michael Jackson. He has his Les Miz with Thriller, then follows it up with his Miss Saigon, Bad, which is my favorite. Then Dangerous (worse than Bad), History (worse...), and Invincible (TERRIBLE!).

But I digress.

Really...the only thing even CLOSE to the heyday of "epic" shows is Wicked and then Hamilton. Unless you count Disney's stuff. (Incidentally, the stage version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame is PHENOMENAL! Check this out if you haven't heard it: ) 

at 3:51 of this recording....well....cool (this is the way it's typically done now)...but.... check out the original German version with Drew Sarich, who goes to the high C at the end. It sounds like he uses falsetto, but then he swells into full voice and...yeah.

Moreover though....the orchestrations for this show!!! Good gravy. This is how musical theater should be!

@LDSGator Okay...fine. I know a lot about musical theater. I concede.

Edit: Except the last beat. It needs to be higher, bigger, include a cymbal crash, and just generally punch you in the face a bit more after that swelling vocal high note. But... you know... armchair quarterbacking here.

Edited April 8 by The Folk Prophet

[LDSGator]

8 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Okay...fine. I know a lot about musical theater. I concede

Truth has finally come out. All I need now is for @NeuroTypical to finally admit he‘s still a Brony. 

Edited April 8 by LDSGator

[JohnsonJones]

17 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

And rap may be a technical skill, but it is utterly without beauty and thus I reject it (and by extension “Hamilton”) as an art form.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I tried to watch Hamilton.  I have to say that it is a "musical" which does not appeal to me in the slightest.

In comparison, after conference on Sunday afternoon they showed the Sound of Music.  That was far more enjoyable, even as a Movie, than Hamilton on Stage.

I really don't have anything good to say about Hamilton, so I think I should leave it at that.

Edited April 9 by JohnsonJones

[The Folk Prophet]

4 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

I tried to watch Hamilton.  I have to say that it is a "musical" which does not appeal to me in the slightest.

In comparison, after conference on Sunday afternoon they showed the Sound of Music.  That was far more enjoyable, even as a Movie, than Hamilton on Stage.

I really don't have anything good to say about Hamilton, so I think I should leave it at that.

Hamilton (in my opinion) has exactly one brilliant piece of music:

Which...even then, could be much better, but the basic verse melody and instrumental arrangement is legit good stuff.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a good melody/song writer. His style is...okay...but gets a bit same-y. His hip-hop/rap stuff though...while, as I've said, I get...is just not to my tastes at all.

And his half-rhyme practices (common to any form of contemporary popular music) drives me crazy. Half rhymes are SO lazy. Work harder people!!!

[NeuroTypical]

Part of the Ham Fam here.  I don't understand why folks don't see art in Hamilton. 

This didn't make it into the publicly released stuff, but the song where Angelica rips Hamilton a new one after he made his affair public?  A top-tier masterful portrayal of the betrayed woman building up and releasing a volcano of smackdown.  Second only to that one time I screwed up with my wife and she let me have it.  There's absolutely an art in portraying betrayed feminine critical energy directed at a lover as a rap.  I liked this song so much I memorized it, and in doing so understood women better.

 

[Backroads]

On 4/7/2025 at 5:48 PM, LDSGator said:

As a joke, Melissa always said I should start a support group called “Heterosexual, married men who like musicals” because I was the only one out there. 

For the life of me I can't remember the sitcom (probably Will & Grace), but the guest actor was Matt Damon if memory serves me correctly. His character was pretending to be gay in order to join some musical theater group and at the end had to give some impassioned speech about how straight men should be allowed to enjoys musicals too.

Edited April 9 by Backroads

[The Folk Prophet]

So I finally watched Dear Evan Hansen.

Kind of an amazing show. I have critiques. Some big ones. But overall...kind of amazing.

I kind of dislike The Greatest Showman. And I've heard bits here and there from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's other stuff. Some's been good. But one of the things that worked here is their style fits a contemporary setting, whereas the repetitive pop-rock Coldplay style writing bugs me in an 1830-40s setting.

I think they kind of dropped the ball on the ending though. They addressed one of the two major plot point well...Evan's social issues and need. But they kind of dropped the ball on the other point, which is the effects of what Evan does in the show, what it mean for people, and how everything and everyone is changed from it. There's some minor alluding to that...but it needed to kind of BE the plot resolution. It needed to be on the nose, and feel good and right and truly hopeful in the end. Instead, it felt...meh. There's SO many ways they could have done this, which I won't get into here now. Evans future! What did it hold? No idea. Did he change? Are things better and hopeful? Who knows.

I generally liked the music and lyrics. Except the repeated lines. Why do they consistently repeat the same line 4 times in a row? 

When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?
When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?
When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?
When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?

Really?

I get some repetition in this regard to emphasize an idea. But they overdo it and it bugged me.

I didn't love all the songs, but, generally...not bad. Not something I'd listen to repeatedly. But good music overall. A few songs were bland, for sure. And several of them, despite my thinking the pop-rock style worked here, did not work as well in that style and would have worked better in a less poppy style.

And...once scene (where Evan confesses to the family) really would have been significantly stronger NOT set to music. Which is a really strange thing for me to say. Usually I think everything would be better set to good music.

I was looking at some stuff about it later, and Ben Platt and Amy Adams were both nominated for Worst Actor/Actress for the movie. And I couldn't help but think that people were sure a bunch of petty jerks. I get that Ben Platt was too old to really play the part, and...sure. But bad acting? The acting was phenomenal! Seeing it considered worst acting for either of them shocked me a bit. The acting was the best part of the movie.

Anyhow, I have mixed feelings. The show was good. The music was good. But the show wasn't great (mostly). The music wasn't great (mostly). I would recommend seeing it, generally. But may never find myself interested in actually watching it ever again. The movie was incredibly engaging for me...but that's mostly because I was a high-school loser who felt invisible and hated and unpopular and etc., etc. So it brought up all these old insecurities. (Inside Out 2 had the same effect the first time I saw it.) They're not insecurities any longer. But there's still strong emotion attached to the memories...  so it engaged me.

But.... I have to say... I think it would have been a better movie NOT as a musical. The music actually took away from the impact in a lot of ways.

And they dropped the ball on the ending.

Edited April 10 by The Folk Prophet

[mordorbund]

1 hour ago, The Folk Prophet said:

So I finally watched Dear Evan Hansen.

Kind of an amazing show. I have critiques. Some big ones. But overall...kind of amazing.

I kind of dislike The Greatest Showman. And I've heard bits here and there from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's other stuff. Some's been good. But one of the things that worked here is their style fits a contemporary setting, whereas the repetitive pop-rock Coldplay style writing bugs me in an 1830-40s setting.

I think they kind of dropped the ball on the ending though. They addressed one of the two major plot point well...Evan's social issues and need. But they kind of dropped the ball on the other point, which is the effects of what Evan does in the show, what it mean for people, and how everything and everyone is changed from it. There's some minor alluding to that...but it needed to kind of BE the plot resolution. It needed to be on the nose, and feel good and right and truly hopeful in the end. Instead, it felt...meh. There's SO many ways they could have done this, which I won't get into here now. Evans future! What did it hold? No idea. Did he change? Are things better and hopeful? Who knows.

I generally liked the music and lyrics. Except the repeated lines. Why do they consistently repeat the same line 4 times in a row? 

When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?
When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?
When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?
When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around
Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?

Really?

I get some repetition in this regard to emphasize an idea. But they overdo it and it bugged me.

I didn't love all the songs, but, generally...not bad. Not something I'd listen to repeatedly. But good music overall. A few songs were bland, for sure. And several of them, despite my thinking the pop-rock style worked here, did not work as well in that style and would have worked better in a less poppy style.

And...once scene (where Evan confesses to the family) really would have been significantly stronger NOT set to music. Which is a really strange thing for me to say. Usually I think everything would be better set to good music.

I was looking at some stuff about it later, and Ben Platt and Amy Adams were both nominated for Worst Actor/Actress for the movie. And I couldn't help but think that people were sure a bunch of petty jerks. I get that Ben Platt was too old to really play the part, and...sure. But bad acting? The acting was phenomenal! Seeing it considered worst acting for either of them shocked me a bit. The acting was the best part of the movie.

Anyhow, I have mixed feelings. The show was good. The music was good. But the show wasn't great (mostly). The music wasn't great (mostly). I would recommend seeing it, generally. But may never find myself interested in actually watching it ever again. The movie was incredibly engaging for me...but that's mostly because I was a high-school loser who felt invisible and hated and unpopular and etc., etc. So it brought up all these old insecurities. (Inside Out 2 had the same effect the first time I saw it.) They're not insecurities any longer. But there's still strong emotion attached to the memories...  so it engaged me.

But.... I have to say... I think it would have been a better movie NOT as a musical. The music actually took away from the impact in a lot of ways.

And they dropped the ball on the ending.

I also do not like The Greatest Showman. And when Dear Evan Hansen came out I was disappointed that it won the Tony over Come From Away. About the only thing it had going for it, I thought, was the use of digital screens to replicate social media posts going viral. I’m of the opinion that it only won the Tony because everyone assumed that it was about the fallout of a gay suicide (that was one of the hot topics of the time).

When I saw the movie it was better than I thought. Not as good as the hype, but still better than I thought.