I got my Wacom tablet in this week! It’s an interesting device. Overall, I’m enjoying how it performs. The screen really does have a papery feel when you go over it with the pen, though it is still smooth. No matter how papery they can make something feel, they can’t make a screen that the pen digs into and ruts like paper, and that’s kind of what I want, when it comes to drawing something new from scratch. But you know, I have ninety pages to get used to it. Clip Studio Paint is remarkably good, I’ll say. I still have things to learn about the new system — like how the fill tool always overfills, and tolerance doesn’t seem to be the control that adjusts for that. It’s very convenient, it has all the features I’m used to and some extras I can check out over time, and it isn’t overtaxing my PC so it doesn’t lag constantly. Working around my fill tool issue is the only thing slowing me down. That, and I need a better glove. I’m touching the screen through it constantly, and it’s really annoying.
This week, I think I’ll talk about a couple movies I saw: The Running Man and Wicked: For Good. Let’s start with The Running Man. It was overall a very fun movie. The action is great and it gives you what you need in terms of character moments while keeping everything moving fast. I enjoy Glen Powell a lot, and I think he had a good performance. It’s based on the Stephen King novel and has the previous film adaptation to refer to, so it has a lot of good material to work with. What it does is effective enough at what the film is trying to accomplish.
All in all, though, it misses some opportunities to be a really great movie. I saw someone say that the film lacks the usual style of an Edgar Wright film, and it’s true that I forgot Edgar Wright was the director. There’s just not a lot of that style you’d expect. Maybe the studios were tying his hands here, maybe he was trying something different, I can’t say for sure. What I can say is that I keep thinking about this one moment towards the end of the movie that really highlighted for me the issue with the simple “good guys win” ending they go with. SPOILERS AHEAD. Idk if the details in question were present in the book or the previous film.
During the latter part of the movie, our hero Ben Richards has been evading the hunters up through Maine, and takes a woman named Amelia hostage so she’ll drive him up to Canada (where I guess the Network can’t send the hunters, though they never say that and that would make it a very obvious strategy for all runners). So they’re driving up there, and a couple militia men stop them to get the kill. Before they do, one of the camera drones for the show kills the militia men with machine guns because the Network doesn’t like civilian kills. So, a couple things there: One, we previously only saw those drones around the hunters, who have to find otherwise untrackable runners, so it’s kind of a big giveaway that a camera was already on Ben without hunters; Two, those cameras all had guns on them the whole time, right? It highlights the fakeness of the whole thing, the Matrix-type charade of the media creating a false reality. Throughout the movie, the Network used AI to manipulate Ben’s footage to make him look unrepentantly evil, and much of the footage from all the shows is filmed in a way that looks artificial. Dan Killian, our executive villain, says they have to use real people for the unpredictability and human element, and everyone in this world knows that the shows are real and dangerous. It’s a fake reality with actual human cost, on screen and off, and the screen is used to create and maintain the off screen world.
All of that is really smart and works well in general, but then I remember the camera drone killing those guys. There are superficial, obvious things to point out, like having fully realistic and indistinguishable AI edits of entirely new events means they could have actual people on the run who are then “killed” with AI, right? It’s all fake, no one actually cares, you have previous contestants paid off like in that Black Mirror episode, etc. More to the point, the Network is fully in control of everything, to the tiniest detail. They have DNA sniffers that can track you down if you pass by a light pole, and the show requires you to mail in tapes every day. The idea that a single wave of underground print zines convinced people of the truth, unanimously and enthusiastically, in a way the Network couldn’t undermine, that it all happens within months of the show, and that Ben Richards wasn’t summarily killed by a Network camera drone the moment he stepped into any city? It’s hard to accept.
I compared the false reality here to the Matrix, and a big difference between this and the Matrix is that most people in this world kind of live outside the Matrix and already know that things are bad and why they’re bad. Or at least, they have some of the picture, if not all of it? Ben clearly knows exactly what’s wrong with the system, no distortion, so it’s hard to accept that working class people, at least, don’t all know, too. That’s the first issue with the happy ending, that the Truth would reach the people who really need to hear it, and that it would convince them so fully right away. The Network is only ever letting things happen how they want; no one really does well on the Running Man, so much as they wait to find out when their leash is going to be yanked. It seems pretty easy to convince the upper classes, who already thoroughly believe the propaganda, that whatever is in those zines is fake or out of context or good, actually. People like to believe in the reality they’ve been sold that makes them righteous, especially when turning away from that makes the blood on their hands visible. In the Matrix, most humans were still in the Matrix and probably would have chosen to stay there, and the resistance was always a small, determined group of rebels who knew they’d have their work cut out for them convincing people that ending the Matrix would make their lives better. Flipping those proportions and glossing past the part where you convince people is shallow and unsatisfying.
For as much as I like what the ending tried to show, it didn’t earn it at all. Like, Ben had that moment where someone told him he was The One — I mean, Final Guy, and that the whole thing is fake and controlled by the studio, and barely anything is done with that information. Those militia men being killed by the drone is what reminded Ben that the studio wants things a certain way and that he can use it to his advantage, and really, he should have been playing that game way earlier. The fact that Ben didn’t get killed by a Network camera as soon as he stepped into a city after the finale is absurd. This was an ending that asks for a folk hero, and folk heroes die. I also didn’t need to see that his family wasn’t killed, like they made it look with their doctored footage; keeping their survival in limbo would have been more compelling.
Now let’s talk Wicked. It’s pretty darn great! I have some history with it — my mom took me to see the original run of the musical when it was on tour, and she played the soundtrack all the time. I love the music, which is all performed so incredibly well by the cast and everyone. The characters are so compelling, well-rounded, and truly brought to life. The production value on this is so stunning and really sells you on this fantastical world that can fit the full range of tones that the story demands. That castle? If you’ve seen the previous installment, before our several-month intermission, then you already know these things, and how well they can translate all this from stage to screen. My memory is foggy, so I can’t remember which parts exactly, but I know they have some original songs to build out the story, and they’re all very good, too.
I also want to take a moment to praise the political power of the film. If you know the story and/or have seen the first part of this, then you know the direction it’s going. Animals are an oppressed group that are being scapegoated to create a unity through fear in Oz. It’s a story originally crated to talk about the War on Terror, and it translates perfectly to today, with the focus on the animals as an internal, rather than external, enemy. I think they did a wonderful job with the polemic element, with a much better framing of narratives to create and counter false realty than The Running Man (we’re all comparing these two exact movies, right?).
What I really want to discuss is the shortcomings of this story. Releasing a Wicked movie in two parts, broken up at the point where the Wizard of Oz takes place, does a lot to showcase the struggles of this narrative. We don’t have to discuss the changes to the lore made in this movie — like how the Tin Man has a very different origin in the book, or that the Wizard isn’t actually the ruler of Oz — because it is largely made with the Wizard of Oz movie in mind as a single, stand-alone story. That story presents challenges to this new backstory, because now you have to contort everything to fit both the War on Terror metaphor and the black-and-white “hero versus evil” narrative of the original movie.
Nessa is a major casualty of this. She has to become the Wicked Witch of the East, so that Dorothy’s house can kill the much-hated second Witch of Oz. We spend so little time with Nessa’s story that we don’t see that reputation and identity being made at all. Nessa calls herself the Wicked Witch of the East in her grief for having taken away Bock’s heart, and you can imagine that her incredibly petty choice to keep Munchkins prisoner in Munchkinland would earn the ire of the people. However, we don’t see that title connected to that resentment, and we only really see the resentment from Bock, who Nessa was trying to force to love her with all her actions. And even before this lack of Wicked Witch development from her, her characterization in this half of the story feels at odds with the first half. Has grief and stress made her want more and more for herself to cope over the years? Seems the likely explanation, but all we see is her going from a sweet and defiantly independent young woman to a petty, selfish, cruel person. Elphaba leaves telling Nessa that she did everything she could for her, and it would never be enough. Where does that come from in their relationship? When did Elphaba decide to give up on her? I’m aware years have passed, so a lot can happen, I just don’t feel I got what I needed, considering how other, much worse relationships go in this story. But Nessa has to be the Wicked Witch of the East, because that’s how the story goes, so.
It also doesn’t sell me on how Nessa turning Bock into the Tin Man connects to the rest of the metaphor. I guess he’s an extended casualty of the larger crusade and an example of how the common people can lose their hearts in the thrall of the movement, but it’s connected so closely to this personal romantic plot that it feels outside the main narrative. Especially since Bock knows Elphaba. A little stretchy. Maybe that’s just me. Bock as the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion highlight another problem with this story, which is that the Wizard fundamentally can’t offer what they want. The Lion might feel brave for a week after killing Elphaba, but it won’t last; Bock certainly isn’t getting his heart back that way. I know the Wizard never really gives them anything, but you can see how in the original story they gain something from their adventure. What do any of them get from doing this in this version? You can’t square the happy adventure of Dorothy with a Tin Man whose angrily crying out for blood and then gets it, you know?
Bigger than either of them is Fierro as the Scarecrow. Like, first of all, his transformation happens way too late, like after Dorothy has already arrived in Oz, like the writers are freaking out and remembering that he has to be the Scarecrow and need to jam it in. Also, for as much as he worked as a thoughtless, brainless character when first introduced, he becomes one of the most thoughtful and strategic characters in the whole movie. He saw what his compromised role was, he saw how he could play people against each other to save Elphaba, he gave her the castle and it’s implied he helped with faking her death (though I don’t know when that conversation could have taken place). I have a hard time imagining Fierro, as he was by that point in the movie, being the Scarecrow that Dorothy meets. I also have a hard time imagining that no one recognized him, what with his face not changing at all and him walking around in his uniform. Any act he performed to be the brainless dope would be undermined by any of the Oz guards being like, “Prince Fierro? I thought we executed you for being a traitor.” Keeping that suspension of disbelief is probably why they didn’t show Fierro as the Scarecrow until the very end.
Elphaba also has a turn at the very last minute to decide she should just be evil since all her good deeds backfire, which results exclusively in kidnapping Dorothy to take the slippers back, but apparently not just take them off her feet by force, which she could do given that they’re regular slippers in this version of the story. The Wicked Witch of the West kidnaps Dorothy, right? Everything has to contort to fit the original story, despite it fitting Elphaba’s character a lot more to have her kidnap Dorothy to separate her and tell her the truth of the Wizard and kindly request her sister’s slippers back. Of course Elphaba can’t do that, because Dorothy finds out the (first, less interesting) truth about the Wizard on her own, afterwards, and never learns of a plot to oppress animals.
That’s the real issue here. The Wizard of Oz is a fairy tale with definite good and evil and a series of dopey characters; it wasn’t built to contain a War on Terror or fascist metaphor, so you can’t contort the entire history around Dorothy to fit both seamlessly. In my head, the whole thing works a lot better if the Lion, Straw Man, and Tin Man were all new elements that Elphaba, Glinda, and the Wizard don’t already know about. Not only would it make all of Dorothy’s adventure an outside piece that they can all fight for control of in the media narrative, which is neater and fits well thematically, but it makes sense in reference to the original movie, which made Dorothy’s party different people in her own life; they should be from outside the conflict of animal liberation. And even beyond all that, I’m conflicted about using the Wizard of Oz as the basis for this sort of story, in the sense that Dorothy is a bona fide fantasy heroine the likes of which we never get. The movie takes that away from her by making it all a dream, which isn’t how the story goes. When you get into the original novels, Dorothy continues to be a hero and eventually the common-law wife of the trans queen of Oz. She has the story we need for this time in our lives. So for as much as I can respect the subversion and how well it works, I remain conflicted about whether or not this is a good thing to define the public imagination of Oz.
Before I close, I also have to say I’m very disappointed that they punted so hard on the queer romance. From back when Wicked was just a book, through the original musical run, through years of social media fandom, we’ve all known and agreed that Elphaba and Glinda are totally gay for each other. This movie sells that romance so incredibly hard. There are so many moments where you fully expect Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande to make out. For Good has a flashback to happier times where they look like the happy couple, and Fierro is just also there in the picnic. It’s all fine or whatever if they never officially date. I just wanted a goodbye kiss. I wanted some explicit acknowledgement that they’re in love, not an “I love you” that can be spun as a friends thing. Female friendship is importnat and wonderful and whatever, but they’re in love, right? This movie is so incredibly queer, and the characters are so incredibly bi, and I’m annoyed that in this, the year of our Oz 2025, in the movie about fighting fascism, we don’t get the big romantic kiss we anticipated from at least the Ozdust Ballroom, if not earlier. Like, I bet Cynthia and Ariana would have been game to do a goodbye kiss. What’s stopping you, cowards?
So yeah, you should see Wicked, and The Running Man is a fun afternoon if you’re looking for one. But also, go see Predator Badlands instead if you’re looking for an action movie. It’s so much better. I could really go on about that movie.
Life in the Gutters 