Yeah, the movie looked terrible. No idea how that happened. Plus, as I said in the movie thread, the pacing was dreadfully slow. A couple of those songs seemingly lasted 15 minutes each.
And on top of all of that, anyone who decided that a sub-three hour musical (with intermission) could only be made as TWO feature films should be automatically disqualified from awards consideration.
Leads were great though. As was costumes, hair and makeup.

Well played

Regardless of what awards Chu wins or loses or doesn't even get nominated for, Wicked has been nominated for over 300 Critics' and Guild awards, and has won 93. It has been nominated for 10 Oscars. It's 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. And it made over $700 million at the box office.

It is by far the 2024 movie with the most overlap of both critical and popular acclaim.

Since film is a director's medium, I'm gonna go ahead and conclude that Chu did something right.

Dune 2 has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 92% and made nearly the identical box office. Not sure how you came to the conclusion that Wicked was "by far" the movie with the most critical and popular acclaim in 2024.

Okay, you caught me. It is not "by far" the movie with the most critical and popular acclaim in 2024, it is just the one with the most.

But please, focus your attention on those two words in my post and not the overall point I am making in response to the ridiculous posts criticizing the film and its director.

Dooku - have you seen any of the nominees?

Wicked is basically a Marvel movie with songs. Take away the songs and I don't think it's anywhere near the awards conversation.

1) It's not the one with "the most". By your own standards, it's second. Wicked has a Metacritic score of 73, Dune Part 2 has a score of 79. That's a significant difference.
2) Unlike Denis Villeneuve, Cho has actually received a lot of criticism for his directorial choices in this film.
3) I would put not only Denis ahead of Cho, but Conclave director Edgar Berger as well.

yes

Well, very obviously, the film industry, the critics, and audiences disagree with you.

Wicked has more Oscar nominations, more Guild and Critics' nominations and wins, than Dune 2. So you pick your numbers and I'll pick mine.

But let me share this, since you have brought up Dune. I never saw Dune 1 all the way through. I started to watch it and was so bored, I fell asleep, which is not something I do when watching things. Now that both Parts were available, I watched the whole thing a couple of weeks ago. In my opinion, Dune sucks. I thought the whole five hours were boring and kinda stupid. I thought the production was impressive, but that the emphasis on grand visuals and effects overwhelmed the characters and the story. But that was pretty easy because the characters were dull and the story was dumb. But clearly, A LOT of thought and effort went into making the movies look fantastic.

However, as you point out Dune is both critically lauded and entertained audiences, so I know my opinion is an outlier. And my position, stated in this forum many times, is that when someone sees that they have an outlier opinion, it probably has something to do with them, and not that everyone else is wrong.

So that would be my point to make with Chu and Wicked. You and Rocket are entitled to your opinions. Other critics of Wicked are entitled to their opinions. But a consensus of critical and popular opinion has formed around the movie, and so those opinions are like yelling at the tide not to come in.

I don't know what criteria people use to decide whether one director made a greater accomplishment with their movie versus someone else who directed a completely different movie, but Chu's work is worthy of consideration and recognition. That's what has been decided. I just happen to agree.

If it's a musical and it doesn't suck, the industry and the critics always like it. I haven't seen Wicked, so I can't say if it's any good, but Hollywood award shows have a weird fascination with musicals. It's not my genre and I've yet to watch one I do like, so I'm somewhat prejudiced.

Not really. I never denied that the movie was popular or well reviewed. My point was that there's an inherent bias with these things towards musicals. And the best part of Wicked is easily the songs, something that Chu had nothing to do with. Take away the songs and it's just more i.p. slop and any awards conversation goes bye bye. Even then, the awards conversation around Chu has been fringey at best. The Critics Choice award was the outlier, not me, which is why I called it out in the first place

It's weird TO YOU because YOU absolutely do not like musicals. See how that works?

I cannot argue with the position that if you remove the songs from a movie musical, what's left will not be good.

Maybe someone has put together a version of Die Hard with all the action scenes deleted. I bet that's a fantastic watch.

I do like that Anora has started to become the favorite for BP again, after winning big this past weekend. Although I still need to see The Brutalist to have a fair comparison.

The point is that the songs are THE draw and that Chu had nothing to do with the songs. He presumably had a lot to do with the rest, and much of the rest was pretty darn mediocre. That shouldn't be a particularly controversial take seeing as how he didn't get any recognition from the Oscars, Globes, DGA, BAFTA, LA or NY critics, etc. Again, the Critics Choice award was the outlier, not the other way around.

I love musicals, and I love the stage production of Wicked. I thought this film of the first half of the show was okay, pretty entertaining. But it looked TERRIBLE (I guess an artistic decision of the Non-Oscar nominated cinematographer, but the director owns it as well) and had real pacing issues. Dancing Through Life, in particular, felt like it would never end.
I think a better director could have made the entire story into one film that moved a lot quicker. The problem with the stage show isn't that there isn't deep enough exploration of the politics of talking animals, I can assure you.

If the songs are the draw, then why did they go back to the novel and fill out the story and characterizations so much? The run time for a stage production of Wicked is shorter than the run time for just Part 1 of the movie.

My point is that critical, public, and industry opinion has coalesced around the idea that Wicked is one of the best films of the year. Directors get credit for the movie. Not being considered one of the top five directors in a given year does not make one's effort mediocre.

There it is.

There what is, exactly?

I have no idea. I didn't make the movie. The cynical answer is because two movies = more dollars. But come on, they re-released the film in a sing along version. The songs are the draw and I'm sure even the most vocal Wicked fans would agree.

Sure, but I'd bet the list of films which received 10 or more Oscar nominations and didn't get a best director nom is pretty small. (Dune part one being a recent example). It just doesn't happen that often. And it's not like this year is a murderer's row of nominees.

As for whether or not Chu's direction was mediocre or not, the only evidence I need is what I saw on screen. But it really doesn't matter if the choreography is weak or Michelle Yeoh's performance is bad or the dialogue scenes drag as long as Erivo can satisfactorily belt out Defying Gravity. I'm of the opinion that the primary assignment with most of these adaptations of beloved properties is "don't screw it up". Chu didn't screw it up and given how many directors do, for that I suppose he should be applauded. That's the movie's biggest win. That and the luxury of featuring some of the most beloved songs in modern musical history. And for a lot of people, I guess that's enough.

I do like movies though and I can evalute acting, writing and directing, subjectively of course. So while I don't like muscials* (as movies, I've been to The Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King on stage and liked both), I can value aspects of musicals. Moulin Rouge has great direction, I liked Anne Hathaway's acting in Les Misérables. There are lots of things I value in movies I don't like overall. La La Land is a romcom and only the ending differs from the standard romcom plot. It's a perfectly fine movie, but it's not Notting Hill or When Harry Met Sally.
The musical numbers in La La Land are well choreographed, but so are the shootouts in John Wick.

So to specify: It's weird to me that the muscial aspect hightens an above average movie into a well regarded movie. It's still an OK movie, only with singing.

*I liked The Greatest Showman

You posted a definitive statement that you have never seen a movie musical that you liked, and now you are changing your tune.

Yep, they had special sing-along showings for the most devoted fans. The movie did not make $700 million by appealing only to the stage musical's most devoted fans.

All I knew about Wicked was the most general description of the story, and I had seen videos of Defying Gravity and Popular on YouTube. I had no intention of seeing it until it came out and received so much praise. I saw it in the theater and thoroughly enjoyed it. I guess my decades of watching movies and years of professionally writing film reviews made me too stupid to see how bad the movie really was.
Oh well



I still cannot figure out how you think Chu not receiving one of the five possible Best Director nominations equates to proof that his direction was bad. He could have been #6 in the voting.

As for the evidence from your own eyes, of course, that is entirely subjective. All I can point to, repeatedly, is all the praise the movie has received, and observe that the director always gets the credit.

I get it.

I forgot about "The Greatest Showman". My main point wasn't my taste, but my impression that mediocre movies get better reviews when they are musicals.