Spoilers for Wicked: For Good are ahead! Read with caution, and catch the movie in theaters now.
Wicked: For Good's finally out on the 2025 movies schedule, and with the conclusion of Elphaba and Glinda’s story comes two brand new songs. One of those tracks is “The Girl in the Bubble,” which Ariana Grande’s Glinda sings right before she makes a big decision to go help Elphaba. However, in the initial edit, the track was placed at a different point in the movie, and the editor told CinemaBlend how moving it impacted "everything."
If you've seen the movie already, you should know, this new addition to Wicked: For Good shows a major turning point for Glinda. After “The March of the Witch Hunters," we're shown the mob that’s going after Elphaba. There, she sings about living in a world of lies, and she recognizes her own ignorance. She decides it’s time for her bubble to pop, and for her to face reality.
According to the Wicked movies’ editor, Myron Kerstein, that moment was initially placed later in the film after a conversation Glinda had with Madame Morrible. However, eventually they decided to move it up, as he told CinemaBlend’s Rachel Rosenfeld, changing "everything."
So it used to come after the Morrible scene. And so that context actually changed everything because she was reacting to this moment with Morrible versus this moment with ‘March of the Witch Hunters.’ And there used to be extra music also of another reprise of ‘March of the Witch Hunters’ that used to go into ‘Girl in the Bubble.’
That certainly would have been a different take! That’s because after “March of the Witch Hunters” and “Girl in the Bubble,” which happen one right after another in For Good, Glinda immediately goes to find Elphaba. That second song helps the audience understand what’s going on in Grande’s character’s head as she finally decides to act against The Wizard and Morrible and help her friend.
To that point, Kerstein discussed the placement change further. He specifically noted questions to think about when it comes to how the placement of the song impacts one’s interpretation of it, explaining:
Well, we cut that reprise, we moved the scene, and then I ended up taking out all the music out of the intro. It used to be this lush, beautiful orchestration to make it feel very raw. So [Ariana] is considering this moment, you know, where ‘March of the Witch Hunters’ is about to go after Elphaba, and then she has to make this decision, you know? What is she gonna do with this? Is she just gonna sit back versus something that is motivated by Morrible?
He went on to say that the context around “The Girl in the Bubble” changed with this move, and therefore, it impacted the ways audiences will experience and think about the song in the greater context of the story. He said:
So that context changed. Basically, the song, I'm not gonna say the song didn't go from working to not working or vice versa. But I just feel like there was something about moving that just really sort of opened up and freed up the perception of how you would experience that number.
Overall, director Jon M. Chu and his team have been open about making the Wicked movies at the same time and changing For Good after Wicked came out, and I’m here for this particular update. The placement of “The Girl in the Bubble” right after “March of the Witch Hunters” is effective to me, and it helps us really understand where Glinda is at during this dire moment in Oz.
Now, to go back and see this moment in the well-reviewed Wicked: For Good, you can catch it in theaters now.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
