This one pains me….shall we get into it? Let’s Discuss!

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If you’ve been here a while, you may know I was expecting this to be in my top 10 of 2025.

Let’s review my 9s thus far, quickly. Sarah’s Oil, Christy & Soul On Fire – My most recent 9’s all hit me in the feels. Elanor, Honey Don’t & One Battle After Another – Great pacing with storytelling and impact of experience.

Top 10 list 9s – F1, Life Of Chuck & Bring Her Back – Movies that impacted their genre. Had a powerful emotional impact within me or had powerful meanings behind their storytelling that sat with me.

There’s more, but hopefully you get my point from the type of experiences I felt / had while watching these movies. Sinners, The Surfer & Last Breath included. Shoot Ne Zha 2 I still talk about to this day.

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I re-watched Wicked Part 1 on Sunday. Monday, I re-watched the original Wizard of Oz. Tonight I got to see Wicked For Good. It’s not like I’m remembering part 1 from last year or some time ago. Watching Wicked, then Wicked For Good, you’d think I’d be ready and connected to all the characters…. so why did the feeling feel off for almost an hour?

The intro felt like an action movie. Felt disjointed and rough. I loved the grand sets and musical performances in part 1 so much that I’ve watched it 3 times and love it. The quality didn’t feel as grand across each musical number this time around. For some, yes. But not for quite some time.

(Stopped to re-read my Part 1 “Review”) – WoW, it had that impactful experience which can be felt in the words. Anywho. Let’s get back to Part 2.

Let’s get to the point of my concerns, shall we? The pacing felt off. Where moments could have been elaborated or enjoyed being in the moment a little more. You’re whisked away to the next scene. Next setup or attempting to contain this part 2 within a certain time to contain the remainder story.

I’d loved to have had 20-30 more minutes. Let’s chat in the comments, spoilers if you want to know where and why. Tin Man was done right, but the others. Well, you saw the majority of the lion scenes in the trailer… I’m not going to rant about the other. Solid human performance and that’s that.

Would you watch a remake of The Wizard of Oz? Because honestly, it mostly lives up still. But part 2 is going to miss a massive freaking story plot off camera! There’s room for it to be done. Maybe then Part 3? It would fix the pacing and story as a whole. But they could have just added those scenes into Part 2. It’s a real shame, but watching part 2 tonight, I kept hoping to get out of the 8’s. I’d love to re-watch this title…..but it doesn’t get a 9 for me personally, and that pains me.

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Popped score of 8.5/10 for Wicked For Good…. as much as it pains me, this just felt off in too many areas. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and I’ll be watching out over this weekend if I’m alone or others feel like this didn’t live up to / hit the same bar as Part 1 did.

Oscars will be a hard decision in so many categories. If K-pop Demon Hunters take music? Ne Zha 2 Animated. I can see Cynthia Erivo as my best actress & Ariana Grande as Supporting Actress?

Have you started thinking of your choices yet?

With that though everyone, as this gets rather long. Thank you all for coming to Popped for your movie “Reviews”. Even when tough choices need to be made. You can rely on Popped to make those hard decisions and go off my personal viewing experiences. To give you those #’s :D. Painful or not. Hits & Misses. I’ll be doing this next year and going deeper yet.

Thank you all again! Happy Movie Going. Fellow Movie Goers :D.