Shiz University Website and Wicked Movie Reactions

A few days ago, I watched Wicked and I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. I figured I would like it, but wow, they really knocked the ball out of the park with this movie. It was almost 3 hours long, yet I still found myself wanting more.

Shiz University

Watching Wicked was such an immersive experience for me. Every area in the land of Oz felt so distinctive from the other. Everywhere from Munchkin County to Shiz University to the Emerald City had its own unique charm.

As a fan of the wizarding school trope, I was impartial to Shiz University, which is also where the majority of the movie takes place. When Glinda announced her major of study was sorcery, it got a chuckle out of me. If only I could study that instead of business administration.

At first, I thought Shiz was an acronym for something but it’s just the name of the school. My friends and I joked and said “Shiz” sounded like something an iCarly character would say as a susbtitute for a curse word.

After the movie, I went on one of my Google rabbit holes and looked up info on Shiz University. I was pleased to find that their marketing team had created a whole landing page for the fictional school. This website included both a welcome brochure and a campus map.

Brochures

The font is a bit hard to read, but I do appreciate how they added all the extra ornaments to the letters to make it look like Oz has its own writing system.

Website Interactivity

Here is a link to the Shiz University website. Do keep in mind that it can take a while to load due to the amount of content on it.

One of the more interesting features is that it allows you to explore the different rooms at Shiz University, like the dorms, the library, and classrooms. This section is built mainly for touch screens, so PC users may have some trouble navigating these rooms.

In the rooms, you can click various highlighted items to see scenes from the movie, behind-the-scenes clips, and some flavor text about the characters and items. One of them even has a little mini-game where you click a coin to levitate it to mimic one of the scenes in the movie.

Above screenshot is from a clip of Madame Morrible (played by Michelle Yeoh) congratulating you for completing the levitation mini-game.

Another cool feature is that you can upload a picture of yourself to create a Shiz student ID. It seems to use some type of AI filter to put your face onto a Shiz ID card. There’s even an option to upload it to the student directory. I blocked out my face for privacy, but here’s mine:

I really like web design so I absolutely adored all the features they added to this website. It’s amazing what marketers and programmers can create with a budget like Wicked’s. I do hope that it’ll be archived somehow once the movie is out of theaters.

Movie Reactions

The movie was solid as a whole. As corny as it is to say, it did “feel magical”. However, I did see some criticism for it. In some fan discussions, people wanted more scenes of Glinda and Elphaba becoming friends due to how quickly it happened. Others also felt that Elphaba becoming impassioned about animal advocacy could have been expanded upon more. While the movie did show how Elphaba sympathized with her goat professor Dr. Dillamond, it would have been nice to see more of Elphaba’s upbringing and how she was raised by her nanny who was literally a bear in this adaptation.

Still, the movie strongly resonated and I appreciated the themes in it. There were strong analogies about how bigotry, prejudice, and deception are used to alienate people who exist outside of societal norms. Wicked creates a morally ambiguous interpretation of The Wizard of Oz that challenges viewers to consider whether someone is truly wicked or merely depicted that way.

Cultural Impact

The Wizard of Oz has been a cultural phenomenon for over 100 years. Wicked is one of many interpretations of the land of Oz, which is based off of a book that contains much darker and more political themes. This Forbes article does an excellent job at breaking down the various media that originated from The Wizard of Oz. My personal favorite was the DS game:

It’s fascinating how a story released over 100 years ago can contniue to inspire so many different pieces of art and media. Wicked and the original Wizard of Oz movie only scratch the surface. I’ve been listening to the Oz Hour podcast that digs even deeper into the land of Oz. With the vast amount of stories that takes place in Oz, I think I may have found a new lore obsession! 💡