Ok, I was entertained... but as a prequel it left three... and I mean a big three... things unexplained.
Well, for one, we did see a lion get scared away, thus the cowardly lion... but then the lion should have roared with a humanized voice (the monkey talks so its plausible), thus the cowardly talking lion we'll see in the wizard of oz.
And, ok, yeah, they made an army of scarecrows... fine... alludes to the scarecrow in the sequel, BUT none of those scarecrows had life... couldn't some stray magic have hit at least one of the "soldiers" leaving him bound to a post to be discovered later?
Finally... where'd the fucking tin man come from? They ALMOST built one... Tinker was making all kinds of machinations, but no tin man to get rusted and stuck in a field.
I wanted to see these things. We now know how the fraud Oz came to be, and the construction of of curtain and smoke throne room, the green witch and her aversion to water, the other bad witch who will die under the house, the bubble-traveling good witch, the munkins, the yellow brick road, the doorman whatshisname.... we know where every character comes from... even where all the emeralds came from to build the emerald palace... except the key three companions of Dorothy, each of whom is trapped along her path to be discovered and saved.
Lastly... why doesn't it end with even an after-credits allusion to a new storm... with a house popping out the top of a twister... and end there.
They took us only just not far enough for me to love it and tie it all in with the Wizard of Oz so perfectly, as it needs to be for children. It's kinda for children, no?
Yeah, my five year old was all like "Wow, I love the allusion to the scarecrow, and the fact that tinker makes so many complicated mechinations, clearly he must at some point have built the tin man... I didn't need to see that to know it's true. I'm five."
Well, I haven't seen it yet but as a kid I read pretty much every Oz book ever so.. (I should really revisit them)
A lot of your concerns fail to consider if this will be the _only_ prequel. Every studio these days has sequelitis. Hell, we've progressed beyond "every blockbuster movie needs to become a trilogy" to "every blockbuster movie needs to become a five-plus film saga".
Therefore... the filmmakers _wouldn't_ introduce the Lion/Tin Man/Scarecrow backstories because, if the film is successful, they need more content for more James Franco-powered entries in their saga. Sounds cool that their influence can be felt though
> Finally... where'd the fucking tin man come from? They ALMOST built one... Tinker was > making all kinds of machinations, but no tin man to get rusted and stuck in a field.
IIRC Tin Man is not a full-on from-the-start mechanical man, so that would be wrong (or at least heavily revisionist). Instead he's a clumsy logger/forester/woodchopper human, who slowly has each body part replaced with mechanical parts as accidents happen. But it leaves him without a heart, so he can no longer love.
IMHO they should've just made the Gregory Maguire books into serious movies (not necessarily musicals) but whatever...
>as a kid I read pretty much every Oz book ever so
Re-he-he-heally now?
I was unaware of a book, let alone books, from this story.
Makes sense, I 'spose. Few movies start de novo.
Hmm. Worth a read? So, hopefully you see the movie and report back how accurate it was to one of the books.
Was Oz a carnival magician to start?
Plus... actually... I thought the whole Oz adventure with Dorothy was just a dream of hers when she passed out in the house on a heroin trip during the hurricane... which would make a prequel completely revisionist, since it would require another dream-tie in to Dorothy.
> > as a kid I read pretty much every Oz book ever so > > Re-he-he-heally now? > > I was unaware of a book, let alone books, from this story.
... perhaps you misunderstand.
Yes, the movie you just watched was _probably_ its own story, and not based on any of the books specifically. Maybe I'll pick up on some Oz uber-obscure references, who knows.
However, if you find Oz in general interesting, there's a few things you should know.
Well, it's a children's book series, and was basically the "Harry Potter" of its day (or perhaps "Alice in Wonderland" is more appropriate). Based on the success of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" in 1900, and a successful musical based on it in ... 1902 (not the one you're thinking of!), Frank Baum went on to write... an additional thirteen books, all basically sequels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oz_books
The Wizard of Oz was adapted to stage and screen many times before the 1939 film with which we're all familiar.
Following Baum's death, other children's authors were permitted to play in Baum's "playground", and authors like Ruth Plumly Thompson and John R. Neill wrote an additional 30-40 books. Recently (2005-ish) an author was authorized to write several more books considered "official" by the Baum estate. Otherwise any modern Oz book is often "unauthorized" but still legal, since The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and some of the rest are in the public domain.
Even towards the end of the official Baum run, you'll probably find them very simplistic, repetitive (across stories) and formulaic. They are for children, after all. But you may detect some slightly more adult themes occasionally. Also, quite frequently these have female protagonists (not only Dorothy). It'd be like re-reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and other Narnia books again. Fond memories reading them, but you may not be as engrossed as a child with their imagination ablaze.
Anyways, with fifty+ books drawing upon this common fairytale land, it's deep with a hundred years' of stories and characters. And still, pretty much all targeted at ages... well, any age really, but I'd say grades 3-8.
If anything, upon reading the books, Return to Oz (a 1985 film) may make a lot more sense, as that is definitely based on some of Baum's other Oz books.
Furthermore - if you like darker, grittier "adult" takes on classic children's stories and fables, Gregory Maguire's "Wicked" stories are definitely worth a read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicked_Years There's other adult-oriented Oz stories, but those are pretty much the best.
Quote: Eventually, it is revealed that Oz is actually none of these things, but rather a kind, ordinary man from Omaha, Nebraska, who has been using a lot of elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem "great and powerful." Working as a magician for a circus, he wrote OZ (the initials of his first and middle name) on the side of his balloon for promotional purposes. One day his balloon sailed into the Land of Oz, and he found himself worshipped as a great sorcerer. As Oz had no leadership at the time, he became Supreme Ruler of the kingdom, and did his best to sustain the myth.
So the 1939 movie basically gets the "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" right and accurate (mostly) to the book.
There's really one other book by Baum that talks about how the Wizard got to Oz, titled "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz". In it, he meets Dorothy on an adventure and basically tells his entire backstory along the way. In none of the Baum books do you get to actually meet the Wizard as a young man - not sure about the other books but it seems pretty much all of the children's books are not prequels. [EDIT] According to this fan-made timeline, assuming the first story with Dorothy takes place in 1900 (and they have a rationale for this), nearly all stories are sequels. http://timelineuniverse.net/Oz/Mainlinetimeline.htm Of course, it's also mixing the revisionist Maguire books with classic Oz books - it's a bit confused...
> Plus... actually... I thought the whole Oz adventure with Dorothy was just a dream of > hers when she passed out in the house on a heroin trip during the hurricane... which > would make a prequel completely revisionist, since it would require another dream-tie > in to Dorothy.
That interpretation is DEEPLY revisionist.
The original books from 1900's make it clear: there's real magic going on, and Oz is a fairyland.
There's been some interpretations of "Oz as allegory" for other tales - the Wikipedia article goes on about it being an allegory for the Gold Standard issues of the time - but I'm convinced it's nothing more than a turn-of-the-century American author's attempt at an Alice-in-Wonderland-inspired children's story.
As for the movie ... aside from "poppies making you dream", there's really not many drug references. You think they'd be that subversive in 1939? I'm afraid you've been buying into some urban legends and coincidences.
But for that matter, even the 1939 movie is revisionist: it changes the ending so that it's implied "it was all a dream". With fourteen books and additional short stories by Baum, it's pretty clear it's instead magical fantasy.
> I going to see it. You got me all hype up even more.
It looks very cool. But a friend an old acquaintance of mine mentioned something about the acting being bad ("Mila Kunis shows how not to act")... or the best acting was done by a "porcelain doll".
I'm sure you'll enjoy it regardless. It's imagery has some romanticism/nostalgia to it.
> Ok, I was entertained... but as a prequel it left three... and I mean a big three... > things unexplained. > > > Well, for one, we did see a lion get scared away, thus the cowardly lion... but then > the lion should have roared with a humanized voice (the monkey talks so its > plausible), thus the cowardly talking lion we'll see in the wizard of oz. > > And, ok, yeah, they made an army of scarecrows... fine... alludes to the scarecrow in > the sequel, BUT none of those scarecrows had life... couldn't some stray magic have > hit at least one of the "soldiers" leaving him bound to a post to be discovered > later? > > Finally... where'd the fucking tin man come from? They ALMOST built one... Tinker was > making all kinds of machinations, but no tin man to get rusted and stuck in a field. > > I wanted to see these things. We now know how the fraud Oz came to be, and the > construction of of curtain and smoke throne room, the green witch and her aversion to > water, the other bad witch who will die under the house, the bubble-traveling good > witch, the munkins, the yellow brick road, the doorman whatshisname.... we know where > every character comes from... even where all the emeralds came from to build the > emerald palace... except the key three companions of Dorothy, each of whom is trapped > along her path to be discovered and saved. > > Lastly... why doesn't it end with even an after-credits allusion to a new storm... > with a house popping out the top of a twister... and end there. > > > They took us only just not far enough for me to love it and tie it all in with the > Wizard of Oz so perfectly, as it needs to be for children. It's kinda for children, > no? > > Yeah, my five year old was all like "Wow, I love the allusion to the scarecrow, and > the fact that tinker makes so many complicated mechinations, clearly he must at some > point have built the tin man... I didn't need to see that to know it's true. I'm > five."
Yes, but the REAL question is does the action sync up perfectly with "Obscured by Clouds"?
Sorry, must have missed it while screaming at the headless witch on my second monitor....
> > Thing is... they are in the books! Aside from the framing story, Return to Oz takes > large amounts of characters and plot from the following two books: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marvelous_Land_of_Oz > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozma_of_Oz > > There's a large difference from imagining it versus seeing it come to life, though. > > To be honest, when reading The Marvelous Land of Oz I was more shocked by the magical > sex-change operation than by the Wheelers in Ozma of Oz.
Yeah, many people don't realize how dark the books were compared to the munchkin land rainbow fest of '39
> Holy crap, I missed that one back in the day. That's scary as hell.
The whole movie is pretty scary for children. If I remember correctly, they try to give Dorothy electro-shock therapy in the beginning of the film to "cure" her of her delusions of the land of Oz.
> > Holy crap, I missed that one back in the day. That's scary as hell. > > The whole movie is pretty scary for children. If I remember correctly, they try to > give Dorothy electro-shock therapy in the beginning of the film to "cure" her of her > delusions of the land of Oz.
Just finished watching it for the first time since I was 10. The electro-shock is just the beginning...
For what it is it's a good movie, but holy FUCK did they mis-market this one. Nightmare fuel in abundance.
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