Chatterbox: Pudding's Place

Return to Oz

I watched this movie a few weeks ago. Here is my review.

What I hated about Return to Oz 

I generally did not like the movie. It did not exploit enough goodness of the original movie, and Fairuza Balk was a poor Dorothy incarnation that did not come anywhere near Judy Garland's wondrous performance. Also, the movie was faithful to the Oz books in some ways, although it forgot quite a little that I've come to expect from a good version of Oz. It did not stick to the designs of the classic movie, and unlike Oz The Great and Powerful (which was much more faithful to the classic while bringing good material out of the books) the film neglected to display the Kansas scenes in a nice little black-and-white or sepia tone. It also did not think to consider that Oz is a dream, a place that we wish could be real, a beautiful utopian fairyland that we visit in our dreams, a place of both adventure and innocence. And I hated that the Nome King was, instead of an initially jolly, short and stout guy who had a bad temper and an insistence on getting his way, relying on his Nomes to obey his orders for causing Dorothy and company displeasure (not in such evil ways as he did in the film), he was a giant, rocky, abomination who threatened to devour Dorothy and her friends in the climactic scene. (Note that Baum's characters who tried to eat Dorothy like Mister Yoop were not main villains, and not overly evil, just hungry.) Plus it was largely bad acting, and combining the characters of the witch Mombi (from The Marvelous Land of Oz) and Princess Langwidere (Ozma of Oz), who I note was not really ever a villain anyway in the books. She was mostly trying to satisfy her nature by taking Dorothy's head, which is a perfectly acceptable justification in Baum's world. And I was disappointed how they made Ozma a blonde instead of giving her the cool rose-shaped buns in lovely brown hair gifted to her character by John R. Neill (see below).

What I loved about Return to Oz

I did like several of the characters. Jack Pumpkinhead was a great character (trivia: In the movie he was puppeteerd by Brian Henson, son of Jim Henson, the legendary Muppets creator) and was very expressive with the limits of his single facial expression, as well as Billina, with a voice that was EXACTLY how I imagined it, and Tik-tok as well, who also had a great voice and movement. Plus the Gump was much like he was in the books. Plus a great Scarecrow who was really well designed and puppeteered. But those nonhuman characters are about the best parts of the movie. 

Overall...

Return to Oz is a bad movie. Don't waste your time watching it unless you're a faithful fan. The only good parts are the designs of some characters. And there is a horrible Nome King who dies and does not eventually retire and reform (as in Tik-Tok of Oz). So, if you aren't crazy about Oz, or are not really a hardcore movie person, just don't bother. 

Other notes

The Oz the Great and Powerful sequel, they say, will not feature Dorothy. It will deal with the time between the events of the first film and Dorothy's arrival. Not good! I thought Oscar Digg's origin was interesting, but Disney shoud not waste their time making a repeat of the Star Wars prequels. Get to Dorothy and her first trip down the Yellow Brick Road already, then exploit all the rest of Baum's largely unadapted works, and maybe even delve into what was written by other authors after his death. The Sea Fairies and Sky Island both hold great potential as spinoffs! (They were going to adapt Sea Fairies once as a follow-up to Return, but RTO's poor performace, both critically and commercially, made that be the end of that pretty quick. Maybe the time is ripe for another chance...

Rodney says yipe. I'm sure the dark content of RTO prompted many yipes from the small children watching, it's probably true. Nice insight, Rodney.