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Review of Return to Oz (1984)

Posted in movies, pop culture, Wizard of Oz with tags books, movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz on April 20, 2012 by Paxton

In my article about adaptations of The Marvelous Land of Oz, I mentioned that the 1984 movie Return to Oz was an adaptation of two of the Baum Oz books. Specifically, it’s a combination of Oz books 2 (Marvelous Land of Oz) and 3 (Ozma of Oz).

After finishing Book 3, I decided to re-watch Return to Oz the other night for the first time in maybe 10 years. Since it’s sort of a cult, underground hit, I thought I would give it a quick review for you guys.

So, WOW, the first twenty minutes of this movie are DEPRESSING. This movie starts a few months after Dorothy has returned to Kansas. The farm is destroyed from the twister. I mean, everything is in shambles. Uncle Henry and Auntie Em are trying to rebuild everything. Uncle Henry broke his leg and now just sits around drinking all day doing nothing. Em is stuck doing all the work. Everytime Dorothy brings up her trip to Oz, Em just shuts her down. No one believes Dorothy’s trips were real. She’s starting to believe they weren’t real. Em takes Dorothy to a “mental hospital” to have a psychiatrist take a look at her. The psychiatrist actually intends to hook Dorothy up to a machine for shock treatments. SHOCK TREATMENTS. This movie was actually showing Dorothy in this creepy old asylum about to have her head lobotomized. I didn’t remember any of this and started to question whether I actually wanted to finish the movie.

So I continued on, Dorothy is saved by a mysterious girl and runs out of the asylum into a thunderstorm. Dorothy is knocked out and wakes up back in Oz. The movie essentially takes the framework for the third book, Ozma of Oz, and adds the characters from the second book, Marvelous Land of Oz. The main changes to the story in Ozma for the movie were to remove everything having to do with the fairy Land of Ev. All of the events in the movie happen in Oz. And not just Oz, but a dilapidated, ghost town of Oz. Also, while they appear on the poster, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion are relegated to cameos at the end. The other 15 characters in the poster above were given all the screen time. Another change is that Mombi is the main villain (and the current ruler of Oz which is why it’s so run down). We do get to see the awesome Nome King from Book 3, however he looks like Ice Man from the pilot of Misfits of Science. And although he’s the King of the Nomes, you really don’t see any other Nomes. He’s a king of one, I guess. He’s the one telling Mombi what to do.

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Review of Oz Book 3: Ozma of Oz by L Frank Baum (1907)

Posted in books, movies, Wizard of Oz with tags Book Report, books, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz on April 18, 2012 by Paxton

It’s time to take a look at the next book in the original Baum Oz series; Ozma of Oz. Click the image above to see the previous entries in my Oz book read through.

ozma of oz - books of wonder

Ozma of Oz was released in 1907. It is the third book in the series. It had been three years since the last Oz sequel, Marvelous Land of Oz. It also featured the triumphant return of Dorothy Gale.

This book was sort of a departure. Instead of taking place in Oz, it takes place in a neighboring fairy land called Ev. Dorothy is traveling with her uncle on a boat when a storm hits and carries Dorothy to the fairly land of Ev. There Dorothy meets more crazy weird characters that she winds up traveling with. Once Dorothy realizes she’s in a similar fairly land that happens to neighbor with Oz, she doesn’t yearn to travel home to Kansas, like in the first book, she longs to return to Oz.

Also returning in this book are the original three companions; Scarecrow, Tin Man (Nick Chopper) and Cowardly Lion, who makes his first appearance since Book 1. And, obviously since the book is named for her, Princess Ozma also returns. The new characters we meet are Billina, a talking hen, Tik-Tok the mechanical man and the Hungry Tiger, a companion of the Cowardly Lion that is always hungry (obviously). We also meet the royal family of Ev (who need rescuin’) and the Nome King. Tik-Tok and the Nome King would prove popular enough that they would feature in several books later in the series. One of them written by Baum himself.

Gnome_king_oz_cover tik_tok_of_oz

So Dorothy becomes stranded in Ev. Dorothy is joined by the hen, Billina, and eventually Tik-Tok, the mechanical man. We also meet these characters called The Wheelers (who show up in the movie Return to Oz) and Dorothy is taken hostage and locked away by the current Princess of Ev. The current Princess is very vain and can change her head whenever she wants. She keeps like 30 heads in her closet. So, the Princess wants Dorothy’s head, is refused and locks up Dorothy and her friends. Hearing about this, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion come with Ozma and her army from Oz across the Deadly Desert to rescue her. Next we get this whole back story about the land of Ev. The original King was a douchebag (my words, not Baum’s). He sells his entire family to the Nome King, who is a very magical being, in exchange for long life. Then the idiot king goes and drowns himself in despair for what he’s done. Like beheadings in the first book, this book is filled with people who drown themselves or nearly get drowned. Dorothy is almost drowned in the beginning of the book. This king does it to himself and there are several other mentions of drowning throughout the book. This Baum guy has serious issues. He should get them looked at, STAT.

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Looking at various Marvelous Land of Oz adaptations

Posted in books, comic books, Wizard of Oz with tags books, comic books, Oz books readthru, pop culture, Wizard of Oz on March 8, 2012 by Paxton

After reading the original Oz book, I looked at a few of the pop culture adaptations of the book. So, now that I’ve read Oz book 2, let’s see what adaptations were released for this book.

Return to Oz – A 1985 film that was an “unofficial” sequel to MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. It utilized plot points from books 2 (Marvelous Land of Oz) and 3 (Ozma of Oz) but took mostly from book 2.

Marvel Treasury of Oz #2 – The Marvelous Land of Oz – I mentioned last time that in 1975 Marvel and DC collaborated for the first time on an adaptation of MGM’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Marvel did one followup to that book, it was The Marvelous Land of Oz seen here. There was no movie to adapt so they adapted the book, however, they used images and character likenesses from the MGM movie. This is fairly rare, I’d like to track one down one day to give it a read. I bet it’s pretty good.

Tin Man – A 2007 re-imagining of Wizard of Oz by the Sci-Fi Network. This mini-series took many of its plot elements from the second book in the series. It starred Zooey Deschanel as DG (Dorothy Gale), Neal McDonough as Wyatt Cain (Tin Man) and Alan Cumming as Glitch (Scarecrow).

Review of Oz Book 2: The Marvelous Land of Oz by L Frank Baum (1904)

Posted in books, movies, pop culture, Wizard of Oz with tags Book Report, books, movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, reviews, Wizard of Oz on March 5, 2012 by Paxton

And so I continue my journey down the yellow brick road. A few weeks ago I finished the original Wizard of Oz book by L Frank Baum and posted my review here. Now it’s time to continue the series with Book 2: The Marvelous Land of Oz.

I mentioned previously that I’ve read the original Oz book several times. I have never read any of the other books in the series. EVER. So this was the first time I’d delved in to the original Baum Oz sequels in my life. Needless to say, I was a little nervous but also excited.

First, a little background on this book. It was published in 1904, four years after the original Oz book. Baum had not intended to write a sequel. There was a stage play adaptation of the first book in 1902 that became very popular. Baum actually dedicates the book to comedians David Montgomery and Fred Stone who portrayed the Tin Man and Scarecrow in that stage production. It should also be noted that this book’s story and structure was written with an eye towards adapting it as a stage play. You will notice these elements as you read the story. Baum also stated in the foreward that he decided to write the sequel due to the large volumes of mail he received from young fans asking for more adventures in Oz. Baum included the Tin Man and Scarecrow in the book because they were the most popular characters with fans.

Now, to the book itself. It’s actually not bad. Baum’s boundless imagination really shines through. The structure of this book is very similar to the first Oz book, but Baum populates the story with so many fun and interesting characters you can’t help but be charmed by it. Dorothy doesn’t appear, though she’s mentioned a few times. Neither does the Cowardly Lion appear. The story seems to take place a few years after Dorothy’s departure. It centers on an eclectic group led by new character Tip who is being raised by the witch Mombi. He flees the witch after she threatens to turn him into a garden statue and takes a walking talking pumpkin-headed man named Jack with him. Along the way they acquire a Saw Horse, the original Scarecrow, King of Emerald City and the original Tin Man, Emporer of the Winkies. They also acquire HM Wogglebug, TE and a magically re-animated creature called the Gump.

The group meets HM Wogglebug, TE.

This group travels across Oz after an army of girls takes over the Emerald City. The group try to get to Glinda the Good Witch to get her help in expelling the army. There’s a lot of talk about the Wizard and Baum certainly does his fair share of ret-conning the character of the Wizard. Amongst the denizons of Oz the Wizard is no longer considered a non-magical “humbug” but a bumbling good natured fellow who happened to be a bad wizard (although an actual “wizard” nonetheless). It is also shown that the Wizard wasn’t as reclusive as he was during the first book. No one had really ever seen him before when Dorothy arrived at the Emerald City, but in this book Mombi mentions at one point that she was visited by the actual Wizard and that he taught her several magical tricks as payment for a big favor she performed (revealed later in the book). There is even a discussion of who ruled Oz before the wizard showed up, which I think is interesting Oz history. This means the Wizard showed up, battled the previous ruler of Oz, won and then usurped the throne. That’s most definitely a change in character for the previously bumbling character. And I like it. But this is just the beginning as we see an army of girls sack the Emerald City, the Scarecrow lose all of his stuffing (again!) and have it replaced with actual money and a magical chase through Oz featuring Glinda the Good and Mombi. We even see the Deadly Desert that has been mentioned in both books that surrounds the land of Oz. This “deadly” desert in later books will turn anyone who touches it into sand. Just not this time. Anyway, the group of heroes save the Emerald City and there is much rejoicing.

Oh, I forgot, this book mentions several times the Tin Woodsman’s proper name, Nick Cutter. I don’t remember that being mentioned in the first book, but it’s mentioned in this book several times. I thought that was weird. When it came up at first I was like, “Who the f**k is Nick Cutter?!”. It’s the Tin Woodsman. Interesting trivia for you.

So, in the first book, the beheadings count was up to 42, all but one being doled out by Mr Cutter. However, there are no beheadings in this book which causes the series average to plummet to 21. I’ll be keeping track of the beheadings as I read. We’ll see if anyone gets their heads chopped off in Book 3 (fingers crossed).

So if you are interested in more Oz goodness, definitely give this book a chance. It’s a fun read.

Here is my checklist of the Oz books and I’ve checked off the ones I’ve read so far. Up next is Ozma of Oz.

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Looking at various Wonderful Wizard of Oz adaptations

Posted in books, movies, pop culture, Wizard of Oz with tags books, comic books, movies, Oz books readthru, pop culture, Wizard of Oz on February 24, 2012 by Paxton

Earlier this week I posted my review of Baum’s first and most famous Oz novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Now let’s take a look at some of the adaptations/re-interpretations of that original Oz book.

There were several Broadway and stage plays of the Wizard of Oz especially in the nearly 40 years between the release of the novel and the production of the MGM movie. Baum originally had no intention of writing an Oz sequel but he did produce a stage play of the novel. The popularity of one of these stage plays directly led to Baum writing the first Oz sequel.

The Wizard of Oz (1939) – The original MGM musical. At this point, this movie is probably more well known than the books. I watched it on Blu-Ray right after I finished the book. I love this movie so much. It’s just amazing. Every time I watch it I love it more. I think I’ve mentioned that I own the soundtrack and you should know I’ve been listening to it all week.

Journey Back to Oz (1974) – Animated movie that is the “official” sequel to the 1939 MGM movie. Not really based on any of the other Oz books. The producers really went all out. Dorothy is voiced by Judy Garland’s daughter, Liza Minelli. Margaret Hamilton who played the Wicked Witch in the 1939 movie voiced Aunt Em in this sequel. The audio track for this movie was recorded in 1964. It took 10 years for the producers to raise enough money to complete the animation which was done in 1974. This is the first time I remember seeing the character Jack Pumpkinhead who actually shows up in Baum’s later books.

MGM’s Marvelous Wizard of Oz (1975) – The first comic collaboration between Marvel and DC. Written by Roy Thomas and drawn by John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga. It’s a straight adaptation of the MGM movie. Nothing more, nothing less. Great art, though. Marvel continued this series with one more issue which you’ll see in my next installment.