Oz The Great and Powerful (2013)

[mr.negativity]

[lhb412]

[eabaker]

It's been a few years since I last watched Return to Oz. I really need to pick that one up; it's not a movie that completely works, but at worst it's an interesting failure, and it creeped me right the hell out as a kid.

[klen7]

[MekaGojira3k]

[jellydonut25]

I think I've only ever seen The Wizard of Oz from end to end once (and enough of other bits and pieces here and there over the years to have amalgamated like 4 to 5 vieiwings), and I've never seen Return to Oz.

So, this isn't something that holds any sanctity for me. Raimi can do whatever he pleases with it...except for make a ripoff of the craptacular Alice in Wonderland...

[lhb412]

I'm actually reading the original Baum book right now.

Is good!

Echoing my previous statement, it's a bit disappointing that the '39 film (brilliant as is is) has become so iconic that it has colored all further adaptations - to the detriment of even trying to take inspiration from the books.

By the way, the inspiration for me reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is that I've become really interested in illustration as of late, and all of the original Oz books have absolutely fantastic original illustrations. The artist for the first book was W.W. Denslow and the further Baum books had John Neill.

[MouthForWar]

[jellydonut25]

[MouthForWar]

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

Oh, what if Disney releases Return to Oz on Blu-Ray to cash in on this new film? Wouldn't that be nice!

[mr.negativity]

From Collider:


[quote=" Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub "]What’s the balance between reverentially regarding Mr. Baum’s material, which has endured on its merits, for well nigh a century and wanting to make that alive and fresh for the modern sensibility of a modern movie-going audience?

Raimi: Well, when I came to the project, I had never read any of Baum’s work and I’ve only read four of the books now. First of all, I so loved the movie The Wizard of Oz that I was afraid to read versions of it that were not exactly what I loved so much about the movie. This is very strange, I didn’t want the book to mess up the movie for me, this is where I was at. But then, after I read the screenplay, which I loved, I started to read the books and appreciate Baum’s work. I was so surprised at how exactly [the movie] The Wizard of Oz was his first book. His work is fresh right now. It’s brilliant and affecting and the characters don’t need to be refreshened by anybody.

However, the screenplay is based on a lot of elements of a lot of his books. In many of his books, and even more than the ones I read, he would go back and talk about the wizard. There’s a little bit about the wizard in the first one, a little bit about the wizard in three and four. He went back and said, “Here’s how the wizard got here and this was his backstory.â€

[Dr Kain]

[RapZiLLa54]

[Dr Kain]

[RapZiLLa54]

[Cookie]

[lhb412]

[Pkmatrix]

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

[jellydonut25]

...meh.

SOOOOOOO much cgi. An insulting amount...to the point that I felt bad for the actors. How can you act when you're just running around a blank stage? Zach Braff stole the show but wasn't in it enough, Michelle Williams did fine with her limited character, Franco was....kinda bad, Rachel Weiss was really good, Mila Kunis was woefully miscast. She was good before she turned but after that it was just not working.

Kept looking for Bruce the whole movie and was disappointed when he finally showed up.

There were moments where it was better than I'd expected, moments that were worse, and far too many where I just didn't care. The movie screeches to a halt of boredom when Oz and glinda and company escape the cemetery. The climax is kinda cool, but was sprinkled with some crap too.

Overall, just "meh"