I'll probably offend people by saying this, but...wait for it, wait for it...I hated The Wizard of Oz. There, I said it. I know it's blasphemous to make such a confession, but the original film just seemed so corny to me and overblown. I didn't like the flying monkeys, the agressive trees, the disgustingly jovial munchkins. The Tin Man and Scarcrow just seemed silly to me and the Cowardly Lion irritated me to no end. The biggest offender of my sensibilities, however, was Dorothy. Her wide-eyed innocence and high pitched voice grated on me like fingernails on a chalkboard.
But just as school house chalkboards have evolved into computerized Smartboards, I've been forced to adjust my attitide toward the 1939 Judy Garland film. Admittedly, the last time I saw the movie, I was in my early teens (and that was several decades ago). I couldn't really appreciate the character development, the themes and the life lessons of the film. I also didn't recognize that the effects were actually quite impressive considering they were made so long ago when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression. All that was lost on my young mind. But a recent viewing of Oz the Great and Powerful has changed all that.
The film, which was directed by Sam Riami, starts like the original did in black and white. Unlike the spoiled and wining Dorothy, this film gives us James Franco's Oz, a con man and wanna-be magician who lives for no one but himself. Immediately, it was a character I could appreciate. I won't go into detail about the rest of the plot because there are countless other online reviews that have already done that. The purpose of this writing is to discuss my evolution. Since Riami and Franco sucked me in with the opening black and white sequences, I joined them in The Land of Oz with it's oversized flowers, biting fairies and flying monkeys. I'm not sure if it was because I saw a world like this in Avatar that I was more accepting of it than I was decades ago with the original film, but I found myself following the adventure whole heartedly. Of course, it helped that Mila Kunis was waiting for us as soon as we arrived in the colorful, fantastic Land of Oz.
I thought James Franco's character was appropriately developed during the film. He stayed true to his selfish self so convincingly that we still believed in the final act of the movie that he might leave the people high and dry and abscond with their gold. Of course, he didn't do that, but it was nice for us to be able to think that he would.
As an origins story, Oz the Great and Powerful had a difficult task of having to set up the original...a story that (most) people know and love...while also having to create something fresh and unique. While the filmmakers impressed me with their satisfaction of the latter task, it was their handling of the former that compelled me to re-evaluate my attitude toward The Wizard of Oz. I liked how and why they turned Mila Kunis' character from a beautiful innocent to a wicked revenge seeker. As I said, they did a great job of developing the main character of Oz. I liked how they made the three witches in the story personal so that we could identify with them. I enjoyed the film's subtle references to the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man (though that one was a bit harder to detect in this story than the others). And I loved the way the filmmakers carried through with their theme that the wizard's magic was illusionary, but the basis of his power was the people's belief in him. It was a compelling theme that has as much relevance for us today as it did when the original film came out during the Great Depression.
I wish I could have seen Oz the Great and Powerful before I watched The Wizard of Oz. If that had been the case, I might not have spent decades criticizing Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Scarecrow and The Cowardly Lion. As penance for my hostility, I plan to order the original film from Netflix and watch it for the first time in thirty years. Hopefully, it will become as vibrant to me as the oversized flowers in The Land of Oz.
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