Cool News
The Sci Fi Channel Drops A Reimagining Bomb On THE WIZARD OF OZ!!
Merrick here...
The Sci Fi Channel is "reimagining" THE WIZARD OF OZ. You know...because "reimagining" THE WIZARD OF OZ worked out so well with THE WIZ and all. For the moment, it's being called TIN MAN and it's a miniseries.
Here's what they're threatening:
The miniseries is a sometimes psychedelic, often twisted and always bizarre take on The Wizard of Oz. It centers on DG, a young woman plucked from her humdrum life and thrust into The Outer Zone (the O.Z.), a fantastical realm filled with wonder, but oppressed by dark magic. DG discovers her true identity, battles evil winged monkey-bats and attempts to fulfill her destiny. Her perilous journey begins on the fabled Old Road that leads to a wizard known as the Mystic Man. Along the way, she is joined by "Glitch," an odd man missing half his brain; "Raw," a quietly powerful wolverine-like creature longing for inner courage; and "Cain," a heroic former policeman (known in the O.Z. as a "Tin Man"), who is seeking vengeance for his scarred heart. Ultimately, DG's destiny leads her to a showdown with the wicked sorceress Azkadellia, whose ties to DG are closer than anyone could have imagined.
"Glitch". "Raw". "Outer Zone" (O.Z.). I'd like to suggest "B.I." (Bad Idea). Or, perhaps, "F.U." (for...ummmm...."Florida University"). Goofin' with something like GALACTICA is one thing: while the original was obsessively embraced" by some, many folks felt there was room for improvement. In this instance, the masses may be too hardwired to embrace a WIZARD OF OZ rejiggering. The original is on TV too often, it's screened at retro theaters too often, and has been through too many DVD releases (including this fantastic set last year). It's..too immediate. Or, as loyal Talkbackers might decry, "Too Soon!!!"
This feels like one of those hubris projects; filmmakers thinking they no better than whoever did the same project before them. But here's the quandary: the original WIZARD OF OZ movie was, itself, not slavishly devoted to L. Frank Baum's source material - so it's difficult to argue the sanctity of a "classic" that didn't adhere too closely to its progenitor books. None the less, it's not like TIN MAN can (or will) exist in a vacuum...and the public is more closely tied to the 1939 musical than to the books...so comparison between the two is inevitable.
A good rule of "remaking" or re-approaching classic material is to ask whether or not previous efforts were as fully realized as they might have been. Were elements limited by time, technical limitations or social considerations (acceptable content) for example. Will re-approaching a title actually make it more truthful to the intent of a previous film or book? That doesn't sound like what writers Steven Long Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle are doing here -- sounds more like they're going for self-indulgent kitsch. Maybe that's not what SFC intended to convey in its press release; I guess we'll see.
This one's being brought to us by the Halmis, whose list of credits is both enormous and lackluster. They're a few cool ones in there, though...
MORE HERE!!!
This being said, does anyone out there remember RETURN TO OZ? Tik-Tok rocked..
The miniseries is a sometimes psychedelic, often twisted and always bizarre take on The Wizard of Oz. It centers on DG, a young woman plucked from her humdrum life and thrust into The Outer Zone (the O.Z.), a fantastical realm filled with wonder, but oppressed by dark magic. DG discovers her true identity, battles evil winged monkey-bats and attempts to fulfill her destiny. Her perilous journey begins on the fabled Old Road that leads to a wizard known as the Mystic Man. Along the way, she is joined by "Glitch," an odd man missing half his brain; "Raw," a quietly powerful wolverine-like creature longing for inner courage; and "Cain," a heroic former policeman (known in the O.Z. as a "Tin Man"), who is seeking vengeance for his scarred heart. Ultimately, DG's destiny leads her to a showdown with the wicked sorceress Azkadellia, whose ties to DG are closer than anyone could have imagined.
MORE HERE!!!
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...that's not going to be worth a damn. "Re-imagining?" HOW ABOUT SOMETHING ORIGINAL FOR ONCE! No wonder 90% of my film collection are classics and foreign films.
Jeez. -
If that were the rule, then we never would have gotten Fistful of Dollars, Scarface, or The Thing.
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This is suicide. Don't even try it! Now, if we can get the rest of this website to grow some balls and trash the transformers movie like they trashed this bad idea, all will be well.
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The silly musical isn't anything like the books, which were pretty dark. And I liked Return to Oz too. Mmm...Fairuza Balk. I mean NOW, not then. Oh and lets lose "re-imagining". That word has "marketting worm" written all over it.
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Just like when Tim Burton took a different swipe at CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (which I thought was a rousing success), I think this has the potential to be something fantastic. The new incantation of book was similar on some levels, but took closely to the darker aspects of the book than the original - and even invented a new storyline of its own (Christopher Lee). The result? A movie that pays homage to its predecessor that also stands up on its own. It doesn't attempt to diminish the original by simply being a flimsy remake.
And I think that's the key when you get into something like this. There are some dark, highly disturbed elements in the source material that were, quite obviously, tamed for the family musical. Why not explore those? Why not look at the story through a different filter? Just because someone has a different take on the story - especially if it turns into another genre completely - doesn't mean the original is somehow invalidated. -
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no. Don't fuck with Oz. Just don't. No.
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That Heads in the Hallway sequence also fucked me up hardcore when I was a kid. I don't know if I can even watch it now that I'm an adult, but you just convinced me to put it on my Netflix to find out. God help me.
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making a "Wicked" movie.
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Those Mcfarlane figures were amazing. Too bad they canceled the game.
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in fact they have, whatever happened to that adaption of Alice? I think in this day and age, people would be more accepting of a reimagining of that property than Oz, since it's nowhere near as popular.
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...featuring Rick Blaine as the owner of an intergalactic tavern, Ilsa Lund as the bionic girlfriend of hotshot resistance leader Vic Lazlo. I understand the voice of Sam the robot piano player will be Eddie Murphy.
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Put it on thebig screen with Tim Burton at the helm. Then it will be an instant classic.
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Keep Burton the fuck away from it. Please.
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I can't wait to see this! I love having my childhood raped, and Sci-Fi continues to do so for me! Kudos, Sci-Fi Channel, for such a daring project. And may I suggest that next you reimagine "It's A Wonderful Life' by making it not only in a space station, but also making Clarence a sassy blond girl who has an affair with George Bailey (Edward James Olmos), because they both know that when he returns to his real life, it will never have happened. However *spoiler* not only did the torrid sexual encounter really happen, but when George returns to his life Mary has been replaced by Clarence!!!
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Actually, those movies PROVE my theory correct (I think). They're what I meant by a previous iteration being limited by "social considerations and acceptable content"). THE THING and SCARFACE (as remakes) were far more violent and raw than their predecessors, creating a different type of movie than we had before. A storyline closer to literary source material (THE THING remake for example) also mattered (at least in THE THING's case).
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You don't expand upon it (see Scarlett), reimagine (see Planet of the Apes), or remake it (see Psycho), because it will usually end up crap.
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I don't understand the immediacy and the intense anger that has already (and will continue to, I imagine) spewed forth from this news. Someone tell me why it happens.
Like most of you, I abhor remakes just for the sake of remaking. I'm of the camp that if it's done right the first time, you don't need to do it again. There's no reason to make a carbon copy of something. I cheered when they cut production of the REVENGE OF THE NERDS remake and I'm considering paying to have the people behind the remake of ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING with Raven Simone kidnapped. In those instances I understand being upset, though I don't go that far, but even if those movies were to get made it doesn't delete the original from existence. If anything, it gives you the chance to point it out again to people who aren't familiar.
But what's wrong with a reimagining? What's wrong with looking at a story from a different vantage point or even a different genre, especially if there's potent source material that's been glossed over? What the hell are you so afraid of? That people will take the original less seriously? That it'll fade into anonymity? I'm so confused right now. It seems to me like there's always a biased, reactionary mob mentality against anything that dares to mention the word "remake".
For my money, I'd love to see what someone else thinks about OZ. I'm the guy that likes when Asian films get "Westernized", because if it ends up good it's usually really good (THE DEPARTED), and if it's total crap (as is usually the case) I can just point back to the original. In fact, I'm curious as hell to see what a Western director can do with OLDBOY, my favorite movie of the last five years.
So someone explain to me the vitriol, because I just don't understand it. -
two spots ahead of Merrick's, when it was actually below his when it first went through.
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It may be my favorite movie of all time, and I suppose in THEORY I'd be all right with a remake to see what could be done with it, but I just don't see what could be done. You'd Americanize it sure, but there's really not that much Korean culture in it, and I really don't know what you'd change around without making it worse, and if that's the case, why not just do a shto for shot remake, and if that's all you're doing, than why bother? The only reason I could think of is if you had a phenomenal two actors to play the two main characters and the project was basically to get them an Oscar (which it feasibly could).
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Actually, there was a science-fiction remake of CASABLANCA, it was called BARB WIRE. (Think about the similarities for a minute or two and then try not to kill yourself...)
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I mean, this sounds like mid-90's comic book bad. "Azkadellia"?! Jesus CHRIST. Listen, there are ONE HUNDRED Wizard of OZ books. We've only seen... Two made. In the past hundred years. Why don't they go about making THOSE materials, huh?
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Sci Fi needs to up their production values, all of their original programming looks like crap.
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...if a FABULOUS babe were cast as Dorothy. (And I mean REALLY FABULOUS.) And even then it'd be iffy.
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Oh why not, she is only what, 20 years older than the character? 30?
Shit at least cast Dakota Fanning? -
At least there won't be a beach.
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http://tinyurl.com/ykhb3k
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Have you ever read the original Japanese OLDBOY manga series? There's a lot about it that changed by the time it got to a Korean writer/director, and I would assume that such similar changes could be applied to another translation. I don't think you even need to include the same themes - I would be curious if they simply started over with a man who was locked up for 15 years and then released with little explanation other than that someone wanted to punish him. Why? Because that hooked me; it's a fascinating concept. I'd rather see what someone else could do with that base than to see it remade shot-for-shot. Do I think they could turn it into a story as complete and compelling? Not really, but I think someone deserves a shot.
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Remember when this site reported on Tim Burton's LOST IN OZ? http://tinyurl.com/yy2dov
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The 1939 movie sucked! It had nothing to do with William Jennings Bryan and the Populist movement. Why did MGM want to distort Baum’s vision by making a movie based on Dark Side of the Moon? Too bad they didn’t have fat assed, talentless internet personalities to neysay that one (I use “personality” because you aren’t a critic if you like every fucking movie!) Wizard of Oz has been in the public domain for about 50 years now, anyone can do anything they want with it. Anchoring the original story to the most popular version of the film is retarded. A New James Bond movie?!! With a different actor?!?!?! A remake??!?!!? What is this world coming to? You are all a BUNCH OF HATEFUL DOUCHE BAGS. Jason “JuggFuckler” Stevens.
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I was watching the end of Oz the other day, and was wondering why they have adopted another book. I thought Return to Oz was inferior, but still enjoyable. Now that fantasy and sequels are in vogue, this would be the perfect project.
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Wasn't there going to be a game called "Oz" or "Dorothy" coming from American McGee which followed the same concept as his "Alice"? I would buy that game the instant it was set on the shelf. Anyone know about this?
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Come on And
Ease on down, Ease on down the road
come on, Ease on down, Ease on down the road
don't you carry nothing that might be a load come on, Ease on down Ease on down, down the road
Come on
Ease on down, Ease on down the road(ease on down)
Come on
Ease on down, Ease on down the road(ease on down)
Don't you carry nothing that might be a load
Come on
Ease on down, Ease on down, down the road
Pick your left foot up, when your right foots down
Come on lets keep moving and don't you lose control
You just keep on Keepin' on the road that you choose
Don't you give up walking cause you gave up shoes
Ease on down, Ease on down the road (come on)
Ease on down, Ease on down the road
Don't you carry nothing that might be a load
Come on
Ease on down, Ease on down, down the road
Cause there may be times when you think you lost your mind
And the steps you're taking leave you three four steps behind
But the road you're walking might be long sometimes
You just keep on stepping and you'll be just fine (yeah)
Ease on down, Ease on down the road (ease on down)
Ease on down, Ease on down the road (ease on down)
Don't you carry nothing that might be a load
Come on
Ease on down, Ease on down, down the....
For there may be times, when you wish you wasn't born
And you wake one morning just to find your courage gone
but you know that feeling only last a little while
you just stick with us and you'll be just fine (yeah)
Get 'em up, moving down (ease on down the road)
Get 'em up, moving down (ease on down the road)
Get 'em up, moving down(ease on down the road)
Get 'em up Get 'em up (ease on down)
Don't you carry nothing that might be a load
Come on
Ease on down,ease on down the road!
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I'm pretty sure when the Oz game didn't happen, American went off to work on the movie script for OZ. (Possibly in an effort to sell another Sarah Michelle Wannabe property.) Personally, I dig the McGee twist on both properties, though we'll likely never see more of the OZ one. This sounds like a cheap-ass version of something nowhere near as cool.I think the Baum books are open to reworkings just fine (look at the highly successful Broadway "Wicked" for example, not to mention the book on which it is based),... but crap is crap. The descriptions in the press release above do not telegraph confidence that this will be an original work worth seeing/producing.
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I have read that when the MGM movie version of "Wizard of Oz" came out, it was panned by critics because it wasn't close enough to the original books. When "Return to Oz" (A film that tried to stay much closer to the original books) was released, it was also panned by critics, but this time because it was not close enough to the Original MGM movie. There seemed to be a huge population of movie critics who had no clue that there had ever been a series of books prior to the MGM version (To say nothing to the early silent film versions).
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And therefore I shall watch this. And I'm lucky enough to have "Return to Oz" on video tape. I like the Wheelers myself.
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www.dorothyofoz.net
This was a digital photo comic/experiment, that turned out really well and it approached OZ with a scifi bend as well. This comic is what should be a TV show. Also the OZ/Wonderland chronicles are great continuations of both Wonderland and Oz in comic form. -
The original story was so dark and twisted on it's own that you do need, nor should you, fuck with the goddamn material. What is with this hip-shit they're going for here? If you want to remake the Wizard of Oz - go ahead, but do it RIGHT. Make the most accurate Wizard of Oz ever seen (watch Return to Oz and you'll get a good idea of what it SHOULD be like)... but I swear to science, if you fuck this up I will goddamn murder you.
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(er, off the musical, not the book). Sheesh, how hard is this people?
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this is a story and characters that are so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that messing with it is perfectly legitimate. This is NOT the same case as remaking Willy Wonka. This certainly could be awful, but it could also be an interesting way of commenting on the original and its place in our culture. It probably will be the former, but you never know. Anyway, literature like Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz are a huge part of the Western imagination/psyche/unconscious on a level beyond most everything else - references to them in other literature, films etc. is vast. Their themes are extremely generalizable, their characters are blank slates for our psyches to write upon. That's one of the reasons Alan Moore was messing with it in Lost Girls. I can't fully articulate it, but I just feel that those 3 works are beyond the accusation of the reimagining problem.
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Especially with Richard Pryor as the Wizard and Nipsy Russel as the Tin Man? I thought it was a good homage to the original with an urban riff, with the only thing "wrong" about it being the fact that Glinda was played by a white woman.
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to re-imagining Star Wars? In a good way, I mean.
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that producer DID do merlin...and merlin DID kick a few kinds of ass...
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Now excuse me while I go do the Dew and snowboard while listening to Godsmack.
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Great cast (even made Martin Short look good! :)
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The opening scenes in the mental hospital terrified me as a child. It was the only film Walter Murch directed. Pity, as it's a wonderful film.
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...it isn't a bad idea in and of itself. I hoenstly don't think something like this is automatically disrespecting its source material. And OZ is fucking ripe for the taking. Oodles of untold stories and we've still yet to have an even vaguely faithful adaptation (RETURN... came closest, of course...) Hell, classic and wonderful movie it may be... but the MGM musical was so loose in its translation, that even IT could be considered a "re-imagining" of sorts... So yeah, count me as actually interested in this.
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Sci Fi can't do original work if their life depended on it.
How bout MANSQUITO! -
Why fuck with the characters and 'modernize' it? They should look at the Muppet Wizard Of Oz as an example and realise shit like that is best left alone. Well...at least she was called Dorothy in that and not 'DG'...
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A dark, gritty, Sesame Street might be a good choice for re-imagining. We need a bad-ass version of Big Bird going through some life crisis.
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...it's just the execution of said idea that will likely be the problem. The thought of someone (just not Sci-Fi...have you seen KRAKEN: TENTACLES OF THE DEEP? Or HAMMERHEAD: SHARK FRENZY? Or BLOOD SURF? *shudder*) Peter Jackson-izing the "Oz" series of books is highly tantilizing. I just don't want someone to screw the hell out of it just for the sake of screwing the hell out of it, y'know?
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Nov 27, 2006 12:54:49 PM CST
why dont they just tell some of the other stories from
by larrythecableguy
hip reinventions r a lame idea. theyres plenty of other stories by l frank baum to tell, i watch the old silent versions and theyre crazy. even just a tv version remake of the original would be a better idea. i was a fan of return to oz too. but what i really think, if anyone out there had any good ideas, maybe do l frank baums 'life and adventures of santa claus' as a lord of the rings type live action/cgi remake. remaking ofcourse the brilliant stop animation one by rankin and bass (i assume). that would be the balls.
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One is a timeless classic based upon a series of BOOKS. The other is a tv series which was originally Glen Larson's trip to get on the "Star Wars" bandwagon in the late seventies. "Reimagine!" Who came up with this "brilliant'" idea? While they were taking a shit on the toilet? Gee, why don't we "reimagine" "The Night Stalker" while we're at it? Fucking TV babies.
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The idea of a new take on "Oz" doesn't bother me -- as someone who read the books a long (long) time ago, I enjoyed Return to Oz a great deal (as it was a sort of mesh of Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz). But this...this sounds bad. Not just bad. I mean this sounds "Platypus Man" bad. UPN bad.
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The only way this should be done is with Dark Side of the Moon as the score to the orginal movie. That is it. Otherwise it is just a waste of time.
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Sounds like crap to me. What be more interesting IMO would be a remake that's more faithful to Baum's original book.
But I don't really like the idea of retelling it with the whole Outer Zone,etc.. crap.Make it Oz, just more in the spirit of the source material ( if that's even possible to do.Does the estate hold all the rights still?). -
Why don't we try actually adapting the books.
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I admit, this sounds really bad on the surface, but that doesn't mean it will invariably suck.
Fifty years ago, had AICN existed, people would likely bitch and moan about how Romeo and Juliet was being redone in a contemporary urban setting with street gangs.
This isn't to say that "O.Z." will be West Side Story. It probably won't be, but then few films are. In fact, O.Z. probably won't be very good, but then most made-for-SF stuff isn't very good.
That said, I think there were two better tracks to take:
1) An adaptation of other Oz books, ala "Return to Oz." God knows there's enough of them, and I bet most kids don't know that Dorothy's journey didn't end with Wizard.
2) Go the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory route. Re-adapt the novel so that it's more faithful to the original. Utilize modern effects for Dorothy's companions, and skip the musical numbers so as to distance the remake even further from the original. -
Think hard for a second and remember who runs the Sci-Fi channel.
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I honestly don't see why some people consider the Wizard of OZ as some great cannonical piece of cinema. It was cool yes, but it's not holy or anything. Now if they were remaking it I could understand but this reimagining seems like a cool idea to me.
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There has been some grumbling about BSG's budget being too big and it maybe possibly being canceled. I'll say this - if Sci-Fi cancels BSG while greenlighting *this*, someone should be fired if not shot.
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I think this is a bit of self-parody, most likely, but for the person who suggested that they do Alice in Wonderland, check out Jonathan Miller's BBC adaptation from the mid-60s; that's about the same kind of thing.
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They scream of someone who thinks they know what "the kids" will respond to and are trying to be "cool".
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very interesting.
But ey, this is AICN, it's trend to hate everything (specially remakes). -
They made a few of the books into silent films in the twenties.They also filmed, "Return To Oz"(With Fairuza Balk.) that had a few of characters from the books as well, but took liberty with a couple of the original stories. It would be great if they stuck to the original source material for once, but then again, all you have to do is look at the new "I Am Legend" coming out next year for the answer to that question.
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SciFi announced this about a week ago. Surprised it wasn't on here sooner. Did the news that Sean Connery turned down the role of Gandalf ever make it on here? That came out awhile back too. Just wondering. Guess I can't bitch too much since everything slows down over the holidays.
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phantm toolbooth bitches
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Oh yeah!
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what else do we expect from Sci-Fi? I'm bracing for how shitty Caprica could be evening knowing it comes from the BSG creators. That's how awful The Sci-Fi Channel is.
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Can you imagine how crappy that would be?
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Come on.. Ozma has to be in it..or the talking chicken. :P This is such a horrible idea... why can't they leave well enough alone? 1939's Wizard of Oz is a classic! The Muppet version was bad enough...and now we have this...thing.
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Wow... hollywood never ceases to amaze me in how terrible and greedy its gotten with all these remakes, reimaginingings, etc. They need a complete overhaul starting with mandatory drug testing and ass raping.
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Unlike other remakes that are regurgitated by Hollywood every month. Baum's Wizard of Oz is a story that is in the public domain. That means it is not owned by any one person but belongs to everyone now as part of our cultural heritage. So this is along the same lines as "re-imagining" a Shakespeare play or something.
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It's not touting itself as "The NEW Wizard of Oz." I'm also glad it changed the title unlike those upcoming Thing and Hitcher remakes. Reserve your hate for those movies.
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I'm not talking about a remake of the Wizard of Oz is the dumbest idea ever. It's just a dumb idea, considering the original film is perfect. The details of the remake however sould like it'll make Plan 9 from outer space look like shakespeare. Why don't people make remakes of movies that had great ideas but were poorly written? And the new Galactica is awesome.
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I bought it for 5 dollars, thinking, "Hey, I remember this from when I was a kid..." not realizing that it is actually a pretty damn good movie. The special effects were topnotch for its day and the music was beautiful... Faruza Balk did an excellent job as Dorothy and yes Tik-Tok does indeed rock... I wouldn't mind seeing a remake of Wizard of Oz, but something along the lines of what Return to Oz did - trade in the kitchiness of the first movie in favor for a darker atmosphere that is closer to the books. This "reimagining" sounds ill conceived, though... kind of like that horrible sounding Alice in Wonderland horror film they're making with Sarah Michelle Gellar.
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I barley read the article but from what I see, that's bullshit! I can't believe they would be so dis-respectful... why?
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And don't turn Bugs into some sort action hero/space adventurer. That would really suck.
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So there ! I've said it, and I feel better.
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It's like... I never have to post any comment because he's made all the valid points already. I think the public is WAY married to the original film- to say nothing of the legacy of the films star. This sounds a little like the "re-imagining" of the Looney Tunes characters. What ever happened to that anyway? Oh yeah... colossal FAILURE.
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but he's probably too busy at the mo, and the studio execs probably wouldn't go for his take on it. Perhaps Michael Marshall Smith could use this as a stepping stone project to then get one of his own stories filmed.
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When I first watched it as a child, of course. I haven't seen it for years, so I have no idea how it holds up over time, but I remember it being really dark and serious - and no one fucking sang! I remember there was a desert that turned people into sand - that's pretty sweet. I grew up with THE WIZARD OF OZ as well though, so unless Peter Jackson is attempting to remake this... no thanks. As someone said above, it's not the idea itself that's bad, it's the likely execution of said idea (i.e. Sci Fi Channel quality).
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WTF? This will be horrible, no doubt about it. Anyone want to guess whether DG and Tin-Man "do it"? This is an awaful, awful idea...
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Nov 27, 2006 3:57:56 PM CST
While I'm not completely against the idea of remakes...
by childe roland
...in general or even the idea of remaking the Wizard of Oz, specifically, this particular reimagining sounds like ass. I'd prefer a McFarlane's Monsters-type Twisted Land of Oz horror-spun retool to the Xtreme idiocy outlined above.
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Three Godfathers, the John Wayne version was the best and the third version. The Maltese Falcon The Bogat version is a classic, but it was the third version put on film. So it has worked in the past!
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drops a bomb, I was hoping you meant it was cancelled. This is the stupidest idea i've heard in some time.
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I'm not sure who the audience would be for this kind of remake. Younger kids would probably be prevented from watching this. Teens wouldn't be caught dead watching a "kids movie." Adults want to enjoy their memories of the original and don't want to be bothered. The remake as described doesn't even sound like it could be unintentially hilarious. Give me a David Lynch version of Green Acres instead. As far as BSG goes, the new version is far superior in dealing with the reality of what one would expect to see after the near destruction of humanity. The original never came close and couldn't even try because of how it was sold.
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I'm surprized no one came up with that film reference.
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...wasn't Glinda portrayed by Lena Horne in THE WIZ? I'm pretty sure she's black.
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How about:
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on the fucking book....for a change
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Has anyone ever done a political version of Wizard of Oz on film? I think since many claim the story represented the political climate of the time, particularly the arguement of the gold standard vs greenbacks that some sort of updating could be done. I don't know, maybe Blood for Oil or faith versus science or something? However, if they are going to do this reworking of Oz, I think they would have been better off going the route of "Alice" rather than the direction this seems to be taking. That's the thing with WoO, the concept could be reinterpreted in many ways...so I'm a little surprised at all of the negativity...but I do agree that how it reads on paper didn't exactly make me want to circle the date on my calendar.
~ÐL -
Who doesn't think the Wizard of Oz movie is all that great? Of course, I'm biased because the books are much more ingrained in my childhood than the movie could ever dream to be (and the movie is a TERRIBLE adaptation), but...The musical numbers are ridiculous, Dorothy is supposed to be a little girl (not an awkwardly naive older-teenager), and why does Glinda look like a fairy princess hopped up on happy-pills? AND (this is what kills the movie for me) Dorothy did NOT just make up OZ god dammit! There are two parts that actually get me in that movie, the first being the technicolor shift, and the second being Over the Rainbow.
That being said, I think that a "re-imagining" of OZ as a darker, "edgier", sci-fi story is actually a pretty cool idea. Unfortunately it's being done by Sci-fi (why is everyone forgetting my personal favorite, Frankenfish?) so I doubt it will be even close to cool. But I think in the right hands, a "darker" remake of TWoO could be really cool.
But what I really want is a Wizard of Oz remake along the lines of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. No songs (*shudder*), better casting, and definitely more faithful. -
years ago, I've felt that Oz would be a really interesting world to portray "properly". And yeah, Return To Oz freaked me out too - even that was interesting though. Maybe it was just the 80s shining through. I love the 80s.
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and there are a lot of books of Oz they could do a killer tv series with but, no, they have to appeal to the hip and the stupid.
Will there ever be justice for Oz?....Probably not. -
I have absolutely no idea what you mean by, "filmmakers thinking they no better than whoever did the same project before them". But I agree that this remake sounds like a very bad idea. Although some of the concepts are a little clever, they're also a little hokey. The books were originally written as political satire. I can think of at least two ways to reinterpret that story into modern themes ... and now I'm thinking that I need to write these ideas down.
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While this project doesn't excite me very much, I'm a huge Oz fan, and have some projects of my own coming along. Id like to hear what you guys think of my artwork, as I see there's some fans of Baum's work here:
www.monkeyspin.com
www.monkeyspin.blogspot.com -
to be that D.G. is actually the Witch's daughter. Or clone.
I should write these things. Oh wait, I already do . . . LOL -
I'm surprised no ones mentioned it yet. It was made for either UPN or the WB I forget. I actually have a copy of the pilot. And before you ask yeah it sorta sucked. I can see why it wasn't picked up. Decent concept but they kinda fubared it. Too much Dawsons Creek type crap in it. Same goes for the music. Special effex weren't very impressive either.Nor the acting.
To give you an idea about the story... A modern day girl(Late Teens) gets transported to OZ by a tornadoe that was basically chasing her. She wakes up in Oz and meets a WW2 fighter pilot with the nick name scarecrow. They get chased by these black knight type guys and are finally captured by them. The knights take them to this underwater city where a good witch rules. You find out that the good witch sent the tornadoe to earth to find someone worthy of defeating the new wicked witch who has taken over and destroyed much of OZ. The good witch gives the earth girl a small bottle with a miniature tornadoe in it and says that this will take her home after she completes the task of rescuing ozma(Who has somehow been changed back into a lil girl) from the Wicked witch. The bottled tornadoe is her only way of getting home. Once it's used there is no other way. So along they're quest to the wicked witchs the earth girl and the WW2 pilot argue about doing the right thing and rescuing Ozma or just using the tonadoe to go home regardless etc.,. They run into some Wheelers along the way. Doesn't really show them except for this big CGI spiked wheel going right at the human characters. They also find the original house that Dorothy had arrived in now overgrown with plants. Plus whats left of Munchkin land which is now burnt to the ground. I think they even find a couple of Munchkin skeletons If I remember correctly.
Anyway, they finally make it to the Wicked Witchs place only to get captured in some kind of maze or something which Ozma is at the end at. They eventually find ozma and the Wicked witch attacks them. She's overpowering them and the earth girl decides to sacrifice her way home to rescue ozma so she throws the bottled tornadoe at the witch which breaks open and the tonadoe carries the Wicked Witch off. Then the show ends with some kinda dawsons creek music as the eath girl and the WW2 pilot are looking out over a meadow from a hill with music playing. The End.
There was also a rag doll type girl they meet and something about if the eath girl kills the Wicked witch that she will become the next Wicked Witch. Or something like that.
Like I said before,decent concept but they screwed it up. -
...like a clever parody of what some imbecilic, cocaine-powered executive could think up and sell to, say, the Sci-Fi Channel... oh, wait... Oh dear.
Of course no remake news will ever surprise me. In fact, I'm surprised nobody's remaking Bay's remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre yet. And how about a remake of Gigli? -
utterly pointless.
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Ummm... I mentioned it way back up the TB. Your penance- send me a copy of the pilot...
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This will spoil the next gay parade I participate in
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...whatever fricking thing gave them the notion that "wrestling" qualifies as science fiction programming?maybe they could re-imagine that the moron(s) who came up with that concept are in the unemployment line?I'm just sayin, is all....
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right?
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Don’t get me started. I detest most remakes since most original productions get it right the first time. One shouldn’t mess with classics. “John Carpenter’s The Thing” is unique; it is the only example of a remake that eclipsed the original that I can think of. Jackson’s “King Kong” was a love letter to the original and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” in the early eighties was wonderful. That’s about it – the list of remakes that have met or exceeded the originals. Please feel free to add to the list of remakes any films that I may have missed.
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Ahhhhhh I did see your post mentioning something about "Lost in Oz" but it having something to do with Tim Burton. Thats what threw me.Thought you were talking about a movie or something. I just read the article you linked to. That script that Burton wrote is completely different than the pilot I saw. Plus Burton had nothing to do with this one as far as I know. I honestly can't remember who wrote it. The date on that article you linked to is in 1999. The pilot to the "Lost In Oz" I have came out in 2003 I believe. Maybe 2004. I forget. I obtained it about a year ago and haven't rewatched it. If you want it post your address i'll send ya a copy. ;)
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You just don't mess with Wizard of Oz. Never ever. Anything that SciFi has ever put out has turned to crap anyway, so why ruin Oz for everyone? What they need to do is pull their heads out of their asses and realize that this a big mistake.
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Just make "Wicked" into a movie/series. All the potential is right there in the book. Screw the dark/twisted stuff, just make it more real and lived in.
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at least 3 errors I noticed on my First read through. That said, I donno, this sounds like something I might watch.
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...to people who get too judgmental/strict about what you should let kids watch. When I was a kid I watched all the Hammer, AIP and Italian gore around. Plenty of it scared me, but it was always hide under a blanket scared/excited, and I didn't carry it off with me. My parents also let me watch The Wizard of Oz. To this day I can't watch it. The hourglass, with Auntie Em dying when the sand runs out, the flying monkeys tearing the stuffing out of the scarecrow. Oh, the nightmares and terror they caused. Nobody saw that coming. With kids you can never tell. (Ask me about my parents letting me watch Suddenly Last Summer when I was seven sometime...yeesh).
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Tell me I'm not the only one seriously fucking tired of remakes and sequels. Not even goddam superman could return after 20 years without being tied to those old fucking movies.
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...with Oliver Hardy and no Toto is supposed to be OK BTW.
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...supposedly because of the slap stick and the stereotyping of the African American character (Spencer Bell who played the Lion). Here’s a review - http://tinyurl.com/y6dbnz
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L Frank Baum wrote fourteen and a half Oz books. Why not make one of the other ones?
And Tik Tok was awesome, though not as awesome as the Nome King. -
Baum's books are far far superior to any movie made to date. And much darker in some instances. A "reimaging" or "reset" similar to what has been done to James Bond with the new Casino Royale for this series would be most welcome. Or they could just trash it and make garbage, the more likely outcome. Too bad, Baum is an often under appreciated writer.
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Nov 28, 2006 12:06:25 AM CST
"Whose list of credits is both enormous and lackluster"
by triumph poops!
That sentence says it all and describes their output perfectly. Another production from these people? Man, I seriously don't know how they keep their financing going given the utter junk they've put out over the years. Then again, it's not truly truly vomit-inducing. It's just utterly boring, by the numbers crap that you zone out on while watching and laying on the couch. So I imagine that someone out there (ie. a TV exec) figures their product makes good filler material and nothing more and THAT keeps the ball rolling. In other words, once again Hollywood goes with mediocre junk rather than taking some chances on some bolder ideas and certainly on some better talented people. As for this OZ idea based on the description, I'm sure this will be utterly forgettable within microseconds of it being over...
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Making movies from Baum's other books is an idea that is waiting to happen. While everyone has been scouring the earth for the next LOTR and such, you've raced ahead of the pack and found it.
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The best Oz interpretation
...has been Return to Oz.
While I believe MGM's Oz film is one of (if not the best)film of all-time, I believe the truest interpretation of Baum's vision.
While freaky, and offsetting to viewers in 83, no other film interpretation has captured the essence of the original Oz books. The queen with many heads, the hiding of Ozma, Jack, The Gnome King, Wheelers (and not to mention all the side characters displayed at the end of the movie, came straight from Baum's brain. The trouble was, that the movie still borrowed imagery from the '39 classic; ruby slippers etc. People who came in looking for a sequel were turned off. Being a huge fan of the original books, as well as the 80's fantasy flicks (Labyrinth, Neverending Story, Dark Crystal) The movie is a wonderful, fantastic vision...
I've been illustrating these characters since I was a wee lad, and hope to illustrate my own Oz books in the near future.
www.monkeyspin.blogspot.com
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Because this series sounds a whole hell of a lot like the backstory to that bunch of action figures. Just sayin'.
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As long as they get Chris Rock to be the Wizard and get him to rap a lot, I can't see how this can fail.
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No one has pulled a Singer and ignored the sequels to The Neverending Story, and did one where all parties involved were grown up, make it even darker than the first one was.If you think about it, a lot of us were damn lucky to be kids in the 80's, you just don't get movies like that anymore. Eragon? lol
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the original? I've been meaning to pick that up.
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Good God. I am all for a reimagining if it's much, much darker and truer to the books. But man, SciFi? They'll mess this up for sure. Any time they try to do anything in house- it's suckage. What they should is convince Mike Nelson or Joel to do MST3k again... SciFi should go back to what it does best- play reruns of classic sci-fi/horror TV series. I am so tired of seeing their dreck-- "A SciFi Original movie: Mansquito, or Gastric Levage or Bruce-Campbell-Needed-Another-Mortgage-Payment" crap.
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Too soon?!? There's plenty of arguements not to do this, but "Too soon"? The movie's nearly 70 years old, the book over a century. When exactly will enough time have passed before it's ok to make this?
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...back in the 90's. Turns out Oz was a parallel universe. Dorothy grew up to become a CIA agent specializing in Oz-spawned menaces (Yeah, she was born in the 1880's, but she's only about 25 in the 1990s because, of course, "time flows differently in the Ozverse..."). The lion can't control his animal rage, tin man was rebuilt into a super-powered cyborg, etc. etc. It was interesting for a few issues, but the overall idea just didn't work. That'll go double for a TV miniseries, I'm sure.
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Well, if they have to do a WoOz remake, I would rather that they took the money and made a really kick ass - true to the story - movie. Who knows, it might be cool. I'll watch it once.
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