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sequel to wizard of oz

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BeOnEdge

Banned
:lol thats the part my girlfriend was explaining. she wants to pick it up. i've never seen it. thanks! "the wiz" is on WE(fuck off)right now by the way.
 
Yeah, that movie is fucking creepy. I remember watching it when I was little and really sick, and the movie's weird presence mixed with my fever totally made me have a nightmare or two.
 

White Man

Member
The whole tower of the heads thing was creepier. Especially when they all moved at the same time. I seriously haven't watched (or DESIRED to watch) this movie in like 10 years. They need to make more perversely disturbing kids' movies like this.
 

Trevelyon

Member
http://www.returntoozthemovie.com/movieclips/heads0.mpg

DOROTHY GALE!!!!!

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Socreges

Banned
I might have been four years old when I last saw this. Throughout the years, for whatever reason, I would have memories of the movie. The images were few, like a robot that was a clock or something. But there was just a feeling that went along with the memories. Really weird and creepy. I still haven't lost that.

Funny that I couldn't actually attach the memories to anything tangible until a few years ago. I didn't know what they were from, or even that there was a sequel to The Wizard of Oz.
 

Belfast

Member
Ooo a Return to Oz thread. Return to Oz is quite a bit more faithful to the books. :) There's a teensy bit of social/political oommentary in there that's hard to miss, especially in the movie (use of electroshock treatment to deal with supposed mental cases). Anyway, yes, there is a sequel and it was released in the early-mid 80s with a fair amount of pre-release hype. I mean, a sequel to The Wizard of Oz? Despite the rather lofty position it holds in Hollywood cinematic history (which I think is kind of undeserved....its not a really good movie to me), Return to Oz outclasses it in a number of ways. Problem is, even with the hype, early reviews and word of mouth killed the film quickly. It wasn't that it was bad, it was that (as evidenced by this thread) it was deemed too scary and intense for little kids who Disney assumed would be the main demographic for the movie (I'm pretty sure it was a Disney release, though I might be wrong.....nonetheless you can catch it once in a long while on the Disney channel). Anyway, the movie ended up being a bomb, despite being a decent movie. It just didn't fit the same mold as the first movie, and people shunned it almost immediately for that fact.

That said, there are plenty of scary prospects in the movie, but its a much more realized version of Oz IMO. It definitely has that 80s adventure/fantasy vibe to it that defined so many other childhood films of the day. :)
 

Stryder

Member
My sister watched this the other night, I swear, it's far too scary for kids. I get freaked from it now..

Seriously, whoever made the movie really wanted to frighten the crap out of the audience I reckon.
 
That shit is a fucking horror movie. It's definitely not for kids. This, along with Watcher In The Woods, was where Disney in the early 80's, made some twisted, fucked up shit, and had the gall to market it to children.

The part in the beginning of Return To Oz in that mental hospital, where they are giving all those bizarre electro-shock treatments to the patients... then the lights go out... you hear all that screaming. Fuck. That's sick.
 

weehomer

Member
Stryder said:
My sister watched this the other night, I swear, it's far too scary for kids. I get freaked from it now..

Seriously, whoever made the movie really wanted to frighten the crap out of the audience I reckon.

First of all how old are you?
Second "I reckon" what southern state are you from? :D
 

teiresias

Member
This movie, combined with "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal" make up perhaps the best night of 80's movie watching one can do, and all of them are far underrated.

"Return to Oz" was to the Oz films what Burton's new "Wonka" film should be to that story - the repair of the actual story from the older film that butchered the work due to over sentimentality and the need to make it "movie kiddie" as opposed to "book kiddie," which generally treats its juvenile audience with more respect and assumes a higher level of intelligence than "movie kiddie" does.
 

Willco

Hollywood Square
Return to Oz makes its homo rainbow stepsister The Wizard of Oz look like House Party 2! Seriously, Return to Oz is so great, so underrated and so much better than the dull, sugar-coated original, despite whatever stereotypical gay dude might say.

It really marked a point in that era of cinema that produced these dark fantasy/adventure flicks that really pushed the edge of imagination, and the only thing that comes close to that kind of feel in recent memory was Hellboy with its Lovecraft influences.
 

marsomega

Member
Error Macro said:
The part in the beginning of Return To Oz in that mental hospital, where they are giving all those bizarre electro-shock treatments to the patients... then the lights go out... you hear all that screaming. Fuck. That's sick.

The freakish electro machine that resembled a happy face, to which children were attached to for electric shock therapy....Did I mention they were all kids in that hospital.
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
Return to Oz was faithful to the books?

The Wizard of Oz was much more faithful to the books than Return... not that it was VERY faithful, but it was closer. The Wizard of Oz actually followed the main story arch of the book, whereas Return to Oz is merely a combination of scenes and characters pulled from several stories... Wizard resembles the book, while Return is hardly like the books at all.

I will say that the costume work in Return to Oz is superb... to bad they barely used it. They made Neil-esque costumes for all sorts of Oz characters, then threw them all into a quick 3 minute "giant crowd" sequence. Grr...
 
Return to Oz actually mostly follows the Ozma of Oz book (which I read as a kid, so I know). Yes, the Gump and other characters are pulled from other books, but the main storyline is from the Ozma book (the Nome King, picking the statue in the room of trinkets). And yes, I think it is more true to the Oz books than a 16 year old girl singing while skipping down the yellow brick road with a bipedal lion before waking up to discover the cliche that it was all a dream (unforgivable, as the Oz book had her land in her backyard without her ruby slippers, which had fallen off in the trip home. It was real in the books, and she never doubted it. The dream thing was hollywood hackery)
 

Gibbo

Member
Which one was the musical 'Wicked' based on? I don't know much about it except the soundtrack is pretty awesome
 

teiresias

Member
Which one was the musical 'Wicked' based on? I don't know much about it except the soundtrack is pretty awesome

"Wicked" is not based on any of the Baum Oz books. It's based on a novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire. I've never read the novel, but I've heard it's extremely different from the musical in tone and plot (the book is much darker I believe). But who cares when you've got Idina Menzel belting out quite the possibly the most amazing Act I finale ever conceived and bringing the house down?!
 

Gibbo

Member
teiresias said:
"Wicked" is not based on any of the Baum Oz books. It's based on a novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire. I've never read the novel, but I've heard it's extremely different from the musical in tone and plot (the book is much darker I believe). But who cares when you've got Idina Menzel belting out quite the possibly the most amazing Act I finale ever conceived and bringing the house down?!

Are you referring to "Defying Gravity"? The soundtrack is pretty amazing...one of my fav broadway albums, just losing out to beauty and the beast
 

Ollie Pooch

In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
teiresias said:
This movie, combined with "Labyrinth" and "The Dark Crystal" make up perhaps the best night of 80's movie watching one can do, and all of them are far underrated.

you have no power over me!
ahh, labyrinth - so good.

oooh return to oz is out in .. oz.. on the 12th of nov - for A$12.95 ! *preorder*

also - the girl who plays dorothy is fairuza balk, the creepy / angry looking girl from 'the craft'. :p
 

teiresias

Member
Are you referring to "Defying Gravity"?

Yes, I am. Stephen Schwarts just can't seem to get any respect in Broadway for whatever reason. Granted, I do think his rock-ish scores tend to be more pedestrian than other rock-ish scores - he never breaks any real new ground. But in his style he can certainly put out some great numbers, they just all have problems living in the show they end up in.
 

TheQueen'sOwn

insert blank space here
I had a fever when watching this movie for the first time (I must have been 7 or 8) and I had the worst nightmares that night :S.
 

AssMan

Banned
I hope someone turn the rest of the 12 books into movies.




I read in a magazine that there was going to be a modern day Wizard of Oz movie set in New York. I wonder whatever happened to it.
 
Ah I remember this. I was watching the channel that gives you the current TV listings one night and noticed that Disney was showing something called Return to Oz starting within 10 minutes. So I went "humm" and flipped over. As I watched it I more and more relised. This was a far better then the super happy dance through fun gay flower fields Wizard of Oz. :D
 

ge-man

Member
Man, I didn't know so man people appreciated this film. It was creepy as hell when I was kid, but these days I'm far more likely to watch it than the original Wizard of Oz.
 

Seth C

Member
weehomer said:
First of all how old are you?
Second "I reckon" what southern state are you from? :D

Woah, improper use of "reckon." Please try...

I reckon you're from a southern state.

OR

I reckon you're from X (where X is a state).

"Reckon" should not tyoically be used when asking a question. It involves a presumption, not a question.
 

Scrow

Still Tagged Accordingly
ah, return to oz... they don't make fantasy movies like they used to. yeah sure, there's LotR, but it's an entirely different type of fantasy to what we got in the 80's.

Movies like Return to Oz, Willow, Labyrinth and many others that I know I've seen, but forgotten.

Oh yeah, and I can't forget "historic fantasy" cartoons like Mysterious Cities of Gold.

<----- :D [/new avatar whoring]
 
I think I need to see Willow given how many people have grouped it with Labyrinth and RtO. I imagine that the Oz books are available in some big set, I've only read a few of them and it was long ago.

Balck Cauldron that was another 80s Disney 'lets the scare the kiddies' movie. I can't remember what the series that was based on is called. It was 5 books with the Black Cauldron being either 2nd or 3rd but the movie took bits from other books. Any know the name of the series?
 

Ollie Pooch

In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
Seth C said:
Woah, improper use of "reckon." Please try...

I reckon you're from a southern state.

OR

I reckon you're from X (where X is a state).

"Reckon" should not tyoically be used when asking a question. It involves a presumption, not a question.

i think he meant "second, you used "i reckon" - what southern state are you from?"
 

CrunchyB

Member
Die Squirrel Die said:
Balck Cauldron that was another 80s Disney 'lets the scare the kiddies' movie.

Yeah, I was heavily traumatised by that movie. For real, I still remember seeing it in the theatre, I must have been about six years old. I never did see the end, my mother took me outside, the movie horrified little old me :)
 
Interesting to note that the director of Return to Oz basically only managed to carry his concept without the entire project being scrapped because he had George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola in his corner.
 

belgurdo

Banned
Die Squirrel Die said:
I think I need to see Willow given how many people have grouped it with Labyrinth and RtO. I imagine that the Oz books are available in some big set, I've only read a few of them and it was long ago.

Balck Cauldron that was another 80s Disney 'lets the scare the kiddies' movie. I can't remember what the series that was based on is called. It was 5 books with the Black Cauldron being either 2nd or 3rd but the movie took bits from other books. Any know the name of the series?

Prydain Chronicles
 

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
Legend should be up there with all those great 80s Fantasy movies you guys are talking about. And Dragonslayer.

Return to Oz...it's been awhile...too long for me to remember much, but you guys have kindled an interest to get caught up.
 
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