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scans_dailyThis deviant art comic says my point of view perfectly.
I'm with you Princess. Why do people hold the 1939 musical as the be all end all of Oz? Which if your going to do then Oz is just a dream and doesn't even exist and everything happened in a farm girl's head! And the constant parroting of the darker interpritations of that movie that are popular on the internet as if they were more real than the what is actually depicted.
Then there's the people who think that Wicked is somehow less fanfiction than it is and are resentful of this movie for being made in the first place.
Listen the Musical is an awesome classic. Wicked is awesome and well on it's way to being a classic. But Oz is so much more.
And it's public domain. Oz The Great and Powerful seems to be bringing a lot of the books to the
big screen for the first time and telling the untold tale of a major and popular character.
Please reserve judgment until it comes out. I want this to do well so we might get actual adaptations of the books.
It just seems like there is a unfair amount of anger directed at what seems like a perfectly innocent film. This isn't taking away from the witches or Dorathy. This is just Oscar's story.
Why is that wrong?
So please reserve judgment until it comes out. If it's terrible then it's terrible but don't see things that are not there.
Or I'll summon the Winged Monkeys.
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 10:48 pm (UTC)Second of all, I don't think saying "Don't judge until you've seen it" is really fair at all. Nobody has said "This movie is terrible!" but there does appear to be problematic things about the movie, and pointing out problematic things is sort of the whole point of this community (in a way).
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Date: 2012-11-18 01:57 pm (UTC)That's a fair point. And some people have been.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 10:57 pm (UTC)b) I hate when I am asked to "reserve judgment until it comes out" about something.
The trailer was put out onto the world to try and get viewers to see the movie, as such I think the very least that a viewer should expect of himself would be to watch the trailer and form their own opinions. Some will like it, some will love it, some will see nothing too special about it and some will only be interested by the shiny bits, some won't like it because they remember other related works of fiction and some won't like it because they see disturbing subtext within the trailer even if they're not that knowledgeable about all the true or fanfictioned cannon of the story(my personal case).
But the trailer was launched into the world and once its out here then it will be subjected by necessity to criticism, and be it good or bad it is never a good answer to just tell the critics to shut up and wait for the film specially if they've been offered a trailer whose principle is just that: to get people talking. If having to suffer under the possibilities of bad criticism was too horrible, then it should have never been on youtube.
My two cents.
PS: Damn, it's quite obvious I've been watching a lot of Retsupurae lately, isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-17 11:27 pm (UTC)http://rocketdave.deviantart.com/art/Ni
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 12:45 am (UTC)Or Nitwits, rather. Charming. Of course, in a few years the things the "Nitwits" are talking about could be expanded to include this new Oz movie.
Also, for something that's not really comic related, we sure are talkIng about the new Oz movie a lot.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 01:02 am (UTC)Plus: come on, fellers. I afore James James Franco's...unholy! ACTING. TALENT!!! as much as the next cinema goer, but is anyone seriously going to believe he grows into being Frank Morgan? Why not someone with a similarly pudgy figure and ability to do a slightly silly voice - like Jonah Hill or Seth Rogen?
(And don't tell me either of those guys couldn't be a leading man because marketing. Look at "Kung Fu Panda", the "Shrek" series, the original character designs for Flynn in "Tangled" and this new "Wreck-It Ralph" film...and tell me the 'Chubby Underdog/Outsider/Misfit' hero type isn't on the up-and-up.)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 02:20 am (UTC)Why would they need to?
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 05:11 am (UTC)Wicked has pretty much set the standard for stories about Glinda and the Wicked Witch so any other story about them would be considered inferior by comparison.
So making it about the Wizard seems like the next logical choice by process of elimination. *shrugs*
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 02:04 pm (UTC)... I love how you only listed animated characters as examples.
Anyway, this isn't a prequel to the *film* its a more closely adapted version of the book, James Franco doesn't need to be anything like Frank Morgan. Plus people get pudgier and sometimes more eccentric with age.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 03:49 am (UTC)Go read Eric Shanower's Adventures In Oz (book 1, book 2), which is a superior fancomic and does a much better job of selling why fresh interpretations of the Oz books are sometimes an awesome thing.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 12:35 am (UTC)Now there's high praise (and well-deserved!).
Sadly, the output of Shanower that I most adore are based on works in the public domain, which means we're probably never going to see other adaptations of them.
I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-18 04:32 am (UTC)And why can't we adapt some of those books about Dorothy's further adventures? What about a film translation of Wicked? This film looks like a tired rehash of Alice in Wonderland, which was a tired rehash of Tim Burton's greatest hits, and I am really tired of seeing Generic White Male Protagonist get his movie greenlit ahead of female and POC leads. Black Widow doesn't need her own movie when you can make Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, right?
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-18 04:54 am (UTC)Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-18 05:36 am (UTC)Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-18 05:05 am (UTC)There actually was an attempt to bring some of Dorothy's further adventures in Oz to the silver screen with an unofficial sequel in the 80s. Return to Oz. It's very loosely based on the second and third Oz books, and if well worth a look if you're a fan. It's a bit dark, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-18 05:37 am (UTC)Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-19 12:02 am (UTC)They try to resolve the musical with the 2nd and 3rd books. Tip/Ozma barely shows until the end.
If you've read the books, you might find yourself wanting to throw one at the screen when watching Return to Oz.
And yes, I've read all of Baum's books, plus at least half of Thompson's books.
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-19 02:20 am (UTC)*shrugs*
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-18 02:07 pm (UTC)Black Widow was amazing in the Avenegrs, and maybe her time will come, but at the moment, it'd only be another spy action film - which we have a lot of.
____
It'd be a little confusing and illogical to go off on adapting Dorothy's further adventures, probably best to start a bit closer to... y'know, the 'start' - the Wizard is a brilliant place to kick off a franchise, gender politics aside.
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-18 03:49 pm (UTC)The fact of the matter is that they aren't putting out female led films; Given the reaction to Black Widow in the Avengers - and the crowd that was moaning about Johansson just being some eye candy was clearly drowned out by the crowd thinking she was one of the best things about it - and you'd think a solo movie was an easy sell.
But a female-led action-spy superhero movie? We DON'T have a lot of that.
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-18 11:49 pm (UTC)Well there was Salt. And you'd think that the fact it was successful would give a hint to producers.
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-19 12:18 am (UTC)Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-19 02:36 am (UTC)I always forget what stuff is recent. Last week I thought Alias was still on.
Alias, Dark Angel, the new Bionic Woman, the new Charlie's Angels, She-Spies, Kim Possible, Nikita, Totally Spies, Chuck (Sort of.) Huh, there's been a fair number of female spy shows. Though some of them were comedy/cartoons.
None now, though.
Except Nikita.
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-19 01:34 am (UTC)That's how I feel as well.
Although I really don't think they should try "remaking" Wizard of Oz--it would be like my feelings towards the Amazing Spider-Man film x 10. The original film is always going to be the elephant in the room, so A.) you're going to end up copying what happened in the original film and coming off as inferior in the process or B.) you're going to end up changing it to differentiate your version and just make it more of a mess.
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-19 03:46 pm (UTC)Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-19 06:23 pm (UTC)Not saying it will never happen but whoever tries needs to have some pretty big brass balls.
Re: I sound really cranky and I apologize in advance
Date: 2012-11-19 10:28 pm (UTC)But I think there's a certain 'responsibility' to the source material, since it's public domain, the original *needs* to be championed in one way or another (sometimes that means rehashes though).
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 05:02 am (UTC)And if you've seen the trailers for the new Oz movie it's pretty clear that they're borrowing from the film over the book. I mean compare how they're showing the Witch in this film as opposed to how the Witch was described in Baum's original text:
Ask anyone who the Wicked Witch of the West is, they'll point to Margaret Hamilton.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 09:31 am (UTC)And I admit that although I have a passing knowledge the original Oz books (my childhood was more Narnia, Worst Witch and later Pratchett focused), I was going off of the overall impression I got from the franchise (read: franchise, not just the original books), regarding how utterly lazy the inhabitants of Oz are.
The Oz books are interesting from what I know of them (there not actually being a concept of death there, with even the Tin Woodman's severed bodyparts still being alive and stitched together into a second person, for example), I just have issue with the lack of agency the Oz...ians have when it comes to the adaptions.
Although it IS true that there are many characters who are from Oz that do stuff while Dorothy isn't there, the case seems to be that they kind of require Gale to be there to get the plot moving more often than not. This is compared to the book Wicked (noncanon, I know) which does have someone from Oz trying to drive the plot, but she's interpreted as being the BAD GUY for doing so.
Their tendency to cave to external and internal dictatorships is one consistant thing in the adaptions (and source material from what I've seen), so my point still stands.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 02:31 pm (UTC)Missing the bigger issue. In an entertainment industry that is sorely (Nick Furry "HILARIOUSLY") lacking female protagonists, taking a well known female driven series and turning it into another "Male hero must be strong to overcome obstacles!" and making all the female character so dependent on his help is why I'm not excited about this film in the slightest.
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Date: 2012-11-18 10:26 pm (UTC)Context matters. :/
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Date: 2012-11-18 10:40 pm (UTC)Already I consider Elphaba's story to be the definitive Oz prequel that this has to live up to, so if they did an unrelated film from the Wicked Witch's POV it would never get anywhere.
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Date: 2012-11-19 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 12:12 am (UTC)And maybe I'm giving Hollywood producers too much credit but the first film is considered such a classic that trying to redo it would be considered blasphemy.
Plus prequels/origin stories are hot right now.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 01:10 am (UTC)I don't really care about this movie either way; it looks a bit like a style-over-substance CGI-fest. And I would prefer an adaptation of Wicked (the novel, but they'd probably do it on the musical) over this. But I don't making a movie about the backstory of the actual Wizard of Oz is a bad thing in and out of itself.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-19 02:01 pm (UTC)We know he's a sham, a well-meaning charlatan, but we know very little about his origins and what we do know might well not be entirely true. How DOES someone with no actual magic powers achieve a position of power through bluff, some parlour tricks and the gift of the gab? What sort of a life did he have? What sort of live CAN you have when you can never be yourself and have to be "The Great and Powerful Oz" on, essentially, an alien planet ALL the time? He achieved peace of sorts, but how?
We know how Dorothy reacted to being in a world where magic operated, but we never saw how the Wizard coped (or didn't) when HE first arrived. The other characters are native Oz-ians and so don't have quite an "everyman" POV of the place, only Dorothy and the Wizard do, and we only ever really saw Dorothy.
Would I rather have "Wicked: The Movie" with it's focus on Elphaba and Glinda, some kickass diva numbers and a manipulative and at best morally ambiguous Wizard who does some horrible things to justify his ends and pays a price in the end? Hell yes, (get Idina and Kristin in front of the cameras NOW dammit), but I don't really have a problem pre se with them picking the Wizard of Oz, the other human being from the most famous movie, to be a focus character.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 12:14 am (UTC)http://vimeo.com/19733014
no subject
Date: 2012-11-20 12:34 am (UTC)Meanwhile, spinning in his grave...
Date: 2012-11-19 09:39 pm (UTC)He is joined by Conan Arthur Doyle. And Chris Robins. And everyone else who despises their work that eventually became popular. But especially Doyle. Because of Sherlock. And Elementary. And every other show ever produced.
Re: Meanwhile, spinning in his grave...
Date: 2012-11-20 12:37 am (UTC)