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Return to Oz · This Film is Lit

• 0:04
  Speaker A: This Film Is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
• 0:15
  Speaker B: And I'm Katie, I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
• 0:22
  Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. This is the old house, the one the tornado blew away. This is how I got into Oz the first time it's returned to Oz and this film is lit. Foreign. Welcome back to this Film Is lit the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. We have plenty to talk about this week, so we're gonna jump right in. If you have not read or watched Return to Oz, we're gonna give you a brief summary of the film in Let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This summary of the film does come from Wikipedia. The Dorothy Gale's continued obsession with the Land of Oz, which she believes she visited after her house was blown away by a tornado six months prior, concerns her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry that she may be delusional. They take Dorothy to a sanitarium. Sanatorium Sanit.
• 1:38
  Speaker B: I think it's torium.
• 1:39
  Speaker A: Interesting I've always heard sanitarium where Dr. Worley intends to perform electrotherapy on her, but she is rescued by a young girl who warns her that Worley damages his patients. Worley's assistant, Nurse Wilson, pursues them as they escape in the middle of a storm to a nearby river, where Dorothy loses sight of the other girl as she floats downstream stream aboard a chicken coop. Dorothy wakes up in Oz with her chicken Bellina, who can now talk. Following the damaged yellow brick road, they reach the Emerald City, which is in ruins and all its citizens, including the Tin man and Cowardly lion, turn to stone. They are seized by the Wheelers, creatures with wheels at the end of their limbs, but are saved by Tick Tock, a mechanical man who explains that he was told by Scarecrow, the King of Oz, to await Dorothy's return. In search of the Scarecrow, they visit the castle of Princess Mombi, who wears the different heads of the women of Oz. The after revealing the Scarecrow is being held prisoner by the gnome King, the one responsible for the devastation of Oz, she imprisons the group, intending to take Dorothy's head for her collection. Locked in a tower, the group encounters Jack Pumpkinhead, who explains that he was brought to life by Mombi's powder of Life. To escape, the group constructs a flying creature from furniture and the head of the Gump, a moose like animal, and Dorothy steals the powder from Mombi to bring him to life. Discovering them, Mombi has the Wheelers pursue the Gump as he flies the group across the deadly desert to the Gnome King's mountain. The Gump eventually tires and crashes on the mountain, where Dorothy is briefly reunited with Scarecrow before the Gnome King turns him into an ornament. The Gnome King offers each member of the group three attempts to identify which one in a room full of ornaments is the Scarecrow. But the Gump, Jack and Tick Tock all fail and are turned into ornaments themselves. Before Dorothy begins her turn, the Gnome King reveals he has her lost ruby slippers which he used to conquer Oz, and offers to use them to send her home instead, but Dorothy refuses. Dorothy enters the ornament room and makes two guesses. As Mombi reaches the mountain with her final guess, Dorothy selects a green gem which turns into Scarecrow. Realizing that the inhabitants of Oz become green objects, Dorothy finds and restores Jack and the Gump. Enraged, the Gnome King imprisons Mombi before allowing Dorothy's escape, then grows to gigantic size and attempts to eat the group until Bellina, who is hiding in Jack's head, lays an egg in his mouth, poisoning and killing him. Dorothy retrieves the ruby slippers and hurriedly puts them on as the subterranean Gnome King collapses and wishes for the group return to a restored Emerald City where she finds a green medal on the Gump's left antler and restores it into TikTok. Dorothy is subsequently asked to be the Queen of Oz, but she desires to return home. Princess Osma, the girl from the sanatorium and rightful ruler of. See there, it says sanitarium.
• 4:13
  Speaker B: Okay, that must. I feel like that must be an American, British, English thing.
• 4:17
  Speaker A: Okay, the girl from the sanitarium and rightful ruler of Oz. Because I literally just copy pasted this from Wikipedia so it was written different twice, which are written two different ways in this, which is funny. The girl from the sanitarium and rightful ruler of Oz, who was imprisoned in Amir by Mombi is then freed and ascends the throne. Dorothy gives Ozma the ruby slippers and she uses them to send Dorothy home, promising that she can return to Oz again. If she wishes. While Belina chooses to remain, Dorothy is found beside a riverbank in Kansas by Toto and Auntie M, who tells her the clinic burned down and everyone except Worley survived, while Nurse Wilson was arrested for assisting in Worley's experiments. Dorothy returns home and sees Ozma and Belina through her bedroom mirror. She calls for Aunt Em, but they signal for her to keep Oz a secret. That is your summary of the film. I have a lot of questions to no guess who this week. But I do have a lot of questions, and we're gonna get into those in.
• 5:08
  Speaker B: Was that in the book, Gaston? May I have my book, please?
• 5:11
  Speaker A: How can you read this?
• 5:13
  Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination.
• 5:16
  Speaker A: So, as the summary mentioned, the story takes place in the film six months after the events of the wizard of Oz, after the tornado carried Dorothy's house away with her in it and dropped her in Oz. And Dorothy is depressed because she misses Oz. And on top of that, Auntie M and Uncle Henry do not believe in Dorothy's tales that she was whisked away to a magical land. And I wanted to know if that is like the same kind of setup timeline, Dorothy being depressed and her family not believing that she was in Oz, if those come from the book. And by the way, I guess we just. For listeners now.
• 5:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, right off the top. This movie actually takes elements from two different Oz books. We talked about both of them in our prequel episode, but they are the Marvelous Land of Oz, which is the second book in the series, so directly after the Wonderful wizard of Oz, and then Ozma of Oz, which is the third book in the series. So I'm gonna be kind of trying to jump back and forth between these two books and talk about, like, what elements came from which book.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Right. Because. Yeah.
• 6:26
  Speaker B: But the short answer for your question is that this stuff does not come from either book.
• 6:31
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 6:32
  Speaker B: Because it's made up for the movie. So Ozma of Oz takes place sometime after the events of the. Well, they both take place sometime after the events of the Wonderful wizard of Oz. But Ozma of Oz actually features Dorothy. Oh, she's not in the Marvelous Land of Oz. And most of the plot of the movie comes from Ozma of Oz. So Ozma of Oz takes place sometime after the events of the Wonderful wizard of Oz. Although the book does not specify how long it has been. I don't think very long, though, because when we meet back up with Dorothy, she's still a little girl.
• 7:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 7:11
  Speaker B: So I don't think it's Been very long. But the way that this movie is trying to be a sequel to both the book the Wonderful wizard of oz and the 1939 film, I think is so interesting because the book doesn't have that it was all a dream ending. And the Wonderful wizard of Oz and Ozma of Oz both treat Dorothy having literally been to Oz as indisputable fact. Like, she went, and that is that there's no question of whether or not she actually went to Oz.
• 7:47
  Speaker A: Like, her family and stuff is like, oh, yeah, you were in a magical land.
• 7:52
  Speaker B: So it's been a while since I read the Wonderful wizard of Oz. I don't recall that that book ever says anything about her telling Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. And Ozma doesn't mention anything about it either. So I think we could presume that her family doesn't know about her adventures in Oz either. That or the narrative does not consider it important.
• 8:16
  Speaker A: So what you're referencing when you say it was all a dream ending, you mean how in the movie, there's like, the.
• 8:22
  Speaker B: At the end of the movie, Dorothy wakes up.
• 8:24
  Speaker A: It's been a long time since we.
• 8:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. At the end of the movie, Dorothy wakes up and she's like, oh, I had the strangest dream, and you were there, and you were there and you were there. But that's not how the book ends.
• 8:35
  Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Which, to be fair, I never. Even though she says it was a dream in the movie, I never interpreted it as a dream. I've always interpreted it as. That's how she describes it. And, like, maybe it felt like a dream, but that she actually went to Oz, like, obviously. And so, like, I. Yeah. To me, that it is an industry. Like, she went there. And so, yeah. I guess if in other books, she never talks to her family about going there, because that was the main thing I was curious about, because that's a huge point of this movie.
• 9:08
  Speaker B: Right.
• 9:08
  Speaker A: Her aunt and uncle who are taking care of her, I assume. Because I don't remember if we talked about in the. Why it's her. Why she's with her aunt and uncle.
• 9:16
  Speaker B: I don't think we know.
• 9:17
  Speaker A: Okay. And. Yeah, but like, them not believing her is like.
• 9:22
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:22
  Speaker A: Kicks off. Is like, the instigating factor in this story taking place because they send her to a sanitarium to get electroshock therapy.
• 9:31
  Speaker B: I. I don't think that the novels consider that important.
• 9:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. If it's revolving more around Oz and Dorothy and her experience, like, it's just. Yeah.
• 9:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. They're about her adventures in Oz.
• 9:46
  Speaker A: So she just doesn't. I guess she just doesn't talk to, like, I guess I, I. And I guess it's gonna spoil a lot of questions, but they have such pivotal roles in both this movie and the 1939 movie that it's. I was. I'm surprised to hear that they. It's just, like, never mentioned whether or not they know she went there in the books. You know what I mean? That just seems strange because they're such. They seem like such prominent characters that they would have to have interfaced in some way with, like, her talking about Oz or something. You know what I mean? Like, she just never mentions it to him at all.
• 10:19
  Speaker B: So we don't actually spend a lot of time with them.
• 10:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I mean. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.
• 10:26
  Speaker B: Dorothy ends up. Let's see, I'm flipping open Osma of Oz, and the narrative starts on page 13 of this book, and Dorothy is in oz by page 24.
• 10:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:46
  Speaker B: We don't interact. She's only with Uncle Henry in this book. We don't actually interact with him until the very end when she goes back and she's like, I didn't really drown and I'm here.
• 10:59
  Speaker A: So we don't even see him in those first nine pages. Like, it's not even. Yeah. And that's my point, is that it's so different, especially in this movie, is like the whole first act of this movie, not the whole first act, but almost the whole first act, maybe, arguably the whole first act actually probably takes place in Kansas. And, you know, is there pretty pivotal characters to what is going on? So that's interesting. I didn't realize.
• 11:21
  Speaker B: Yeah. That first part of this movie really goes more off of, like, the end of the 1939 film. And like, oh, what if Dorothy tells everybody about her adventures and they think she's crazy?
• 11:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:38
  Speaker B: Is kind of the question being posited.
• 11:40
  Speaker A: By this film in the books that she just doesn't tell anybody about.
• 11:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, the books just don't consider it important.
• 11:47
  Speaker A: Again, that's what I'm saying.
• 11:48
  Speaker B: We're not covering it because we don't think it's interesting. It's far more interesting to watch her have adventures in Oz.
• 11:54
  Speaker A: Sure. So as she is in Kansas in the beginning of the movie and she's trying to convince Auntie Em and Uncle Henry that Oz is a real place and that she's also dealing with not being able to sleep because she's having These nightmares or dreams about Oz and that sort of thing. And one day out in the yard, she finds an old key that she thinks is a key from Oz because it. She sees an O and a Z in, like, the handle of it, which it also, I think intentionally could just be like a circle with a line through it. But you can see why, you know, it does have a vague feeling of like, some of the O. The Oz, like logo in the movies. I don't know if logo is the right term, but yeah, the symbol for Oz. And so I wanted to know if that came from the book. If she finds a key that is like. And then we'll find out later. And I think this is meant to be true or to meant. Yes, it is because she uses it that this key was sent to her from Oz by, she says, maybe the scarecrow. I don't know if we know for sure who sent it, but it came from Oz magically, because she uses it in Oz later in the movie. And anyways, I want to know if she found that Oz key from Oz in the book.
• 13:08
  Speaker B: So she does find a key near the beginning of the book, but she finds it on the beach after she and Belina wash ashore. And they're actually in the Land of Evil, which is a neighboring kingdom to Oz. Most of Ozma of Oz takes place in the Land of Ev.
• 13:25
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 13:26
  Speaker B: And also I guess the Gnome king kingdom and not actually like in Oz proper.
• 13:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. The movie doesn't make that distinction. From my memory at least. I don't think they mentioned it's just all Oz.
• 13:39
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker A: And they may. Yeah. Which is fine. Yeah.
• 13:44
  Speaker B: The text also does not describe what the key looks like, aside from saying that it's gold. So I don't know if it says Oz on it or presumably not, since she finds it in the Land of Ev.
• 13:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, right. It would make. Yeah, it wouldn't make much sense. Another little fun visual that I thought was interesting in the beginning of this movie. I'll spoil it now. I thought this movie was fantastic through the first, like, act. And then I thought it became bad. Like, I thought maybe even like, more than the first act. It probably threw like, halfway through the second act, roughly. Like, at what point, literally, the part where I stopped enjoying the movie was once they escaped from. Once they made the big flying escape out of the tower and they crash on the mountain from there to the end of the movie. I was like, this is all dumb. Like, it just. It's pointless. It doesn't feel like it Connects anything. I don't understand, like, motivations of any of these characters involved, really. And, like, it just. It felt. Felt like it just kind of fell apart and was just like, more of, like, loosely fitting, like, random event. Not random events happening, but just kind of like, I didn't really understand why or anything was happening or what was going on or what anybody's motivation was. But prior to that, like, the mystery of, like, the setup of her being, like, oh, you know, her Auntie M and Uncle Henry not believing that Oz is real and sending her to a sanitarium to get, like, electroshock therapy. And then the escape and then ending up in Oz, and then the mystery of, like, what's going on in Oz and everything. Like, and then the getting captured by Mombi. All of that stuff. I was like, this is great. This is really compelling. I think it's fun. It's not really a kids movie. It's an creep. I could understand it being too creepy for a kids movie, but that's all great. But the moment and then, like, the flying escape is super fun. Then building the flying contraption out of all of that stuff is great. And then they crash on the mountain and from there to the end of the movie. I'm like, yeah, okay.
• 15:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, I would. I would agree with.
• 15:42
  Speaker A: That Was like. It was so disappointing because, yeah, I was like, this is dope. Really good.
• 15:47
  Speaker B: I know that this film had quite a few production woes as it was being made, so I guess it's not surprising that it would kind of fall apart somewhere along the way.
• 15:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, it just felt like they didn't really have. Like, they had the beginning. Like, they had the first half of a script and then they didn't know how to wrap it up. And it was just like, I don't know. Then she runs into the gnome king's mountain, and they run into the gnome king, and then they gotta play this riddle game that just. We'll get to it. But it was, like, really a tale of two movies of, like, really loving this until I really wasn't, so. But one of the things in the first half that I loved was there's this visual on the farm that because their old house was destroyed in the tornado or, you know, swept away to Oz in the tornado. Although that's not because. Am I crazy that at the end of the first movie, she's back in her bedroom, right?
• 16:37
  Speaker B: She is. She is, yeah. Which is why I say, like, I think it's really interesting that this movie is kind of trying to be a Sequel to, like, both the book and the movie. Because it's, like, pulling little bits here and there from everything.
• 16:50
  Speaker A: But that's also an issue that, like, Wicked has from my memory, where it can't make up its mind whether or not how, like, slavishly it is, like, connected to the movie versus the book. You know what I mean? Like, it's like some of the stuff. It's, like, clearly trying to, like, connect to the film.
• 17:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:06
  Speaker A: Then other stuff, it's like. No, it's the. And so you're like, anyways. Or were you gonna say something?
• 17:12
  Speaker B: No, I just. I do think that the way that the. The heights of popularity that the 1939 film achieved, I do think makes further Oz adaptations interesting in a very kind of complicated way.
• 17:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because everybody can't figure out how much.
• 17:29
  Speaker B: Because you can't just ignore the 39 film, because that is what everybody knows.
• 17:34
  Speaker A: As we mentioned in the prequel, it's maybe the most famous movie ever made. Maybe it's gotta be top five. I would argue you, like, it's up there. But one of the visuals I really like in the first part because supposedly, again. And we see the house later in Oz, when she gets back to Oz, her old house is there still, so they had to build a new house. And I loved this visual of, like, the. The. The house they're building on this farm is, like, half built.
• 17:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:59
  Speaker A: And Henry has stopped because he's. He's. He says he has an injury, but Auntie M is like, actually, he's healed, and there's some. Something going on there that's kind of seemed interesting, but we never really do anything with it. But I liked that visual lot, and I wanted to know if it came from the book because it felt like it was supposed to be a. I felt like it was supposed to be visually representative of Dorothy's sort of being trapped between Oz and, like, the real world, like, and Oz, and that she is, like, halfway between and, like, this kind of being stuck in a. In a state of, like.
• 18:39
  Speaker B: Of limbo.
• 18:40
  Speaker A: Limbo almost, of, like, she doesn't really belong in the normal world anymore and. Or any. So, like, it being half built kind of felt like. I don't know, it felt like representative of that in some way or something, which I thought. And I just visually. I thought it looked really cool, but I wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 18:56
  Speaker B: This is never mentioned in either of these books, but I did like that the movie added it. I liked that. Addressing the aftermath of the tornado and the Fact that they're still recovering from it is a really interesting way to make it like real world.
• 19:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, No, I agree. Well, and I think I know the answer to this next question then, based on my first question, but I wanted to know if her aunt and uncle take her to a doctor who's going to electroshock Oz out of her. Because that is kind of the inciting incident for this movie is again, because she doesn't. Her aunt and uncle don't believe that Oz is real. They're like, well, we got to take you to somebody to get some treatment for this because you're delusional. And they take her to a 19th, 1900, turn of the century, you know, brain doctor who is not really doing much medicine and a lot more just kind of trying things. And so he does electroshock therapy and they're gonna zap the Oz out of her. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 19:58
  Speaker B: No, there's nothing like this in the books. Which are lighthearted, fun adventure stories for children.
• 20:04
  Speaker A: Right, sure. Yes, I think that's fair and we'll talk about it because I have notes about it. But it is definitely over. Like a little too creepy for probably the primary audience of this movie. It's a little too dark. That being said, I do think there. And we talked about it before, but this is very much in that peak of 80s dark kids movies where they're, you know, I think you could. I think maybe this movie's a little too creepy with the sort of the way it goes about this whole sanitarium thing and that it's a little too dreadful.
• 20:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. This is quite. I think if, if the original film were not so popular.
• 20:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:47
  Speaker B: This might have had a little bit more of a chance. But I cannot imagine going into the movie theater in 1985.
• 20:58
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:58
  Speaker B: Thinking I was expecting. Thinking that I was going to see a sequel to the wizard of Oz, the light hearted musical starring Judy Garland.
• 21:08
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 21:09
  Speaker B: And then this is what I watched.
• 21:11
  Speaker A: Right. Yes. But my point was that I do think. Yes. No, because I completely agree that, yeah, expectation wise, this movie had no shot. But I do think you could have done a similar thing maybe a little less creepily for a kids movie. There are plenty and I can't think of a great example, but like Matilda has some weird creepy stuff in it and you know, it's early 90s stuff like that of like kids being like, quote unquote tortured and stuff. But it's played in a more lighthearted way. That kind of.
• 21:38
  Speaker B: It's A little more cartoony.
• 21:39
  Speaker A: A little more cartoony and a little more playful in a way that kind of works. Whereas this one. Pretty leans into, like. This is terrifying, like, and horrible or horrifying in a way that I think. Yeah. Regardless of the movie that came before it, I think this was always going to be a little hard for kids to get on board with, at least at the beginning. Well, then I imagine then that the whole power going out just in time to save her from getting zapped is not in the book.
• 22:06
  Speaker B: No.
• 22:06
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So then as the power goes out, she's about to get their electroshock therapy power. There's a big storm rolls through, power goes out, and this girl appears who has showed up several times in the sanitarium, and she's always just kind of appears. She gave her, like, a jack o lantern earlier. This is a Halloween movie, technically.
• 22:25
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:26
  Speaker A: The takes place like, a couple days before Halloween or something like that. She gives her a jack o' lantern in the one time and talks to her briefly. And then she shows up here and she rescues her. She's like, we got to get you out of here. Because when he zaps people, it messes up their brains or whatever. And I wanted to know if Dorothy is, like, rescued or anything, if, you know, if anything about this girl's character who later ends up we find out being Osma Prince Princess Osma at the end of the movie. Figure out that's who this is. But I want to know if any of that and, like, her showing up in Kansas and, like, helping Dorothy or befriending her or anything came from the book. Because I was also confused because she seems in the movie to be non corporeal because she just, like, teleports in and out of rooms.
• 23:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. So none of this is from the books. There's not really even anything similar to this in the books. Like you said, this girl ends up being Ozma, and we find out later on that Mombi had her trapped in the mirror. So I wonder if the idea is supposed to be that she can, like, travel in the mirror world.
• 23:38
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 23:38
  Speaker B: And was able to, like, visit Kansas through the mirror somehow. There's not anything that I can recall in the world of the books to explain what's going on here. The movie also places everyone else at the. At the sanatorium into Oz.
• 23:58
  Speaker A: Yes. They do the thing, like we said. They do the thing where all of the characters.
• 24:02
  Speaker B: Yeah. And you were there, and you were there, and you were there are also.
• 24:05
  Speaker A: The characters in Oz, like the doctor is the gnome king and the. The nurse is. What's mom be? Princess Mombi.
• 24:14
  Speaker B: So it could just be part of that shtick and, like, there's not really any deeper meaning beyond that.
• 24:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think that is the case. And I. I was. I don't think there really needs to be an explanation because, like, yeah, I like the idea that she's just, you know, this. I think the idea that she is somehow. Because we find out, like you said, that Mombi has trapped her in a mirror and that. So I like the idea of it being some sort of, like, spectral projection, whatever. Sure. I don't. You know, I don't need an explanation for that. I was just kind of curious if it came from the book, like, what was going on there, because it was early on in the movie. You're like, what? This girl's, like, magic? Like, what's going on? Does she exist?
• 24:54
  Speaker B: Is she real?
• 24:55
  Speaker A: Like, yeah, what's going on? But when you find out later, oh, she's from Oz and she was trapped in the mirror, like, I'm like, okay, sure. Like, her spirit or something was. Whatever. It doesn't. I don't really need an explanation. I thought that was fine. So after they escape, they run away. They get chased through the woods during the storm. They end up by a river, and they jump into this roaring river in a stunt that looked way too dangerous for little kids to be doing. I was like, good Lord. But neither of them drowned, so that's nice. I was like, how did they get away with this? Because it sure looked like them jumping into that river. I was like, and obviously, it's not a roaring river. And I'm sure they're rescue divers. Right? But still, I was just like, good Lord. That. I don't think that would fly anymore. I think that would all be cg. Like, yeah, I don't think any of that would have gotten shot today. But they jump in this river, and then the. The other girl disappears. But Dorothy ends up finding a piece of driftwood floating by and is able to crawl onto it and then into it. And it ends up being a Chicken Cooper. And she falls asleep, and then when she wakes up, surprise, she's in Oz. And I wanted to know if Dorothy got into Oz in the book or books or one of the books by floating down a river, passing out in a chicken coop, and then waking up in Oz.
• 26:16
  Speaker B: Actually, yes.
• 26:17
  Speaker A: Wow. Something from.
• 26:18
  Speaker B: I know. That's our first. Yes. I think at the beginning of Ozma of Oz, Dorothy is actually on a ship bound for Australia to visit family that she has in Australia for some reason. And accidentally washes overboard during a storm. And she, like, floats on a chicken coop that was also washed overboard. And eventually when she, like, goes to sleep and she wakes up and surprise, she's in technically ev. But we'll say Oz for simplicity's sake.
• 26:53
  Speaker A: Interesting. Okay, so after she gets there, she ends up in this, like, desert. Oh, Bellina's there. The talking chicken. I guess I should ask if that comes from the book. I never asked that.
• 27:05
  Speaker B: But Bellina is in the book. Yes.
• 27:07
  Speaker A: And is a talking chicken. And is her chicken from Kansas but can now talk?
• 27:12
  Speaker B: No, it's a chicken she's never met before that can now talk.
• 27:17
  Speaker A: Because in the movie it's specifically she calls that chicken Bellina in Kansas before she ever gets to Oz. And then when she gets to Oz, that chicken can now talk, which I thought was interesting, but especially because the chicken decides to stay there. And she doesn't seem all that upset about it. Seemed like her only friend before. She's like, sure, I guess you can stay in Oz and I'll just go back. But after they get there, they realize they are trapped. They're in, like, the. Whatever it's called, the deadly desert. And they need to get out of it, but they can't touch the sand. And Dorothy, I guess, just knows this. Or maybe Belina said, I can't remember, but. So they hop across these stones to get out of there. But then after. After they. And they get onto some grass. But then after they get onto the grass and kind of start making their way away, we see one of the rocks and a face kind of stop motion morphs out of it, like, watching them. And then we cut to somewhere, we don't know where yet. We'll find out later. It's the gnome King's mountain. And this face morphs out of the wall and reports to an unseen character with a big scary voice. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. Cause I thought that was cool in the movie, the, like, rock spirit thing.
• 28:26
  Speaker B: There's nothing like this in the books. But I also thought it was a cool effect, and I thought it was a fun way to set up the villain. Yeah, like, it's. It's kind of a creepy mystery if you haven't read the books. And if you have read the books, it's kind of a fun, like, because you know that the gnome king controls rocks and is like a rock guy.
• 28:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's a cool setup. It's a bad payoff because, yes, in the movie. Because you get there and you're like, okay, well, I don't get what this guy's deal is. And, like, why I care about, like, what is his thing? Like, I don't understand. Whereas. Yeah, but it's a cool setup. Like, again, I was still very much on board at this point. I thought that was a lot of fun. So they then make their way towards Oz, towards the Emerald City. And they first discover the Yellow Brick Road, which is all messed up. It's like, been destroyed, but she follows it. And then they end up at the Emerald City, which is also in ruins, and they start exploring and see that all of the residents of Oz, including she, runs into the Tin man and the Cowardly lion, they have been turned into stone. And I wanted to know if that came from the book because again, this is where I was like, this is fun. I like this mystery of figuring out, like, ooh, what's going on here. Any of that come from the book?
• 29:41
  Speaker B: None of that comes from the book. Oz and the Emerald City are perfectly fine in the book. But I, I agree with you. I liked that the movie leaned into this, like, spooky mystery and it almost has like a post apocalyptic vibe.
• 29:57
  Speaker A: Yes. It very much looks like it's like overgrown and, like, weird and like everything's destroyed. And you're like.
• 30:02
  Speaker B: And like, it initially feels like it's gonna be a Narnia type situation where we find out that actually thousands of years have passed.
• 30:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, it could have been since the.
• 30:11
  Speaker B: Last time Dorothy was there.
• 30:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, it could have been that. Yeah. You really don't know because it does look kind of like it has been a long time. But yeah, everything's like all the people are turned into stone and stuff. And you're like, what the heck is going on here? Which is.
• 30:24
  Speaker B: Well, particularly like when she finds her old house and it's like, in the middle of a forest.
• 30:31
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 30:32
  Speaker B: But we know that she landed in Munchkin Land and not in the middle of a forest.
• 30:37
  Speaker A: Was it not in the woods, though? I thought there was trees around it. It's been so long since I've seen the movie that I don't. The first movie that I don't remember. But I thought it was kind of in trees.
• 30:45
  Speaker B: I don't think so. I think she lands, like, in the town of the Munchkins.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: I take your word for it. I have to go back and. Because I just truly don't remember from that movie. But in my brain, for some reason, it was like, in some Trees, like on the outskirts of Munchkin Land or something like that. But I could be wrong.
• 31:02
  Speaker B: I'm picturing. And again, I don't remember in the book. This could be something they're pulling from the book. Maybe.
• 31:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:09
  Speaker B: But I'm picturing when the door opens and she steps out into the Technicolor. Oh yeah, she steps out into the town square.
• 31:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, you're right. Right. Yeah. Well, and she does say in this movie, like, where are the munchkins? Munchkin Land. But yeah, for some reason I thought there were trees around it, but yeah, anyways. Yeah, I think you're. Yeah, you're probably. Yeah, I think you're right. There's definitely not a forest. There's definitely is buildings, other buildings and stuff around. Yeah, for sure. But so anyways, they get there, she sees all that, and then part of immediately they are confronted in the Emerald City by these things called wheelers. And holy shit, they are absolutely terrifying. Like legitimately, the camera, like they roll around a corner and the camera starts on a close up of like the wheels on the ground, which these things roll around on their hands and feet, which are all wheels.
• 32:01
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 32:01
  Speaker A: And they're like.
• 32:02
  Speaker B: And they have like long upper limbs.
• 32:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, like long upper arms or long arms that. So they can reach the ground with them and like wheel around.
• 32:10
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 32:10
  Speaker A: And the first shot where one is introduced, the wheel, it comes around the corner and I think you get a glimpse of it, but starts on a close up of the wheel and then it quickly pans up to its face. And its face at first is this horrifying mask. And that pan up from the wheel to the mask legitimately startled me. I was like, oh, God, I was not expecting what the. How creepy the masks on that thing were. And then we'll see later that it. Because they, they flip their heads up and it's like they have these masks kind of like on the top of their heads.
• 32:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, almost like a helmet.
• 32:42
  Speaker A: Almost like a helmet. So when they're like down, this mask looks like a face looking forward, but then they can lean their head up and it's their normal faces there. And anyways, I wanted to know if the Wheelers came from the book and if they are as terrifying as they are in the movie.
• 32:58
  Speaker B: So the Wheelers are from the books. All right. And I'm about to show you an illustration.
• 33:08
  Speaker A: That. That's them. That's the Wheelers.
• 33:11
  Speaker B: Pretty creepy.
• 33:12
  Speaker A: I mean, they're creepy. They don't look exactly the same because the book's version would Would not be practical to do. It's. Its limbs are more spindly. Like, would be too spindly to probably do practically very easily. And it's. But its face is just as creepy. And it looks like they basically, in the movie, they took the design of the face and put that on the, like, helmet thing. And then the actual faces of the Wheelers are just like. They look like humans with, like, makeup on basic, like, face paint kind of. But that. That is the face of that thing, which is extra creepy looking, is kind of what their helmets look like.
• 33:50
  Speaker B: So, yeah, the Wheelers are positively terrifying.
• 33:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 33:55
  Speaker B: But I do love the look of them.
• 33:57
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 33:58
  Speaker B: They're giving, like, cyberpunk dystopia for some reason.
• 34:02
  Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Well, and I love that they're. It's. That it's all done practically. Like, they're. They're.
• 34:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. There was some really cool, like, makeup and costume effects done for this movie.
• 34:12
  Speaker A: Well, and just. They figured out. And I was wondering, like, I wonder if this is a thing people have done before and they just adapted it for these characters. Because I don't know if I've ever seen somebody roll around on four wheels on their hands and feet. You know what I mean? Like, the way they move is this weird, like, rollerblading on hands and on their four limbs in a way that you're like. But it's just one big wheel on each. And I'm like, I wonder if they invented that for this movie, you know? Well, not invented. It's in the book. But I, like, I wonder if they realized, oh, we can just do that, like, because it works. They roll around. Like they can. You know, they are mobile, like, which. That was like, blew my mind. I'm like, they clearly probably got some. Like. I was like, I bet they got a bunch of, like, Cirque du Soleil performers is what it felt like to me. Like, jugglers or like, that kind of thing.
• 35:06
  Speaker B: Because there are quite a few Wheelers.
• 35:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. And. And. But their ability, like, they. They move around on the wheel. Like, you know, it would be one thing if you're like, okay, we can get them where we can kind of, like, push them, and they can kind of. And, like. Or, like, we can shoot it creatively. But no, they just. They're able to, like, rollerblade around.
• 35:23
  Speaker B: They're just rolling around, and you're like, oh, it works like they were born that way.
• 35:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. You're like, oh, you can just. You could move that way. Like, I'm sure it's not super comfortable or Practical, but it is doable, which I thought was really interesting. And I was not expecting that. Like the fact that they could just like, actually get around the same way looking exactly like the characters in the book do, which is very funny. Yeah, I thought it was. I thought they were awesome and terrifying. And I get why kids would be horrified. Yes, that's legitimately gave me a fright. So she. She runs away from the Wheelers, is able to use the key that she found to open a door, and then locks herself in this room. And in this room she finds Tick Tock, who is a mechanical soldier. And they call him the army of Oz. I think the implication being that he's like the one soldier. I don't know.
• 36:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, that is definitely the implication, but.
• 36:17
  Speaker A: And so I'm assuming he comes from the book. But one thing that is specific detail about him that I wanted to know if it came from the book is that she reads like he has like an instruction manual printed on his back or something like that. And she reads through it and we get a shot of it and it says, patented clockwork mechanical man. And then the line under that is, does everything but live. Which I thought was very funny. And I wanted to know if that description or line or whatever came from the book. But also, does he look like what is described in the book?
• 36:48
  Speaker B: Two yeses on this one. His instructions and, like, little description thing come directly from the book. And he does look very similar as well.
• 36:59
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Almost identical. Yeah. Big round ball with the limbs. And that was another one I. I had to note on this later. I have no idea how that character moved around in the movie.
• 37:13
  Speaker B: That has to be a person in there.
• 37:15
  Speaker A: It's gotta be. It's gotta be. Yeah, but I. But how does he. When you watch him move, it doesn't make sense to me how. Where his limbs are because he's got this big round body and where his legs are. I'm trying to think how a person, you would have to be like, sitting, kind of like a seated position. But then I'm amazed. How do they balance? Because they don't fall over. They fall over one time, which the movie makes a joke of, but it seems like intentional. It's written in the movie. I actually wondered if it wasn't written in and they left it in as a gag or something, because maybe he was falling over all the time. But there's scenes where it's like. Like walking up steps and my brain can't parse how they were able to do that. The only thing I Could think was that maybe there were wires involved that like hold it upright.
• 38:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe that are.
• 38:08
  Speaker A: You just can't see. You know what I mean? Like it's on a rig basically that keeps it upright because the way it walks and its body is shaped. The physics of it to me don't.
• 38:18
  Speaker B: Are we sure that. Are we sure that it's not just a puppet?
• 38:24
  Speaker A: That would be the other option.
• 38:25
  Speaker B: Could it just be a big puppet?
• 38:27
  Speaker A: I will say I read something that I didn't include it when I was doing the prequel notes and I have to go back and find it. And I don't know where it was. It was either an IMDb trivia fact or something that said that the actor playing TikTok, which this. I couldn't believe this was true. But maybe it is. Was that. I swear I read that it said that there was a person in there, like a gymnast or whatever, who walked on their hands for all of those scenes. Scenes which kind of made more sense than their legs, but also made less sense. And I'm like, I just. I don't understand how they were employing the entire circus. I need. I. And. And I'm gonna have to after this. When I'm editing this, go see if I can find a behind the scenes, like photos or video of like how this worked. Because the whole time I'm like, how were they. It doesn't move in a way that looks. It looks like it should be a puppet or CGI or something.
• 39:23
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 39:24
  Speaker A: Like the way it moves doesn't seem like that could be a person in there walking like that without falling over. Constant. I just didn't. I didn't get it. And I was so amazed. And I. Yeah, it's very. It's a very. And that. It was one of the things that those along with the Wheelers again in that first, like, act or whatever. I'm like, this stuff's so cool because it feels. It felt. It's one of those creature costumes or creature designs in a movie where you're like, it doesn't. It's very clearly not just a human in a suit. Like, I'm like, how are they doing? You know, like, it's alien enough in its anatomy that it's. You can't just have a person walking normal in a suit in there. Something else has got to be going on in order to make it move like that. Which is, in my opinion was very. It makes it a very, like, compelling, weird, magical creature. Like, it's not a cre. You know, it's a robot. Or whatever, but magical character, because it does. It makes your brain go, well, that can't. That's not possible. That's not possible.
• 40:24
  Speaker B: It's a really compelling character design.
• 40:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I just. I thought it was so interesting. So then we get to introduce to Princess Mombi.
• 40:32
  Speaker B: Speaking of compelling character design.
• 40:35
  Speaker A: We arrive in this big throne room hall thing full of mirrors and the most extra throne room you've ever seen. And she is sitting on a. Like, a sofa playing, like, mandolin or playing some little stringed instrument. And the dress she is wearing is insane. And I was like when she was introduced and she's playing that Mandalor. Whatever. It's like an anime character introduction. Like, the costume and her sitting there, like, moodily playing an instrument just felt like something straight out of, like an anime or something. And I wanted to. Her character came from the book looks like that. And also, does she swap her heads? Because that is her other big thing we find out is that she has a hall full of heads that she can swap at her leisure.
• 41:25
  Speaker B: So Princess Mombi is an amalgamation of two different characters from these books. The first is old Mombi from the marvelous Land of Oz, and she is a wicked witch who helped the wizard, the titular wizard from book one, conceal Princess Ozma. Second character is Princess Langwider from Ozma of Oz, who is the ruler of the land of Ev, who does have a collection of heads that she rotates through.
• 42:01
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. So, yeah, just combine different characters. Okay.
• 42:05
  Speaker B: And she does not dress like that in the book, sadly. It actually makes a point of saying that she only wears simple white dresses because why would she care about having a bunch of elaborate dresses when she can swap her whole head for a new one?
• 42:19
  Speaker A: I mean, I guess that makes sense, but also, I think somebody who's as extra as swapping all their heads around might also want.
• 42:26
  Speaker B: I agree. I agree.
• 42:29
  Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting. Oh, sorry. I just found a tick tock where they're showing videos of TikTok.
• 42:36
  Speaker B: Nice.
• 42:37
  Speaker A: And how he. The picture is insane. He's. The guy is, like, curled up inside the body.
• 42:44
  Speaker B: Oh, that looks like a nightmare.
• 42:46
  Speaker A: I'm not sure if he's okay. Yeah, I was hoping I was gonna see another. I'll have to look. There's also. I just realized and very excited to see now Adam Savage from the mythbusters has a video where he's. He got to see the original costume prop. And I'm sure they talk about in that video, like, how it worked.
• 43:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
• 43:08
  Speaker A: Because.
• 43:08
  Speaker B: So we'll be watching that.
• 43:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, we will be Watching that. But it does appear like he's, like, curled up. And I can't tell. I can't tell if he's. If his hands are in the legs or if his legs are in the legs. It's hard to tell. I don't know.
• 43:25
  Speaker B: I would guess legs are in the legs would be my. My guess.
• 43:30
  Speaker A: Maybe it's both. Maybe his hands and legs are both, like. So maybe he's, like, holding his ankles, basically.
• 43:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe.
• 43:38
  Speaker A: That's crazy. Anyways, I got. Yeah, I'm have to look up again. Just super interesting. So then Princess Osma's like, hey, I want your head.
• 43:51
  Speaker B: Mombi.
• 43:52
  Speaker A: Mombi. Sorry. Not Osma. Because she's also Princess. Right. She's called Princess Mombi and then Princess Osma.
• 43:57
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 43:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. So she's like, hey, Dorothy, I want your head. So I'm gonna lock you in this tower until you're old enough that I can take it or whatever. And she locks her up in the tower. And then we're introduced to Jack Pumpkinhead, who is a character that. His name is very accurate and descriptive. He is a dude who kind of looks like a scarecrow, but with a pumpkin head.
• 44:21
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 44:22
  Speaker A: And I wanted to know if he came from the book and if that's what he looked like.
• 44:25
  Speaker B: Yes. Jack is one of a handful of elements that come from the marvelous land of Oz. And I preferred his character in the movie because in the book, he was super preoccupied with asking if everything that they encountered was dangerous to pumpkins, and it got kind of annoying.
• 44:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:46
  Speaker B: I will now find you a picture of Jack Pumpkinhead because he is very accurately depicted. Let me see if I can find one where he has clothes on.
• 44:56
  Speaker A: Yep. Looks just like it. Looks just like it. And we talked about in the prequel that Tim Burton has admitted, said that that was one of the. If not the inspiration for Jack Skellington.
• 45:09
  Speaker B: Makes perfect sense.
• 45:10
  Speaker A: Which it's. I mean, his name's Jack.
• 45:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 45:12
  Speaker A: He's got a. Yeah, it's very clear. Like, the spindly arms and legs moves, the way he moves, even kind of the way he talks a little bit. It's very clear that that character inspired Jack Skellington.
• 45:24
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 45:24
  Speaker A: Very obvious. It's inspired. It's bordering on copyright infringement, honestly. Like, it's. It's, like, inspired by. Sure. But, like, kind of just copied the character and changed his head, the color of his head, and made his head not a pumpkin. You made it. You know. Yeah.
• 45:45
  Speaker B: I was just thinking in my head if this would have been public domain.
• 45:49
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 45:49
  Speaker B: By that Time, Honestly, it might have been.
• 45:51
  Speaker A: It might have been. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I'm not. I'm mostly joking about the copyright thing. I don't give a shit. Yeah. So Dorothy hatches a plan of how they can escape the tower together, which involves creating a flying machine out of. By dragging a bunch of the furniture together and then getting the Powder of Life, which Mombi keeps in the hall of Heads downstairs, which is what she used to bring Jack to life, supposedly. And she's like. Dorothy's like, well, I can go get the powder, and then we can bring this flying machine to life and fly out of the tower. And I wanted to know if specifically the moment from the movie happens in the book where she sneaks down there to get the Powder of Life wife, and she has to open one of the cabinets which has a head in it, and when she grabs it, the head wakes up and this is the. The head that becomes Mombi for the most. The rest of the.
• 46:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's her original head.
• 46:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which is the nurse lady from the Kansas segment. And she starts screaming, and then all the heads, like, turn and look at her and, like, start screaming that she's there. And it's truly terrifying. And I wanted to know if that scene came from the book.
• 47:10
  Speaker B: No, none of this is from the book. The book really treats Langwidere and her hallway of interchangeable heads as, like, kooky and fun.
• 47:21
  Speaker A: Right.
• 47:21
  Speaker B: When obviously it is something straight out of a horror film.
• 47:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it clearly, yes, it's super terrifying, but I could imagine in a kid's book you could write it in a way that seemed a lot, like, sillier and more fun. If you just don't write it, it's sc. Like. But this movie was like, no, this is. This is terrifying. One of the little details about Tik Tok that I love, that I want to know if it came from the book, is that in the movie, he has three different cranks on his back. One of them is for action, one of them is for thinking, and one of them is for talking. And I wanted to know if. And so they can be wound up independently. So he can be, like, unable to move, but he can be able to talk and think and. And blah, blah, blah. And I wanted to know if that element came from the book because they have to constantly be wound up and certain things can run out. And I thought that was very clever and fun and made for some fun little, like, moments within the movie where certain things run out at inopportune moments.
• 48:18
  Speaker B: Yes. All of that is from the book.
• 48:20
  Speaker A: Is the line from the book, which is maybe was like kind of like the best joke in the movie, which was where his. She. I think it's when she gets back upstairs. Tick tock. Is just like thrashing around making nonsense noises.
• 48:35
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 48:36
  Speaker A: And. And she's like, what's going on? And they're like, oh, I think his. I don't know, he just started freaking out. And she walks over and realizes that his thinking crank is. Is. Is has run out. The right term for that is wound down, I guess. But his talking crank is still totally wound up. So he's think. He's talking without thinking. And one of the other characters goes, is that that. I didn't know you could do that. And she's like, it happens to people a lot. And I wanted to know, like, does that line come from the book? Because that's maybe the most. The closest this movie gets to, like, social commentary.
• 49:18
  Speaker B: I'm searching some keywords in. I don't think there's anything like that in the book. I don't remember there being anything specifically like that. That I do think that it's. It might just be a reference to. There's a line in the 1939 film where Dorothy says to the scarecrow, like, how can you talk if you haven't got any brains? And scarecrow says, like, oh, people do it all the time.
• 49:51
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That is so that. Yeah, that is just.
• 49:54
  Speaker B: I think back to that probably a.
• 49:56
  Speaker A: Call back to that joke again.
• 49:58
  Speaker B: Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin that.
• 50:00
  Speaker A: It does ruin the joke. That. It's just. I forgot. I do now that you mentioned it. I do remember that line from the 1939 one. But that is just the same joke again.
• 50:08
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 50:09
  Speaker A: So that's disappointing. Okay, so they build this giant contraption they put together Touche lounges or something and then strap them together and put some like, palm leaves on them and then strap a moose head to the front and hit it with the powder of life. And this thing comes to life and is able to fly them away. Which I thought was also super duper fun and something kid me would have loved, like building a weird flying contraption out of random bits and bobs in a. In a tower. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 50:41
  Speaker B: It does. Yeah. The Gump is from the Marvelous Gump.
• 50:44
  Speaker A: That's what they were saying. I didn't know what the heck they were saying.
• 50:47
  Speaker B: The gump, which is. It's the kind of animal that the Head is.
• 50:51
  Speaker A: Okay, so that's what the head thing is. Yes, it's a gump instead of a moose.
• 50:55
  Speaker B: Yes. Okay, so the gump is from the marvelous Land of Oz, and they do build him in a rush and use him to make a daring escape. They're not escaping from Princess Mombi because she's not a character in that book, but the look of him is quite book accurate. I know this one's a little hard to parse.
• 51:20
  Speaker A: Oh, I see it. I see it, I see it. It's the negative space from the white on the front. Yes. No. Yeah, it is very similar. It's all right. That is really hard to figure out what you're looking at. Now that I see it, it's very obviously the same, kind of the best.
• 51:33
  Speaker B: Illustration of, like, the full thing, but it is like, it's two chase lounges tied together with the head and the palm leaves.
• 51:42
  Speaker A: My brain was had, like, the white and black, like, flipped on what was what. And so it took a minute for it to click into place, but. Yeah, no, it absolutely looks like.
• 51:49
  Speaker B: What, the side view?
• 51:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That would have helped me get it quicker. But you're right that the. Yeah, it does look. Yeah, it looks exactly like it. It's all strapped together with rope or whatever and has the same wings and everything. Cool little detail that I wanted to know if it came from the book. Doesn't really go anywhere in the movie in a way that I thought was interesting, but Jack calls Dorothy Mom. He's like, hey, can I call you Mom? Are you my mom? And she's like, no. And he's like, well, can I call you Mom? And she's like, sure, I guess. And then he just does the rest of the time. And then later we find out that Ozma is his mom, he says. Which was confusing because didn't Mombi bring him to life? I don't. I didn't get that. Anyways, does that any of that come from the book?
• 52:34
  Speaker B: So Jack actually does not meet Dorothy during the marvelous Land of Oz because she doesn't appear in that book.
• 52:41
  Speaker A: Oh, so he's from that book.
• 52:42
  Speaker B: Yes, he's from the marvelous Land of Oz. She does meet him, like, very, very late in Osma of Oz, but it's like, very briefly.
• 52:50
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 52:51
  Speaker B: They don't really interact all that much. But the main character of the marvelous Land of Oz and Jack's creator is a little boy named Tip.
• 53:03
  Speaker A: So is he the Dorothy of.
• 53:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, kind of. He's from Oz, but, yeah, he's creating the protagonist. Yeah. He's the protagonist. We follow him around on his, like, little kid adventures. Okay, so this little boy named Tip, who turns out to be Ozma in disguise. More on that later. Put a pen in that one. We're coming back to it. And Jack does call Tip father throughout the book.
• 53:31
  Speaker A: Okay, interesting. Yeah, we'll get to that later. Like you said, we'll put a pin in it, because that was. I felt like the movie is just like, oh, Ozma's mom. What? Okay, sure. Yeah, fine. Which also, like I said, didn't make sense to me, but we'll get to it. So one of the little things I thought was fun and kind of cute throughout the movie is that Bellina, who has been with them this whole time, time, once Jack shows up, hops in. Which I think the movie, it was a combination of good things here, where the movie makers were like, hey, I got a clever idea that'll make it so we don't have to have chickens around as much. But also, it's just kind of cute and works and makes sense, is that Balena jumps into Jack's head and, like, hides out and hangs out in Jack's giant Jack O Lantern head. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 54:20
  Speaker B: It does not. But this is definitely inspired by something from the book. So in Ozma of Oz, when they're in the gnome king's throne room, Bellina hides in a crevice in the rocks under his throne and then overhears him talking about what colors all of the people who are trapped as ornaments are, thus enabling them to defeat the gnome king.
• 54:46
  Speaker A: Okay. Because in the. So am I wrong or crazy? I just had this, like, random memory from the movie. In the movie, isn't there, like, moments early on when. When the, like, rock spirit thing or whatever is reporting back to the gnome king that they're, like, more interested in finding Bellina than Dorothy?
• 55:06
  Speaker B: They. They're upset that Belina is with Dorothy.
• 55:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 55:11
  Speaker B: Because eggs are poisonous.
• 55:14
  Speaker A: That's what I was wondering. I just kind of put that together in my head because I remembered watching the movie. I was like, why were they concerned with Bellina and, like, finding Bellina? And then I realized just now, like, oh, it wasn't that they were like. Cause I was like. Cause that never goes anywhere. Like, it never matters. Like, they don't, like, need Bellina for anything. But then I was like, oh, it's because Bellina's a chicken, and chicken eggs are poisonous. So it's not that they're, like, trying to find but it's that they're, like, scared of Bellina or whatever. Okay, that makes sense. And so that's Bellina hides in Jack's head.
• 55:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So like, to them, Dorothy showed up with, like, a weapon of mass destruction.
• 55:51
  Speaker A: Exactly. I got it. That makes sense. So then we get to the mountain with the Gnome King and we find out kind of what everything. Why all of this has gone down, why the Gnome King did what he did, which is he's the one responsible for why Oz is all turned into stone, or all the people are turned to stone and it's all in ruins. And it's because. Because according to him, the people from the Emerald City stole all the emeralds from him, and he just stole them back. And he kidnaps Scarecrow, who was the King of Oz, which I didn't remember that. I was like, what? Is that how we ended the last movie? Is that how the 1939 movie ends, where Scarecrow becomes the King of Oz? I don't think that seems like more of a book thing maybe than.
• 56:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't remember how hard the movie leans on that. That is what happens in the books. The Scarecrow becomes the King of Oz.
• 56:50
  Speaker A: I don't remember the Scarecrow becoming the King of Oz at the end of the 1939 film, but I guess it's possible. But I don't remember that. But anyway, so I was like, oh, I guess he was the King of Oz. So he kidnaps the Scarecrow and, yes, all of this has gone down because he thinks that he feels like the people from the Emerald City stole all the emeralds from him and that he. So he just took them back because they were his to begin with. And I wanted to know if that's kind of the motivation for the Gnome King in the book, assuming he's a villain. I don't know.
• 57:24
  Speaker B: Okay. So it is briefly mentioned in Ozma of Oz that the Gnome King doesn't like that the surface people dig up gems and take them. But it's not something that the text expands on or, like, uses as a motivation for that character. I don't think it even comes up again after it's initially mentioned. The Gnome King, he is kind of the main villain of Osma of Oz, but he's not a big bad the way he is in the movie. He's not, like, seeking to destroy Oz or anything like that. He hasn't kidnapped the Scarecrow. So in the book, Ozma and the Scarecrow and the Tin man and the Cowardly lion are all on Their way to the gnome king's kingdom because he has trapped the entire royal family of ev as ornaments. And Ozma wants to free them.
• 58:30
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 58:31
  Speaker B: So that's why they go to the gnome kings mountain in the book because they're on this mission to free this other royal family from being ornaments.
• 58:41
  Speaker A: So the movie translates that onto the Emerald City people. Kind of.
• 58:47
  Speaker B: Kind of, yeah.
• 58:48
  Speaker A: With scarecrow. Yeah, yeah, just trans. It translates that onto scarecrow as like. Because he's the quote unquote royal family of.
• 58:57
  Speaker B: Right.
• 58:57
  Speaker A: He's the king, I guess, of Oz or whatever. And so. Yeah, okay, I guess that makes sense. Sure. Again, this is from here to the end. Like not even from here. From a while ago in the movie to the end, I was like, ah, whatever. This is all dumb. One of the things I thought was cool visually in the movie, and by cool I meant cool mixed with. Creepy mixed with. Yeah, maybe weirdly sexual in a way. I don't know. It was the. Not sexual, but like, it gives allusions to things that I thought were moderately suggestive. Suggestive. Moderately suggestive would be the right term. Is that he tells them, okay, so you want to find the scarecrow? Well, he's trapped in my chamber. I don't know. He has like a giant chamber full of. He calls them ornaments, but it's just stuff.
• 59:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, they're like knickknacks and faces.
• 59:51
  Speaker A: It's just like maybe a generational thing of like that term being used to describe.
• 59:56
  Speaker B: Yeah. Cause now we really only use that to describe like Christmas tree ornaments.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker A: Yes. Or things that you would put on a tree or. Or, or. Or that. Some other things. But he's got like, it. It's like every. There's like chairs and jewelry.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker B: It's like any kind of decorative thing you could think of.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker A: Any kind of decorative item. Yeah. He calls an ornament. And which is again, five was like, oh, okay, I see. But it was initially a little confusing when he's talking about ornaments and they get down there and it's like, oh, it's just like a bunch of random stuff. It's not ornament. Okay, sure, but. But he opens in order to tell them, he gives them this deal. Like, hey, you all get three guesses to like, go figure out which one of those items is the scarecrow. And if you can figure it out, then he'll transform back into the scarecrow or whatever and you can leave or something like that sets them up with this deal. And to send them down there, he opens the door to it and in the movie, it is this stop motion. This rock wall, like, opens by all of these rock hands, like. Like burrowing open the doorway in, like, this constantly burrowing. Weird. It's very interesting. It's very creepy and cool, and I wanted to know if it came from the book.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker B: It does not. But I. I agree with you. I think it's really creepy and cool. Like, the effect of it is.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker B: Gnarly.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker B: It reminded me of the helping hands from Labyrinth, which are also creepy and moderately suggestive.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker A: Yes. And in modern days, for people, Modern audiences, modern Internet audiences, it evokes slightly. Is slightly suggestive of a very famous Internet meme that I won't name here. Okay. We'll just leave it at that. Oh, goodness. So one of the things I thought was really interesting is that the. The gnome king has the ruby slippers. It is revealed because earlier on, I believe Dorothy said that she lost them.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker A: When she was traveling back from Oz. They just, like, fell off in transit, I guess, she says. And it turns out the gnome king has them. And this is, I think, what he's been using to turn everybody into stuff. Is that the power? I don't know. It doesn't really matter. But he has the slippers. And I wanted to know if the gnome king has the slippers in the book and in the movie. The kind of big moment here, and this is like the closest the movie kind of gets to, like, a thematic through line.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker A: Kind of is that.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker B: It's not very well done.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker A: It's not very well done. But he. The other two, the. The whatchamacallit, the gump has gone down and tried to find it, and he got turned into an ornament. Then Tick tock, Jack did.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker B: Jack.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker A: Jack went down. And then tick tock went down, too. Everybody went down, didn't they? Yeah, they all got turned into ornaments. So Dorothy's the last one, and as she's heading down there, the gnome king stops her and is like, hey, by the way, I got these slippers. If you want, I could just wish you back to Kansas and then you. You could go back and you don't have to. You won't be turned into an ornament, and you'll never. And you. He says something like, like, and you won't even have to remember any of this ever happened or something like that. He's like, you can forget all about this. But she's like, but what about my friends? And that's kind of the big moment. This is her big, like, you know, this is the turning point of the third act here, where she. She makes the choice. She answers the call to go and help her friends. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, because, again, it's kind of the closest thing the movie has to, like, a thematic through line of, like. Like her choosing to stay here and to remember and to help her friends versus the kind of easy out of forgetting and leaving and going back and living a normal life or whatever. Again, it's not very well done. It's just. But it's kind of something. Yeah.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker B: I can squint and see what they were doing, what they were doing there. So the gnome king does have a magical object that allows him to transform everyone into ornaments, but it is a magical belt.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker B: He does not offer to send Dorothy home. But she's also not really concerned with getting home in the book.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker A: To be fair, she's not really concerned with getting home in the movie.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker B: That's fair. Yeah.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker A: Either.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker B: But, yeah, I actually like both of these changes within the context of the film. Bringing back the ruby slippers makes a ton of sense. They're arguably the most iconic visual from the 1939 film. And the offer to have her, like, go home and forget about Oz tracks with the issues she was having at the beginning of the film.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker B: So even though it's not, like, super well done, I think that works.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker A: It's at least something. It's the closest thing, like I said, to, like, narrative payoff that the movie has.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker A: You're like, okay, I could see it kind of, but it's like, yeah, it's just kind of. It's just poorly set up and doesn't really. And it feels like it just doesn't kind of of. The choice kind of comes out of nowhere and doesn't really hold a lot of weight because obviously, like you said, she's not even that interested. Like, he gives her that choice. But you're like. But she's not even really, like, wanting to go back to Can. Like, Like, I think maybe that's the. The biggest failing of the moment is that even in the movie, she. She's not trying to get back to Kansas. She's trying to save the Emerald City. Yeah. So of course she's going to go do the thing. Like, it proves that she's brave, I guess, because, you know, like. But it's not like. Like, she has this Dr. It'd be one thing if she ended up in Oz. And the whole time she's like, I got to get back home. And. And then she ends up in this mystery and where, like, she kind of. With. Not against her will, but, like, gets drawn into, like, helping. But really she just wants to get back home and whatever. But, no, that's not the case. She wants to be here and wants to help. So it's like. It's not even really that much of a tempting offer for her. So it doesn't. You're like, I don't know you. Yeah, Like, I see what you're going for, but I just don't think it really works because the pay. The setup wasn't really there. But, yeah, whatever. And then this is again where the movie just really stumbles to me. She gets down there, and it's just a room full of knickknacks, like you said, and she tries. Just randomly tries, like, two different knickknacks, and they are not correct. And then seemingly, she just kind of randomly picks the right item and this turns into the Scarecrow. And then she realizes from that, like, oh, all of the Ozians must be green objects, because he was like, an emerald or whatever. And I was like, there was no. Like, she didn't, like, solve a puzzle. You know what I mean? Like, she just kind of, like, stumbles onto the answer, and I was like, oh, okay. She just. Again, she doesn't even have a thought when she's doing the first two. She's like, I don't know. I guess I'll try this. That didn't work. I'll try this. That didn't work. Oh, no. I guess I'll try this. Oh, it worked. What are we doing? It's not narratively satisfying in any way whatsoever, and I wanted to know if it came from the book.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker B: No, it does not. Dorothy, in her turn, she does manage to randomly guess one ornament correctly, but it's one of the princes of Ev. It's not one of her friends. But your. Your second question up there about all of the Ozians being green object is a. Yes, that is from the book. So I mentioned earlier that Belina hides under the throne and she overhears the gnome king saying that all of the Ozians are green ornaments and all of the royal family of Ev are purple. So then she insists on having a turn at guessing and goes in and just starts freeing person after person. So Belina is actually the true hero of this story.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker A: Okay, interesting. So, truly, in the book, Dorothy does just randomly get it right?
• 1:07:57
  Speaker B: She does get one right? Yeah.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker A: Like, just randomly, like, through no thought or anything. Like, just touches a random object.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker A: Okay. I'm just curious because it's so stupid. Like, I just. I was like. It just felt. I was like, this is the big. This is the big moment of the movie where she has to save the day, right? And she just touches random things and then one of them happens to be correct. There's no thought, there's no nothing. Right? Am I. Am I misremembering something? Like.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker B: No, I think you're correct about the movie. I wouldn't call it like a big moment where she has to save the day in the book because the reader already knows that Belina knows, which changes things, which changes the stakes because, like, you know that Bellina is gonna come in the movie.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker A: Bellina is in one of the ornaments because Jack has been turned into.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, correct.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. I just. I was so. I felt like I had missed something. I'm like. So she's literally just gonna, like, touch random things. And then eventually just the third one just by chance works. Okay. Like what? I thought, like, there had. Like, why would you not be like. Like, after the second try, she's like, okay, my last try, I gotta figure this out. And then she's like, what would. And then, like, have her reason out why she chooses the.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker B: I agree.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker A: It just felt so dumb to me. I'm so mad. I was like, what is this? This is nothing. This is literally nothing. And especially frustrating because again, the first act of the movie was so seemingly kind of well thought out. And then this last act and really like kind of the second. But mainly this last act just felt like random novel sense. I was like, what is happening? So then she's able to bring everybody back except for Tick Tock. We'll get to that in a second. Or eventually she brings. When they get back after saving everything, they find Tick Tock on an antler or something. What? Who cares? It's dumb. I also thought that was weird and pointless. Is that from the book in any way or anything?
• 1:09:56
  Speaker B: Like, I have a note about that later.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker A: Okay, we'll get to it then. Because I thought that was so weird and pointless book. But the. The gnome king now gets outraged and decides to try to kill them for. Because his plan failed to turn them all into ornaments or whatever. And so he turns into a giant gnome king rock monster guy and is going to eat them all. And he tries to eat the. What is the moose's. The Gump.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker A: But they're able to rescue the head of the gump, but he eats the. The.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker B: He eats the sofa.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker A: Sofa. Part of the body of The Gump. But then he grabs Jack and is holding Jack up to eat him. And I thought this was fun because it pays off the fact that Bellina, who's been hiding in the Jack's head the whole time, although they should. I wish they would have seeded the poison egg thing in some way because this is, I think, the first time we hear about this.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker B: I think you're right.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker A: I'm pretty sure this scene where they're like, oh, no, a chicken that's poisonous. You're like, oh, okay, great. But Bellina is in the head and lays an egg, which they did set up that Bellina hadn't been laying eggs. So this is like. There's at least a little bit of setup payoff there. Like at the beginning, Dorothy's chastising her. She's like, hey, Auntie M's gonna cook you if you don't start laying eggs again. But. So she lays an egg, and the egg falls in the gnome king's mouth and kills him. And this saves Jack because he's. The gnome king, is deadly allergic to eggs. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker B: Book. It is established in the book that eggs are poisonous to gnomes, but they. The. The book does not kill the gnome king.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker B: The Scarecrow throws one of Balina's eggs at him. Like, after they're all turned back from being ornaments and they're trying to escape, Scarecrow throws one of Balina's eggs at him. And then while he's freaking out, Dorothy steals his magical belt, thus removing his power and allowing them to escape.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker A: So kind of similar. They use the egg to.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, they use the egg to escape.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker A: But just a little more dramatic in the movie with it killing them.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker B: The movie takes it to a far more dramatic and terrifying place.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, which I thought that part was fun. I just wish they. Like I said, I'm pretty sure that the first time we hear about eggs or chicken eggs being poisonous to gnomes or whatever is literally like. Like two seconds before or right after maybe the. Yeah, the. The gnome eats the egg and you're like, oh, okay, I guess you could have set that up earlier. And again, maybe they didn't. I forgot, but I don't. I don't think so. And my last question here is, they're able to. Also. She. She then pulls the. The ruby slippers out of the. The remnants of the dead gnome king and puts them on. And she is able to use the slippers to click her heels and wish everything back to normal. And Ness. You Know, kind of reverts Oz back to. Or not Oz. Well, yeah, I guess Oz, but specifically the Emerald City back to its previous state. Turns all the people back from being stone and fixes everything. And I wanted to know if that's how either of the books ended.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker B: No, I mentioned earlier that Oz, the Emerald City is never actually in any danger in the book.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker A: Book.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker B: So there's really nothing to restore. But I. I think this changed tracks with the film. Overall. I think it's fine.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's fine. I didn't. I didn't mind that part. I was like, whatever. Yeah, just get the movie over with, I guess. Feel like we're out of ideas at the end of this, so we might as well wrap it up. Okay. I do have a couple questions we're going to talk about in Lost in Adaptation.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker B: Just show me the way to get.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker A: Out of here and I'll be on my way. Lost. Yes.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker B: Yes. And I want to get unlocked as soon as possible.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker A: One of the little details that I thought was interesting in the movie that is never really addressed. And I don't know if it was his goal or. Again, it's just like a thread that I'm like, in that third act of the movie that just felt like never was. Just kind of like throwing things at the wall. Is that as the members of Dorothy's party are going down and trying to guess and then are being turned into ornaments as that is happening. Each time one of them is turned into an ornament, the gnome king becomes more human looking. He starts as like a big, like basically part of the rock wall, kind of. Then he turns into like this stop motion rock monster. And then he turns into like a. Clearly a dude in makeup.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker A: And he gets more and more kind of human and defined. And it almost seems like he's becoming more like he's gaining more of like a. Like a mobile physical form. I don't know, some sort of physical form that is going to allow him to like, like leave the mountain or something. I don't know. I was just. I wanted to know, like, if that came from the book or what was going on there or what, anything.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker B: I wish I could help. This is not an element in the book at all. I really liked the makeup. Yeah, it looks cool during this scene. It looked cool, but I have no idea what was going on or, like what we were supposed to get out of that.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I was wondering. I'm like, okay, maybe it's supposed to be that, like. Like doing this is like giving him Power that's gonna allow him to, like, I was like, creating these things in my head of like, maybe he's like, trapped in the mountain as the gnome king. Like, he's part of the mountain and can't leave. But as he's doing this and like, he's like sucking the whatever, the humanity or the power out of these people when he turns them into ornaments. And that's like, allow that will eventually, like, once he gets enough of it, kind of like Hellraiser, to gain his own physical form, he will then be able to, like, leave the mountain or something. You know what I mean? That was like, the only thing I could think. But the movie never says anything.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker B: The movie does not care to explain this.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker A: The movie doesn't even comment on the fact that he looks like Dorothy. Never even mentioned, you know, like, nobody says anything about the fact that he looks different each time this happens. And I felt like I was going crazy. I'm like, it's got to be mean something. It's cool. Maybe it's just cool. I don't know. Like, maybe they're like, it's just cool.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker B: But maybe. Maybe they just wanted to do cool.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker A: Feels like it's implying something, but you just don't know what. And then movie never bothers to tell you. And then my other question here was at the end, we find out that Mombi had Ozma Princess Osma trapped in a mirror on the gnome king's orders, supposedly. And I was trying to figure out, like, what Mombi's deal was, why she did this for the gnome king. Does this come from the book at all? Like, Osma being trapped in a mirror by Mombi on the gnomes King's orbit. Did Mombi just want power? Overall, I felt like the plot of this movie, especially in the second half, was just a mess and I didn't understand what everybody was doing and why. But do you have any additional information that will help?
• 1:16:55
  Speaker B: So I exposited a bunch of thoughts in this section, and I hope some of them answer some of your questions, I think.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker A: Hopefully.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker B: So your last thing that you wrote down was that you felt like the plot was a bit of a mess. And I started by answering that directly. I think that's partly because of the way that the movie combined the two books.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker A: It seems like it, yeah.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker B: Most of the movie comes from Ozma of Oz, which is the third book. So Dorothy washes up in the land of Ev. She finds TikTok. She gets imprisoned by the Princess Langwidere. She's then freed by Osma and company, who are there as part of their journey to free the royal family of Ev from the gnome king.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker B: So then they continue to the gnome king's mountain where the ornament guessing game plays out.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker A: So that is the broad structure of the movie.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker B: Yes. And that is the broad structure of Ozma of Oz as well. The movie doesn't borrow all that much from the Marvelous Land of Oz. We have Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump, and they're kind of the two main things. But the other thing that the movie does get from the Marvelous Land of Oz is the idea of Ozma as the long lost true heir to the Ozian throne.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker B: And I think that that plot point of her being, like, this long lost heir that nobody knows where she is works pretty well in the book for a couple of reasons. First being that the main plot of the Marvelous Land of Oz is about the Scarecrow getting deposed by General Ginger and her army of girls.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker B: That is a real sentence that I just said. Yes. General Ginger and her army of girls. So the throne slash, who the true ruler of Oz is is kind of the central topic of that book.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because it does seem like an afterthought in this.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker A: You're just like, what? Okay.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker B: Another reason that it works in the book is that it is revealed much earlier on in the story that Glinda knows Ozma exists and has been trying to find her.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker B: And the third reason is because the big reveal is that Ozma was actually there all along because Mombi had disguised her as a young boy named Tip.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker A: That's what you mentioned.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker B: Who is. Yes. The main character. Main character of the novel. And Mombi did this on the wizard's orders.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker B: Because the wizard deposed the previous king of Oz and obviously had to get rid of his heir.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker A: A lot more political intrigue.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. I think that the movie is attempting to do something similar by having this, like, oh, there's actually like a long lost, like, true heir to the throne.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker B: But because it's not really set up, Ozma ends up feeling like kind of like a weak Deus ex machina.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker A: And she doesn't end up Deus already saved. She just shows up and they're like, oh, she's the actual queen.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker B: She's the real queen.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker A: And you're like, okay, sure, I guess. I don't. Whatever. I don't. I don't know her. I don't know. She doesn't even go here. Like, what are we doing? Like, yeah.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker B: To transfer your question specifically about Mombi. Her motivations aren't really explored directly in the book. Like her motivations for helping the wizard hide Ozma.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker B: I think the implication is that she's just an evil wicked witch, and that's that. Which is pretty typical of children's lit, especially for this era.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker A: That's fine. Yeah. I just. I wasn't. Yeah. Okay. That does help. That does give me a lot more. It especially helps knowing that. Yeah, the movie is primarily the third book with a few elements pulled from the second book, kind of.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker B: And they. I think where they went wrong is that they tried to pull kind of a big element.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think pulling the characters is fine. They should have left the Osma thing.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker B: Out, like, but they tried to pull kind of this big element of, like, the long lost princess.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker B: Without really, like, doing the work to set it up.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, it just felt like. I said, it just felt like kind of tacked on at the end and you're like, oh, sure, I guess. All right, all right, whatever. But, yeah, that makes sense. All right, those are all of my questions. It's time now to find out what Katie thought was better in the book.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker B: You like to read? Oh, yes, I love to read.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker A: Read? What do you like to read?
• 1:21:31
  Speaker B: Everything. First note, justice for the saw horse. There is. I know that means nothing to you. There's a character in the marvelous Land of Oz, actually, he's in both books, who is a saw horse, like a wooden thing that you lay planks on to saw them. Who tip brings to life using the powder of life, like we did with Jesus, Jack and the Gump. And the sawhorse, like, follows them around and they ride on him sometimes. And he's kind of a delightful character because he's a horse who does not know how to behave like a horse. One thing about Oz that I feel like you never see represented in other media is that every con, every county in Oz is color coded. So, like, everything in Munchkinland is yellow and the Land of the Gillikens is purple and the Land of the Winkies is blue. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Like the grass and the plants and everything. But I feel like we don't ever see that in Oz properties.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, you see it in the Emerald City. Yes, in the Emerald Cities, where lots of stuff is green, but.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker B: But not other places. Briefly mentioned this earlier, but I thought that the plot with General Ginger and her army of girls taking over the Emerald City was fun. It's definitely not perfect. And it had some sexist hallmarks of the era baked into it, but it was fun. I really love that they take over the Emerald City and then they make all of the men living in the Emerald City do domestic labor.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker B: And then when, like, the scarecrow and everybody comes back, all of the men are like, oh, thank God you're here. They're making us do all of this hard work. And I think the scarecrow says, like, well, if it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily? Got em.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker A: Got em.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker B: At one point in the marvelous Land of Oz, the scarecrow gets wet after they fall into a river, and then Tip has to, like, spread his innards around to dry in the sun.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker B: Just weird Oz lore things. We interact with Glinda a lot in the marvelous Land of Oz. And honestly, I did not know this about Glinda, but she is hella overpowered. She can basically do whatever she wants. She could run Oz like a dictatorship if she wanted to, but she's not.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't. She.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker B: She has, like, all the power.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker A: She has, like, the Infinity Gauntlet, kind of like, she.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker B: It seems like she can just do whatever she wants.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker A: She came down in a bubble.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker B: She did.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker A: She came down in a bubble, Doug.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker B: So Tip being Osma is really interesting. Interesting. So kind of the backstory here is that when we meet Tip at the beginning of the book, we find out that Tip has always lived with Mombi, who is, like, an old witch character in the book. And, like, a couple chapters in, Tip runs away. He's like, I don't want to live here anymore. She sucks. I'm going to run away. So, like, runs away and has all of these adventures. And then we find out close to the end that Mombi, when the wizard brought the baby Ozma to her and was like, you have to hide this baby because this is the one true heir. The way that Mombi accomplished this was by transforming Ozma into a little boy. And when this is all revealed at the end, Tip initially does not want to be transformed back because he's always been a boy, and that's all he knows. But then once he transforms into Ozma, she says, I hope none of you will care less for me than you did before. I'm still the same Tip, you know, only. Only. And then Jack jumps in with only, you're different. And it's like this very, like, accepting and, like, warm and fuzzy moment. And I think there are a lot.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker A: Of potential trans rights.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker B: I think there are a lot of pot potential ways to read this plot element. And I think all of them are interesting.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Yeah. Huh.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker B: On a kind of similar note, I wish the movie had kept Bellina's preferred name being Bill. She introduces herself as Bill in the book and then Dorothy insists on calling her Bellina because she's a girl chicken. And I could have done without that specific bit, but just let the chicken go by.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker A: Her preferred name for says not trans rights. Wizard of Oz has messy politics in rever in regards to trans people.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker A: I mean, to be fair, pretty obviously I would bet it's not.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker B: No, I, I would. I would seriously doubt that that is what L. Frank Baum was trying to comment on. But I do think there, there are some very interesting, like, queer theory readings.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker B: For sure. For sure. A random insane detail that we're told in the book is that the wheeler's wheels are made of keratin, like fingernails.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker A: I mean, it makes sense.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker B: It does make sense.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker A: But also in the movie they're clearly made of rubber. But yeah, I'm glad they didn't try to make them look like they were made out of fingernail material. That would have been disgusting.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker B: I think we just found a way to make the Wheelers even more terrifying. There's a character in Asma of Oz, the hungry tiger. I loved the hungry tiger. And this was a tiger with a conscience and a moral objection to eating the things that he desperately wants to eat. So he's just always hungry, the vegan tiger? Kind of. Yeah, he does. They do. He does eat like cooked meat. Like when they go to stay places, he'll be like, eat whatever's on offer there.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker A: So he's not vegan?
• 1:28:11
  Speaker B: He's not vegan.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker A: He just doesn't like the idea of raw meat. He's like.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker B: But he's like. Throughout the book, he specifically talks about really wanting to eat fat babies. He'll be like, it just sounds so delicious. But I know I'll feel terrible after I eat it.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker B: Princess Langwidere with the many heads is me. And I am her. Not really. But she's not really a villain in the book. She's just kind of like a kooky side character.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker B: But when. So she's in the land of Ev because the whole royal family has been turned into ornaments and she was like the king's niece or something like that. So she comes as like a stand up in to rule, but she doesn't like it because it's too much responsibility.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker A: She's a steward.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker B: Yes. So when Osma shows up and she's like, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go to the gnome king's mountain and we're going to free the royal family. Asma is like, you mean Lang or. Yeah, Lang is like, I don't know. That sounds like a lot of work. So. So I'm gonna stay home. But I wish you every success in your endeavor.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker B: And I was like, same girl. Same. Another fun little detail. When they get to the mountain of the gnome king, there's a giant cast iron man who's guarding the entrance to the mountain. And he's like, swinging this giant mallet down in the pack path. So they have to run under his giant mallet one by one to get into the mountain.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker A: Little obstacle course.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker B: And I already mentioned this, but the fact that it's Belina who frees everyone and saves the day, I think is just chef's kiss. Have it be the chicken. Why not?
• 1:30:14
  Speaker A: Absolutely. All right, let's go ahead and see what Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it was. Would happy endings only happen in the movies?
• 1:30:29
  Speaker B: I liked that Dorothy and Belina land in the deadly desert and have to get out. I think that's fun. It's also like some book lore because I don't think that's ever mentioned in the 39 film that there's like, there's a desert that surrounds Oz.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker B: That, like, it's like, impassable.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker A: No. Because I remember being like, oh, I've never. I didn't know there was a desert. I was also, like, confused at why Dorthy. He knew what this.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker B: She seemed to. Because it's from the first book.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker B: It's not super well done. I agree with all of your criticisms, but I do think that making the gnome king kind of like the main villain makes sense.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker A: I think it could have worked. I don't have an issue with the choice. I think it could have worked. I think it could have been a big, fun climax. Yeah. I just don't think they did a good job setting it up and explaining. Yeah.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker B: On a kind of similar note, I was totally fine with the movie editing out the royal family of Ev. I feel like, why introduce an entirely new kingdom and a bunch of new people within the context of this film? We'll just stick with Oz.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker B: I liked the little detail of Mombi driving a chariot pulled by the Wheelers. I thought that was fun.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. That was cool. That. I thought that was neat. Yeah. She. When she goes to the gnome king.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:31:48
  Speaker A: She rides on a chariot pulled by Wheelers.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker B: I liked TikTok freezing on purpose as a ploy to get Dorothy into the room with you.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker A: That was. Yeah, I thought that was funny, too, because that does.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker B: It does happen in the book that, like, he freezes up and then the gnome king sends Dorothy in.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker B: Like, wind him up.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker A: TikTok hadn't been transformed yet. I said earlier he was. But yeah, he. Yeah, he pretended to freeze.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, I had that in the movie. Nailed it. And then I had to move it into better in the movie because I liked that he did it all on purpose.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker B: And then a couple things that I was glad got cut out of the book. There's a whole chapter in the Marvel.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker A: Sorry, real quick. But that makes me even more annoyed because the movie has the. The reason he does that. Right. Is to bring her in there. He says. Unless. Doesn't he say, you can see what I pick, and maybe that'll give you some. Some information about what the right object is. Isn't that his whole reason for bringing him in? Doesn't he say that?
• 1:32:50
  Speaker B: So I don't remember exactly what he says. So in the book, once she gets in there and she, like, winds him up and they're like, oh, this is really good, because now you can watch and see what I turn into.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker A: Yes, I think that. Sorry, that's what he says.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker B: But then he, like. She can't tell. She doesn't know what he turned into because he just kind of like, voips into the air. He doesn't. There's not, like, an object that drops down right there.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker A: We'll watch that scene because. Yes, that is what he says in the movie. He says, you can see what I turn into in that. But then I think she doesn't. She just randomly.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker B: Well, I think the movie sets it up poorly because they show her, like, looking at the table, but because we didn't get a good look at the table before that, it's not obvious that there's no new object there.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker A: I don't know. I don't think any of that. I'd have to go back and watch that scene. But that scene pissed me off so much because it just felt like it didn't make any sense. And it should have been easy to make it make sense. Anyways.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker B: All right, so there is a whole chapter in the Marvelous Land of Oz where Baum does, like, a bit with the Scarecrow and Jack Pumpkinhead when they meet, and they're like, insisting to each other that they need an interpreter because they're from different lands, but they're actually speaking the same language the whole time. And it was just a very annoying bit because I couldn't figure out what was supposed to be going on for, like, most of it. And it definitely felt like it was written to be turned into a stage play.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker B: Last note here. There is a character in the marvelous land of Oz called the Woggle Bug. And while I occasionally enjoyed the woggle bug's puns, I was really glad that he didn't make it into the movie because I also thought that he was a very annoying character. And based on some of the illustrations, I thought possibly written to be like. Like a minstrel type thing. Yeah, potentially.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's a woogle bug, or at least that's how you have it.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker B: I might have it written down wrong. The. The audio. The audiobook that I listened to pronounced it woggle bug.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker A: It just has two O's in it, so it looks like. It looks like woogle bug, but.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker A: Anyways. All right, let's go ahead and see what Katie thought. The movie nailed. As I expected.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker B: Practically perfect in every way. Little detail. When Dorothy points out that Belina can talk because they're in the land of Oz, Belina asks how her grammar is. Yeah, the lunch pail trees.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, those are fun. Reminded me of. Of Willy wonka. Like, the 60s Willy Wonka, where they, like.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, like, little teacups and stuff. For sure. We already talked about the Wheelers, but I have them included here again, because why not? They're straight up nightmare fuel. In both, Dorothy does use the key that she found to unlock a hidden door in the wall and which allows them to escape the Wheelers. And then they find TikTok. Tic Tac also then takes out the Wheelers with the lunch pail.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker A: That was great. He does, like, the spinning attack. His top half spins separately than his bottom half, so he, like, goes cyclone mode. And, like.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker B: Mombi does decide that she wants Dorothy's head and then locks her in the attic. It's a little less threatening in the book because, like, in the movie, she's like, I'm gonna lock you up until you're old enough, and then I'm gonna.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker A: Cut your head off. That whole part has a creepy, weird kind of, like, pedophilia feel to it where she's like, you're so. You will be so beautiful, but not yet. I'm gonna wait until you are.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker B: It's like, gonna wait till You're.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's weird.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker B: Wait till you're done cooking. Yeah, but in the book, it's more like Langwidere's like, you're pretty. Would you consider giving me your head? And I'll give you one of my extra heads?
• 1:36:50
  Speaker A: So, like, a playful, fun deal, kind of like a.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker B: And then Dorothy, like, no. No. And Langodier's like, I'm gonna lock you in the attic until you change your mind.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker B: Jack Pumpkinhead's backstory is actually pretty dang close to what's in the book. He tells Dorothy that his mother made him to try to scare Mombi. And that is actually what happens in the book. Tip builds Jack Pumpkinhead and, like, leaves him in the road to try to scare. Scare the old witch Mombi, as she's, like, coming home.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker A: So this was a confusing thing in the movie, and I touched on this earlier, but why at the end, he says, Osma is his mom, and in the book, that makes sense, because you find out Tip built him or made him or whatever. Or. Yeah, whatever. In the movie, don't they say that it was Mombi that brought him to life with the powder?
• 1:37:47
  Speaker B: Yes, which is also true in the book. Cause Tip just, like, builds a scarecrow man, basically.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker A: Gotcha.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker B: And then when Mombi comes upon him, she has just purchased the Powder of Life from a wizard and is like, I'm gonna test this.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker A: So he views the person who built him as his grandmother, not the person who brought him to life.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker A: I see. Okay, that makes sense. I was just confused about that in the movie. Cause I was like. But didn't you say that Mombi made you or brought you to life? Yeah. Okay, I see. Cause I don't think the movie explained that Jack was built by Ozma. You know what I mean? So I was like, what?
• 1:38:27
  Speaker B: I think we're meant to infer that at the end when he's like, that's my mom. But there's no.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker A: There must have been a lot. There might have been a line early when she first discovers him, because they are in the Emerald City. So, like, that would have been maybe, like, Osma's room or something they were in. So maybe that was the implication.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker B: So I think what we're supposed to get from that is that, like, perhaps when shit was going sideways, Ozma built him to try to scare Mombi, like, away from capturing her, and then that did not work.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker A: Yes. And then she got captured, and then Mombi brought him to life with the powder.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker B: Little thing. Little super dark thing, the Gump talking about how the last thing that he remembers before they woke him up with the powder of life was walking in the woods and a loud bang.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker B: They do crash land on a mountain.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker A: They fall 8,000ft and then just are fine, kinda, because she falls out of that thing. And I was a little annoyed with. It's fine because it's like a silly fantasy movie, but I was a little annoyed where the movie seemingly is setting up. Oh, no. Some stakes where they fall, and they're, like, falling from a great height. And I'm like, oh, they're gonna need to. Somebody's gonna have to rescue them, save them. You know what I mean? Something's gonna happen to get them out of this predicament. But no, they just fall and land and are fine. And I was like, oh, okay. So it wasn't a big deal that they like. It just felt like we added these stakes. Like, the scene before is like, oh, my God, we're crashing, we're falling, Calling stakes, stakes. And then they're like, well, actually, there was never stakes because we're fine. You know what I mean? That just felt a little silly to me. I was like, okay, well, if it wasn't whatever. I don't know. It's a little thing.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker B: But you mentioned this earlier. In the. In the movie, they inadvertently bring Tick Tock back, and he's, like, stuck on the antler of the dump. He's like a little, like, military metal thing. In the book, they do kind of a similar thing with the tiny man. He's disguised as, like, a little slide whistle. And one of the princes of ev, like, picks him up and puts him in his pocket, and they, like, get him out accidentally.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker A: Accidentally. And then realize later.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. My last note here. Ozma does send Dorothy back to Kansas, and she promises to check in on her and bring her back to Oz if she ever wants to visit.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker A: There you go. All right. We got a handful of odds and ends before the final, final verdict. I love. The opening shot of this movie was super cool. We get this awesome pullback that seems to be pulling back, like, through. It's like looking at the night sky. It's like all these stars. And it looks like it's pulling back through a window, but then it's revealed that it's pulling back from a mirror that is reflecting a window. Window. And then it pans around and we see the whole, like, Dorothy's room and, like, Toto in the bed. It's just a very cool shot to Open your movie.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker B: I think this movie wanted mirrors to be more of a, like, motif and similarity.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker A: Yes. There are a lot of mirrors than.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker B: It actually ended up being.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker A: I completely agree, because it does not feel like it really goes anywhere or means much, but there are quite a few, like, mirror things, especially early in the movie.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. We talked about in the prequel that the Kansas scenes were filmed, like, somewhere.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker A: In England, Southwest England, near Stonehenge, apparently.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker B: And I didn't really think it looked like Kansas.
• 1:42:16
  Speaker A: No, I.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker B: If you.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker A: It looked better than I thought.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker B: It did look better than I thought. But friends, listeners, if you've never been to Kansas, I cannot stress enough how flat it is. Whatever you're picturing in your head right now, make it flatter. Yeah, that's Kansas.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's for real.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker B: The beginning of this movie is so bleak.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker B: We really, like. It really leans into exploring the idea of what happens when kids who go on fantastical adventures come back to the real world.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker A: Which is compelling.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker B: It's compelling, and it's something that I really appreciate. I don't know that this movie really, like, served out everything it was wanting to, perhaps.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker B: But I. I like the idea of that.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that was super cool. And just the whole beginning is incredibly creepy. And even without, like, anything explicitly creepy happening necessarily, like, I guess a lot of the stuff is creepy, but, like, it's. The movie isn't, like, explicitly trying to be scary necessarily, but, like, the. The. The nature of, like, the overall feel of the sanitarium that she ends up in and just the way it's kind of shot. There's this one shot in particular which I think is trying to be creepy that I thought was incredibly creepy and was like something directly out of a horror movie where in the middle of the night, that one time, Dorothy, like, looks. Opens the door of her room and, like, looks, like, out. And, like, we get a shot down that long hall and she opens the door and it cuts and we get that long haul and you just get the quickest glimpse of the nurse, like, disappearing around the corner.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:44:01
  Speaker A: And it. It's. It's almost like seeing a ghost or it. It feel it. There's a lot of that. Those kind of things where it's like. Yeah, it's just incredibly, like, creepy atmosphere for the whole, like, first hour. And everything's so. Even in Kansas, everything's all drab and gray, which I think was their version of the black and white to Technica Color. Yes, kind of. But even then, Oz still ends up being pretty drab. And gray. Which is like. Because it's all. Because when she gets there.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker B: Thematically appropriate.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker A: Yes, because it's like in, you know, everything's. Everybody's turned into stone and, and the. Everything's in ruins. So it makes sense that it's not super bright and colorful until the very end with the big parade and everything. But even then it's still not Technicolor. So you know. But yeah, yeah. I, I thought the overall like the creepiness at the beginning, while maybe not perfect for children, children was a fun and interesting start to the movie. It's compelling. Yeah.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker B: Although I. Correct me if I'm wrong about electroshock therapy. Would the little. The pads not go on her temples?
• 1:45:05
  Speaker A: That's normally how it's shown. Yeah, they tell her to put it on her ears.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker A: Like headphones. But I, I would think normally maybe.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker B: That maybe that's why his electroshock therapy is like really not working.
• 1:45:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know because I thought the same thing. I'm like pretty girls on your toe. I. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. The point is to be fair. Like I said, like I said, he's a quack. Like he doesn't know what he's doing. So it doesn't really matter if it's correct or not because even the correct version was still bad.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I. We talked about in the prequel that the. They had a bunch of different chickens that to do different things, but they also had a chicken puppet like animatronic. And people on set were talking about how they were like could sometimes couldn't tell whether it was the real chicken or like a puppet. And after seeing the puppet chicken, I can believe it because it's a pretty.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker B: Convincing, pretty good chicken puppet.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker A: Like it's pretty good. Like the way it moves and the way it's the feathers and it like it looks like a real chicken. It's pretty. Which makes sense because chickens kind of move robotically anyway. They have that kind of weird robotic. They have the self stabilizing head things that birds have. And like they move in a way that is. Yeah. A little bit alien looking and so a total. Totally works. It makes sense that you could do a chicken puppet and make it feel very real. Another thing I thought was funny is when she first gets to Oz and you get that big shot of the desert and her like looking out at the desert, it's like the back of her head. You could tell they're actually using green screen because this is like early in the the days of like digital compositing and stuff like that. Or maybe not digital compositing, but like using green screens and compositing and stuff like that.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker B: That.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker A: And you can tell they're using a green screen because she has the green spill, the classic green spill around her from a chroma key. Whereas modern movies and. And most. I say modern. I don't know when the change happened, but. Oh. And I don't even know the exact reasons, but a lot of primarily films use blue screen these days. And I think since like the 90s maybe. I don't know how long that's been a thing. Um, just I think partially because of that specifically is that it's a lot less noticeable as like it's a lot easier to clean up and make less noticeable on people and stuff like that. Whereas the green is a lot.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker B: You kind of get that. That glow.
• 1:47:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, that green glow on around the Edge, which I thought was funny. When she gets to Oz, there's this scene where they. They find the destroyed yellow brick road.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker A: And she goes taking off sprinting. She's booking it on top of this destroyed cobble. Brick road. Cobblestone road, where all of the rocks and bricks are like all like everywhere. And she's sprinting at like full speed down this. And I was astonished that she was able to do that and not like break both of her ankles. Immediately I was like, blown away. I was like, how is she doing? That was maybe the most impressive thing in the whole movie to me. Like I was imagining just walking on that ankles, like snapping both of my ankles in half. And she is running at full speed. I was like, wow.
• 1:48:14
  Speaker B: Even more impressive because she's also wearing terrible shoes for any kind of running.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker A: I couldn't. I legitimately, like, was as blown away by that as I was by TikTok and how he worked. I was like, how did they do this? Maybe they have her on cables. She looks like she's just running. I know she's just running on it, but I was incredibly, like worried that she was good to snap her ankle in half.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker B: I thought the effect of the wheelers turning into sand was pretty good when they fall into the desert.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, they like, they made like a sandcastle of them and then like broke it, which was fun. And then one of my. Maybe my last note here is maybe one of my least favorite things about the movie, other than the messy third act and like kind of just incoherent plot at times, was the design of the scarecrow. When the scarecrow does show up, which we and I, because I actually thought the Cowardly lion looked cool. I thought the Cowardly lion was fun when we see him at the end as the line the tin man was. But he's not in it much and it's whatever. But the scarecrow, he's in it more than the rest of them. And the design of his makeup, I thought was just so silly looking, like this big static smile. Like, his mouth moves a little, but the rest of it is just baked in and it just looks so goofy. And I just wasn't a big fan of it.
• 1:49:41
  Speaker B: So I have a couple thoughts here. I actually kind of love that the designs of the scarecrow, Tin man, and Cowardly lion are just lifted straight from the book illustrations. Pretty much all the character designs are, honestly. But I do agree with you that I think the scarecrow doesn't translate all that well.
• 1:50:03
  Speaker A: I liked the other two. I just didn't not like the scarecrow.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker B: But to be perfectly fair, he is lore accurate. It's mentioned several times across both books that he can't change his expression because it's painted on.
• 1:50:17
  Speaker A: Okay, fair enough.
• 1:50:19
  Speaker B: But another specific thing, I say fair enough.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker A: You can make that change, as in your adaptation.
• 1:50:24
  Speaker B: I agree.
• 1:50:25
  Speaker A: And I think the move, the first movie or the 1939 movie made a smart choice by letting the scarecrow be able to emote by having face paint instead of of a baked in mask. Yeah.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker B: But another specific thing that doesn't translate at all in the movie is that because the scarecrow is made of fabric and straw, wearing the crown literally weighs him down. Like, it's like squishing his head when he wears it. My last note here, I listened to at least part of each audiobook book for both of these, and I have two notes, two call outs, shout outs, one. In the marvelous land of Oz, the audiobook narrator made the absolutely inexplicable decision to give Mombi an old west cowboy accent. I'm gonna go to my grave not understanding that call. And number two, the narrator for Osma of Oz went with a really intense, like, robot voice for TikTok and fully committed. And I was. I was so impressed with the commitment because literally on TikTok's, like, second line of dialogue I wrote in my notes, I wonder how fast they regretted committing to this.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker A: You think it's like him just doing the voice and not like some sort of voice change or thing?
• 1:52:00
  Speaker B: No, it's him doing the voice, but he was doing like, I am a robot. Yes. Yes.
• 1:52:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah. To be Fair. TikTok doesn't have a ton of lines, does he? Or maybe he does in the book.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker B: He has more in the book.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, fair. Fair enough. All right. All right. Before we get to the final verdict, we want to remind you could do us a favor by heading over Facebook, Instagram, threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places interact. We'd love to hear what you had to say about Return to Oz. Did it scar you as a child? And what are your childhood memories of this film? What do you think of it now? Is the third act as bad as I think it is? Let us know. We'll talk about it on the next prequel episode. You can also do us a favor by heading over to Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to our show. Drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review. We would appreciate that. If you would really like to support us, you can head over to patreon.com thisfilmislit Support us there. Get access to bonus content. We'll be recording our bonus episode for November tomorrow, but every month we put out a bonus episode that you can check out where we just talk about whatever the heck we want. Some random movie or whatever. It's always a movie. I don't know why I said whatever. It's always yeah, I don't think some old older ones. Before we started doing the movie thing, we did occasionally have like an episode talking about a TV show or something, but very rarely, for the most part it's movies and you can hear us talk about all that stuff at the $5 a month level and at the $15 a month level you can priority recommend recommendations. If there's something you'd really like for us to talk about, us to talk about, you can request it and we will add it to our queue. Katie, it's time for the final verdict.
• 1:53:37
  Speaker B: Sentence fast. Verdict after. That's stupid. I'll be honest, this is a really difficult call. On the one hand, I really do love Return to Oz. It's the kind of weird dark fantasy film that just doesn't get made anymore. The practical effects are great and every aspect of the film is committed to being kind of bleak and really creepy. On the other hand, I really love the world of the Oz books. I think they're just the right balance of nonsense, fun storylines and weird little bits of lore that go a long way in fleshing out the world. The downside of the film is that it has so much going on that not everything adds up at the end. Both of the villains motivations are a little uncertain. And the inclusion of the long lost Princess Osma wasn't particularly well done. And the books are fun, but they're also children's books that are of their time. They have some outdated stuff as well as some stuff that's just been so dumb done that 125 years later, it no longer feels fresh. Return to Oz is far from the only adaptation to come out of this larger property. And at the end of the day, I think that the enduring longevity of the world of Oz should count for something. So I'm going to give this one to the books.
• 1:55:11
  Speaker A: All right, Katie, what's next?
• 1:55:14
  Speaker B: Up next, we are getting started on our Christmas season.
• 1:55:18
  Speaker A: Christmas season.
• 1:55:19
  Speaker B: And we're going to be talking about the man who Invented Christmas, which is a novel by Les.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker A: Didn't know that was a novel.
• 1:55:27
  Speaker B: Standiford. Sure. And it's a 2017 film.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker A: It's about Charles Dickens, right?
• 1:55:33
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 1:55:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I thought.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker A: I didn't know it was a book, though.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker B: I say novel. I think it's maybe a little closer to a novella. I think it's only like 250 pages or so.
• 1:55:44
  Speaker A: Is it nonfiction or. Or is it fiction?
• 1:55:46
  Speaker B: I'm not sure yet.
• 1:55:49
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker B: I think it might be like fictionalized. Fictionalized nonfiction, non fiction. Yeah. Is kind of the vibe that I.
• 1:55:57
  Speaker A: Fictionalized biography or something. Yeah.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker B: But I haven't really. I haven't done any research on it yet, so I'm not 100% sure enough.
• 1:56:04
  Speaker A: Well, we will talk about that in our next prequel episode in one week's time. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary.
• 1:56:11
  Speaker B: Pals and everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being awesome.