#The Wizard of Oz (1939)

[movie-gifs]

The Wizard of Oz (1939) dir. Victor Fleming

[ferylcheryl]

[stuckasmain]

“So act two is just a remake the wizard of Oz?” 😠

Yes? It is the wizard of oz. Why are we surprised and mad? It’s literally an alternative retelling/college au of The wizard of oz.

As much as I think a lot of jokes around the 30s movie in a wicked context are funny. It’s not helping the people who are upset and not thinking critically about wicked and how it fits into the Oz mythos. It’s a take on the story/retelling it shouldn’t and isn’t supposed to entirely line up with the novel or the 30s movie— it’s just the same base verse/story.

[letterboxd-worth-a-damn]

[monsieurenjlolras]

I feel like people think of Dorothy as this very sweet polite ingenu of a heroine but she threatens to bite someone before she even gets to Oz

[cityoftheangelllls]

Emerald City Dorothy <3

[seekincrows]

TWOZ 1939 sketch masterpost because HOLY MOLY DO I LOVE THIS MOVIE SO MUCH !!!!!!!!!!!

[Please do not tag as kin/me/ID thank you!]

[bikkue]

The Wizard of Oz' 75th Anniversary Companion - The Wizard's Gifts™

[mariusslonelysoul]

yes we will all thirst over jonathan bailey as the scarecrow next year, yes ray bolger's scarecrow was already perfect bUT WHAT ABOUT THE TIN MAN THE TIN MAN WAS CUTE AND FUNNY AND SWEET GUYS COME ON

[quotes-from-oz]

Why do they always give the Cowardly Lion absolute bangers in musicals? If I Were King of the Forest and (I'm a) Mean Ole Lion rule the shows they're in. Maybe this is why he didn't get a speaking role in Wicked, they knew he would steal the spotlight.

[mmontysposts]

Got my figures! Will be getting Dorothy and Lion soon!

[aquitainequeen]

The moment in the cyclone with Miss Gulch turning into the Wicked Witch and cackling is one of the best moments in cinema.

[ultrakeencollectionbreadfan]

I do hope that if The Wizard of Oz is ever adapted again in any form, I want it to have the 1939 Wizard's tone combined with Return to Oz's technological sensibilities.

[stuckasmain]

I don’t know if I’ll wait till part two comes out, if I have that much restraint, but Wicked really makes me want to dive deep into the world of oz again. I was deeply obsessed with the 30s movies as a little kid and have the first five books… I also have the first wicked book. I just, really want to dive and explore and emerse in this world but… I don’t know if I’d make anything out of it? That’s the big problem

Do all this research and for what? I don’t really have a fic or art idea lol

[honourablejester]

A random thing that always annoyed me, you know when you’re a kid and you get hung up on one line or thing in a book or movie that doesn’t make sense to you?

The Emerald City scene in the Wizard of Oz:

There’s one line in there, from the cabby with the Horse of a Different Colour: “We get up at twelve and start to work at one, take an hour for lunch and then at two we’re done.” And it annoyed the snot out of my as a kid, because when you parse that it means there’s no work being done at all, because they start to work, immediately take their hour lunch break, and then clock off an hour later, done for the day. Jolly good fun! Here’s a city where no one has to work!

But it’s being sung by a guy who’s clearly working. And then followed up by a bunch more people at the ‘Wash & Brush Up Co.’ who are also clearly working. Like. Our main foursome are getting pampered, sure, but the people pampering them are clearly working. At a company!

It annoyed me so much when I was a kid how the song was clearly and blatantly lying like two seconds into it.

It took me a good few years to realise that that was fully on purpose. That the Emerald City, like the wizard at its core, is a ‘humbug’, a great big pretty lie.

There is a bit of me that wonders if the line is a very specific comment on Hollywood itself. In the book, IIRC, the ‘lie’ in the Emerald City, aside from the wizard himself, was whether or not the city was actually green at all, or if that was the emerald lenses the wizard mandated everyone wear. In the movie version, the city is indeed extremely green. I wonder if that line, the specific lie, was a bit of a comment on Tinseltown herself, the way people think you can show up, become a glamorous star, get pampered, do a couple of hours work a day, and call it good, when the reality … isn’t like that. If someone tells you ‘you don’t have to work to live well here’, they’re either lying outright or they’re only talking about a very specific group of people.

But it did (and still kind of does) annoy me, as a line. Like. Would you not at least try a less blatant lie? One you’re not giving the lie to, this very second, yourself?

[mask131]

So you want to know about Oz! (4)

Now that we got the topic of the Oz books out of the way, let's talk about... The MGM musical! The 1939 movie "The Wizard of Oz"!

Or rather, let's NOT talk about it. Let's talk about... its alternate continuity.

"Alternate continuity" or "alternate Oz" are terms cherished by Oz fans and scholars, because they allow one to navigate through the maze of Oz adaptations.

I don't want to talk here about the MGM movie per se, because A) there's way too much to say and B) everybody knows it or saw it, so I don't need to explain what it is as thoroughly. But I want to insist on a specific and given point... The 1939 musical COMPLETELY changed the game.

It is an adaptation of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", yes. And it is the most famous and acclaimed Oz adaptations that ever was - to the point it is a landmark of American cinema, and a key part of American popular culture. But, and here's the important part: it is also not at all a faithful adaptation of Baum's novel. It is a very loose adaptation that omitted, reinvented and added MANY, many things - and the problem is that, since the movie is much more famous and well-known than the original novel, it created its own "alternate continuity" of Oz works, completely dissociated from the original novels by Baum (and other authors). These are two different worlds, that start from the same story-point but diverge in many, many ways.

In this post, I want to look at all the works, movies and adaptations that present themselves as prequel or sequels to the MGM movie, and that build together this "alternate Oz continuity" that is the 1939 continuity.

How do you recognize these works, and separate them from the ones more aligned with the old novels? Simple! All you need is to look out for key details that were introduced by the MGM musical!

The Wicked Witch of the West is considered the supreme evil of Oz, and is depicted as having a green skin and being clad in black.

There is only one Good Witch, Glinda Good Witch of the North.

The magical slippers are Ruby Slippers, not Silver Slippers.

Insistence on Oz being a "dream lord" paralleling the real-world

The Wicked Witches are sisters, and not just unrelated allies in wickedness

And other details of the sort. Alright! Ready? Let's go!

Let me begin with something a bit obscure... The 1990 cartoon "The Wizard of Oz".

In 1990, a Wizard of Oz cartoon started airing on television. This animated series proposed itself as the direct sequel to the MGM movie. Dorothy, still with the ruby slippers, returned to the Land of Oz, called by Glinda due to new troubles brewing in Oz: the Wicked Witch of the West was resurrected. The series is mostly about the group of heroes travelling through Oz, encoutering various Oz folks (purely invented for the series) and defeating the various schemes of the Wicked Witch, while trying to catch up with the Wizard of Oz, whose hot air balloon is tormented by the West Wind...

Unfortunately, due to poor ratings, the series was never renewed beyond its first season. Even worse, it just... kind of stopped mid-season. 13 episodes were created (I am not even sure all were aired?) and... the show just stops. No conclusion, no ending, it just stops. Sometimes, the two-part opening episode "The Rescue of the Emerald City" is edited as one short animated movie.

Much more famous: the Disney movie "Return to Oz", from 1985. One of thes "obscure Disney movies", one of those "weird fantasy sequels", one of those "dark 80s children movies"... There's multiple reasons why this piece became a cult-classic today.

It is most notably one of the many instances of Disney trying to create an Oz product in line with the MGM movie, despite not having the rights to do so, and thus playing around with the public domain of the Oz novels. This movie presents itself as a sort-of-sequel to the MGM movie (sort-of because, since they couldn't make an actual sequel, they have things that do not match - like Dorothy's new appearance - and things that do match - the slippers are ruby). In terms of inspiration, it is mostly a retelling of the third Oz novel, "Ozma of Oz", but with various elements taken from the second Oz novel "The Marvelous Land of Oz". For example, one of the villains of the movie is Mombi, the witch from "The Marvelous Land of Oz", but her behavior and appearance are those of Princess Langwidere, a secondary antagonist of "Ozma of Oz".

Another famous attempt by Disney at gaining their ground on the MGM-Oz domain is this movie:

2013's "Oz: The Great and Powerful". Meant to be a prequel to the MGM Wizard of Oz (but stll placing itself in its own continuity, since it couldn't be an ACTUAL prequel), it tells the story of how Oscar (the Wizard) arrived in Oz, and how the power-struggle between the three Ozian witches put itself in place. And it was... it was not a great success. In term of Oz adaptations it is recognized today to be between "mid" and "failure". (It is still VERY pretty though)

Speaking of Oz failures...

Do you remember THIS movie? "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return"? Oh that's one messy story...

"Dorothy's Return" (2013) was an animated movie adapting one of the novels written by Roger S. Baum, L. Frank Baum's great-grandson, called "Dorothy of Oz" (1989). And it did... VERY poorly, despite the huge amount of money and advertisement put in it. But you know what's even funnier? Why does the movie has such a long title? Because "Legends of Oz" was actually a HUGE franchise project. There was this plan to create a big line of animated movies and derived products, of which "Dorothy's Return" would have been just the first step. The movie came out, did poorly... and the entire franchise was canceled. But not without a lawsuit being opened for the shady practices and financial ruins behind this project... Yeah it is QUITE a story!

Still within the domain of modern Oz movies people do not particularly like...

The Tom and Jerry Oz movies!

These animated pieces are part of the modern trend of putting Tom and Jerry in famous movies (there is also the very unfamous Tom and Jerry + Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie). The first movie, "Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz" was basically just Tom and Jerry being present during the MGM movie. And... that was it. Oh yes, they did include the Jitterbug deleted scene but you know. It was just that.

Less known is this movie's direct sequel, "Tom and Jerry Back to Oz". It was less talked about than the first one, despite being at least more original! It is notably a loose adaptation of the third Oz novel, "Ozma of Oz".

More successful and beloved: 2017's "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz".

Just like the 1990s series, it is a children cartoon presenting itself as a direct sequel to the MGM movie, but unlike the 1990s series it was HUGELY successful. It aired for three full seasons, and while it is placed within the MGM continuity, it notably modifies several details so kids could be able to get into the story more (Dorothy is a little girl, the Wicked Witch is replaced by her daughter), and sprinkles several elements from the novels (Ozma, queen of Oz, is a recurring character). It is mostly a... I'll say "slice-of-life" type of show, about Dorothy and her friends just... living in Oz, solving problems if they are, avoiding the various schemes of the Wicked Witch's daughter.

Now that we looked at all the most "recent" incarnations, let's take a look at an older classic: 1972's Journey Back to Oz.

This animated movie is a loose adaptation of the second Oz novel, "The Marvelous Land of Oz", but presented as a sequel to the MGM movie. Tip is replaced by an MGM-looking Dorothy as the protagonist, Mombi is depicted as a green-skinned witch and the cousin of the deceased Wicked Witches of The Wizard of Oz, and Dorothy's voice is provided by Liza Minnelli, the daughter of Judy Garland.

And to conclude it all a movie that... nobody seems to have noticed upon its release?

2000's Lion of Oz. An animated musical movie for children, adapted from Roger S. Baum's novel (yes, still him) "The Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage" (1995) ; but still placing itself, by the characters' design, under the legacy of the MGM movie.

This movie presents the backstory of the Cowardly Lion, who, as it turns out, was a lion Oscar Diggs brought with him to Oz, and who, before meeting Dorothy, underwent a quest to fight the nefarious plans of the Wicked Witch of the East...