#script vs movie

[mask131]

What Oz could have been: The Great and Powerful

I first heard about the original script for Disney's "Oz The Great and Powerful" through a fan art of Theodora by the brilliant artist hwilki65 over at DeviantArt. The fan-art in question is gone now, but do not hesitate to go check the artist's gallery over at DeviantArt, he is one of the most thorough Oz artists of the Internet with tons of clever and beautiful takes on the Ozian world.

Everybody remembers Disney's "Oz The Great and Powerful", right? This Disney movie that attempted to be a prequel to the MGM movie, and yet couldn't really because Disney didn't have the rights? This VERY divise 2013 movie which was a big flop in terms of Oz adaptation? You remember, this thing which took a very cool concept of prequel, a lot of beautiful visuals and impressive visual effects and just... drowned it in cliche plot points, wasted opportunities and the most insufferable characters you ever met?

Yeah, this movie.

In his description for his fan-art, hwilki65 evoked the original scenario for the movie. His fan-art was of the "original" Theodora, not the one from the movie - and while the final product might seem like a simple cash-grab attempting at reclaiming the MGM heritage, these early drafts proved that the movie ACTUALLY started out as much more faithful to the Oz books and more sincere in its attempt at reconciliating the various Oz heritages into something new.

Of course, the idea of a better original version of the movie, that eventually was butchered into the story we can see today, was very intriguing. So I checked out the original script for the movie (but not after YEARS of searching it around, because it wasn't disponible online at first). And OH MY! The original scenario is indeed very different from the final movie, and quite better in term of overall quality! I did a full breakdown of this script back at my Oz side-blog (@witchesoz ), but to give you a taste of what we lost, and to encourage you to go seek this original scenario, here are some key points different from the final movie:

Oscar, the Wizard of Oz. In the movie? A selfish, greedy, womanizing jerk who starts out as the villain of the story, and his evolution arc is basically just him learning to be a decent human being. In the original script? He was such a positive character - in fact I will dare say he was a saner and cleaner version of Jack Sparrow. He was this kind-hearted, goofy, extravagant stage magician VERY good at his job (he was also a ventriloquist like in the novel, AND an escape artist/contortionist), but unfortunately unappreciated by the folks of 1900s USA, so he was forced to do snake-oil selling just to survive. He wasn't motived by greed or lust, but by his day-dreaming and ambition at being the greatest magician of all time, acclaimed by the masses - and the reason he played into "Yes I'm the Wizard of the prophecy" wasn't because of some girls or riches, but simply because Oz was the first place where his magic tricks actually impressed someone.

Remember this little winged monkey fella that Oscar saves the life of in Oz, and so the monkey swears a "life debt" to the wizard and becomes his funny sidekick? In the original script it was the reverse situation. Oscar was helped by a winged monkey, and thanked the talking animal for saving his life, swearing he had a "life debt" TO THE WINGED MONKEY, not the reverse.

In the final movie, when Oscar is in the tornado, he just whimpers and begs for his life. In the original script? He underwent a King Lear-like monologue, insulting the winds and defying the storm, insulting the tornado and daring it to kill him.

Theodora... Oh, Theodora! The character was originally designed as the very opposite of what she ended up as. She wasn't a shy, naive, nice girl - she was this strong, confident, majestic witch. Oscar didn't manipulate her like a teenage girl: she was the one who manipulated Oscar like a puppet by pretending to be a good witch and forcing him into the role of The Wizard of Oz. Yes I say "by pretending" to be a good a witch. Because originally, Theodora was a wicked witch FROM the start. She knew and was in league with her sister's evil plan. The only difference between the two is that Theodora, as the younger and less experimented sister, still had some humanity left in her - feelings of kindness and human decency that the wizard managed to "wake up" by just... being nice to her and treating her like a regular human being. There was the whole "I give you the music box" scene, but it was the reverse? In the original draft Oscar didn't lie, he just gave her a random music box as a gift for helping him in Oz, just out of kindness without expecting anything in return ; and that DID touch Theodora because indeed, since she is a wicked witch, she never had such a genuine gift out of pure kindness.

Originally we would have the backstory of the Cowardly Lion. Theodora, wishing to "test" if the Wizard truly had powers or not, secretely turned a rabbit into a lion, and had it attack Oscar while he was alone and presumably defenseless... Only for the Wizard to shoot it with a gun, causing in this rabbit-lion the fear of humanity.

Originally the servants of the Wicked Witches were the various terrible tribes of the novel "The Emerald City of Oz", monstrous outsiders the Witch sisters had Oz invaded with. The Growleywogs, the Whimsies, the Nomes (well rather the Gnomes)...

In the movie Theodora "turn to evil" is literaly just "Oh, a guy cheated on me, I'm heartbroken, let me nomnom on some evil". In the original draft? SO MUCH BETTER! Evanora, noticing Oscar had rekindled the last piece of goodness in her sister, first tries to convince Oscar he should kill Theodora because she is "in league with the wicked witch". When Oscar refuses to commit murder, Evanora tries to convince Theodora Oscar was trying to kill her... But Theodora doesn't buy it and, even though the Wizard knows she is a Wicked Witch, she still helps him escape Evanora in return for the kindness he showed her. And afterward, Evanora spends many, many scenes abusing her sister, at first verbally, psychologically, finally physically, to convince her to give up on the last of her humanity and enter a deeper, more monstrous stage of wickedness. Theodora does end up burning her skin due to the tears - but they're the tears her sisters make her shed with her torture. And Theodora resists' Evanora poisonous words, only to give up when Glinda causes a siege on the Emerald City and the Witches must prepare themselves to directly confront and fight Oscar.

And can we speak about Glinda? She was SO MUCH closer to the Glinda of the books! She was this majestic, beautiful and powerful warlord-witch living in a grand palace in the south, all on her own (because, since she is a witch, she literaly needs no servant). As soon as she saw Oscar, she cut through his bullshit and shoot down his dream of grandeur, because she knows what real magic is (all Witches do, but the Wicked Witches played along to better manipulate Oscar). She gathers an ACTUAL army of thousand of people to besiege the Emerald City ; and during the war she uses so much more her powers, bu unleashing blinding mists and huge snowstorms, and literaly stopping or unleashing the winds. Oh yes, and all possible romance between Oscar and her is also clearly made impossible when it is revealed that Witches cannot kiss humans - else humans DIE (which also puts Theodora's loneliness under a new light).

Oh yes, and in the original draft, Oscar's development was actually him going from this ambitious daydreamer who only wished for a fantasy land to escape to, where he would be a great and acclaimed wizard... to him actually being fed up with Oz where everybody wants to kill or manipulate him, and dreaming to return to Kansas to settle down with those he truly love, and live there a mundane, quiet, normal life, as a regular man... Something he ends up being forced to give up, because he is needed to prevent the Wicked Witches from overtaking Oz, and so he literaly is trapped within his own dream and forced to give up what he realized too lat was what he wanted all along...

Seriously, the original draft for the movie was SO INSANELY COOL. It was still a rough draft and it had pacing problems, and some cheesy stuff that definitively needed to be cut, and also some weird phrasing that made it sound somehow racist sometimes? But outside of that, the characters and plot were truly so much better than what we got!

[witchesoz]

Oz the Great and Powerful: Script VS Movie (1)

If you haven’t kept up with my updates: a long time ago, soon after the release of “Oz: The Great and Powerful”, I heard about one of the original script for the project being passed around the Internet. A script that showed how the movie was originally conceived, a script that showed a movie that was originally much closer to the world of Baum’s books than the final movie, a scrip that actually was better and much less flawed than the movie we ended up with.

At the time I had searched for this script, to no avail, but now, after so many years, I finally found it! And… yes, the script I got to read is actually better than the actual movie (mind you, it still has some flaws, because it was still a script-in-progress, but it also lacked a lot of the problems of the movie) and much closer to Baum’s books. In fact, reading this script while looking at the side at the finished movie is a wild experience – not only do they end up feeling like two different movies with the same plot, but also… the actual movie feels almost like a caricature of the original script. As if someone read the script, went “Let’s add as much stereotypes as we could, and twist the characters so that they became annoying instead of interesting, and let’s reinterpret what the script says in the most negative way possible” and we ended up with this movie, that would be someone’s wrong re-interpretation of the script… But anyway, I’ll let you judge by yourself, because I will break down the differences between the script and the movie.

I) In Kansas

Right ahead, the opening scene. In the movie we have this long sequence that starts with Oscar seducing his new assistant, scenes insisting on him being an unfaithful lying womanizer breaking the heart of all girls, and we are shown how his show is just shoddy tricks and fake magic, with an insistence on the “scam” nature of his show with the whole “girl in a wheelchair” thing. In the original script? NONE OF THAT! The script begins actually with Oscar in the middle of his own show – which is actually a pretty decent and impressive magic show. We begin with Oscar choosing someone in the audience to handcuff him solidly, and then asks the man what time it is – the man looks at his wrist, but his watch is gone, and then Oscar hands him his watch, with his magically un-cuffed hands. And then he proceeds to do a series of “transformations” by having an egg appear in his hand, that turns into a rabbit, then into a dove… Standard but impressive magic tricks. And the thing is that the audience, despite the show being good, is left unimpressed by it. Unphased. Oscar even has to use his ventriloquism to invent enthusiastic audience voices in front of the deafening silence (oh yes, because that’s another point the script took from the book – Oscar is a very good ventriloquist). As the script says, the main problem here Is that Oscar is an “unappreciated artist”, whose magic tricks do not impress an imagination-less audience.

And so, in front of magic tricks doing poorly, Oscar turns to his second business… basically snake oil selling. Given his magic show doesn’t do anything, he starts promoting and selling a fake elixir called “HOME” – the Homeopathic Ontological Miracle Elixir – and there he gets a TON of money and a huge success. This is another good point of the script – it shows that Oscar/Oz isn’t a scam by default, unlike the greedy jerk we see in the movie. The script establishes well that Oscar needs to do scams because his natural talent and initial projects do not work.

As a nod to the MGM movie there is a “Mr. Gulch” in the audience of Oscar’s show plus oil snake sale, in charge of the local bank, and there is also a couple known as the “Hamilton”, with the wife being called “Margaret”. A not-so-subtle nod to the actress of the Wicked Witch of the West in the MGM movie… But an homage that actually would have been REALLY offensive and of poor taste if it had ever been done. You’ll get why when I describe the character of “Mrs. Hamilton”. For you see, Mrs. Hamilton is a very attractive woman that was the only one who applauded when Oscar did his magic tricks, while Mr. Hamilton is a stern, no-nonsense, unhappy man who spends more time with his friends than his wife and is just as unimpressed by Oscar’s tricks as the rest of the audience. And as Mr. Hamilton leaves Mrs. Hamilton alone, she quickly joins Oscar for a passionate embrace. For you see, Oscar is Mrs. Hamilton’s extra-marital lover. We have still the “philanderer” aspect of Oscar there, but interestingly it is downplayed a lot. We do not see him interacting with any other women, we know of his seducing nature by secondary hints. More importantly, the character of Mrs. Hamilton is basically a mix-up of all the conquests of Oscar in the final movie, from the circus girls to Annie. I’ll explain… Mrs. Hamilton has affairs with Oscar whenever he comes to Kansas with the carnival/circus/fair he is part of, and she apparently truly loves him unlike her husband – but she also is aware that he has other “girls” he has adventures with during his tours, and is quite fine with it, especially since as Oscar puts it, all the other girls are just “bauble” compared to the true “jewel” that is Margaret, the only reason he even comes in Kansas anymore. So, while not a perfect relationship, we still have something much more “balanced” somehow than we have in the movie. In the movie, Oscar is a man unable to commit the woman he truly loves and that loves him in return, and would rather abandon her to another than straighten himself up and stop his scheming, devious ways – plus, a man that literally pushes love aside for his dream of glory and being the “greatest man of them all” AND a man that keeps his true loved one in the complete ignorance of his other sexual relationships with women. But in the script? We have a man that is honest with his true loved one about having meaningless sexual affairs when far away from her, and she understands it because she herself is married and cannot be in a full relationship with him, all the while they keep reassuring each other that they do love each other, but that their life conditions prevent them from being together full time and dooms them to occasional times of secret love. Of course, the fact that the whole “lies and scams girls to sleep with them” part is not in the original script also helps – since in the script, Oscar keeps winning the heart of women due to his natural charm, eccentric charisma and random acts of kindness.

The other main change brought to the character, and a very important one, would be the motivations of Oscar. In the movie, Oscar’s whole goal is, in his own words, to become a great, rich and famous man, the greatest wizard ever known – he pursues ambition. He puts career before anything, he is selfishly acting always and only for himself, and he has hatred for honest work and poorness due to seeing his father dying “his face in the dirt” as he worked to the bone to survive. If used well, this motivation could have created a “lovable rogue” character, but unfortunately in the movie Oscar just comes off as a selfish greedy jerk and there is nothing lovable about him. In the script? Oh boy, that’s night and day! The reason Oscar refuses to stay in Kansas despite Mrs. Hamilton’s insistence, is because he actually searches for a “great land”. He doesn’t care about being a great man, in fact during his explaining sections he rarely uses “me” or “I” (unlike the movie character who is all “me me me me”) – he explains that his hatred of Kansas is due to how dull, grey and empty the land and its people are, and upon seeing his father die “face in the dirt”, he didn’t develop a hatred of an humble life and hard work like in the movie, but he rather developed a hatred of Kansas as the land that “grinded to dust” his good father of a man. Oscar’s only goal, and the reason he keeps travelling and he doesn’t settle anywhere, is because he is looking for a land of “color and light and life”, a land of beauty and marvels. He does dream of fortune and glory yes, but only as a side-effect of finding the “perfect land”. Basically, Oscar’s original character was that of a dreamer trying to escape desperately the dreary and grim world he comes from – he was basically a parallel to Dorothy in the original MGM movie, or even better, he was a depiction of what an escapist dreamer like Dorothy could end up in the “wrong” side, if pushed to a more extreme. A man forced into selling snake oil to fuel his dreams, and who lives so much in his dreams that he cannot settle even for the woman he loves. It isn’t that he thinks of him before anyone else, like in the movie, but rather that he is such an extreme optimist that he literally believes there is some paradise on earth waiting somewhere, and that he can reach it one way or another.

Now, Mr. Hamilton and his friends end up discovering Oscar in an embrace with Mrs. Hamilton, and this leads to the chase scene present in the finished movie, but with a few differences. Mrs. Hamilton herself helps Oscar escape ; the other members of the circus (the “freaks and roundabouts”) also help Oscar in his chase, because apparently they are used to him being hunted down by angry husbands, but still like him enough to come to his help ; and finally, instead of having obstacles everywhere he runs, the original script called for a whole set of cartoony acrobatics, as Oscar would have escaped through the big tent, using trapezes and trampolines, before finding the balloon. You see, there is a real “comedy” aspect to the script. In fact, when reading the original characterization of Oz/Oscar, I couldn’t help but have a “Pirate of the Caribbean” vibe – as in, he seems to have made into a sober and less unhinged version of Captain Jack Sparrow. Another part of the script that shows its flows: as he gets into the balloon, Frank, Oscar’s assistant, throws him his hat – just like in the finished movie. But in this script… this is the first and only apparition of Frank, who isn’t even named by the dialogue, and the only indication of who he is and what his relationship to Oscar is, is found in the notes of the scripts. If shot as indicated, it would just be a random man throwing Oscar his hat. This is something that was definitively corrected in the movie, by having Frank’s character be presented and explored in the previous scenes – but this shows one of the bad habits of this original script, it tends to introduce characters or things very abruptly, without any actual explanation or presentation of who they are supposed to be.

II) Arrival in Oz

The whole “tornado” sequence is also very different in the original script. Already it isn’t a true tornado that sweeps up Oscar’s balloon, but rather a heavy and violent storm. And unlike in the movie, where Oscar is terrified and whimpers for his life, begging whatever God there is to spare him while promising to “change”… the script Oscar’s actually enters into a King Lear-like defiance (the scripts’ words) and starts shouting “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Blow!” while confronting the “deathswirl” of thunder, lightning, violent winds and heavy rains.

No “floating” scene like in the movie, and Oscar doesn’t actually arrive immediately into the beautiful scenery of Oz: in the original script, Oscar first arrives above the Deadly Desert, an endless spread of sun-scorched sand, and in front of this place, Oscar starts panicking when he realizes he has no food or drinks. He actually briefly considers killing himself with his pistol (yeah, it had quite some dark parts), but then ditches the idea way by saying he was in “worst predicaments” before – though he later admits to himself he can’t think of any worst predicament on the top of his head. Overall it is a sort of dark-humor which, as you can see, helped in the feeling of a more “Jack Sparrow-like” Oscar. As his engine starts dying out, Oscar insults it and there he has regrets – but due to the shift of goals from the character, instead of regretting “not having accomplished great things”, this Oscar regrets all the things he will never see “Paris and India” and all the great landmarks of the world.

However Oscar is suddenly save by gusts of hot winds from the desert, which sent him above cold, snowy mountains, and then over a rainbow (heavy MGM nod – I also forgot to say Oscar tells the line “I’ve a feeling I’m not in Kansas anymore” while above the desert) and finally he arrives in a fantastical, marvelous Oz… But here’s the twist. It is a yellowish landscape. And as he falls in a river, like in the movie, he is greeted not by Theodora, but by a bunch of odd people all wearing different shades and hues of yellow, while “looking and sounding a lot like the Winkie Guards from the original movie”. Yep, Oscar is actually greeted by the Winkies themselves, who start shouting and cheering, heralding him as the Great Wizard and their Savior, and telling him he is here to defeat the “Wicked Witch”. Before the shocked Oscar can have more explanations from the bowing Winkies, Theodora actually arrives – and she arrives carried by two winged monkeys. Yep, that’s another change from the original script: instead of the “winged baboons” being depicted as the vicious servants of the Wicked Witch, here the winged monkeys are very clearly associated with the “good witches” Evanora and Theodora. Theodora’s only description is: beautiful, dressed in an open-collared white shirt, black pants, and black high-knee boots. She promptly explains to him the basic situation (she is a witch, the wicked witch has to be defeated, yada yada), but with several key differences. For example, the Wicked Witch is here clearly referenced to as “The Wicked Witch of the South” (clearly it is both playing on the MGM canon where there is no southern witch, and also a nod to book-fans about the real identity of the “wicked witch”), and Evanora is already talked about as the “Queen of Oz”. She isn’t some “royal advisor” or keeper of the throne like in the finished movie – she is introduced as the rightful queen of Oz, that the wicked witch tries to overthrow.

Unlike in the movie, where Theodora is a soft, gentle, almost shy character, the script’s Theodora is depicted as fast (quick eyes, quick movements and a lively mind, which is part of why Oscar likes her) and as very insistent – while the Winkies immediately assume he is a Wizard, she keeps asking “Are you a Wizard?”. And unlike in the movie, where Oscar, as the greedy jerk that he is, only plays in the whole Wizard thing because he hears there’s gold and a crown as a price, in the original script, Oscar goes into the whole Wizard thing without hearing about any riches or powers. He simply adores the appreciation these people have of him and his “magic”, and as the script says, the “showman” in him takes over and he decides to play the role of a great Wizard, going on a boastful rant about being a wizard of pyrotechnics and prestidigitation, and the master of illusions – and to show his magic, he does some traditional magic tricks, which impress the Winkies heavily. Oscar is too happy to have finally found people appreciating his magic for him to let go, and he even calls the Winkies an “audience” at the end. But Theodora… and this is another one of the positive “change” compared to the movie (can you call it “change” when it is retrospective, since the script came before the movie?). Theodora doesn’t care so much about the magic tricks themselves – she is not particularly amazed by them – but she pays a close attention to the way they impress the Winkies, and to how they react to the Wizard’s antics. And as she keeps insisting “Are you a Wizard?”, Oscar, not wanting to lie but not wanting to dispel his newfound glory, answers ambiguously, such as “Seeing is believing” in reference to the tricks he just performs and “I wouldn’t want to contradict a lovely lady such as yourself”.

Somehow satisfied, Theodora then, with a smile… get ready for that… sparks lightning out of her fingers to have Oscar’s balloon explode. In front of his shock, she explains that if he is indeed a great Wizard, she cannot let him go, because her sister the Queen needs too much a Great Wizard to help her defeat the Wicked Witch once and for all. She also adds that her sister, Queen of the Emerald City, is a powerful witch that can offer him anything he dreamed of or desired – to encourage him to go with her see Evanora (again, the script heavily parallels Dorothy’s arrival in Oz, with Evanora replacing the promises of the “wonderful wizard of Oz” in the original narrative. Another bit that show the original character of Oscar in the movie: even when it becomes clear he has no choice but follow Theodora, since she literally had his only mean of escape explode, he still keeps up a bravado and declares “Given your kind offer, I will cancel all planned and prior arrangements, to go speak with your sister and see if we can arrange something”.

Theodora insists on travelling by foot, much to Oscar’s indignation – cut to the broom dialogue of the movie. Theodora came carried by two winged monkeys, one is Nikko (from the MGM movie), that she sends back to Theodora with a letter she quickly wrote, and the other is Kala, who carries Oscar’s luggage – he is the equivalent of the little helpful bellhop winged-monkey from the movie I forgot the name of. Except that in this script, the winged monkeys do not speak.

III) Travel down the Yellow Brick Road

Theodora, Oscar and Kala first go through farmlands with “curious-looking houses almost shaped like faces” (a nod to the original illustrations of the Oz houses, from the Baum books), and as they do Theodora explains the whole story of the wicked witch, and due to the shift of power relationships it is quite different from the one we get in the movie. In the original script, Theodora’s story is that the Wicked Witch of the South was an evil sorceress, daughter of the previous king of Oz, himself a powerful wizard and evil king. Despite Evanora being Queen of Oz, she needs all the help she can to fight the Wicked Witch of the South (and this help is resumed to Theodora herself, and the “good people of Oz”) – and finally we get the little fact that Evanora and the Wicked Witch used to be very good friends, but they had no idea “how wicked wickedness could be, and how friendship could be betrayed”.

They arrive in front of a large, wild river, and Theodora uses leaves from a strange bush growing nearby – by rubbing them on people’s feet or shoes, it allows one to walk over water. And while Theodora walks “like a queen”, majestic, Oscar is noted to laugh like a child as he tries to walk on water, slipping like a baby giraffe taking its first steps. This is one of the main differences with the movie-Oscar: script-Oscar actually keeps being amazed and having fun in Oz, truly loving all the wonders and magic of the land, like… well like a child, as I said before. It is only after they crossed the large river that they finally arrive at the Yellow Brick Road – and there Oscar is amazed to discover that the road is paved with pure gold. Theodora just replies “Don’t they have roads, where you come from?” (gold apparently being of no real value in Oz), and Oscar promptly takes off one of the bricks from the road, keeping it from his pocket and justifying his actions by “scientific purposes” – he claims he wants to check if it isn’t the “fool’s gold”, this fake gold produced by alchemists to scam people (that’s a real thing, you can check it out). Down the Yellow Brick Road, they arrive at the “Enchanted Apple Orchard”, a nod to the apple tree segment of the MGM movie – Theodora says that if Oscar wants to take an apple, he has to ask politely the trees first, and while he does so dubitatively, the tree then shakes its branch to let apples fall at his feet so he can eat them. We also get a brief line where Theodora reveals that witches do not need to eat to survive.

We then get to the night scene by the campfire, like in the movie, and here the fire was started by lightning shot out of Theodora’s fingers – in the script Theodora’s element clearly isn’t fire but lightning, and there is also no mention of any glowing ring she might have (unlike the movie where witches power come from gems they wear). Now, Oscar does the whole “give her a music box and offers her to dance” thing from the movie, but there are MAJOR differences. Difference on Oscar’s side, as there is no “this was my grandmother” lie, or any lie at all – he just gives her the music box, and when Theodora asks him why, he explains that he just wanted to make her a gift. It is a random act of kindness, nothing more, with no ulterior motif. And there is also a major difference when it comes to Theodora’s character. As I said previously, the original Theodora was far from the shy, quiet, naïve character is in the movie. She is quiet in the script – but because she is calm, majestic and constantly analyzing the situation. It is notably made clear that she keeps observing Oscar through their travels and trying to figure out what his “deal” is. And when he shows her then offers her the music box, it is the first time she actually shows genuine emotion – a childlike wonder and delight that cracks the cold and statuesque mask she put on. This makes the line “No one ever gave me something because they wanted to” line from the movie much more impactful, as we actually see a cold Theodora warming up to a true act of kindness – and during the dance scene, it is made clear that not only has she never danced with a man before, but the script insists she probably has never touched or been in the presence of a man for this much. Which leads her to get so nervous, when the music box stops she goes into the woods to “collect fire fuel”, just to calm herself all alone.

And here we get a whole new scene, that isn’t present in the final movie, and truly puts things in another perspective. As she is alone in the woods, Theodora is caught up by Nikko, returning with a letter from Evanora, asking her sister to make sure the Wizard is a real wizard. And so to test it, Theodora takes a rabbit in the woods… and transforms it into a ferocious lion she then orders to attack the Wizard. Oscar, in front of a wild lion, while all alone, first pushes it back by making a torch out of the fire, then by using his pistol (the one we saw earlier during his consideration of suicide). He merely wounds the animal, which retreats, and Theodora later returns as if she had been away and knew nothing of the situation. Upon hearing the tale of Oscar, she marvels at such a strangely-shaped “wand” (the pistol), and Oscar, in his bravado, explains he is used to fight off lion where he comes from, and that if he could he would have wrestled him with his bare hands… all while hiding his actual hands, trembling with fear, away from Theodora’s eyes. We also learn that the pistol only had one bullet, so now is completely useless, and… oh yeah, and the lion Oscar wounded is actually the Cowardly Lion. This info is dropped in the notes of the script, and this is another flaw of the writing here – in effect, in neither the dialogues nor the visuals, we do not know it is supposed to be the Cowardly Lion, and if the scene was shot it would not be known except for reading the script. Whoever wrote this scenario forgot that sometimes you need to include info in ways that the audience will know, not just the director.

IV) Meeting Evanora

Finally, our team arrives in the central land of Oz – which is said to be “brown-hued” and they see the Emerald City, described as “Sleeping Beauty’s Castle on steroids”. Interestingly, there is a heavy insistence on dreams in this script – from the Wizard claiming roads paved with gold only existed in dreams, to here reacting in front of the City by saying “I saw this before… In one of my dreams.”. As they go down the Yellow Brick Road, they are surprised by boulders in the field nearby suddenly moving and revealing themselves to be the turtle-shell-shaped shields of an army of gnomes, “short, squat, fierce-looking warriors with skin the color and texture of stone and beards so long they tie them around their waist” and armed with all sorts of broadswords, cutlasses and battle-axes… And as they appear, on the surrounding hillside, other creatures appear – Growleywogs, “silent, half-clad, eight-foot-tall Aboriginals armed with knives, bows, arrows and spears” (*cough cough* maybe it’s a good thing this part got lost) and Whimsies “distinguished by their extraordinarily broad shoulders and enormous crazy-colored papier-mache Mardi Gras masks, wearing over their undersized heads. As you can see, this is a true feast for any book fan.

But much to Oz’s surprise, Theodora explains that these savage warriors are actually here merely to escort them to her sister, Evanora – and they form a march around them, chanting “Oh-we-oh, yo ho!”. The interesting thing with this script is that, unlike with the movie, they didn’t try to make us entirely believe that Evanora and Theodora were purely good before their turn to wickedness, and they didn’t try to play the “Oh, the wicked witch of the west is somewhere, but where?”. Instead, the original script approach was to present these two characters, Theodora and Evanora, that appear good to Oz, but clearly are much more morally ambiguous to the viewer, and who are promptly guessed as the Wicked Witches – from Theodora making the balloon burst into flames, to her testing the Wizard magic with a lion that could have killed him… And another early scene that shows the discrepancy between what Oscar as a character knows and what the audience knows: arriving in the magnificent and beautiful city, Oscar and Theodora are cheered on by all the citizens of the City, who play music and throw rose petals and applaud. The script insists that the citizens of Oz are actually formed of inhabitants taken from the four corners of Oz: Winkies and Munchkins, Gillikins and Quadlings, all dressed “in different regional colors, and all enthusiastically waving green and white flags and pennants”. Oscar is said to “eat up” and wave back at the crowd like a “returning war hero or a campaign politician”… but the audience actually get to see what Oscar doesn’t see – the fact that the palace guards of Evanora, “uniformed bully-boys”, keep passing behind the crowd, making sure the citizens are cheering the wizard’s entrance with “enough gusto”, and overall giving the audience a strong sense that all is not what it quite seems in the Merry Old Land of Oz… (Funnily we also get here the line “What, no fireworks?” from Oscar, delivered to a confused Theodora who asks “What are fireworks?”

Escorted by Theodora, still “grand and glorious”, Oscar finally meets Evanora, Queen of Oz, sitting on the Emerald Throne – older than Theodora, but no less attractive, with a “powerful presence” and “penetrating gaze”. Evanora, curious and amused at the sight of the Wizard, notes that he does not kneel in front of her, and Oz answers that he is American “and Americans kneel to no one”. Evanora, delighted by the Wizard’s character, has him escorted by Munchkin maids to his chambers, and once she is alone with Theodora, she reveals that she saw everything that happened since the Wizard’s arrival in his crystal ball (just like in the movie – and Theodora is also clearly aware of her sister’s surveillance, since earlier she seemed to spoke to her sister despite her not being there, and now it is revealed that it was because she knew she was watching their every move). Evanora also has a “big sister” moment with Theodora, as she points out she noticed how Theodora grew to like the Wizard, and how he “likes” her in return. Theodora is almost blushing and can’t look at her sister in the eyes… And then we are dropped the frightening lines of Evanora: “And who can blame you? You’re still so young… and you still have feelings, don’t you?”. After this ominous line implying that Evanora doesn’t have any feelings anymore herself, she reassures Theodora that she did the right thing by bringing the Wizard here.

After Oscar enjoyed his private chambers and a large meal, he has a private chat with Evanora who, just like in the movie, goes to show her the “Room of Resplendence”, the Crown Jewels of Oz, enormous piles of gemstones and jewels. And just like in the movie, Evanora is trying to play on Oscar’s greed, as she heard from her sister that he liked “shiny things” (a nod to the Yellow Brick incident). But there are some differences here and there in the scene… Such as how Evanora actually slips word about how “pretty” her sister is and how she is fond of the Wizard (clearly trying to put them together), and also how the treasury is actually guarded by both guards AND a curtain of fire that Evanora needs to make disappear by magic (plus a stout wooden door with iron bands and multiple locks that Evanora also opens by magic, with just a wave of her hand).

But then… Things take a dark turn and we go away from the movie’s chronology. Evanora presents to Oz an artefact known as the “Diamond Dagger” – a six inches blade of razor-sharp steel, with a cross guard of filigreed gold, and a hilt encrusted in glittering diamonds. And Evanora says that he will inherit the treasury of Oz if he kills the “Wicked Witches”. Oscar is confused, as he only knew of one Wicked Witch. And Evanora reveals to him that her own sister, Theodora, is actually a Wicked Witch herself, secretly conspiring with the Wicked Witch of the South. Evanora insists that Oscar must use the Diamond Dagger to kill Theodora, and that Theodora only brought him to the city in hope of tricking him into killing her and become the new Queen. She seems convinced that Theodora offered the Wizard to share the crown in exchange for this murder, but Evanora warns him that after obtaining what she wanted, the seducing Theodora will “eat you like a spider”. And as Evanora dematerialize, fading into nothing, she declares “Prove to me you’re the Wizard you say you are, the Wizard we’ve all been waiting for. Kill my sister, then together you and I will defeat the Witch of the South once and for all. Kill my sister, Wizard – and you’ll be King.”

Now, Oz is deeply confused, and he tried to explain to Evanora she was wrong, to no avail. So, hiding the Dagger in his belt and understanding the danger Theodora is in, he promptly goes to her home and tries to convince her to leave the City… But before he can anything else, Evanora promptly appears in Theodora’s room – forming herself out of a moving shadow that was sliding along the wall. Using her magic, Evanora pushes Oscar against the wall and uses some telekinesis to choke him so he can’t speak, and she plays a Reverse Uno card on him. She pretends she is saving Theodora’s life, that Oscar was sent by the Witch of the South to murder her, and she uses the Diamond Dagger he has on him as a proof. Theodora, shocked but unable to truly believe her sister’s accusations, is flabbergasted – and it doesn’t help that Oscar has been knocked out cold by Evanora’s magic. However, playing the card of the subtlety, Evanora agrees that maybe she is wrong – maybe he wasn’t sent by the Witch of the South, but by another, or maybe he wanted to act on his own… and to make sure she isn’t acting “unfairly” here, she promises she will interrogate the Wizard tomorrow and get the truth out of him. But upon seeing Theodora’s horrified face, we understand that for Evanora “interrogating” means something truly awful.

[emilylsart]

OOPS ALL GIDEONS

PS @that-weirdmango2 here's not one...but two Credzilla jumpscares for ya...if you want 'em ;)

[octobre-ackedia]

I'm gonna rewrite Megamind VS The Doom Syndicate but make it actually good and I have an entire doc with ideas already and idk, does anyone even want to read that?

[scalproie]

the upper half of Sentinel "Prime" after only having ruled over Cybertron for the human equivalent of barely a month

[annieisyourfavourite]

anyone saying the barbie movie is a 10/10 must be tripping balls, holy shit. like i get liking the movie. but for real read some judith butler and elevate your feminism past 2010-Buzzfeed-Disney-Princess-girlboss "men and women are different species" "there must be the oppressor and the oppressed in gender dynamics, so women might as well be on the top this time" feminism like oh my god

[ladyknight33]

Opinons on the New Style of Live Action Storytelling

Tl:dr: The 8 episode format for the new Live Action stories is too limited for the complex stories of the original source material. Action scenes and Magical displays are not substitutes for building tension and climatic battles. The characters and storytellers deserve better. 

*

As much as I am enjoying this new era of small screen scripted fiction through the streaming services, I am a bit disappointed in how rushed every show feels. The six to eight episodes force the story to hit key points without allowing the story to actually breathe and endear itself to the viewers. 

First of all, I do not believe all stories must be done in the Live Action format because locks the world into the physics we understand within our own physical world. This limits much of the imaginative qualities a work of fiction inspires. 

Example: when watching an animated Star Wars Jedi do amazing feats accredited to the Force, it is spectacular and defies the known laws of physic. When a live action Jedi attempts the same feats, the action is dulled down to fit the current CGI limitations. This holds true for any magic or anything non-real. 

This leads into a second issue live action formats fall victim to: intense focus on special effects.  Storytelling is forced to take a backseat to the long sequences of beautiful CGI images or fight scenes. T.V. and Film are visual media and they thrive on fantastic imagery. These scenes are necessary when trying to tell a visual story, but not when it takes away from character development and slows the pace of the story. 

Example: The epic fantasy series I grew up reading, The Wheel of TimeI, was long due for a visual adaptation. I have accepted that the show is not the book, but there are pacing issues that could have been avoided if the limited time had not been spent on the intense focus of weaving magic or on action sequences that took the majority of the episode.

The pacing issues are found when significant plot points must be achieved within a limited time, to the detriment of character development, dialogue, and space for the viewer to absorb what is happening. Plot points are the anchors of the story. They are what pulls characters across continents to fulfill destinies. But the story is what happens along the way. 

The plot points of Lord of the Rings are how Frodo gets the ring, is told to destroy it, and finally destroying it. The story is the emotional and physical toll it takes on Frodo and his companions on the way to destroy the ring. The pacing must allow for this internal conflict to which is so central to Frodo’s development. Action scenes are the point where all the built up tension must break. Jumping from action to action, fight to fight, gives no time for the conflict to build. 

Example: Avatar: The Last Airbender is an epic tale of young teens trying to save the world. But they encounter so much during their journey that it takes 20 episodes to tell the first part of the story. The live action is only allowed 8 episodes to introduce the four main characters and the many important secondary characters, and then take them across the four nations, improve their talents, create love interests (Sokka really has two women fall in love with him on two separate occasions in under a day? Really?), and every episode must have an epic fight scene which does little but show the impressive powers of Bending. 

It doesn’t seem fair. 

Why does a book that requires nearly a thousand page to tell a complex story get reduced to 8 episodes. Why does an animated series that required 20 episodes to tell a complex story get reduced to 8 episodes. Why does a manga which required a hundred  chapters or 50 episodes to tell a complex story get reduced to 8 episodes.

Who decided 8 episodes was the new standard? Even at almost an hour long, 8 episodes constrain the story and leave the audience annoyed and how much potential was wasted. 

The anime One Piece is another epic story I grew up with and am still thoroughly enjoying. It doesn’t seem fair that it was reduced to 8 episodes. The series still had the same trouble as all live action remakes, but they embraced the new format and retold the story with the limited time. It cut many scenes I personally enjoyed and believed to be integral to character development (I’m looking at Zoro’s fight with Arlong and Sanji rescuing Luffy from drowning) but it allowed time for the characters to interact and find a balance. The special effects are blended into the story telling and not showcased in their own long, though pretty, sequences. 

Even the shows created with the 8 episode limited series in mind have trouble getting the right blend of character development and epic fight scenes. 

Obi-wan Kenobi had great potential but left viewers unsatisfied. Ahsoka fell into the same pattern of long silent solo scenes or abrupt violent clashes. For me Ahsoka at least felt like a very long movie if watched in one sitting. Kenobi left me wanting to know more about the new character, Reva, but she was stuck as a one dimensional villain in favor of a Darth Vader Kenobi duel. Ahsoka spent much of its time trying to introduce the characters and plot of Star Wars: Rebels and revisiting Ahsoka’s past that they almost forgot that they were trying to tell a new story. 

Each of these shows have great scenes and showcase wonderful characters. The creators of these shows have wonderful shows that came before. 

The 8 episode choice is a poor one. It must be longer than a movie but shorter than a stander T.V. series. The stories chosen are far more complicated than what a movie can handle but need more time to truly develop into an epic story that is revered by audiences long after its conclusion. Yes, I’m referring to Avatar: The Last Airbender Animated Series. 

A story as complex as The Wheel of Time or One Piece deserves a T.V. soap opera treatment. The Live Action Avatar: The Last Airbender needs at least twice as many episodes to follow the characters and show their development without everything feeling cramped and rushed. Ahsoka could have been a two night event. A two hour movie on each night, one before Peridia and one after. Kenobi would have benefited from at least two more episodes to allow Reva to really shine as a new villain or to have removed the character all together.

After a long drought of scripted sci/fi and fantasy, I am thrilled to see the development of all of these stories. I can’t wait for more. But I am terrified that this 8 episode format is going to kill the movement because none of these stories have the staying power or time to draw in new audiences. 

Remakes are lovely, but if they are only done as fan-service or fulfillment of a single person’s desire to have their name on it, then don’t. Live action has some how become synonymous with legitimacy. As if animation is not simply a method of storytelling, but as a child only form. Live action should bring in new audiences to beloved stories, not infuriate the old. The pace of storytelling should be of prime importance, not constrained to an arbitrary number of episodes. 

So I am saying farewell to the many scenes I wished could be recreated in this world of live actions remakes. We each have them. And I retain hope that new seasons and series will do better. 

[inkmaze]

shaking lawrence gordon round like a bug in a jar

[velvet4510]

Film Frodo at Weathertop: “Aaaaah Black Riders! Help me! Help me!”

Book Frodo at Weathertop: “You better watch your foot dude because I’ve got Elbereth on my side HYAAAAAH!!!”

[witchesoz]

Seriously, when you read the script with the finished movie in mind, it teaches you a LOT about how creative projects can be stunted and disfigured. There's so many things I could mention, but Theodora... In the original draft she was a fascinating and complex character, fitting very well the idea of a pre-Witch of the West. Meanwhile in the movie Theodora is... well, whatever she is.

Given we are going to fall back into an Ozian time, I wish to say this again: I do believe that the original draft of "Oz the Great and Powerful" was much better, more efficient, and more well-written than what the movie ended up being.

And comparing the original draft with how the movie actually looks like is a good example of what happens when movie-makers take a good idea, interesting characters and cool concepts, and then water them down and limit things until it all becomes superficial, cliche, boring, and with nasty implicits.

The original draft wasn't perfect but damn it, it had heart and soul, understood the original material, and I would pay if it had to be made today. If we had the storyline and the characters from the original draft, with the visuals and special effects of the final movie, we could have had a fascinating piece of alternate Oz.

[witchesoz]

Oz the Great and Powerful: Script vs Movie (2)

V) Escaping the Emerald City

We find back Oscar now in the Emerald City dungeons, guarded by two creatures, a Whimsie on one side and a Gnome on the other. The two taunt the Wizard and try to scare him by pointing out that tomorrow’s torture session (because this is what Evanora meant by “interrogation”) will be quite horrible, especially since the Queen is an expert at it. The Whimsie and Gnome also make it clear that they will gladly enjoy eating the Wizar’s flesh once she is done with him – the Whimsie preferring a “slow roast” while the Gnome prefers having the Wizard “flayed alive”. Oscar, in return, insults the Gnome’s beard, only to have the Gnome reply proudly that this beard is the source of his potency and strength – and the Whimsie mock him, because he precise that if you hit a Gnome in the beard you’ll defeat them quite easily, only for the Gnome to bitterly answer back that if you take off the mask of a Whimsie’s head they’ll flee in shame of their real appearance – and so, their bickering actually makes Oscar learn of how to defeat both of their species as a whole. The two guards then leave him alone – but Oscar uses his talents as an escape artist/contortionist to actually escape the chains that bind him to the wall of the dungeons, he then lures the guard back into the dungeon by using his ventriloquism to make it sound like people are here to rescue him – and once they’re inside he knocks them out using the knowledge he gained earlier. And as he is about to leave, he is suddenly greeted face to face with… Kala, Theodora’s winged monkey.

Because meanwhile, in her room, Theodora was looking thoughtfully at the music box of Oscar, and playing again and again its music (it is Mozart by the way). The music ends up touching “whatever is left in her Witch heart” as the script says (another quite ominous line), and she decides to write a small note to the Wizard, that she tasked Kala to deliver alongside with a key – the key to the dungeons. She wanted him to escape! But Kala arrives right as the Wizard managed to escape all by himself, having stolen the keys from the guards. And then… Surprise! Kala can talk like a human! Before all he did was just mimicking his messages or using his facial expressions to express his feelings (he notably frowned several time during his scenes, at both what Theodora said and what Oscar himself said) – but now he makes full sentences, and he tells the Wizard “We need to go to Glinda now, to help you! Quick! And Glinda is the Witch of the South! And by the way, she isn’t a Wicked Witch – she is a Good Witch, but the sisters are the Wicked Witches. Let’s go!

After they leave the Emerald City, Evanora summons the guards that were knocked out. They pretend that the Wizard simply vanished into thin air, turning into cold smoke before disappearing – but the note Kala was supposed to carry to the Wizard was left behind, dropped in the moment of panic, and Evanora gained knowledge of it. After quickly sentencing to death the two guards who failed at their duty, she summons Theodora and reveals to the audience the content of the note: “I’m sorry, I never should have brought you here – don’t worry, I will help you.” Evanora is deeply disappointed by her sister’s treachery, and despite Theodora’s insistence than maybe the Wizard will NOT go join the Witch of the South, Evanora deeply believes he will join her against them – and to add a final insult, she says that Glinda’s charms are much greater than Theodora’s.

Meanwhile, Evanora sends her entire army of “savages” (the way the script keeps reusing these words for the species serving Evanora is making me a bit uncomfortable) after the Wizard, with the job to catch him alive BEFORE he can reach the Witch of the South. But as they run, suddenly something arrives from the South – the Impenetrable Mist, a thick spectral fog moving across the land, sent by Glinda to cover everything in an ocean of clouds. The Impenetrable Mist confuses the “savage army”, who is promptly lost – when the mist goes away, the Wizard is gone, and the generals of the army agree that it must have been him who conjured up this spell. After all, he did come from the clouds, didn’t he? But meanwhile Kala and the Wizard actually follow a glowing orb inside the mist, who guides them towards the right direction.

We get here another good look at how a scene was originally intended, versus how the scene ends up. Remember from the movie, the scene of Oscar meeting for the first time the winged monkey servant, who swears a life-debt to him? Well this scene exists in the original script… but completely reversed. Oscar asks for the monkey’s name, which is revealed to be Kala ; he then insists on shaking the hand (well, paw) of the monkey, which surprises the creature as no one did that before ; and finally it is OSCAR who says he is in debt to Kala for saving his life, not the reverse. We have again a very significant change, showing how different the script’s original intentions were compared to what the movie ended up as. As the two chat, we also learn more things. We learn that Kala is the only winged monkey that can talk, a magical gift from Glinda, and that he secretly served her as a spy – Theodora herself didn’t know Kala could speak or had any contact with Glinda. Kala also brings the big revelation. Theodora and Evanora are wicked witch-sisters, both of them – though the difference is that Evanora is completely and fully wicked, while Theodora is “not all the way wicked yet”.

This is the big difference between the movie, where Theodora is a naïve good witch fooled by her very own sister (and in fact, fooled by everyone, so REALLY naïve), and the script, who has the very interesting (and almost genius I would say) idea of having Theodora be a wicked witch… but one who still actually has some good and decency inside her. Suddenly, the lines of Evanora earlier make sense: “You still have feelings”… Evanora is purely wicked because she implies she got rid of her human feelings, but Theodora still kept them, and so this makes her actually “less” wicked than her sister. Consider this: in the movie, we have just a naïve, sheltered, shy girl’s dreamy romance that, once broken, leads her to become, out of jealousy and sadness, the most wicked creature in all of Oz… Something really “try-to-be-edgy” and “moody” and “cheap Elphaba”. But in the original script, the idea was that Oscar/the Wizard, out of his generosity and kindness, had managed to strike the last part of humanity in a wicked witch’s heart, and rekindle the flame of love and compassion in a sorceress on the side of the villain. We are already in something much more complex and interesting! In fact, the final movie overall feels like a big over-simplification of everything the script tried to build up. Theodora story is one good example: “What? A wicked witch that still has some humanity left, and so helps the hero, but then plunges back into full wickedness? No, that’s too complicated, let’s just make her all good, and then all bad”

Anyway, once all of this explanation is done, the Mist Maidens arrive, beautiful ghostly female apparitions made of fog, with “flowing hair and robes, and arms of white”, here to guide the duo towards Glinda. This is a nice nod to the books, yes… but it is an unnecessary one. It is one of the slight flaws of this script – while the efforts to make Oz books references are well appreciated, especially since they touch some of the most obscure part of the literary lore, they tend to be… a bit too much. You have a lot of unnecessary references that kind of bloat up the movie and might confuse someone not familiar with the book. Like the Mist Maidens: they just appear in one scene, disappear completely with no mention, and their role is redundant, since it is specified there is already a glowing orb in the mist guiding the duo… and the orb will play a more important part than the Mist Maidens, so they are utterly and completely unnecessary.

We cut to a scene between Evanora, who toys with the Diamond Dagger, and Theodora. Evanora insists that she was right, and that the Wizard is now on his way to Glinda’s to ally himself with her. And so Evanora puts to Theodora a choice: Choose me, or her. Theodora is quite shocked at the idea that she could choose Glinda over her own sister – but Evanora reveals that she knows Theodora too well, and she knows that a part of Theodora actually still wants to be “like Glinda”. To be beautiful and beloved, not hated and feared like Evanora. Despite this knowledge, Evanora actually doesn’t resent her sister, but rather slowly works on corrupting her (the script references several times the fact that Evanora’s words are like drops of poisons). She just gently strokes Theodora’s hair, and tells her that being a good witch isn’t who she is, or who she is meant to be ; she adds that she needs her for help, and that being “halfway” isn’t enough ; she insists: “Join me so we can defeat them all, and rule for the next thousand years… And all it will cost you is your heart.”

And meanwhile, rumors spread across the Emerald City – the citizens chatting and gossiping to each other about what the “Wonderful Wizard” did, with tales ranging from him being able to walk through the walls, to him turning into an eight-foot giant to escape…

VI) Meeting Glinda

The Wizard and Kala finally arrive at the Quadling Country, which is protected by a shimmering wall extending from east to west, making everything behind it look “hazy, like a mirage”, a force-field. The glowing orb guiding them actually opens a portal through the wall, which closes right after they went through. And at this point, Kala leaves on his own to warn Glinda of their arrival, leaving the Wizard to walk on his own to the castle of Glinda. And…

… we reach here one of the bad parts of the script. Not because it is bad-bad. But just because it mixes bad pacing with the flow I quoted above, of the over-abundance of book references. Oscar walks on his own through the Quadling Country, seeing the many strange sights in it – Ripple Land, the Dainty China Country, the Hammerheads… This is a trip typical of a Baum book, with ton of Oz book content… But it isn’t really necessary, and kind of bloats the plot, and grinds its pace to a halt. It could be easily cut or reshaped. Let’s look at it step, by step, shall we? The Ripple Land part is definitively not necessary, since it is just a visual trick evoking Baum’s original description of a land in constant ripples, with hills becoming valleys and valleys becoming hills – a nice visual to see, but not much needed here. I mean, we have entered the point of crisis of the story, there is an urgency, we are not here to take a stroll down the wonderful land anymore.

Then we have a scene at the Dainty China Country and… I have to say, the scene in the script is actually very weak, where the scene of the Dainty China Country in the movie is very good. In the script, Oscar surprises a little china girl who breaks one of her legs – but she treats it as if it was nothing, claiming her mother has some glue to repair her, and she just says that he doesn’t look much like a Wizard before running away. While it adds to the whole wonder of the Land of Oz… It is nothing and can easily be cut. Especially since this movie doesn’t have the secondary character of the Little China Girl, and no parallel to the wheelchair girl in the real word (who herself doesn’t exist in this early script). But in the movie, having the Dainty China Country scene be a tragic one, showing the devastation of the Wicked Witch, and the whole thing with the Wizard rescuing a broken girl, literally… It was a powerful scene, that worked really well, and helped Oscar recognize that he had a huge responsibility in the events unfolding. More than that, this scene in the movie helped show some of the darkness of Oz, and added some seriousness to the whole business… In fact, I think it is something that the original script seems to miss a bit, some bit of dark seriousness in it. But again, if they went for an “early Pirate of the Caribbean vibe”, it works really well. As for the meeting of the Hammerheads, it is just them starting to beat up Oz with their heads, and playing volleyball with him, before putting him down when learning that he is the Wizard. Some kind of cartoonish violence that, again, doesn’t feel really right nor useful. The only useful info is that we learn how the Hammerheads got their arms stolen by the Wicked Witch of the East – aka Evanora, and even then this is just… really confusing. Why are they referring to her as the Wicked Witch of the East? Evanora is currently the illegitimate Queen of Oz – she doesn’t rule specifically from the East. And even if she did came from there originally, it is very confusing since later Theodora will be referred to as the “Wicked Witch of the West”, so it possibly can’t be based on their places of origin since they are said to be sisters… I think they just dropped the names there to make sure the audience knew which character was which – but it doesn’t make any sense. I much prefer the movie not giving us the actual title but letting us guess, from the sisters leaving into different directions, who they will become.

Anyway, let’s leave this tedious travel behind and finally arrive at Glinda’s palace. White, radiant and glorious, seemingly made of “living crystal”, with a courtyard like the Gardens of Babylon. Oscar is quite surprised to find the castle empty, no servants or guards in there, to what Kala replies that Glinda, since she is a witch, needs “no one”. An interesting detail implying that if the wicked witches keep servants in their palace it is by choice, not by necessity. We also get this fascinating exchange: Oscar says “Independent-minded, is she? I like that in a woman”, only for Kala to answer “She is not a woman: she is a witch”. It is actually a leitmotif that returns later, how witches are not actually women, and drives the sense of otherworldliness of their characters that had already been established by Theodora (who pointed out for example how witches do not need to eat). Glinda finally appears, in a magic bubble like in the MGM movie, and to describe her, whoever wrote the script actually quotes Joseph Campbell “The paragon of all paragons of beauty, the reply to all desire, the incarnation of the promise of perfection”. The one who wrote this script clearly had big ideas. The only other info we have is that Glinda has the bearing of a “pirate queen” (again, reinforces my Pirate of the Caribbean vibe). Now, Glinda informs Oscar that Kala has some doubts about him being a Wizard – and Oscar manages to get out of this by claiming that while he can’t shake mountains or turn water into wine, he deals in illusions. And to Glinda, it just seems that he is a shoddy and not very powerful wizard (though a wizard still) – but as she says, she’ll still take him because he is the only wizard they got, plus if he managed to escape Evanora it means he is resourceful enough.

Glinda then has Oscar greet the “Good People of the South”, that gathered to celebrate him and form an army to fight off the Wicked Witches at the Wizard’s command. It is similar in principle to the scene of Oscar meeting Glinda’s forces in the final movie, and yet very different. In scope at first – we are here talking of thousands of people gathering by Glinda’s palace. And in content, as instead of the movie’s usage of “recognizable” faces like the Munchkins and whatnot, the script originally did reuse the actual inhabitants of the South of Oz. The Cuttenclip soldiers, the Hammerheads, Dainty China soldiers and farmers, the Fuddles, and the inhabitants of Utensia… Leading to a truly fantastical assembly of weird creatures and entities. In front of this huge gathering, Oscar tries to back out – he explains he can’t be a warlord, because it requires someone with “brains, heart and courage” (wink towards the original story). Glinda explains that, while she is the most powerful of the three sorceresses in Oz, it is dangerous for her to face alone two Wicked Witches at once, as they could actually destroy her – and if Glinda dies, than all “hopes and dreams will die in Oz for a thousand years”. (It is quite interesting how the Wicked Witches plan to rule for a thousand years, and Glinda’s death would mean the rule of wickedness for just a thousand year, I wonder what’s the deal with this specific time limit, maybe it is the span of a life-cycle among Witches?). Oscar asks Glinda what she will do if he refuses to help, and Glinda flat out tells him she’ll banish him from Quadling Country and leave him into the hand of the Wicked Sisters. Oscar answers “And they say you’re the Good Witch!” to which Glinda explains “A Good Witch is still a Witch, and a Witch wants what she wants – and I want these people to be free”. This last point is actually what strikes a chord inside Oscar’s heart, because as he confesses to Glinda, in his own homeland “nothing is free”.

So he ultimately agrees to go check this army with Glinda, see what they can come up with… But he is very disappointed upon seeing the result. The Cuttenclip soldiers are just soldiers made of paper, and so easily destroyed ; the Dainty China soldiers also break off too easily ; the Fuddles are actually living puzzles, who fall into pieces if they feel too strong emotions such as surprise or terror. The Hammerheads are the only ones who seem to be efficient in a war, since Oscar himself felt their punch, and as he starts saying that the inhabitants of Utensia – which are living kitchen utensils, with eyes, arms and legs – could be useful into killing people… Glinda drops the bomb on him. The inhabitants of Utensia cannot kill anyone, because they are enchanted and “anything enchanted cannot kill”. Even more: no one born in Oz can kill, except the Witches and Wizards. Oscar is baffled and asks what about the servants of the Wicked Witches, the Gnomes, Whimsies and the like – and Glinda explains that they can kill because they are actually not from Oz. [Self note: while this is an excellent conundrum to place in front of the Wizard, and a nice nod to the literary canon, Glinda just dropping the fact the Wicked Witches servant are Oz-born leaves some questions open – such as where do they come from, or how the Wicked Witches got them? The script doesn’t answer this.] As Glinda says, it is precisely because the Good People of Oz cannot kill that they need a Wizard…

… and this leads Oscar to realize something. Glinda can’t actually just cast him away if he refuses – because she said it, they need him, they need a wizard and he is the only one they got. So he ultimately forces Glinda into a bargain: he wants a guarantee to get into this whole war business, some sort of price or reward. And what he asks? He first asks for the treasury Evanora promised him, to become rich, and then he asks to be allowed to leave the Land of Oz. In his own words, he is actually fed up with this country where monkeys fly, and witches want to kill him, and where everyone looks up to him as if he got the answer to everything – so he wants to leave all that, and he reiterates his original dream for a “colorful, lively, beautiful land” but this time he twists it so that what he wants is rather “where the rich people go”, “rooms of soft carpets, beds of eiderdown, champagne out of cut crystal” and he wants that, when people see him in his gilded carriage, people say “that’s somebody”. This is a fascinating twist because in the script we saw him earlier fully enjoying and loving the wonderland that is Oz like a child, as it perfectly fitted his original dream… and yet, now that he is faced with both danger and responsibility, he freaks out, rejects all of this, and sets his goal on much baser, more materialistic dream, and now only thinks of luxury and comfort. We actually get to see here the “true nature” of the Wizard popping out, as his optimism and childish wonder wears out, uncovering something deeper that motivates him – ambition and greed for example. And yet… yet, we are left wondering if this truly that, because while Glinda coldly agrees to these terms, she adds “Wouldn’t it be funny if you turn out to be the man they [the people of Oz] imagine you to be…” and “The man you’ve always dreamed of being”. A line that strikes a nerve in the Wizard’s mind, and Glinda perfectly knows it – implying she actually is quite of a psychological master that could see under the Wizard’s blasé attitude, and guess the actual initial kindness and desire to help people that we glimpsed earlier (such as with Oscar’s attitude towards Theodora).

VII) Preparing for battle

We cut back to the “Theodora crying scene” from the movie, but as with everything else, it is very different from the finished product. Most notably, in the script, Theodora doesn’t cry on her own. She is clearly sad and pained upon learning that the Wizard has reached Glinda’s land and joined with her – but she doesn’t cry for it. Remember, in the script she is this calm and majestic figure. What makes her cry… is Evanora herself. She uses a subtle form of verbal abuse against her sister to force her to cry, reminding her how she was used, played by, fooled by the Wizard; how Glinda will be the Wizard’s queen and not her ; how the Wizard will only return to the Emerald City to cut Theodora’s head off… It is all part of Evanora’s plan to break Theodora into falling deeper into wickedness. But we don’t cut into the “Theodora’s transformation” scene right now… In fact, this scene won’t happen before a LONG time. Meanwhile, as all I describe below happen, from time to time we get brief scenes of Evanora and Theodora watching over the events and Evanora informing her sister of the Wizard’s actions, to further break her down. While it is interesting because it shows that Theodora still fights off her sister’s influence and takes her time to carefully consider fully joining her, these scenes are also utterly pointless and don’t serve anything, so they can easily be cut with no problem.

On the night of meeting with Glinda’s army, and after studying the maps of Oz, a sleepy Oscar starts telling Glinda about the “Wizard of Menlo Park, Edison” – he gives Glinda the whole speech he gave the Dainty China Girl in the movie, and falls asleep as he finishes it… and it is as he wakes up that he has his genius idea on how to defeat the Wicked Witches with just a fake Wizard and an army that can’t kill. I will leave here his actual over-excited description of his great project, because I quite like it:

Oz bursts in, all excited, waving his sketches in the air. OZ I’ve got it! I know how we can beat them! What I have in mind is an historic extravaganza of Olympian proportions! Using good old American Know-How and Ingenuity, smoke and mirrors, Son et Lumiere, I intend to create an illusion of such magnificent magnificence that it will boggle the mind and bedazzle the senses! It will, in other words, send the Sisters and their Savage Army into such paroxysms of Awe and Wonder that they will flee the Emerald City like rats from a burning barn! (then, much quieter) And the one tiny little potential hiccup is... I have no technical expertise whatsoever and, therefore, no way of turning these renderings into reality.

To this last part, Glinda kindly redirects him to the Elves of Oz, who actually work at “Smith & Tinkers” (another nod to the books). The Elves of Smith & Tinkers are said to look a lot like “Santa’s helpers”, and from there on we get the kind of same training/preparation montage we have from the movie, with the Elves building all the contraptions Oscar will need, and the various tribes, clans and inhabitants of the South preparing for battle, training, putting on battle colors, etc… During all of that, Glinda notices that Oscar seems to be deeply enjoying it. Oscar answers back that he is actually terrified, because it is the first time so many people rely on him… and, very interestingly, Oscar shows that he still cares about Theodora because he wonders what will happen to her if they reach Emerald City – he even entertains the idea that she could join them to fight against Evanora. But Glinda considers her doomed – she recognized that there was some good left in them, but not much, since she spent too much time fighting both her sister’s influence and the wickedness inside herself. Oscar later also reveals who his father was and why he is like that. Again, I’ll leave the actual words here:

OZ He was a preacher, who went from dusty town to dusty town selling dreams of a better life and a better world -- but this world and this life beat him down to next to nothing, and even as a child I promised myself that was not gonna happen to me. I might’ve come from the dirt but I always believed my future was in the stars. (looks over at her) And I believe that future is now -- I can feel it -- my whole life’s been leading up to this.

GLINDA I believe that too. I believe this is your Destiny. (beat) And I believe in you, Wizard.

And finally, everyone is ready. Glinda rides on a pure white steed, Oz rather mounts a “Horse of a Different Color” whose coat keeps changing in a true kaleidoscope of hues, and together they face their trained and prepared army, before Oz delivers one final discourse:

OZ My friends! Back where I come from we have a saying: Ad astra per aspera -- it’s the motto of the Great State of Kansas and in Wizard[1]speak it means: “To the stars, through difficulties.” We also say: E Pluribus Unum: “Out of many, one.” And that is us today: One people -- one army -- and, together, we shall reach the stars! Are you with me! (the Army roars back a resounding YES!) Are you with me! A louder YES! -- then, to Glinda, under his breath -- This is your last chance to talk me out of this. Glinda just smiles -- then shouts out to the troops: TO OZ AND THE EMERALD CITY!

[emilylsart]

Uh oh, what's this?...The G-Man has risen...INTO SOMETHING MONSTROUS!!

It's been a long time coming, but here's my concept for Credzilla, aka Gideon Graves' "giant monster form" as seen in the early movie script for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, written in 2007! Believe me, I've been going a bit crazy for this guy for a month now ever since @that-weirdmango2 introduced me to the script and has recently been wanting to see this version of Gideon more...and I agree with him! For days and days I've been sketching this monster man and I've finally found a use for him (may change but this is fine for now)!

Well, here's some info about my version of Credzilla:

Credzilla dons his tall stature as well as the flowy, super saiyan-like hair from his subspace form as seen in final volume of the comic series.

Credzilla's strong body type came from his Super Gideon Graves form (as seen in the video game). The doodle on the top right is kind of a redraw of Super Gideon's intro screen.

Credzilla's powers include shooting flames (with words) out of his mouth and an optical blast straight out of his glasses!

His glasses appear pure white while in this form, but his eyes appear when mad or just plain crazy.

Yes, Credzilla has "the glow" all over him. He does that when receiving his "coolness" from his followers, allowing him to grow continuously...until he reaches his full potential as the GOD OF COOL!! Whatever he'll do next after reaching this form is not good by our standards!

One of Credzilla's "mini-weaknesses" is a remark/comment that he claims "uncool". The one true weakness is to find out what REALLY makes him tick...if Scotty P. can find a way to LITERALLY get inside his head (just like in the early script)!

That's it about my ideas about Credzilla so far...I may be making a little comic/alt. scene to the movie about him, but I'll have to see when I get there.

[tagging: @that-weirdmango2]

[filmcourage]

Being An Artist Isn't What You Think it Is - P.M. Lipscomb

Watch the video interview on Youtube here.

[misterbaritone]

Ok so Young Neil is making a movie based on the events of the book/film as they should’ve went. That feels me with uncertain feelings

[heartlesscad]

Welll.....

There's something hilarious about how so much subsequent media has positioned Vampires and Werewolves as, like, binary opposite entities, and then you read Dracula (1897) and realize that wolves are that guy's preferred solution to every problem. You'd say something to Dracula about "ah yes, werewolves, vampires' great eternal enemies," and he'd just be like "you mean my subcontractors?"

[miss-floral-thief]

lol even flexing with cheat skills editing also sounds like a pain versus hiring