I came across a bit of news from Comic-Con about a prequel to the "Wizard of Oz." The visuals look really breathtaking, but I'm not sure about the plotline yet.
Have a look:
http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=742751
I'm also not sure about using a young, handsome guy as the Wizard. I would have though Matthew Broderick bore more of a resemblance to Frank Morgan, the actor who played the character in the 1939 movie.
But I guess he was either unavailable or just not thought of.
Anyway, the movie looks like it could be of interest.
Yeah--I tried to read the original "Oz" series a few months ago, and found Baum's writing to be uneven in quality--some of the books were terrific, and others were clumsy and lacking in inspiration.
I also could not get into "Wicked." I haven't seen the stage play, but the book was so mean-spirited in its re-interpretation of what is essentially a fun kiddie story that it turned me off. I realize it's meant to tell the Oz story from the Wicked Witch's point of view, but it started sounding like a plot cobbled together from episodes of the Jerry Springer show. It kinda bugs me when people take something happy and fun, and load it up with angst and tear it to pieces. It makes me wonder why they wanted to write the story to begin with--did this guy really hate "The Wizard of Oz" so much that he had to make the good characters evil and the bad ones, noble creatures suffering fdrom a cruel world?
Anyway, this new movie looks really interesting, and possibly in tune with the spirit of the original stories.
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