laura_seabrook: (Default)


User avatar
Posts: 1337
Referrals: 0
Registration date: 27th Feb 2011
Location: Barnsley, NSW, Australia
I'D EAGERLY WAITED FOR Oz the Great and Powerful, and despite my correctly guessing the whole plot from the trailer, I enjoyed it muchly!

image

Essentially a Disney prequel to the MGM film version of the 1st book (there were 13 more), that makes this pastiche (much like the bazillion Sherlock Holmes stories), but the writers have at least read their source material - there's references to Quadlings, and places that were in Baum's first book but which got written out of the MGM film. I loved backgrounds as well, which seem to be a mutant child of Maxfield Parrish and Roger Dean. See if you can spot a couple of lines/ideas stolen from Wicked.

I wish I had the figure for any of Theodora's outfits (both "before" and "after")! Also, I can well imagine that if this film is successful, that it will become the first in an unintended trilogy, the sence being The Marvelous Land of Oz and the third Ozma of Oz (one can only hope)!!!!!

A thought

Apr. 28th, 2011 08:11 pm
laura_seabrook: (Default)


Damnit - where's my FIYERO?

laura_seabrook: (smile)

Well, I went and saw The Wizard of Oz on the big screen, and overall I loved it. But...

Flaws

As shown, the top and bottom of the film was cropped. I noticed this almost immediately when the opening prologue text seemed to be missing half a line at the top. It was most noticeable in two scenes. The first was where the Witch threatens Dorothy and group from the roof of the Tin Man's house next to the yellow brick road. The Witch's head was cropped out of the frame as she speaks! Also, the classic scene where Dorothy says "And you were thee, and you were there... was severely cropped so that you could barely see Dorothy at all. In fact it looked like this (greyed areas did not show).

I mentioned this cropping to the staff, because maybe other films got cropped as well (for instance, yesterday when I saw THOR bits of both sides were outside the screen).

It was clear by the number and type of scratches on the film, and times the colour registration went out of focus (presumably on a reel change), that this was real film, rather than a digital distribution of the same (which i know they use at that cinema because when I saw Avatar in the same theatre we had to wait for the download). In a way that's really nice, but all the same it detracted from the film.

Notes

Was the Cowardly Lion one of the original inspirations for furries and Furry Fandom?

I was watching Toto all the way through the film, and it's interesting to note that he's carried for more screen time than when he walks. There's a scene where he's placed on a tractor seat and it's clear THE DOG WANTS TO GET DOWN. Otherwise he behaves a lot like my dog Bobby, who is also a smaller breed. He watches and wags his tail at anyone who dances, and on more than occasion that he's being cued by a wrangler off-screen.

The Munchkins really can't dance well or act much either. It doesn't matter that much though as we the audience are all focussed on Glinda and Dorothy singing.

As I watched a song by the Cowardly Lion about courage, I realised that the alliteration in part of another song from Sweeney Todd (about putting people into pies) was directly inspired by it. Check out the links and hear what I mean.



So yeah - I really enjoyed it!
 

Profile

laura_seabrook: (Default)
laura_ess

August 2019

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11121314151617
18 192021222324
25262728293031

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 13th, 2025 09:19 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios