Return to Oz: The Creepy Sequel You Didn't Expect

[@Just-Jaci]

Yay, thanks for reviewing Return to Oz (I’m the one who recommended it)! Personally I loved both the 1st Wizard of Oz movie and Return to Oz equally. I didn’t really see Return to Oz as being dark/scary/or horror-like. I just loved all the characters and the story, I remember recreating and playing out certain scenes a lot as a kid. I do remember feeling confused that this was a sequel and yet Dorothy seemed so much younger than she was in the first movie, lol. Watching Return to Oz as an adult for the first time was interesting because I realized that the whole insane asylum is a setup/foreshadowing of Oz. The mean woman is the witch who switches heads. The doctor guy is the stone Gnome King. The guy who wheels Dorothy on the rolling bed is the main wheeler. The machine Dorothy gets hooked up to resembles Tik Tok. The pumpkin carving in her room resembles Jack’s head. The blonde girl who helps her escape is Princess Ozma. So it kind of implies that Oz was all a dream… (which the first movie does as well!)

[@OakesPrincess]

@Just-Jaci omigosh it was you! I almost went back to figure out who had suggested this video! Omigosh you should have been the one doing this movie review! I agree with you about this on level of darkness compared to the first, because those monkies were pretty freaky to me, lol. I love that you pulled all the analogies, I didn't even catch them all, only the pumpkin one... are you going to see Wicked??

[@Just-Jaci]

@ Haha, I do have a KZbin channel but I don’t do movie reviews, I mainly just do thrifting videos (for stuffed animals)! I’m planning to see Wicked, I’ve never seen the musical but always heard great things about it when I worked in the tourism industry. And so far I’ve been hearing good things about the movie, so I’m excited to see it!

[@OakesPrincess]

@Just-Jaci oh that's so cool! I'm not huge into stuffed animals thrifting personally, but I'm glad to hear you're doing your thang! If I come to mind, lemme know your thoughts on wicked sometime 😆🤭 I know we'll see it, if not in theaters, then streaming.

[@shaeden77]

My sister and I used to act out some of the scenes too haha! I remember we would tip toe in our bedroom to try and steal the key without waking the witch up 😂

[@Just-Jaci]

@shaeden77 Haha, that's awesome. I loved to pretend there was a giant green moosehead attached to my couch making it fly. Or that I had to touch green objects and yell "Oz!" Or jumping rocks and not falling into the deadly dessert.

[@shaeden77]

Oh my gosh. I watched Return to Oz at least 100 times growing up. For some reason I liked it but it’s definitely dark and very bizarre when I really look back at it. There’s a lot of scary parts. The wheelers laugh and when that head in the cabinet wakes up and yells “Dorothy Gale!” 😂😂 Pretty sure I had a few nightmares over that one. The Craft also terrified me lol

[@OakesPrincess]

@shaeden77 haha, wow, the day after I posted this, one of the moms at my Bible study told me she was obsessed with this movie as a kid, which was so surprising to me. Lol it makes me think this film has more of a following, or made more of an impact than I realized. 😆👀❤️

[@shaeden77]

@ what’s funny is I grew up in a Christian household. My dad was a preacher and my mother helped with our churches music ministry. I was somewhat sheltered when it came to things I was allowed to watch even certain cartoons lol! But somehow they let this one slide 😂 🤷🏻‍♀️ I didn’t watch The craft till I was a young adult so that one would have been a definite no lol

[@OakesPrincess]

Aha, I need to ask my mother in law whether she stopped my husband from watching this one, because he said he doesn't remember. 😆

[@shaeden77]

@ 😆

[@v_zach]

Yay! You did the review. As mentioned before, I love this film. I got to see it in the theater when I was 11. (Thanks, Mom!) I didn't find the movie all that scary. My situation might have been different because I was on the older end of childhood, was used to a darker tone in 80's movies, and had read the books. I was more in awe seeing characters from the books come to life than scared. With that said, seeing the yellow brick road and the Emerald City in ruins was indeed creepy. That wasn't in the books. I wonder if Return to Oz would have done better as a Touchstone film like the Nightmare Before Christmas? I hope Disney produces a pin for the 40th anniversary next year, but not counting on it.

[@OakesPrincess]

@v_zach awww, I love hearing this firsthand.. the ruins were cool. I think you are onto something with the touchstone idea, but what's done is done. I liked hearing about some of the film history and the creative differences... I'm so curious about some of these legendary directors right now, like George Lucas, so it was interesting to me to see how passionate they can be about their work.

[@sauronbagginsd8032]

Return to Oz is a masterpiece (as someone who has spent 38 years enveloped in the Oz canon)

[@OakesPrincess]

@sauronbagginsd8032 thanks for sharing for people to know! I was never huge into Oz but I'm glad to know the director was faithful to the books. ❤️

[@Hevynly1]

I remember my aunt took me to see that when it hit theaters... and yeah. I was 4 or 5 and I thought it was okay, but there were elements in it that were too weird for me (like the room full of heads). I definitely preferred The Wizard of Oz and even The Wiz to Return to Oz. That being said... I feel like 80s kids were already primed for the creepy stuff, so I wasn't that bothered by the darker tones- I just didn't resonate with them. From my kid perspective, I also thought everything looked ugly. I thought Dorothy was ugly and all the characters were ugly, and that it was generally visually unappealing. It would be interesting to watch it again as an adult and see what my take is now! In the 80s, I remember not caring one way or the other about Dark Crystal and I thought The Labyrinth was stupid. I haven't seen Dark Crystal as an adult, but I understand why kid-me thought The Labyrinth lacked. I'll be real. I watched Artax sink into quicksand and Michael Jackson morph into a werewolf so everything else "dark" paled to those moments. I was pre-conditioned early. 😂 Awesome review, btw! Really nicely researched and compiled! Great job!!

[@OakesPrincess]

@Hevynly1 lolololol about thriller and 80s kids being primed for this!!! 🤣🤣🤣 you're probably right. I love that you got to see this in theaters though, lolol your reply made me giggle, I've never seen the Wiz... I can see what you mean about Dorothy only because if you consider 80s fashion, she didn't have the look that was in vogue... her features also took on a more serious tone in general, compared to the cutesy Garland look... thank you for sharing. Very insightful. I think I was more interested in the behind the scenes aspects of this film more than anything. Thanks for watching!

[@Johnlindsey289]

I like this better then the wizard of oz or wiz as it’s more true to the Oz books

[@johnnehrich9601]

Literally the first book I ever read was the third in the series, Ozma of Oz, which included the original c. 1900 Edwardian Art Nouveau John Neill illustrations. At the time, the MGM movie had not yet started being shown once a year on tv. So Return to Oz in my opinion is much closer to author L. Frank Baum's creations - although I still super-love the MGM movie. I think you are slightly mistaken. Yes, there is a book but that was written following this movie (not necessarily sequentially but from the movie script itself). But the movie is very closely based on a clever blend of two of the original L. Frank Baum books, Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. MGM had purchased the rights to the first novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Disney purchased the rights to all 13 of the Baum sequels (there were many many sequels written by others following his death) and had to work very hard not to step on the toes of the MGM version. In the MGM movie, Oz is not a real place as MGM felt movie audiences were too sophisticated to accept it being real. In the Baum books, Dorothy visits there again and again and always faces potential death as Oz is not always a bright happy place. (Even in the MGM movie though, children were terrified of the cyclone, the witch, and the flying monkeys. However as adults looking back fondly at it, we forget that.) Before anyone pans Return, I strongly suggest you go on line and find a free copy of Ozma of Oz (the novel has long been in the public domain). Make sure you get the one with the original illustrations. You don't have to read the entire thing but as a children's book, it is a simple quick read. You can also just type in the name of a character along with "Oz" into the Google search function and you can see how they were depicted in the novels. In Ozma, the Nome King has made the royal family of Ev into ornaments for his lair and Dorothy and friends have to find out which ones or suffer the same fate. His minions are described as "rock fairies." In a later sequel, the Nome King returns with plans to conquer all of Oz and build a tunnel under the Deadly Dessert to his kingdom. In several sequels, characters get turned into stone (just not in the first two sequels). The Deadly Dessert that will turn people to sand surrounds all of Oz and is referenced in just about every sequel. In Ozma, Dorothy is blown off a ship bound for Australia along with a crate of chickens and manages to survive by floating on the crate. (This is why a Kansas rain-swollen river turns into the middle of the ocean. She faces threats from the Wheelers (who actually appear to be scary as without hands, can't really hurt anyone). There is a princess who changes heads rather than clothes, and locks Dorothy in her tower until her head "matures." In Land of Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead is brought to life by Mombi's Powder of Life. (In the movie, he looks EXACTLY like he does in the book and yes, Tim Burton admitted his character of Jack in the Nightmare Before Christmas directly came from what he saw in Return.) Jack along with others escape capture from a tower inside the Emerald City by tying two couches together, adding palm leaves and the head of gump, bringing it to life with the same powder on flying out the window. They land on the side of a mountain. Before the story starts, Mombi has used magic to hide Ozma, the rightful ruler of Oz. One thing the Disney movie does is mimic, but in a sort of reverse way, the MGM movie had the Kansas people show up in Oz. In Return, the Kansas people are sort of a projection of their real Oz characters. The nurse is a projection of Mombi, the witch. The head orderly with the squeaky gurney is a foretelling of the wheelers. The carved pumpkin is a foretelling of Jack Pumpkinhead. The Doctor is a foretelling of the Nome King. Even the electroshock machine, which runs by clockwork (we hear the ticking of the clock mechanism, that isn't heartbeats), looks like a face as purposely pointed out by the doctor, a foretelling of Tik-tok. (Tik-tok is one of the first mechanical men in all of literature, essentially a clockwork robot.) Ozma, despite being trapped in mirrors, manages to show up to help Dorothy, even though she comes and goes mysteriously. (And no, she doesn't drown as all we are seeing is her projection in the Kansas sequence.) Even in the original book there are lots of real deadly perils and actual deaths. The witch sends a pack of wolves to harass the travelers and the tin woodsman chops off the head of each. Also a flock of crows to peck out their eyes. The scarecrow wrings the neck of each of these. Several monstrous beasts which the lion has to kill. The MGM didn't have time for these episodes, thereby lightening the feel of their version. In the books as well as Return, Dorothy is a child of about 8-10, making the events much scarier. Judy Garland was 16-17 at the time, made up to play a 14 yo. A teen would seem better equipped to handle any threats than the younger version in Return might seem. ---- PS - I don't think the closest adaptation of a novel is necessarily the best. MGM totally changed the novel's version of the Wicked Witch of the West to a far better and scarier version of the book. Billie Burke is an awesome Good Witch of the North and South (MGM blended the two from the book). But I do love the books and Return should not be criticized for supposedly making up creepy stuff. If anything, blame the author, L. Frank Baum. PPS - the chicken was mechanical when she spoke but they also used a real chicken for other scenes.

[@OakesPrincess]

@johnnehrich9601 Oh my gosh, now I want to Google search the art!!! I love this comment, thanks for sharing. Xo

[@Johnlindsey289]

I like this better than wizard of oz and feels more true to the Oz books

[@OakesPrincess]

@Johnlindsey289 honestly, I did enjoy this better than the 1939 film, mainly because it had a more "realistic feeling" to me.. in the aesthetic, like Dorothy's hair and look for example, she was an actual kid and she wasn't all done up. I listened to the audio book of Wizard of Oz a few years back on audio book, and this style is definitely more true to that.

[@ethanlewis1459]

I saw an interview with the film’s director Walter Murch and he said what he wanted to do was faithfully adapt L Frank Baum’s Books into a dark cinematic masterpiece because the land of Oz in the books is not a dream like in the 1939 musical it’s a more Brothers Grimm Fairyland and L Frank Baum was upset that America didn’t have a fairytale of it’s own because American children always read the European Brothers Grimm folklore so Baum Decided that he wanted to write a fairytale for his country he basically said this is a modern fairytale for the modern times

[@OakesPrincess]

@ethanlewis1459 I love that. Thank you for for sharing. Now that I think about it, I can't think of any "American fairytale," because it's so true, we do take from other countries.

[@ethanlewis1459]

It’s what J R R Tolkien did with The Lord Of The Rings he wrote it as a mythology for Britain because it’s mythology was eradicated by the Norman Conquest in 1066

[@OakesPrincess]

@ethanlewis1459 oh wow, I confess I did not know that. Love Tolkien, but I only know very basic stuff. 🙈

[@ethanlewis1459]

Tolkien said in interviews what he wanted to write was a mythology for Britain it’s amazing how these books began as stories he told to his own children have become well known around the world

[@Teletran35]

I first seen this in the 80s

[@OakesPrincess]

@Teletran35 oh sweet, I kinda wish I had too. I brought it up with some moms this week and 1 mentioned that she LOVED this movie as a kid and mentioned how it shaped her. I was like, "dang, I don't have that same memory," but it's still cool to watch it now though.

[@TinaLouise73]

let's all be honest best part of the OZ movies are those ruby slippers! I got me a pair of replica ones! luv em!

[@OakesPrincess]

@TinaLouise73 this is true. I saw them at the Smithsonian museum in DC!! 🙌

[@JordanC-u4r]

do “Legend” with Tom Cruz and the unicorn!!!

[@OakesPrincess]

@@JordanC-u4r I'm checking online to see if I can find it streaming free 🤭 my husband said he might actually watch this with me.. Ridley Scott directed it!

[@v_zach]

Do you think you might review The Last Unicorn? It's one of my favorite movies ever. 🦄

[@OakesPrincess]

@v_zach wow, I haven't seen that movie in years... why does the idea of watching it evoke a feeling of wanting to cry? Lol okay, that's the next movie to review! 😆

[@v_zach]

Have you tried The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance? It's a little lighter than the 1982 original, and lighter than Return to Oz.

[@OakesPrincess]

@v_zach no, I haven't.. I'll keep it in mind though. 👀🙈

[@ClockworkWriter]

It is a creepy movie but I love some of the characters personally lol.

[@OakesPrincess]

@@ClockworkWriter it was definitely the chicken, for me 😆

[@ClockworkWriter]

@@OakesPrincess I do love the chicken! But my favorite is Tik-Tok. 😅

[@OakesPrincess]

@@ClockworkWriter ooohhh yes, way too cute. His eyes and his belly are adorbs. Wish he was real.

[@Teletran35]

Dark Crystal is the Muppets it isn't bad

[@OakesPrincess]

@Teletran35 everyone just always tells me it's so dark... but I know it must have something going for it because its fanbase is super loyal. I had a friend who told me her boyfriend was into it (in our 20s) but then it gave her nightmares after she watched it with him. 😆