return to oz
Return to Oz, released in 1985, is unofficially the sequel to the original 1939 The Wizard of Oz. This is yet again another one of those movies that I saw when I was barely a teenager, remembered almost nothing about it but wanted to see it again now as an adult with fresh eyes.
And wow it is so much different now compared to when I saw it then.
A few points I'm going to say up front before I get into this:
First, I do not consider this a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, even though there are direct ties to the first movie. Return to Oz is a totally different film in every way.
Second, this is not a bad movie. The reason it was received so poorly when originally released is because everyone was expecting (and rightly so due to the title) something that looked, felt and acted like the 1939 film. That's not what you get with this movie. Instead you get something totally new, totally unique and totally not a follow-up to the original.
Third, this movie is dark. I'll cover more on why this is in a moment, but upon watching this you'll swear it's a Tim Burton movie. For that reason alone most people would say "Cool! I gotta see that!" Yes, you should if you like Tim Burton. More importantly however is this is not a kid's movie. It trips the line into PG-13 area a few times because of the scare factor. Again, I'll get more into that in a moment.
Why I wanted to see this movie again
Tik-Tok
In the back of my mind I distinctly remembered the Tik-Tok character. Even back in the day I remembered how cool he was. Very distinctive, very unique and nothing like I had ever seen before - or since. Even his voice was cool.
As for why he's unique, how many robot characters do you know that are round, wear a hat (that can fall off), need to be wound up three times in three separate places to operate properly and carry an old-timey look to them?
The headless scene
To a kid 13 years old or under, this is the stuff of nightmares. It's not gory nor gruesome; rather it's just plain creepy and terrifying. If you're an adult, you probably won't find this scary at all, but this is the scene that scared the crap out of little kids. This is the scene that makes the film unsuitable for kids 12 and under.
It would take too long to explain the lead-up to why this is so terrifying, but believe me, after you watch what leads up to it, you'll totally understand why it scared the daylights out of little children. When I saw it for the first time as an early teenager, I was frightened by this. Yes I was and have no shame in admitting that because it is a MASTERFULLY done scene. Weird backwards devil-like talk, many blood-curdling screaming women, blasting evil doomy music and of course the headless Mombi character. It's all there and it's all awesome. The thrill and scare you get out of it is the result of a director who really knew what he was doing, and oh yeah, he pulled it off with flying colors.
The ornament room
A tribute to good set design is when you can remember it over 20 years later. This room is another reason I wanted to see this movie again because it stuck out in my head. I understand now why it did - it's huge. Although it's nothing more than a huge room full of ornate furniture, ornaments and other knickknacks, there's a lot to see here. The bigness is further accented when Dorothy yells for help and hears an echo.
I also distinctly remembered how she got out of the room and wanted to see that again as well.
What I take away from the movie as an adult
As a 1985 film, this is pretty darned good
In the early-to-mid 1980s there were a whole ton of creative movies out there, and I place Return to Oz in the same category as say The Dark Crystal (1982) and Gremlins (1984). If you watch this movie with that in mind, you'll enjoy it a whole lot more. If on the the other hand you watch it expecting the original 1939 film, you'll be sorely disappointed.
The stop motion animation in RtO is incredible. The sets are incredible. The colors are incredible. The soundtrack is spot-on and all the audio is mixed properly. Everything is in perfect order here. The film is a complete work of art from start to finish, with the only tiny flaw being that you do see some obvious green screen work - but only in very few scenes and only for a few seconds. You can tell Disney spent a TON of money on this flick, and it shows.
There are no glaring plot holes
Everything in this movie was explained and done so in a way that was mostly believable for a movie of this type. While watching this I was specifically looking for holes, and every time I thought I had one, it was explained later in dialogue. The story for the most part is wrapped up fairly well and at no point did I ask myself, "Why did that happen?"
The dark side of Return to Oz
This movie as I said is dark, and as you read into it you find out how dark it truly is.
At the end of the movie, the message sent that's loud and clear (at least to me) is that Dorothy is literally insane.
Short version of Dorothy's insanity
Dorothy was never able to truly recover from the traumatic event of her old house being destroyed by a natural disaster, and invented a fantasy world as a means of escapism to deal with it.
Long version of Dorothy's insanity
The beginning of the movie starts out showing her having problems sleeping six months after the tornado that ran through her part of Kansas originally. She has explained to her aunt all about Oz and how she believes it's completely real. Her aunt obviously knows something is wrong with her, but then takes the drastic measure of taking her to a mental institution for electrotherapy in an attempt to cure her after all other attempts to get her back to normal have failed.
In the mental institution, she meets another girl who we never find out the real name of that I knew right off was out of Dorothy's imagination - and in the way the story was told, the director wanted you to know this. She appears and then quickly disappears afterward when other hospital staff arrive. Shortly after this, Dorothy is asked to lay down on a wheeled hospital bed and is then tied down to it.
In the operating room you see the electric machine. The doctor places a headphone-like device over Dorothy's ears in which electric shocks will be sent directly to her brain. Suddenly the power goes out due to stormy weather, and the doctor and his assistant leave the room to go assess the damage and fix the power outage.
The unnamed girl who vanished before now reappears by rushing in the room, unties Dorothy from the bed, tells her they must get away, and then they make their escape outside and attempt to run away. As they're running away, the doctor's assistant Nurse Wilson as well as other staff chase after them.
Dorothy and the unnamed girl run through the woods and come upon a river. Both girls see Nurse Wilson yelling at them "STOP!", then the unnamed girl slips in the mud, falls into the river and then hangs on to a nearby fallen tree to keep from being swept away by the current. Dorothy goes to the edge and holds out her hand in an attempt to get the unnamed girl back. Dorothy then notices Nurse Wilson coming closer, so she jumps in the river to escape. At this point both girls are now hanging on to the fallen tree to keep from being swept away by the river.
The branch the girls are holding on to breaks and both start to be carried off by the current. Nurse Wilson jumps in the river in an attempt to save them, but can't reach them because the girls are too far away.
It's at this point is when Dorothy enters her fantasy world.
Fast-forward to the end of the movie.
Dorothy is seen washed up on shore and is slowly coming out of her fantasy and back into the real world. She is then found by those who were looking for her. We then see Nurse Wilson being carried away in the back of a paddy wagon, evidently having been arrested for something. This is the only part of the movie that is not explained but it was very intentionally put there, and I'll touch on that later.
Now comes the part where it's confirmed Dorothy is in fact insane.
HERE BE SPOILERS
I'm purposely going to break this into another page just in case you haven't seen the movie yet. You may want to watch it before continuing because I'm going to give away everything, or at least my interpretation of it.
Published 2011 Feb 25
