Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/17/return-to-oz-creeped-me-out.html
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Title says it all…Fairuza Balk…nuff said.
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I remember having nightmares about this movie (I watched it at the way too young age of 8-9 years old) and years later thinking back to if the movie was as I had remembered or if I was remembering the nightmares. (I was also mixing pieces of it up with The Wiz!)
Guillermo Del Toro has it on his movie recommendations list in the ToDoMovies app (which I use but have mixed feelings about).
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Return to Oz Creeping you out just means you are well adjusted. The kid that movie didn’t creep out is who I am afraid of.
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Dammit, I missed that one. I was 15, so I would’ve cynically rejected the notion.
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Weisbergers are easily startled, but they’ll soon be back, and in greater numbers.
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“puppet-y movies of my youth” - I don’t know about your youth but the stand out for me is “Dark Crystal” (1982). Nobody did puppets like Henson.
(Or is “Dark Crystal” too puppet-y)
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The Hollywood movie only covered one of… what, 20 volumes? There’s a ton of unused material, there for the taking. I wonder if Oz would make an interesting RPG?
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When I saw Return to Oz I was deep into my Oz-geek phase – I’d read about 15 or 16 of the books, was a member of the Oz Club, got the newsletter, etc. So while a lot of the movie was indeed super creepy, it was surprisingly authentic to the books: Mombi’s changeable heads (Princess Langwidere in the book), Tik Tok’s design, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Gump, the Wheelers, the lunch box tree, Billina, and so on. But with material that inherently dark and weird, I don’t know what possessed them to invent a terrifying electroshock-therapy intro scene set in a asylum.
Return to Oz covered chunks of the second and third books. Disney started to make, and abandoned, another movie based on The Patchwork Girl of Oz. The trouble is that, for the most part, the Oz books are pretty formulaic. There’s a big threat or problem and three or four characters go on a journey, meet different odd creatures in each chapter, and at the end they save the day.
Now THAT is something I’ve wanted for years and years! Yes, it definitely would.
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The puppet stuff for Return To Oz was helmed by Lyle Conway, who had worked with Henson’s Creature Shop and a lot of the same tribe of builders and performers worked on the animatronics for this. Here’s a cool behind the scenes video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJORMLdB2zo
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I re-watched this movie a year or two ago at the local Alamo Drafthouse movie theater and it was a joy to see on the big screen. I do remember watching this as a kid and being low-key terrified at it, but in a way that i could not stop watching. The world is perfectly conceived and i think its a very underrated sequel, but in its own right i think it’s a damn good film.
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It was definitely creepy. It was also much better than I had expected.
For some reason, probably the muppets, it reminds me of Dreamchild.
I first saw it as an adult, on DVD, long after it had run in theaters and I loved it.
Also:
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I think Jason might be offended if you suggested that he hadn’t seen The Dark Crystal.
An interesting question would be what recent examples of good puppet movies there are. I don’t know what degree of CGI disqualifies them:
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True for some of the books! Often the end of the book was kind of a joke; the “heroes” would arrive at the Emerald City, deliver the MacGuffin to Ozma or tell her the dire news that Oz was under threat, and she’d say “ha ha, that’s sweet that you came all this way! I’m on top of things and already took care of the bad guy. But hey check out the palace while you’re here!” The Oz books were more or less just travelogues.
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Outside of kids shows i don’t know of any well known use of puppetry. At least in the non-ironic sense, there is Team America and Happy Time Murders. There is supposed to be a Dark Crystal prequel but so little is known about it that i don’t think it counts as a valid example.
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I think good kids shows count! Putative shows, of course, do not.
Been watching some old Thomas the Tank Engine with the Ratel kit. Man, that was some model train nerds’ dream job. They probably had to mop the floors after each set was built.
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I don’t have a kid so i don’t know of any current good examples. Stop motion has had an excellent time with great movies from various studios pushing for improved techniques and new technologies. Puppetry on the other hand i have not seen much… maybe perhaps practical effects in Star Wars might count but that’s hardly a puppet centric film.
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…Hi.
And yes, that’s probably the correct response.
