The original Wizard of Oz is easily one of the most gigantic movies in all of human history. What could possibly go wrong if Disney was to crank out a high-budget sequel?
Holy shit. Apparently alot could go wrong. Here goes!
Like all child-appropriate movies, the story starts out with the main character, Dorothy Gale, being admitted to a mental hospital. And not the streamlined, modern day kind. The late 1800's / early 1900's kind where everything is treated with electo-shock and water torture. See the picture I've already painted in your head for you? Yeah, dont forget this is a Disney movie.
Right before she is about to receive Shock Treatment, the power at the Hospital goes out. Ozma appears and frees Dorothy from her binds. Apparently there's some magical power that allows characters from the previous Oz movie to age backwards. To be fair, Dorothy's backward-aging wasnt that bad but Ozma managed to shed a good 20-30 years.
Anyway, the two escape the Hospital and decide the smartest thing to do during a massive hurricane is to scream alot and jump into a river. Dorothy wakes up (doesnt drown) in the land of Oz, accompanied by her talking Chicken "Billina."
The land of Oz is basically a complete shit-hole now since the Scarecrow became king. The Emerald city is a disaster area, all the citizens of Oz have been turned to stone, the rocks on the ground have faces on them sometimes... times are tough. Dorothy's main mission is to find the dumb ass Scarecrow and fix everything wrong with Oz. Seriously, how incompetant are the people of Oz if a half-wit from Kansas has to come save them over and over? She already melted the Wicked Witch and took care of her flying monkeys for the folks of Oz! I'm unsure of the time frame between Dorothy's trip in this movie and her trip in the original is, mainly due to the fact that she aged BACKWARDS. But without the help of Dorothy, the entire population of Oz managed to:
1. Elect a king made of straw-filled potato sacks... who failed miserably
2. Lose every single last emerald of Emerald City
3. Turn Emerald City into a Section 8 housing district
4. Somehow turn every living thing into stone
After Dorothy and her talking Chicken grab a lunchbox from one of the trees (yes you heard that right), they meet the Wheelers. The Wheelers are responsible for dishing out more childhood nightmares during the 1980s than Freddy Kruger. The Wheelers are mortifying. What the hell was Disney thinking? The Wheelers are apparently pissed off that Dorothy stole one of the Lunchboxes and even more so that she is carrying a Chicken, which is strictly forbidden by the 'Nome King.' For a minute or so, they chase Dorothy around to a goofy sounding piece of music, which just adds to the creepiness of it all.
Dorothy gets cornered in a room where she finds Tik-Tok, a big golden 'military' sort of robot. Tik-Tok is basically the only one of Dorothy's companions who isn't a completely useless dipshit. His only problem is that he needs to frequently be re-wound up (like an old clock), which Dorothy will forget to do a bunch of times in the next 90 minutes or so of this weird ass movie. Tik-Tok marches his fat gold ass outside and beats some Wheeler ass. They manage to capture one and muscle a little information out of him. The Wheeler tells Dorothy and her slowly growing band of morons of how the Nome King kidnapped the Scarecrow, took over Oz and destroyed it. The only one who knows where the Scarecrow resides is Princess Mombi.
Princess Mombi is head-and-shoulders above all others - the most nightmarish aspect of this movie. . Princess Mombi is a sorceress who spends her time playing her weird stringed contraption within her castle that is 90% made of mirrors... and alternating between wearing her 30 heads. Yes, she has a hallway filled with decapitated heads that are still alive and are inter-changeable with her current head. Not creepy at all. On a personal note, Dorothy's initial encounter with Mombi is one of my favorite movie sequences of all time. The amount of time, money and construction put into building Princess Mombi's castle was bombastic (i wish i lived in this dwelling). After spending 5 minutes with Mombi, the sorceress decides to drop the pleasantries and imprisons Dorothy in her tower so that she may take her head (when she gets older). Tik Tok attempts to save Dorothy and her talking bird, but his gears end up winding down and he just freezes in place. Nice job dickface.
All right, ready for the two stupidest, most worthless characters in the movie? Well strap yourselves in! First there is Jack Pumpkinhead. At first you might be like, "Hey! The Scarecrow! Dorothy found him!" Nope, different Scarecrow. That's right, there's TWO Scarecrows in this movie. Jack's only difference is that he has a Pumpkin for a head, because mounting a gigantic pumpkin on a body made of straw and sticks is definetely possible, yes? Also, despite his larger head, Jack trumps the original Scarecrow's level of stupidity.
At this point in the film, Disney was obviously completely out of ideas for additional characters. This is evident due to the fact that the character of "The Gump" is 'created' by mashing together random items found in Mombi's tower. The Gump is literally an Elk head mounted on the wall as the head, a SOFA as a body (yes, a piece of furniture) and a fern plant as wings/rudders (yes, this piece of shit can fly somehow). To bring the Gump to life, Dorothy escapes her prison to retrieve Mombi's "Powder Of Life." Which is how Mombi is able to cut off young girl's heads and bring them back to life. With that being said, I think I will let the child-appropriateness of the scene speak for itself.
Was this scene seriously written by one person? Imagine going to pitch this scene (for a kids movie) to the executives at Disney today.
"Ok so basically the princess is going to be sleeping without her head. To make this scene more comfortable for children, lets have the headless, sleeping witch make a dry, gurgled, choking sound when she snores through the hole in the top of her headless neck. Dorothy will grab the pretty red key from Mombi's wrist and aquire the magic Powder. But then... Oops! She will accidentally awaken the original head of Princess Mombi within the same case, who in turn will talk in a scary, manly voice. Then we're gonna make all 30 of the heads within their cases start yelling and freaking out as Dorothy runs terrified down the corridor. That's not going to be enough though. What we need to do is show the headless body of Mombi rise from her bed and walk around flailing her arms trying kill Dorothy and find her original head."
What the hell? Someone actually approved this scene for a children's movie? I wonder if the London Symphonic Orchestra knew that one of their best musical scores was going to be paired with this twisted, train wreck of a movie?
So then, like in all good Disney films, the main character finally makes her dead animal head/magical couch with ferns attacted learn to FLYYYY! Dorothy and her band of assholes make their way over the Deadly Desert and land upon the Nome Kings mountain (by the way, I'm not misspelling Nome/Gnome in the case of this movie). They speak briefly to the Nome King, who appears as a large face upon the mountain-side. Dorothy demands to see the Scarecrow and the Nome king begings to laugh uncontrollably, which shakes the entire mountain and causes Dorothy and her pals to fall into his throne room.
So incase you havent already noticed, all the bad guys in Oz are just recycled characters from Dorothy's whopping 5-10 minute scene in the Mental Hospital back in Kansas. The Nome King is the same guy who plays the doctor with the scary electro-shock machine. Princess Mombi is the mean head nurse who loses Dorothy and Ozma in the river after they escape the hospital. The Wheelers are the guys in the hospital who 'wheel' around the beds and wheelchairs.
The Nome King is pretty much a giant douche. He tries to make Dorothy drink melted silver... and eat Limestone. I guess a tinted out van and a bag of candy isnt good enough, ya pervert? Hot melted silver, seriously? In retrospect, at this point in the movie you're probably hoping for Dorothy to drink the smelted metal so the main character kicks the bucket and this movie would just end. The Nome King tricks Dorothy into playing a game to free her friend, the Scarecrow; who has been turned into one of many 'ornaments' in the Nome King's gallery. Each person/robot/flying moose-sofa may go in one-at-a-time and take three guesses as to which of his trinkets is actually the Scarecrow. He fails to explain however, that once you guess three times incorrectly... you yourself become an ornament. Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump go first and second... and both fail completely, becoming ornaments themselves. Tik-Tok is next to go in.
Now we are left with Dorothy and the Nome King alone. The perfect time for the Nome King to reveal his cross-dressing secret
"I GOT YO RUBY SLIPPAZ BITCH! HAH!"
As a gesture of kindness to offset the fact that he's turning all of her friends to stone as well as trying to make a 9 year old girl drink smelted silver, the Nome King tells Dorothy that if she wishes, he will send her back to Kansas using the Ruby Slippers. She will remember none of what happened. She will be cured of her 'bad dreams' and will never ever think of Oz again. Of course, like most people from Kansas, Dorothy chooses to remain in her twisted world full of talking chickens, mutant wheel-men and headless sorceresses. During Tik-Tok's time within the gallery, his gears wind down again and he is, yet again, frozen in place.
"Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... whatever, I'm a piece of shit."
Dorothy is allowed to go inside, wind him up to make his last guess, then take 3 of her own. Tik-tok naturally blows his last guess, becoming an ornament himself. After failing 2 of her own guesses, Dorothy figures out which ornaments are her friends and which one is the Scarecrow. Naturally, the Nome king isnt real happy about this. The Nome King's evil claymation self basically sunk the entire claymation franchise, dooming everything claymation after this to look nightmarishly creepy. Sorry, California Raisins... you guys are finished.
"BOOKS... CHECK 'EM OUT!"
(No thanks)
The giant angry Nome King starts out by eating the sofa, used by the mounted head and fern plants as a body. He then proceeds to eat the 2nd most worthless sack of shit, Jack Pumpinkhead. Know who I haven't mentioned in awhile? The talking chicken. Billina is stuffed inside Jack's clothing. Before the Nome king eats Jack, the chicken lays an egg in the giant rock monster's mouth... killing him and all the other Nomes (rocks with faces on them).
Insert typical Disney ending. Say hello to your scarred inner-child. The End.
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