{"id":32115,"date":"2016-04-27T06:30:57","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T18:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=32115"},"modified":"2016-04-26T16:35:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T04:35:00","slug":"big-worlds-on-small-screens-fantasy-films-from-the-eighties-that-werent-that-bad-rebecca-fisher-discusses-return-to-oz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/04\/27\/big-worlds-on-small-screens-fantasy-films-from-the-eighties-that-werent-that-bad-rebecca-fisher-discusses-return-to-oz\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Worlds On Small Screens & \u201cFantasy Films From the Eighties That Weren\u2019t That Bad\u201d\u2014Rebecca Fisher Discusses “Return To Oz”"},"content":{"rendered":"

~ by Rebecca Fisher<\/em><\/p>\n

Children’s films of the Eighties and early Nineties are notorious for being completely and utterly terrifying. True story: my second cousin was so traumatized by the filmic adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches<\/strong> that her parents had to take her to a therapist. In re-watching Return to Oz<\/strong> to refresh my memory for the sake of this review, I was astounded to think it was ever considered appropriate for children at all!<\/p>\n

\"Return<\/a><\/p>\n

Maybe we were a lot tougher back when I was a kid; maybe I’m just getting more sensitive with age, but here’s a rundown of the three main set-pieces of this film:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Dorothy escapes a mental infirmary during a thunderstorm in a bid to prevent the sinister medical staff from performing electric-shock treatment on her.<\/li>\n
  2. Dorothy tries to outwit an evil sorceress who can remove her own head and replace it with the heads of other young women. To get away from her, Dorothy has to retrieve a magical powder from a glass case which also contains the sorceress’s true<\/em> head.<\/li>\n
  3. Dorothy must engage in a game of wits where the stakes are life-or-death and all her friends depend on her to make the right choices.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"Return<\/a>In which a child watches as a woman selects a new head.<\/em><\/p>\n

    I mean \u2013 wow. And believe it or not, it’s all based on L. Frank Baum’s original books. The man once said he wrote: “modernized fairytales, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out,” only to completely contradict himself in the actual text of his stories.<\/p>\n

    It’s been a year since Dorothy’s first adventure in Oz, and her Auntie Em is growing increasingly concerned about her wild stories. Unable to understand what’s wrong with her niece, she takes her to Doctor Worley, who promises to remove all memories of Oz with electro-therapy.<\/p>\n

    But before the procedure can take place, a mysterious young girl rescues Dorothy, and soon enough she finds herself back in Oz, along with her talking chicken Billina.<\/p>\n

    Yet things are different. The yellow brick road is rubble and the Emerald City has been destroyed, with all its inhabitants turned to stone. In a bid to set things right, Dorothy must face psychotic princesses, a stone king who enjoys playing mind-games, giant rock monsters, deserts that could turn her to dust, and these guys:<\/p>\n

    \"Return<\/a>They’re terrifying! Your children will never sleep again.<\/em><\/p>\n

    But hey, who doesn’t like a good scare? Although it’s technically a sequel to the original The Wizard of Oz<\/strong>, and even steals a few details from the MGM film (such as the ruby slippers, which were silver in Baum’s original story) it has very little in common with the Judy Garland musical.<\/p>\n

    It’s better to think of it as an adaptation of Baum’s later books than a sequel to the famous film, especially since some of the character designs adhere so closely to W. W. Denslow’s original illustrations.<\/p>\n

    \"Return<\/a>Don\u2019t worry, there is the occasional moment of levity. <\/em><\/p>\n

    For all the scary bits, there is real heart here, with Dorothy portrayed as a caring, intelligent girl who can form friendships with an array of unusual new characters: Jack Pumpkinhead, Tik-Tok and the Gump (which come to think of it, all bear a striking resemblance to the original trio of Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion).<\/p>\n

    Like so many of the films on this list, Return to Oz<\/strong> is now considered a cult classic, with its clay-motion effects, striking character design, and fidelity to Baum’s original stories. I vaguely remember watching it as a little girl, but I can only assume that I blocked most of it from memory, as it was terrifying enough returning to it as an adult!
    \n.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Next Time:<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

    There has never been a definitive filmic adaptation of the Arthurian legends \u2013 but John Boorman’s Excalibur<\/strong> made a valiant attempt; taking the most famous aspects of the story and smushing them into what is ultimately a bit of a mess \u2013 but an interesting mess nonetheless.<\/em><\/span>
    \n.<\/span><\/p>\n

    About The Reviewer:<\/h3>\n

    \"\"<\/a>Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com<\/a>, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com<\/a> and her They\u2019re All Fictional<\/a> blog.<\/p>\n

    To read Rebecca\u2019s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:<\/p>\n

    Big Worlds On Small Screens<\/a><\/h3>\n

    Rebecca won the 2015 Sir Julius Vogel Award<\/a> for Best Fan Writer, for writing that included Big Worlds On Small Screens<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ~ by Rebecca Fisher Children’s films of the Eighties and early Nineties are notorious for being completely and utterly terrifying. True story: my second cousin was so traumatized by the filmic adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches that her parents had to take her to a therapist. In re-watching Return to Oz to refresh my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-worlds-on-small-screens-with-rebecca-fisher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32115"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32124,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32115\/revisions\/32124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}