Emerald City vs. The Original Books, Various Movie Versions, Etc.

[David T. Cole]

Comparey! Contrasty!

[Camera One]

I just watched "Return to Oz" for the first time after re-reading Book 2 and Book 3 of the Oz series.  (Spoilers about that movie below)

 

I thought they did an interesting job of combining those two books, and I was pretty amazed how closely they followed what happened in the books (for the parts they did choose to include).

 

I had heard before that this adaptation was "dark" but really, they just had what was in Baum's original books.  The interesting thing is what seemed really whimsical in the book (eg. the Princess who put on different heads and the Wheelers) turned out so creepy and grotesque when portrayed onscreen.  Despite the dark tone, I think they still kept the spirit of the books in the sense that no one was killed.  I was a little disappointed they had statues with no heads in the destroyed Emerald City but it was a nice tie-in to the Princess later and they were all restored at the end anyway.  

 

It actually worked to combine Mombi's character with Princess Langwidere.  Choosing the climax from "Ozma of Oz" was also a good choice since there was a similar plot of Mombi disguising herself as a rose at the end of "The Marvelous Land of Oz" which would have been redundant.  I thought they did a clever job of changing the quest of going to the Nome King to rescuing the Scarecrow to avoid bringing in the Ev royal family.  I would normally have missed the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion, but they did a good job with Belinda (I had questioned how a talking chicken would work but it was fine), Jack Pumpkinhead and Tik-Tok.

 

I didn't mind that it was Dorothy's idea to build the Gump, nor have her deduce that the Emerald City residents were turned into green ornaments (instead of Belina hiding).  There were two "thinking" aspects I wish they didn't omit from the books, though.  One was the Wheelers not being able to get up the stairs.  They should have had Dorothy or Belina realize they could escape the Wheelers by climbing the stairs but still get trapped up there.  The bigger one near the end was the egg.  They knew to keep Belina hidden but the Scarecrow should have thought to use the chicken and the egg to scare the Nome King.

 

Visually, the graphics were bad and really fake, so the better graphics of today would have made a difference.  The Nome King minions as rocks were good at the beginning, but the Nome King being a giant boulder didn't really work.  I think they should still have been individuals.  The ruby slippers instead of the Magic Belt was a good touch to link it with the first movie.

 

The ending of the movie felt really rushed to me.  I had expected a better climax to freeing Ozma and defeating Mombi.  Ozma said Dorothy took away Mombi's powers but we didn't even see that.  Ozma seemed a little creepy as well, with the clicking the ruby slipper heels before Dorothy was even ready to leave.  

 

The first parts of the movie in Kansas dragged a little, and they could have done more with Aunt Em feeling guilty that she had sent Dorothy to that hospital.  I'm not sure why Uncle Em was back to normal at the end (they should have done more with that as well).  I was hoping Dorothy would bring back some riches to help her Aunt and Uncle financially.  So Ozma really did go to the Mental Hospital?  They could have done a better job of how she ended up in the river, and it made no sense that Belina was there.  It also made no sense why Mombi looked like that nurse from the asylum.  I get they were trying to use some of the same techniques as the first movie with the same actors in dual roles but since Oz is supposed to be real, it was just awkward.

 

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that this movie was so faithful to the books, and I wish someone else would attempt that approach.  It doesn't look like "Emerald City" is going to go that route, since it seems more of a modern retelling.

[Camera One]

12 hours ago, AzureOwl said:

They do however, have a ton of stuff that is casually thrown around, but when analyzed a little has some profoundly messed up implications.  

For example, the fact that the Wizard sent Dorothy & Co. to basically carry out a hit on the Wicked Witch of the West, or the fact that when you think about it, it was actually a suicide mission. Then there's the fact that the flying monkeys are basically enslaved. Or as the end of episode 2 showed, the implications of Tip spending all of his formative years as a biological boy and then suddenly be reverted to the girl he/she was born as. 

And I'm sure people who have read further along the series than me will be able to come up with many more examples. 

 

5 hours ago, Zoe said:

I remember thinking the stuff with the vegetable people in the fourth book was pretty dark.  And the origin of the Tinman?  Ick.

The Return to Oz movie was dark too, more so than its respective book.

The way it's written and presented in the book, the different strange characters in Oz and the surrounding lands seem very whimsical and non-threatening.  

But when they're actually portrayed onscreen, or if you overthink it, that's when they become scary.  Like the vegetable people, or the woman who changed heads.  In the book, it's not that creepy.  But it seemed disturbing when Princess Langwidere, or the Wheelers, etc. were actually portrayed in "Return to Oz".  

However, so far, the "disturbing" aspects of "Emerald City" are all cable-TV-lite stuff which aren't in the books (eg. person all cut up, people stuck in the mud, Witch shooting herself in the head, etc.).  

[scarynikki12]

Right now the thing I like best about the show is that it reminded me that I'm well overdue for a reread.  Well, of the first five or six books.  I tend to lose interest around that point so I doubt I'll read the whole series.  I loved the show's take on Scarecrow not having a brain and my love for Ozma runs so deep that I recognized her immediately so catching those interpretations is going to be half the fun of this show and brushing up on the books will help.

As for comparisons, since the Wizard is a con man in the book and Garland adaptation, I'm glad he's already showing hints of that (wig) and I'm looking forward to other ways it gets presented to us. 

[Arynm]

I am also due for a reread. I love the later books, so I will most likely read the lot. So glad to see Ozma, I really hope to see some of the other characters from the later books, Patchwork girl might be fun, the nome king would be nuts.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Or as the end of episode 2 showed, the implications of Tip spending all of his formative years as a biological boy and then suddenly be reverted to the girl he/she was born as. 

I always found the gender change a little disturbing, but Baum wrote that in anticipation of turning the book into a stage play, and boys are traditionally played by young women on the stage. So he simply incorporated that into the story by "revealing" Tip to be a girl at the very end. Also, as recently as the Victorian era, when the book was written, it was generally considered that there was little difference between a boy and a girl until they reached puberty. Boys and girls alike were dressed in gowns until they were around five. So Baum probably did not perceive of any psychological problem in changing the gender of a prepubescent child the way modern writers and readers would today.

Edited January 14, 2017 by iMonrey

[cooksdelight]

If you have a Kindle, you can get "Oz: The Complete Collection (Illustrated) Kindle Edition" from Amazon for 99 cents. I just added it to my library, looking forward to reading the entire collection.

[Morrigan2575]

Oh, thanks!

[Ms Lark]

13 hours ago, cooksdelight said:

If you have a Kindle, you can get "Oz: The Complete Collection (Illustrated) Kindle Edition" from Amazon for 99 cents.

Good to know, that's a great price. Thanks! Actually, you don't need a Kindle specifically, you can d/l the free Kindle app for your phone or pc/mac from Amazon. Alternatively, you can also download each book separately (at least the Baum books, which are in the public domain) free from Project Gutenberg in various eBook formats. I've been doing that, but at $.99, I think I'll spring for the Complete Collection just to make things easier.

I read all the Oz books several times as a kid and absolutely loved them. Have been on a reread for a while, think I need to get back on it since I have forgotten much.

[KingOfHearts]

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No idea what to make of the little girl and her stone-turning powers.

All I can really speculate is that she's affiliated with the Nomes, the half-human half-rock people who live under Ev.

I'm wondering if, when, and how they will include Billina. LOL.

Edited January 21, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[sjohnson]

The girl may be Billina. 

Jack as the Tin Man? Well, having people come back to life certainly devalues the physical jeopardy. This is unfortunate since there's not really anything else going on. 

My choice as a girl is to be a nun or a whore? Coming from a princess it's not having the impact the show wants, I think.

Dorothy and the Scarecrow screwing in the snow while the girl slept was actually kind of icky. 

[phoenics]

2 hours ago, sjohnson said:

The girl may be Billina. 

Jack as the Tin Man? Well, having people come back to life certainly devalues the physical jeopardy. This is unfortunate since there's not really anything else going on. 

My choice as a girl is to be a nun or a whore? Coming from a princess it's not having the impact the show wants, I think.

Dorothy and the Scarecrow screwing in the snow while the girl slept was actually kind of icky. 

She doesn't know she's a princess.  I think - judging from everyone else's comments here and on twitter - that line landed extremely well.  

Did Dorothy and Scarecrow do it?  I don't think they did.  They just kissed and then slept wrapped together.  But that's better for the actual episode thread.

[netlyon2]

4 hours ago, sjohnson said:

My choice as a girl is to be a nun or a whore? Coming from a princess it's not having the impact the show wants, I think.

 

2 hours ago, phoenics said:

She doesn't know she's a princess.  I think - judging from everyone else's comments here and on twitter - that line landed extremely well.  

In the live-tweet I was watching, that line was definitely a hit.  I think it's also important to note that the line came from someone who has lived as a boy discovering what it means to experience the world as a girl.  At first, when Tip wanted to join the army, I thought she was recklessly ignoring the potential dangers of running off with an unknown group of soldiers.  When the captain seemed pleased with an idea and she went along with him, I was actually flipping out a bit (and totally relieved that he *only* sold her to the orphanage).  Those decisions make sense, though, when I remember that Tip probably still sees the world as a boy.

[iMonrey]

The little girl and her power to turn people into stone, if anything, is lifted from Disney's Return to Oz because no character had that ability in any of the books. The closest I can think of is when Ojo's uncle and the crooked magician's wife were turned to marble statues by accident but that was because a potion spilled on them, not because someone had the innate power to do that. So yeah, I think the idea of turning people to stone is lifted from Return to Oz.

[Arynm]

I liked seeing Langwidere? She was a total pain in the ass, but I liked her ability to change her head. She was unkind to take those head from living people, but I digress. I had forgotten that she was from Ev. The shows changing from actual heads to just masks makes it less creepy and it loses a bit of the effect, but I will accept it. 

I hope we get to see the nome king and the Queen of Ev and her 11 or 13 children. That story was one of my favorites.

[iMonrey]

The Queen of Ev had ten children. It would seem strange for this show to spend much more time in Ev in its first season - I wouldn't expect them to get into the Nome King's story, for instance. And they haven't really established what or where Ev is in this world. In the books it's an entirely different country, separated from Oz by the desert. In this world it appears to be just a town within Oz. 

That's why I said this show can sometimes be more confusing for the book readers because they keep throwing out all these names and concepts from the later books but don't really explain them very well, leaving me wondering how closely aligned they are. Is Ev a different country? 

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Overall, I still find the show takes itself way too seriously. 

See, this is one of the show's flaws by design. If you want to tell a dark, gritty, Game-of-Thrones-y story, why frame Oz around it? The story elements are too silly to be realistic, so it doesn't really work as a serious drama. You can make something geared toward a mature audience without sacrificing quirkiness. You can get dark while retaining the awareness that this is based off a children's book series. The setup is rather ridiculous. To me, it just feels like the seriousness is being forced to keep people from thinking, "Oh, this is just Wizard of Oz." The show is almost ashamed of its own source material at times. I'm not saying it should be closer to the book, just that the writers should understand where their plot elements are coming from.

Quote

In the books it's an entirely different country, separated from Oz by the desert. In this world it appears to be just a town within Oz. 

I believe it was mentioned in the most recent episode that Ev is in fact another country.

Edited January 24, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Notwisconsin]

On 1/23/2017 at 7:21 PM, KingOfHearts said:

The show is almost ashamed of its own source material at times.

I agree. At least it's better than the "once upon a time" version.

[KingOfHearts]

17 minutes ago, Notwisconsin said:

I agree. At least it's better than the "once upon a time" version.

Once Upon a Time was only interested in one character - The Wicked Witch of the West. Emerald City  is more like the book in that it spends large amounts of time building the world it's set in.

Edited January 30, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

I'm really surprised we haven't seen the Cowardly Lion yet, with only three episodes left... unless... he's Eamonn? But that doesn't make much sense to me.

Edited February 11, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

Two episodes left, and more and more, it looks like these characters are only related to the books by name, or the connection is very superficial.

Dorothy - The MGM movie tried to make her more complex by making her see the value of home. This adaptation hasn't given her a character journey at all. She wants to go home, but she really doesn't have any other intrinsic issue to deal with.  Basically she tries to stay alive and now she is embroiled in a love triangle.

Scarecrow/Lucas/Roan - In the book, the Scarecrow thinks he isn't smart but he is just lacking in self-confidence.  I guess the tenuous connection here is Lucas/Roan's amnesia = issues with his brain.  He did seem to have more internal conflict with his fear of his propensity for killing, but these last two episodes, it has become trying to reconcile his old feelings of love for Glinda with his new feelings of love for Dorothy.  The killing stuff seems like it was forgotten and is irrelevant.

Tinman/Jack - His internal conflict is more accepting his new self.  They threw in the line about his heart being strong, but his story arc is no more about his heart than Lucas's story about being torn between two women.

Lion/Eamon - Other than he wears a lion mask, he's more Huntsman than Cowardly Lion.  He doesn't seem like he's afraid of the Wizard... he even went out of his way to offer to help.  He was way too undeveloped and the title for this latest episode was misleading in that we would actually get to find out more about him.

The Wizard - He is a lot more violent, but he is the cowardly ruler ruling by slight of hand (though it's unclear what his slight of hand is, since they still haven't revealed that).  The book Wizard did seize control, so I suppose this at least this role is similar.  And he sends Dorothy to kill a witch, though I don't buy that Dorothy even intended to.

Glinda - She wears white, and that's pretty much it.  They made her personality completely opposite, and she might as well be the Wicked Witch of the East.  I suppose the MGM movie version did send Dorothy into mortal danger, so maybe that's why they decided on this?  Or they just wanted to humanize West like "Wicked" did.  She's supposed to be all-knowing in the books, but she hardly gave any attention to who Dorothy was or the significance of her arrival in the latest episode since it was All-Love-Triangle-All-The-Time at the Glinda palace.

Wicked Witch of the West - Weak, guilt-ridden and good deep inside.  Pretty much role reversal with Glinda.

Tip - They sure waited a long time for make her find out she's Ozma. 

[iMonrey]

Quote

Tinman/Jack - His internal conflict is more accepting his new self.  They threw in the line about his heart being strong, but his story arc is no more about his heart than Lucas's story about being torn between two women.

Jack, in this iteration, seems to be some weird amalgamation of Jack Pumpkinhead (Tip's best friend, named Jack); the Tin Woodman (human re-built of tin) and Tik-Tok (seems to have some clockwork innards). 

You know, I made a similar comment over in the Riverdale forum, but at face value it's sort of silly to take a children's fable like The Wizard of Oz and try to make it adult, and edgy and dark. It sort of misses the whole point of the story. You also have to wonder - if they had simply given these characters different names and made no obvious references to the Oz books, would this show have even been on the air? In other words, does the story by itself stand up on it's own?

There are two ways to look at this kind of "re-imagining." You can admire its daring, and its imagination. Or, depending on how invested you are in the source material, you can see it as an abomination, or as a perversion of the source material. Kind of like making a porno movie out of a Disney fairy tale. 

I don't object, basically, to these kinds of attempts. I'm just not convinced they really work. As you say, the characters are really only connected to their source material by name or very superficial interpretations. 

Edited February 21, 2017 by iMonrey

[Arynm]

I always loved the tiny bit in the book where Mombi called Tip, Tippetarius, but no one could be expected to remember a name that long.

I say Tippetarius! in my head every time they say Tip. It's a silly thing, but it is stuck in my head from way back when I first read the books.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

You know, I made a similar comment over in the Riverdale forum, but at face value it's sort of silly to take a children's fable like The Wizard of Oz and try to make it adult, and edgy and dark. It sort of misses the whole point of the story. You also have to wonder - if they had simply given these characters different names and made no obvious references to the Oz books, would this show have even been on the air? In other words, does the story by itself stand up on it's own?

Short answer: No. It's an odd version of plagiarism. It doesn't copy the book so much that it's an adaptation or rip-off, but it namedrops just enough to lead audiences to initially believe it's what they're accustomed to. If you enjoy the Oz books, you have no reason to watch because it diverts so much. The same can be said if you've only casually seen the MGM film. It would be more forgivable if the original parts stood out, but they really don't. It's a passable story, but it's neither a faithful adaptation nor a refreshing take.

There are other fairy tales that have the darker edge needed for a more mature series. Grimm's comes to mind. For Oz, the movie Return to Oz is a good comparison for darkening the source material, versus Emerald City. While RoT was bleaker and less singing-Munchkins-y, it never truly abandoned the childlike innocence of its roots. It was still a story for kids, just a scarier and more serious one. EC tries too hard to showcase adult themes, such as sex, social issues, politics, etc. Ironically enough, the books also had real world commentary (such as General Jinjur), but it was much more tongue-in-cheek and self-aware. EC doesn't understand itself. It doesn't have any core identity.

The show wants to be "not your grandma's Oz", but it even fails at that. The setting is too ridiculous to be taken seriously, but too serious to appreciate the ridiculousness. With all the wonderful visuals, you'd think it would harness the power of fantasy escapism. The elements are there, but the focus is not strong enough. We're supposed to be more worried about the Glinda/Lucas/Dorothy love triangle than that awesome magic war we keep being promised.

Edited February 22, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[iMonrey]

This show sort of collapses on itself under the weight of its pretentiousness. It tries so hard to have a "clever" take on various iconic Oz themes, characters and situations. The problem is, absent the obvious Oz rip-off, none of it makes sense. Why is there this weird little tribal village of people called "Mudji-kins" when the rest of the country is more or less industrialized? Why is there a giant tornado machine emanating from East's castle? Why does Langwidere have a whole slew of masks that she changes every time? Well, it's because they're taking a concept that was a basic fairy tale element and trying to make it look "edgy." It may look cool at first glance but if you didn't know anything about the Oz stories, and none of the characters names matched Oz characters, and they didn't call this land "Oz" or "Ev," the whole thing would just seem pointlessly bizarre.

[cooksdelight]

2 MINUTES AGO, TERRAFAMILIA SAID:

Oz/Frank...I just now got that. Deliberate or coincidence?

No idea, I hadn't thought of that! The original Oz was played by an actor named Frank Morgan, too!

Does anyone remember the name of the original wizard's Kansas character besides being called Professor Marvel?
 

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

It may look cool at first glance but if you didn't know anything about the Oz stories, and none of the characters names matched Oz characters, and they didn't call this land "Oz" or "Ev," the whole thing would just seem pointlessly bizarre.

A man from our world arrives in a magical kingdom, triggering the arrival of a beast that kills many.  He becomes the ruler of the kingdom by killing the royal family and taking credit for moving stone giants that defeats the beast.  He seizes the opportunity to blame magic for the beast and has many witches imprisoned, though he makes deals with a few cardinal witches.  One cold and hardened cardinal witch continues to resist him by training child witches.  The man from our world came with a woman, who is banished to one industrialized corner of this kingdom, where she develops the ability to save severely injured and even dead people by replacing their body parts with machine.

Many years later, a young woman arrives from our world and by chance leads to the death of a cardinal witch using a gun.  The ruler has just found out that the cold and hardened cardinal witch is working secretly to oust him, and he orders the manufacture of guns and sends the young woman to kill the aforementioned cardinal witch.  The cardinal witch is angry to learn that this young woman has unknowingly slept with her amnesiac husband.  Meanwhile, the long-lost daughter of the dead royal family is alive, and another cardinal witch gives her the power to lead the witches in the war against the usurper.  Can the young woman avert a war that threatens to kill many innocent lives?

Tune in to "Not the Wizard of Oz" on NBC to find out.

Edited February 25, 2017 by Camera One

[sjohnson]

55 minutes ago, Camera One said:

A man from our world arrives in a magical kingdom, triggering the arrival of a beast that kills many.  He becomes the ruler of the kingdom by killing the royal family and taking credit for moving stone giants that defeats the beast.  He seizes the opportunity to blame magic for the beast and has many witches imprisoned, though he makes deals with a few cardinal witches.  One cold and hardened cardinal witch continues to resist him by training child witches.  The man from our world came with a woman, who is banished to one industrialized corner of this kingdom, where she develops the ability to save severely injured and even dead people by replacing their body parts with machine.

Many years later, a young woman arrives from our world and by chance leads to the death of a cardinal witch using a gun.  The ruler has just found out that the cold and hardened cardinal witch is working secretly to oust him, and he orders the manufacture of guns and sends the young woman to kill the aforementioned cardinal witch.  The cardinal witch is angry to learn that this young woman has unknowingly slept with her amnesiac husband.  Meanwhile, the long-lost daughter of the dead royal family is alive, and another cardinal witch gives her the power to lead the witches in the war against the usurper.  Can the young woman avert a war that threatens to kill many innocent lives?

Tune in to "Not the Wizard of Oz" on NBC to find out.

Well, jeez, when you put it like *that*...

[phoenics]

LMAO!  Oh I got such a good chuckle out of this exchange, lol.

[walnutqueen]

On Saturday, February 25, 2017 at 3:31 PM, sjohnson said:

Well, jeez, when you put it like *that*...

Hey, I started recording this because I thought Emerald City was a show about Seattle.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Does anyone remember the name of the original wizard's Kansas character besides being called Professor Marvel?

If you mean the movie, they never specified what the Wizard's real name was, or what Professor Marvel's full name was. If you mean the book, there was no Professor Marvel. The Wizard's real name was Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. The first two initials spell "OZ," which he used as his monogram. The next seven letters spell "pinhead," so he understandably never included them.

[KingOfHearts]

The show steals elements from Oz but doesn't keep any sort of its narrative structure. If it were about Dorothy going on a journey and gaining allies along the way, then one could get a sense that this was an Oz adaptation. (Even Tin Man got that right.) But instead, the story is arbitrarily all over the place. We've got this political atmosphere that, in my opinion, should not have been the main focus. In the Oz books, the complex worldbuilding was there, but it was wrapped inside a comprehensible narrative. Dorothy's goal was to get home, though she had encounters, her quest was always mainly in the spotlight.

I know this is a TV show, and we need to spend time developing other characters, but Emerald City's approach has been fragmented. Like Once Upon a Time, it's as though we're watching multiple shows within the same hour. We've got Dorothy/Lucas over here, Jack/Langwidere over there, Wizard/Witches in another place, and Tip/West in yet another. The separate story threads don't tie together very well. Outside of the pairings and groups, the characters don't interact with each other that much. In fact, many of them don't even meet. 

They should have just called it "The Chronicles of Oz"

[Camera One]

From an interview with the producers:
http://ew.com/tv/2017/03/03/emerald-city-ep-shaun-cassidy-finale/

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Emerald City was inspired by L. Frank Baum’s fourteen Wizard of Oz books. We’re big fans of all things Oz... and NBC thought Baum’s stories might be worth reimagining through the lens of adult drama. Because the books were not originally written as children’s tales but as political allegory, their core themes still resonated for us. One hundred years after the fact, women are still fighting for empowerment; religion, science, and magic (nature!) are often at war; and the pursuit of identity — racial, gender and otherwise — remains very much at the forefront of our political and cultural conversation.

Is there conclusive proof that "the books were not written as children's tales but as political allegory"?  The things he list as common themes are kind of a stretch.  I don't recall "religion, science and magic (nature)" being at war in the books.  In fact, they often all co-existed and worked together.  "Emerald City" were more about women fighting each other and being killed than "fighting for empowerment".  

Quote

The story of a young woman’s search for self via a way home is a timeless one, as is the reclaiming of head, heart, and soul as represented by the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion.

No one "reclaimed" any of that in this show, at least not in any coherent way.

Quote

As you have seen in our finale, “No Place Like Home” (written by David Schulner and Josh Carlebach), this story has now ended, but a new one lies ahead. Should NBC choose to make another limited series based on Baum’s characters, David and I would welcome the opportunity....

This story has now "ended"?  Is that a joke?  I guess cliffhangers are endings too, eh?

Edited March 4, 2017 by Camera One

[WendyCR72]

4 minutes ago, Camera One said:

This story has now "ended"?  Is that a joke?  I guess cliffhangers are endings too, eh?

Or maybe ol' Shaun has been in the biz long enough to know NBC renewing this is, to put it kindly, a long shot, and is trying to put a pretty spin on things. Maybe? Otherwise, I don't know why that would be said.

[sjohnson]

You can write "(nature!)" after the word "magic," but doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Science (nature!) would. 

The women are left center stage finally, which is the empowerment. And we can even add sisterhood if we wish. The total indifference of everyone but the Wizard to the Beast Forever disempowered everyone of the conquerors by showing them as self-seeking fools, I thought. But obviously that's just me. 

The real question is why the playing around with "It was all a dream." The little glass lion sculpture was particularly cute, especially in that it seemed to be sitting on the window sill. Who puts little statues on window sills? Flower pots and candles, isn't it?

[phoenics]

That ew interview definitely makes it sound like the show has been cancelled.  Bummer...

[KingOfHearts]

The Oz books definitely had political allegories, but they weren't written expressly for that sole purpose. They were children's books with nods to contemporary issues. (Mostly about women's suffrage because Baum supported that.) EC could have politics and social issues in the background, but it needed a strong, coherent narrative to keep it from becoming too broad. Sadly, the showrunners latched onto an idea instead of a story. Once Upon a Time has similar problems, but a different idea.

Edited March 4, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[iMonrey]

Sadly (and it pains me to say this), Once Upon a Time actually does a better job of reinterpreting fairy tale material. This show just seemed determined to create striking and haunting imagery using Oz tropes without really putting much logic behind any of it. There was just so much about the story that didn't make sense, aside from being a riff on Oz material. Too often the reasoning behind things seemed to be "because it will look neat." 

It's frustrating because I think the concept could have worked with a stronger, clearer narrative and structure. But it felt like it suffered too much from having random "cool" things thrown at the screen, just for the sake of creating something "cool."

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

Sadly (and it pains me to say this), Once Upon a Time actually does a better job of reinterpreting fairy tale material. 

Once Upon a Time, while it does turn fairy tales on their heads, the core motivations are still there. It touches base enough with what it's adapting for viewers to go, "Oh, this is Snow White". It's about more than just names and visuals. The Evil Queen still hates Snow White and wants to poison her with an apple. On Emerald City, she would be in conflict with the Snow Queen in the next kingdom over and would put hallucinating drugs in the apple to get information out of her. The only similarity would be the apple, not the story's purpose.

I'm all for moral grayness, and I commend Emerald City for going balls-to-the-wall with that, but that shouldn't mean there's no character to root for. (Other than Toto.) Even in Lost, Jack wasn't always a force of good or innocence. He had shades of gray, yet we could still pull for him as the main character. While he wasn't the most likable person, it was obvious he was the protagonist. He had clear goals and plenty of perspective. We knew exactly where he was coming from. But with Dorothy, we saw very little of her backstory and her objective changed several times. She wanted to go home, but rescue Sylvie, pursue Lucas, kill Glinda out of vengeance, take down the Wizard, stop a war, find out more about her mom, etc. She didn't want to help others like Jack from Lost, but she wasn't an antihero either. 

Emerald City is the only Oz adaptation I've ever seen where Dorothy rarely if ever meets the Tin Man or Cowardly Lion. 

Edited March 4, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[phoenics]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Once Upon a Time, while it does turn fairy tales on their heads, the core motivations are still there. It touches base enough with what it's adapting for viewers to go, "Oh, this is Snow White". It's about more than just names and visuals. The Evil Queen still hates Snow White and wants to poison her with an apple. On Emerald City, she would be in conflict with the Snow Queen in the next kingdom over and would put hallucinating drugs in the apple to get information out of her. The only similarity would be the apple, not the story's purpose.

I'm all for moral grayness, and I commend Emerald City for going balls-to-the-wall with that, but that shouldn't mean there's no character to root for. (Other than Toto.) Even in Lost, Jack wasn't always a force of good or innocence. He had shades of gray, yet we could still pull for him as the main character. While he wasn't the most likable person, it was obvious he was the protagonist. He had clear goals and plenty of perspective. We knew exactly where he was coming from. But with Dorothy, we saw very little of her backstory and her objective changed several times. She wanted to go home, but rescue Sylvie, pursue Lucas, kill Glinda out of vengeance, take down the Wizard, stop a war, find out more about her mom, etc. She didn't want to help others like Jack from Lost, but she wasn't an antihero either. 

Emerald City is the only Oz adaptation I've ever seen where Dorothy rarely if ever meets the Tin Man or Cowardly Lion. 

I agree with this.  I think a lot of the story elements that Emerald City took from the books was done at a very superficial level - more nods than actual meaning, if that makes sense.  Like cameo appearances.

Some parts are still there - but I think they were too scattered to have the weight they should have had.  I kept wondering if they were ever going to bring Dorothy together with her scarecrow, tin man and lion at the same time?  Or if we'd ever see her being threatened with death to get the gauntlets?

I feel like a fanfiction writer could take this beautiful mess and really make it a lot more coherent.

[KingOfHearts]

Quote

I kept wondering if they were ever going to bring Dorothy together with her scarecrow, tin man and lion at the same time?  

I thought Dorothy, Lucas, Jack and Eamonn would all be marching off together to Emerald City to face the Wizard at some point in time. I was disappointed. 

The Cowardly Lion was especially done poorly. There wasn't any reason to make him the Lion other than, "Well, we need to stick him somewhere." We also don't learn why he wears a lion skin. Eamonn is fine as his own character, but the cowardice factor was too low key. Killing for his own selfish ends just wasn't the same.

Edited March 4, 2017 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

The Cowardly Lion was especially done poorly. There wasn't any reason to make him the Lion other than, "Well, we need to stick him somewhere." We also don't learn why he wears a lion skin. Eamonn is fine as his own character, but the cowardice factor was too low key. Killing for his own selfish ends just wasn't the same.

It seems like a lot of the plot was written based on how cool it would look on a visual scale.  Eamon wearing that Lion mask walking up to Ozma was cool.  But realistically speaking, West would have killed him before he got close enough to put the dagger down at Ozma's feet.  Yes, only witches can kill witches.  But why were they all just standing there not moving?  Clearly, they wanted an environment of mist where all the people wearing white were shot.  This adaptation could have *looked* like an Oz adaptation if there was no dialogue and they showed selected clips like The Beast Forever flying over the Yellow Brick Road over the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion.

[jhlipton]

10 hours ago, iMonrey said:

It's frustrating because I think the concept could have worked with a stronger, clearer narrative and structure. But it felt like it suffered too much from having random "cool" things thrown at the screen, just for the sake of creating something "cool."

Totes agree.

9 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

Even in Lost, Jack wasn't always a force of good or innocence. He had shades of gray, yet we could still pull for him as the main character. While he wasn't the most likable person, it was obvious he was the protagonist. He had clear goals and plenty of perspective. We knew exactly where he was coming from.

I think you misspelled "Sawyer".  (But the focus on Jack, as well as the non-answers, was one of the main reasons I gave up on Lost in Season 3.)

[iMonrey]

I think this show would have been better served by eliminating Dorothy's story altogether and focusing on Ozma's because that - for me - was the most compelling part. The psychological ramifications of the gender change was never really addressed in the books - back in the Victorian era, people didn't consider there to be much of a difference between prepubescent boys and girls aside from the obvious plumbing, so changing a boy into a girl (or vice versa) would have been treated as whimsy rather than perverse or profound. 

Besides, Dorothy's story has already been told to death. I know there's a prevailing belief that you can't do an Oz story without Dorothy (despite the fact that she's absent from the very first sequel to The Wizard of Oz) but without the need to "re-imagine" the most familiar part of the Oz canon, this show wouldn't have needed to bend over backwards with cool or eerie imagery to make the well known seem new and different. Ozma's story is comparatively little-known - the show wouldn't need to go out of its way to "re-imagine" it. 

[Camera One]

That would have been made it harder to sell the show.  I actually liked the friendship of Dorothy and Ozma in the books, so that could have worked if done right.  Tip and Jack could have found Dorothy, and they could have run away together and the adventure could have focused on them.  But at the end of the day, this show was more interested in portraying an epic war, with pretty sequences with magic.

[jhlipton]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

But at the end of the day, this show was more interested in portraying an epic war, with pretty sequences with magic.

Emphasis on the "pretty".