The Wizard of Oz (1939)

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Return To Oz is definitely darker than the original (which was surprisingly dark for a movie of the time). For example:

It starts with Dorothy in a mental asylum having electric shock treatment for telling all her stories of Oz.

In a thunder storm she escapes, waking up in Oz.

There are weird "Wheeler" creatures with roller scates on hands and legs that chase her around.

There's a Queen who collects heads and wears different ones.

The other creatures are strange also.

[Skummy]

I fucking love it. I'm a massive Judy Garland fan, and the whole film's just fantastic. It's twee and quaint and all the rest, and doesn't have nearly enough of the dark undertones that Oz rightfully should, but fuck it, it's superb. I know a girl who has a pair of red shoes and "There's no place like home" tattooed on her foot. I almost fell in love with her just for that.

[Lord Nibbler]

So, has anyone else ever heard of this band called The Beatles, circa 1960s?

Return To Oz is definitely darker than the original (which was surprisingly dark for a movie of the time). For example:

It starts with Dorothy in a mental asylum having electric shock treatment for telling all her stories of Oz.

In a thunder storm she escapes, waking up in Oz.

There are weird "Wheeler" creatures with roller scates on hands and legs that chase her around.

There's a Queen who collects heads and wears different ones.

The other creatures are strange also.

[Rashid]

I heard that the '39 film was very toned down, and that the original 1900 book was pretty dark and gruesome, so they made Return to Oz darker like the book was.

If anyone read the book, can you say if that's true?

[Guest PotatoClassic]

I think a couple people verified that elsewhere in this thread...?

[gunnar hendershow]

This and Return of the Jedi are the only two movies I remember watching my childhood.

Only half because my parents taped them from Cinemax on the same VHS.

[Rashid]

Okay, I just found the novel in a text document, and I must say, after reading the first 15 pages, (for a children's novel) it's pretty messed up.

The Tin Woodman is telling Dorthy and Scarecrow his past. Apparantly he used to be an actual living person, and he hold of an enchanted axe. As he was chopping a tree, it slipped and cut off his left leg. He got a tin leg as a replacement. He then chopped off his right leg, and got it replaced. Over time he ended up getting each arm chopped off, his head chopped off, and his body sliced in half.

Is this suitable for a story aimed for children? Also, this is 107 years old, wouldn't this have dramatized children back then?

[Guest PotatoClassic]

Children back then liked heavy drama a little more than they do today.

[Skummy]

Children's lives were generally a lot more dismal back then. Not to mention that popular psychology, up until the early 20th century, never really considered the child as having a differently operating mind than an adult, they just treated them as adults with lack of knowledge, so it was perfectly ordinary for children's stories written then to incorporate elements that we'd find dark or horrific.

I read a lot of that kind of thing as a child...Brother's Grimm, Wizard Of Oz, Alice In Wonderland et al, rather than buying into the Disney alternatives, and I never really found them too gruesome, as it was no different than what I was seeing in horror movies and video games, and talking about with my friends. I wouldn't give them to a young child today, necessarily, though.