Dorothy's Return to Oz

The first thing that I have to say, is that The Wizard Of Oz, and Return To Oz are both wonderful movies. You can't really compare the two as in which is made better, as they are both made differently yet are both fascinating. One is not better than the other. The first Wizard Of Oz followed L. Frank Baum's story pretty well, except for the fact that the movie posessed far less details, as movies normally do, or else they would be hours and hours long, or turned into mini-series. There were many background stories and places that surrounded Dorothy's supporting characters that were not mentioned in the film. An example of differences between the book and the movie, is that Dorothy's slippers in the book The Wizard Of Oz are Silver, not Ruby as they are in the film. Another is that in the movie, Glinda is the good witch of the North. In the book, the good witch of the north has no name, and does not know the power of the slippers. However, she tells Dorothy to find Glinda, the good witch of the SOUTH to help her. The book is definitely known to be more violent, and dark, where as the movie is colorful, vibrant and has many musical numbers.

This brings us to Return To Oz. Return To Oz, made in 1985. This film, as well as classics like Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, and The Black Cauldron were considered box office flops but yet received Cult Classic Fame on video and television and was received positively, for the most part, from critics.

The film itself was dark, and somewhat depressing combining L. Frank Baum's two books Ozma Of Oz and The Marvelous Land Of Oz, it focused on Dorothy's (Fairuza Balk of The Worst Witch, The Craft and Water Boy plays Dorothy.) mental state after her return from Oz. She has dreams constantly about Oz, and misses her friends in the Emerald city terribly. An interesting connection with the first movie, is that we see Uncle Henry working on building a new farmhouse after the first one was trashed in the tornado from the original Wizard Of Oz.

One night, as Dorothy is gazing out her window towards the night sky, she sees a shooting star. The next morning while collecting eggs from the family's hens, she notices a key underneath the hen named Belina. The key appears to be from Oz. When she tells her aunt and uncle of this, her aunt becomes extremely worried. She is afraid for Dorothy's mental state, with all the dreams and crazy nonsense she speaks of about Oz.

Aunt Em takes Dorothy to a kook of a Dr who claims he can cure Dorothy of her dreams and delusions by using some crazy shock therapy treatments. To my shock, Aunt Em actually leaves Dorothy in the care of that nutty Dr and his creepy and sadistic nurse. That night, there is a terrible thunder storm, and as they are prepping Dorothy for her treatment, the power goes out. The nurse and the Dr go to find the generator. While they are gone, a small girl frees Dorothy and tells her to run quickly and follow her.

They flee the building, and make it to the river before the staff realizes they are missing. The girls find themselves swimming in the violently churning river water. Dorothy is franticly swimming for her life, and suddenly realizes she can no longer see her rescuer. Thinking she must have drowned, Dorothy passes out, and awakens to find herself on a raft, with her Hen, Belina, at the edge of The Deadly Desert. Realizing she is in Oz, and that Belina can talk, Dorothy is looking forward to this strange and scary journey in hopes of seeing her friends again. Soon however, she realizes that not only has all the Emerald Colors and the Yellow Brick Road faded, but her friends have all been turned into objects such as stones, or ornaments. The only way to free them is to escape from the crazy Princess Mombi (Who desperately wants Dorothy's head, as she collects heads. Go figure.) and outsmart the Nome King who has stolen all of the Emeralds from Emerald City, and is the one that turned everyone to stone.

I personally have always loved Return To Oz. It is definitely different from the original, but sticks to the storyline pretty well. The Tin Man, The Scarecrow and the Lion all have been changed to look more like the pictures from L. Frank Baum's books, rather than having them look like they did in the original Wizard Of Oz.

I recommend Return To Oz to any Fairuza Balk fan. Another great movie of hers from around the same time period is called The Worst Witch. This is a great Halloween flick.

Please rent this movie, it is great! Some will argue that this movie is much more violent than the original and is NOT suitable for kids to watch, I have to say that any child that is a fan of the books, will realize that this version is more realistic, and true to the books than the original. For some reason, though she is in the books, Glinda is missing from this movie. However, Return To Oz is still a must see Cult Classic.