unknownfate

I took a yen to watch Return to Oz last night and just for fun, I looked it up on tumblr to see if there were any photosets or anything. There were. There was also a whole boatload of pansies bellyaching about how traumatizing the movie was and 20 years later, still the nightmares, boohoohoo.

What? It's a kid movie! And like all the really best kid stuff, it is equal parts bright and dark and beautiful and weird.

The only really scary part about it to me was that all the adults Dorothy should've been able to trust were all so willing to electroshock a little girl who couldn't sleep. Because you know what cures imagination? High voltage! But no, a guy in a Mardi Gras jacket and wearing roller stilts has scarred them for life.

Seriously though, think about it. The kid got sucked up into a tornado. It's a miracle she's even alive. Did they ever even find the house?? Nope. It's still in Oz, remember? Even if there is no Oz, and it was all just a delusion, a child is allowed to be weird after something like that. And what exactly is so abnormal about a prepubescent having vivid dreams and imagining a better place than being a poor orphan in rural 1890s Kansas? Who they want to lightly electrocute. Y'know, because modern medicine. That's the terrifying part. Not the rollerderby Krewe. Or the headless princess, or the muttering rock faces.

I can't imagine not liking Return to Oz. That movie was gorgeous. Mombi's palace with all the gold and mirrors? AMAZing. Jack Pumpkinhead? Adorable. Fairuza Balk? More adorable. Lunchpail trees! OMG. Your own steampunk robot bodyguard. Who wouldn't want one? Deadly Desert? Best don't touch the floor game ever. Flying couch with a living moose head? I want one! Dude, there's a sassy talking chicken. What is better than that??

I guess there's no pleasing some people. But just imagine if they had used some of the original Baum stuff, like the river of needles that would pierce whatever tried to cross it full of tiny holes. Or Chopfyt, the meat man that gets built out of all the body parts that the Tin Man accidently cut off himself. What about the three wisemen who angered the king, who put them into a meatgrinder and mixed their pieces into one wiseman? Or the Yoops, a married cannibal and evil sorceress. And then there's the Rak. If you were spooked by monkeys with wings, you don't ever want to see a Rak.

Just saying.