All You need to know about "Oz the Great and Powerful"?

[meganbmoore]

"When Mitchell starts talking about that man behind the curtain and how he got there, this storyline immediately strikes me as a great idea for a movie for a couple of reasons. One was because I love The Wizard of Oz. But this character is only in the last few minutes of that film and we have no idea who he is," Roth explained. "And the second reason was -- during the years that I spent running Walt Disney Studios -- I learned about how hard it was to find a fairy tale with a good strong male protagonist. You've got your Sleeping Beauties, your Cinderellas and your Alices. But a fairy tale with a male protagonist is very hard to come by. But with the origin story of the Wizard of Oz, here was a fairy tale story with a natural male protagonist. Which is why I knew that this was an idea for a movie that was genuinely worth pursuing."

 

It's kind of like when Whedon said that getting "mewling quim" out to the masses was one of the things he liked best about The Avengers, or however he put it.  (Like The Hobbit, The Avengers, and maybe Hansel and Gretel and the latest Batman, I'm sure i'll eventually watch it on DVD, but I feel no urgency or even anticipation for it.)

Comments

[aphrodite_mine]

Oh good lord, why do these people exist?

*vomits everywhere*

[meganbmoore]

To be fair, we shouldn't be surprised after the trailers boiled down to "Oh random powerless white dude from far away, please save the world, as you are clearly so very much more qualified than we three incredibly powerful witches are!"

[morwen_peredhil]

It's good to know that someone is finally Thinking of the Menz!

[meganbmoore]

Poor, poor underrepresented straight white dudes!

[bookblather]

Because fairy tales aren't one of the few female-centered bastions of knowledge, or anything. 'Course not. What they need, obviously, is Men.

GRAAAAAH.

Also, I told you that Hansel and Gretel was really really bad and infuriating, right? Because if I didn't, I should.

[meganbmoore]

You did, yes, and that it isn't likely to be enjoyed at all if whatshisface does nothing for you. (The fact that pretty much everyone I've seen liking it hated SWATH and looked for anything and everything to criticize with gender there and dismisses the sexism and ableism you can tell this reeks of just from the previews didn't help any.) But I feel I must at least attempt to watch it to be able to unleash my full judgyness.

[yifu]

Because no batch of stories is valid unless it has men center stage.
Why can't they make an AU where Dorothy rules Oz or something.

[meganbmoore]

Have you seen Tin Man? Because it's set in Oz's future, but that's the implied backstory, and the current ruler, previous ruler, and possible future ruler are all women.

[yifu]

No, I haven't. Since it's called Tin Man, is the story told from a dude's POV?

[meganbmoore]

Nope! I forget the exact reasoning for the title (something along the lines of a title that immediately marked it as Oz-related in the public psyche without making it sound like a straight up sequel/retelling, and the title also fit with the steampunk-ish worldbuilding ). It's set in the present and actually IS a quasi sequel/retelling, though more than 100 years seems to have passed in Oz itself. The main character is DG/Dorothy-stand-in, who appears to have magic she didn't know about, and Azkadelia, the "wicked witch" (who ends up considerably more than that) who currently rules Oz. The title character, Cain, shows up about 1/3 through the first episodes (3 episodes, 90~ minutes each) and largely serves as DG's bodyguard/crotchety-protective-uncle-figure (naturally they're fandom's favorite pairing, but there's no romance with pretty much anyone in canon), though he has his own angsty revenge subplot that pops up at times.

[oyceter]

It is super annoying too because in the books, you find the Wizard has hidden Ozma, the rightful queen of Oz, and she basically rules for the rest of the 13 books or so.

[yifu]

I'm all for queens who reign long and prosper.

[elsane]

Ugh. Yeah, that is pretty much all I need to know about "Oz the Great and Powerful."

[oyceter]

Yeah, I saw that and rolled my eyes SO HARD.

Still additionally pissed off because despite Baum's terrible racism, the Oz series is very focused on a) Ozma the female ruler of Oz and b) various other girls, Dorothy included, doing things and being active. *shakes fist* Seriously asshat, you couldn't just take one of the male-protagonist fairy tales and adapt that, you had to go in and claim to do that AND take out the women of the canon?!

[meganbmoore]

I've thought since I first saw the trailer that if this were "Everyone is racebent!" it could actually be interesting. Instead it's...random white dude saves world! Powerful sorceresses apparently can't do anything."

I'll stick with Tin Man for Oz reimaginings. Still has the race issues, but keeps the female protagonist, has a female antagonist that makes sense and isn't evil because of a dude, and assumes that it's only natural for powerful sorceresses to rule, good or bad.