Return to Oz is an Absolute Nightmare 

Which adaptation of Alice in Wonderland is that at 32:55 ?

I've just purchased the full collection of books for kindle with the illustrations because of your great video.

Strange that you compare the enemies of the Gnome King to British imperialists, rather than American imperialists.

Also also I had no idea Tik Tok was so hot.

This video makes so much sense to me! I am going to enjoy this. Thank you, love your content.

I laughed at that too!

Took the words out of my mouth.

He insulted the mountains. Thus angered his father who punished him severely.

"...his father, who punished him severely"

It was a metaphor. As a child of the '80s, we knew all too well what serious punishment was. It was like being dropped in Hell, itself, and tormented. Physically tormented. Just being threatened with a spanking was enough to give you whiplash. Father knew how to deliver torment with great efficiency, and he did it with great enjoyment. I'll always hate him for that. We didn't learn how to behave ourselves. We only learned how to avoid pissing him off, and the older we got, the less we cared about doing that. We just wanted to get away from him.

I watched that for the first time this fall and you are on point, it's a fascinating work of art that I am surprised came from a place like cartoon network.

Over the Garden Wall is a true American tale

I got Otgw vibes watching Return to oz.

Rock Fact

I'm glad I'm not the only one who got OtGW vibes from this, I might look into the original Oz books and Return to Oz after this video.

It's Nome King, and he says quite plainly in the movie that his aim is to become human.

That's exactly what he was doing

Nailed it.

@@MaskedMan66shut up

@@MaskedMan66shut up

Any good fantasy tale has scary moments, but what on earth did you see as in any way "traumatic," especially on repeat viewings when you knew what was going to happen?

@@MaskedMan66”as a kid” 💡

I *LOVED* movies like that. Such as Labyrinth that weren't necessarily intended to be a bit spooky/eerie, but also unintentionally did or did on some lower level. It might be why I loved horror movies as a kid.

@@MaskedMan66 The evil queen with all the severed heads was pretty creepy. I was freaked out by the Roller things and was terrified of being turned to stone. I completely relate to @queenofanon9972

@@scarletros Mombi had (illegitimately) adopted the title of Princess, not Queen, and the heads were restored to their alive and well owners after Dorothy used the ruby slippers. The Wheelers were shown to be comical cowards in pretty short order once Tik-Tok walloped them and their leader. As for being afraid, yeesh, have some faith in Dorothy, willya? ;-)

Only real men wear sparkly, hot red heels And that is the Gnome King

@@drawnwithlove3499 He could have perfectly hide them in his cloak but he put them on just to mess with Dorothy, *WHAT A MAN!*

YAAAAAAAASSSSSSSS KWEEN!!! WERK!

@@RowdyBoy82 no

@@drawnwithlove3499 So, Is that can be described as "Gnome king got a drip" ? Don't really know English term that much, just asking

That's neat!

So awesome!! I loved that scene as a kid. It was scary but cool. Which one was she by the way?

We must know

@@wildchildlikeu unfortunately she just remembers "Standing in a cabinet and screaming" I tried to locate her in the scene clips but the quality and the fact the camera doesn't hover on each face means I can't find her. I'll ask her to give me a general area hah

@@TinyLifeboat123 any info?

Mombi. Nome King.

As if that scene wasn't scary enough, all her heads were screaming at the same time as well. How the hell did I not see this movie as a kid?

@@kira-dk2mx Were you around in 1985?

If by the "original" you mean the MGM movie (which in reality is the third big-screen version of "Wizard" and the eighth Oz movie), be very careful who you listen to. No movie is easy to make, and yes, there were injuries, but everyone came out of the experience alive (which is more than can be said for actors and crew on other movies and T.V. shows), and everyone involved was very proud of their accomplishment. Judy Garland and Margaret Hamilton especially would tell you to enjoy it. 🙂

As someone who will probably write books for children. I care about their culture and future. No one should let me babysit ever.

How in the world do you figure they hated children, especially when the lead character was played by a child-- who was loved by all in the cast and crew-- and all the incidents, bar the asylum scenes, were straight from L. Frank Baum's books?

Pitch meeting should make one on this movie wow wow wow wow wow

On a more serious note, this movie was pitched more along the lines of the 1939 musical, but changed tone during production without Disney execs being told about it. This is one of a collection of reasons Disney became hesitant about finishing production on the movie in the end, or at least under Murch's direction.

@@gerbendekker3273 I never heard about that at the time. I'd heard from the start that it would be different.

My three year old loves Coraline so much that she dressed up as her for Halloween. I think she has watched that movie 2 dozen times!

I love the creepy 80’s fantasy stuff but I don’t care for Coraline.

@@linziRyan1965 I don't like Coraline either. I really don't think it hearkens to Oz or anything particularly 80s. If anything the movie itself reminds me of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas schlock.

Oh god, movie snobs.

Do you know who the old man next to tommy quickstep is? Is he even the wizard of oz? & Please suport the Zpoz and Portal campaign?

Tik-Tok's head and arms were animatronic, but inside his body was an acrobat named Michael Sundin, who was bent double and walking backwards.

I don't think anyone of the newer generations will ever want to watch this movie, or read the book. As someone born in 87, this looks like garbage. That's coming form a person who liked Never ending story, so the kids today will never be able to watch this or read it. They would find it boring or completely out of the wheel house that they would feel like you're punishing them. I know I would and I am 35 now. This whole world is creepy and the fuel of Nightmares for little children. Times have changed dude, the only kid now, that would watch this, is someone who has had a really messed up life.

@@ravinraven6913i’m 21, i haven’t read the books but growing up i LOVED the wizard of oz. the wiz and return to oz are actually 2 of my favorite movies bc i love the creepiness and overall aesthetic of those 2 movies specifically. i intend to pass a lot of my love for things like this on

@@riv3r_mcneil You should read the books; they are wild, full of imagination, and hilarious in parts (Baum especially loved puns).

@@ravinraven6913 Times never change that much. As long as imagination exists, there will be Oz.

That was Tik-Tok, the wind-up mechanical man.

It's not Tin Man, just like Chris said. That's completely different character named Tik-Tok.

Yea, TikTok isn't the same character as Tinman but he did have a swanky stache tho!

@@ChrisMaxfieldActs no thats the guy that dances for 3 seconds to one minute

Very well said 😂

I agree with the too dark is malarkey tidbit, good examples of that are the US remakes of the Korean thriller Oldboy and French horror Martyrs both films had US remakes that absolutely butchered what made the originals great cause they were seen as too dark I still pick return to oz and even the wiz over the wizard of oz, the dark undertones add to the charm of those films

Return to Oz took the second and third Oz books by L. Frank Baum, put them in a blender, and then picked out whatever they didn't like and put in their own ideas. It has some good ideas in it and the first performance by the worst actor in cinema history, Jim Carrey.

@@caseypride why is he the worst?

I actually grew to not like the Judy Garland version because of how different it was from the book. I would love for them to do a Chronicles of Narnia on this and come out with something more truer to the book rather than a "remake" of the original movie. People seem to think the book and the original movie are one in the same and there's clearly so much more to the book that we never got to see live-action onscreen. There's a real epic adventure there and all people think when they think of the Wizard of Oz in general are ruby slippers and Over the Rainbow.

"Too dark and too scary" is not a criticism. I got my little brother into Dark Souls, and I was enamored by the Legacy of Kain series when I was a kid, where its literally a soul devouring, vampiric kind of wraith going out into a 3d world and killing monstrous abominations.

Which "other movie?" There are nearly 20 Oz movies.

@@MaskedMan66 I meant the famous one from 1939. The movie Return to Oz was filmed as a sequel of it, they even paid the rights to use ruby slippers.

@@NuvolaRoss It isn't a sequel. Frankly, I've always said that using the ruby slippers was Walter Murch's only mistake in making RtO. He should have used the silver shoes or the Nome King's magic belt, and just let the movie be its own entity.

I did that, too!

Have you ever read "Ozma of Oz?"

I still touch green things and say "Oz!"

They became sentient fat on the body of their devourers. And yes, there is a fetish for that. Rule 34 HAS ALL THE THINGS!!!

@@Alondro77 eww

I remember a line that said something along the lines that one can become “destroyed” but not die. Did anyone see Torchwood Miracle Day? This is also why the Tin Woodman is the Tin Woodman. If anyone is interested you should look up his origins as well as the Tin Soldier. What really takes the cake is what happens with their severed body parts.

@@Alondro77 unlike most instances of Rule 34, I have literally zero interest in satisfying any curiosity, morbid or otherwise.

@@Alondro77 That's horrifying

What's even worse is shirley temple was meant to be Dorothy (which would have made more sense as younger than judy) but in the talks to the directors she was nearly molested

@@mrhalloween1152 Even though Judy Garland as Dorothy was much too old for a faithful book adaptation I think it was more successful than Shirley Temple as Dorothy would have been. It would have been known as a Shirley Temple movie (suffused with her impish cuteness). It might would have been more monetarily successful at the time but would not be the classic we have today

@@hurdygurdyguy1 Yh true I mean the age more than the talent really but yh would have been more a Shirley film

Don't feel too bad. She maybe had to eat alot of chicken soup, but she genuinely had a good time making the film. She cracks up in some of the scenes if you look close. She made history with her song and endeared herself to everyone forever. Time or nothing else can change it.

@@sandyschipper155 hope that's sarcasm 😂 she was only allowed to eat chicken soup, smoke packets a day and was on fat burning tablets, she wore a corset to push her boobs down to make her look somewhat younger, the other actors didn't want to know her or stick up for her because they purely didn't care, she was sexually harassed by some of the people who played the munchkins and they even had security stalk her to make sure she did everything on point and kept to her "diet plan"

I agree, I watched it the other day and I was still blown away

They aren't dark. Truth be told, nor is this movie; while it has scary elements, it is ultimately about restoring light and order, and defeating darkness and chaos.

I guess after 1939, the year the live-action adaptation of Wizard of Oz was released, everyone somehow forgets the other sequels to the original tale, and only the first book gets adapted many, many times and then watered-down to become incredibly kid friendly.

@@Isaac-gh5ku The first live-action movie of _Wizard_ was in 1910 and the second in 1925. The book and its 39 sequels are all very much kid friendly; good thing too, as they are children's books. There have been two live-action screen adaptations of the second book, _The Marvelous Land of Oz._ One was made for T.V. in 1961 and starred Shirley Temple as Princess Ozma, Agnes Moorehead as Mombi, and Sterling Holloway as Jack Pumpkinhead. The second was released as a kiddie matinee in movie houses in 1969 and was not brilliant, but the script and the costumes were very good. Mike Thomas, who played the Scarecrow and did all the make-up for the movie, went on to be make-up man for Michael Jackson when he played the Scarecrow in _The Wiz!_ There was also an excellent stage production which was broadcast on cable T.V. and released to home video in 1988 (or thereabouts). In 1914, L. Frank Baum himself produced a movie of the seventh Oz book, _The Patchwork Girl of Oz,_ starring French acrobat Pierre Couderc in the title role.

@@MaskedMan66 They aren't dark, they only have dancers getting beheaded to be used by some headless witch and a gnome who tried to eat a child

Reminds me of the 2003 incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

That would be so interesting

That seems like it would honestly be better than gravity falls

I wish they would do anything at all, that cartoon is amazing

I would prefer Studio Ponoc taking that on.

It NEEDS to happen

Dorothy has received no "abuse." The closest she got (in Kansas) was when she almost had to go through shock therapy. You have to understand that despite the ill-advised MGM-type framework story, the Oz in this movie is no dream, but quite real. Dr. Worley was not the Nome King's inspiration, he was the Nome King's agent. The blonde girl who rescued Dorothy after the power went out really was Ozma, not just what became Ozma. I was around when this movie came out, and both the press for the movie and the novelization made it clear that Oz was real.

​@@MaskedMan66Just because Oz is real doesn't mean it's not based off something. A lot of media have real fairy or fantasy lands that also serve as a look into the mind of the main character. Kind of like Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. And Dorothy was a child during the Great Depression living with her aunt and uncle. Although she may not have been abused by her guardians, she was definitely abused by her environment, feeling the effects of neglect, starvation, overworking, isolation, and eventually her time in the asylum. I'm certain she was able to latch on to some scary looking people in Oz *because* of how much she could relate to them through her own traumas. They may be real, but they are also very representative of the things Dorothy has to deal with every day.

@@uafgames9061 Your first statement makes no sense. Oz existed for centuries before Dorothy ever went there, even before the Wizard did. In fact, one of the first outsiders to enter Oz was a knight of Merrie England. The Great Depression began in 1929; Dorothy's first trip to Oz was in 1900, or as RtO has it, 1899. All Dorothy had to "deal with" were the necessary hardships of farm life, but she was not one to give in to bad feelings; quite the contrary, she was very bright and curious, and she always had Toto there to make her laugh. And of course eventually, Dorothy and her aunt and uncle moved to Oz full time after her fifth time visiting there.

@@MaskedMan66 oh shoot, I didn't even know all that 😅 Thanks for educating me

@@uafgames9061 You're welcome! Thank you for being receptive!

WHY ARE YOU EVERYWHERE!!!

There's just no escaping you is there? 🤣

It's the same deal with shows like Goosebumps and Courage the Cowardly Dog

I take it you've never seen "The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" or "Escape to Witch Mountain" or "The Black Hole."

I love when I see a comment from you on a youtuber I haven't been recommended before. I know I'm in for a good watch!

Along with Return to Oz, I watched those two religiously as well. I really wish Disney would have stuck with it. Children's horror is still one of my favorite genres and I'm 25. Nothing really creepys me out in the same way.

I have never even heard of those titles.

The Black Hole also had some strong horror elements.

What they were thinking with Something Wicked I will never know. That book is terrifying and I still have nightmares about the tarantulas.

@@CheshirePhrog They did excise some pretty great scares from the book, and that awesome moment when the kids elderly father kills the witch with a wax bullet with his smile etched on it, after showing her he did that. For those who didn’t read it, it wasn’t the bullet that killed her, it was the fear of the power a man who doesn’t fear her and how he just laughs at how ridiculous she is in his eyes now, she herself was so overcome with fear of him that she had a heart attack.

You mean her bedroom? That's where she was at the end of the film, before running out into the barnyard to play with Toto.

I always think of that room when I enter an antique shop 💚

The whole Famous Forty?

I think it's a reach myself, only one initial matches, lots of letters rhyme with D, Whirley isn't close at all and his life in Kansas in no way seems a caricature of a tycoon. Good pun though Robert!

@@MagusMarquillin oh yeah, well, i think that's like, your opinion, dude

@@Gunth0r _...I am the walrus._

@@MagusMarquillin Beatles exist to be squashed.

The sass in this thread is to be envied. Color me green with it.

Can give more details?

@@eastlynburkholder3559 To expand on both: The Scarecrow describes slowly coming to life. Namely being blind until eyes were drawn on him, and being deaf until his creator gave him ears. As for the Tin Man, he used to be human. He was a woodcutter that fell for a munchkin woman. Her mother didn’t approve and cursed him. Every time he swung at a tree, the axe would fly off and sever one of his limbs. Luckily, he knew someone that could replace his body parts with metal so they wouldn’t be chopped off immediately. Unfortunately he didn’t give up his job and it got to the point of him being completely metal...

And in a later book in the series, he meets Chopfyt, who is made from his old human parts, and the human parts of another tin man, sewn together Frankenstein style.

The Tin Man was our cyborg progenitor.

@@ERON616 what. That’s pure crazy. I like it.

It isn't a nightmare, it's just a fun fantasy flick with some scary bits.

I am 39 and remember the Peanut Butter Solution. It took a lot of googling to figure out the name of it and yes it was freaky!

Watership down has entered the chat…

@@louannablackburn6958 I've never heard of it.

Has no one here ever seen Watership Down?

@@Not_Always Oh yes. That one. But Disney facing the darkness, as another commentator posted, only came *after* their Bowdlerization of The Fox and the Hound.

I totally get what you’re saying. I am a child of the 1980s, (not that ago, I realize!) but when I read the Baum books, I found them to be absolutely “lighthearted, fun, & cheerful.” I have the whole facsimile collection, & they are still whimsical mind candy to me. I love characters like the Woggle Bug, the Sawhorse, and the Glass Cat. I didn’t think of them as even remotely dark, so it’s interesting to hear other perspectives!

The books are actually a political metaphor about the gold standard.

I guess it's not much a matter of experienced violence, it's more like a culture thing. Chopping off heads of rabbid animals that attack humans (or in this era, men) "for no reason" or are considered pests is normal, children working in dire smog-filled workstations for 12 hours a day to feed their families is normal, having sex with little girls that are passed down between the the males in the family, then "gifted" to a man of other family for the sake of updating a family's status is also normal. But chopping off heads of pests, working grueling hours in smog for half a day and being passed down to be used since early age have always been perceived as bad stuff. Though back then these were just "necessary evils" or "just life". Kids could perceive the badness even then. Besides, the ones saying the books were "light" were adults which, historically, tend to be completely detached from the "kid's world" and have their own brand of what a kid should be

​@Angelo Griffith Not sure if it's a joke, but just in case you are serious, I mentioned references to real life, mostly culture characteristics from the time Alice was written. During the industrial revolution, kids were sent to work in factories, dealing with dangerous and heavy machinery and materials, like uranium, asbestos, coal, petroleum, etc. They worked almost the entire day, surrounded by thick clouds of smog and were paid almost nothing, like adults. They had to work because social inequalities increased, the poor getting poorer, to the point of absolute misery, so any able-bodied person should help keep the family (barely) alive. Fun fact, these are the conditions that lead us to have worker laws today. During medieval times to even today, in the western, christian world, it have always been a common practice to have sex with and marry female kids. Basically the only type of person that could not be f*cked are toddlers. Also, the christian traditions say the female should bow down to the male superiority and be his property, having all aspects of her life controlled by the men responsible to her, be it brother, father, priest, husband or what not. Also, her job in society is to keep her "preciousness of purity" (virginity) to be gifted to another man by her father. Also, marrying was always a job more than a dream, it never was for love, it was for status or tradition. The concept of having a life together with someone you actually love and do not casue your demise is fairly new. This all culminates in it being normal to opress women, and a girl having to endure sexual violence, since formatie years, for her whole life. Fun fact, the idea the female should not control her own body is the reason christians make a big deal out of abortion. The point is not to save the baby, is to take away the female's freeedom, as she should have none, and give the "divine right" of controlling when the couple breeds back to the rightful owner, the male.

​@Angelo Griffith Also, forgot to mention that animals' rights are a new concept, and gratuitous violence towards "sub-human creatures", especially to "pests" was normal. That being one of the reasons hunting for sport was, and still is, a thing. Even christian traditions say the animals were created to serve men, as god made them to keep company to Adam in Paradise, and are to be made sacrifices in god's name, or used for food. Coexistence with nature is a new concept. Fun fact, the difference between a "normal animal" and a "pest" is the animal's economic and social importance. If it cause profit or no economical change, and if it's socially symbolic or protected, then it's an animal. If it causes economical decline, spoiling products or getting in the way of production, and if it is hated or nobody cares, then it's a pest. Wolfs were considered pests for quite a while. Another fun fact. The closest we got of coexisting with nature while part of mainstream society was by "controlling" nature and make it blend with urban spaces. That conept is where gardens, lawns, plant pots and neatly planting trees in important buildings' entrances come from. The concept of just letting nature do it's own thing, giving space to nature and allowing it in our lives as it is, is an absurdly new idea

If I remembered correctly, it was indeed made of emeralds or at least green, it just simply didn’t seem green enough to be awe inspiring, so they made everyone wear the glasses.

@@mslightbulb There were emeralds studded in the walls. Also, the book version of the Gnome King does NOT create the gems. He and the other Gnomes are also flesh and blood, and not rock.

They needed the glasses to not go blind from looking at all the gems.

@@smoothoctopus That was the lie that the Wizard had told, to make it seem more magical than it was.

Its called a retcon. First book its a trick, later books there actually are emeralds.

A couple decades earlier, there was _The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh._

Watched something wicked this way comes a few months ago, it was such an amazing experience. Still can't believe it was made by Disney

Leave him alone.

@@DanCowmanYo *Leave Britney Alone* ! _Cries into bedsheets_ 🤣 You motherfuckers crack me up!

@@thomasmcfiddles5133 Ah yes. Leave Britney Alone. An Internet classic.

Like Jack Pumpkinhead for Jack Skelington?

@@valerievargas1548 And Sally is very similar in some regards to Scraps the Patchwork Girl. Scraps was sewn together and brought to life by artificial means, though instead of being a corpse she was made from a quilt and scraps of material.

@@saintfighteraqua Meaning she was a real doll like Raggy Anne.

I do believe he worked on this film. The fact that Jack Skelington rides into town dressed up as Jack Pumpkinhead on a wooden horse not dissimilar to the saw horse really shows his inspiration

You can certainly see it in his stop motion

Kids do really love horror, or else fnaf wouldn’t have so much merch at target in the kids section of all places .

@@AngelichuXD Scary stories books and "are you afraid of the dark" kept up the horror for kids genre into the 90s. It's enduringly popular. It's good to see there's still media like that.

I've always said it best us Gen Xer's grew up in times where we had some the best fantasy films ever made. Films that not only freaked us out but challenged our mind sets and got us out of our comfort zones.

Yes!!! Like Jim Henson’s movies, like Labyrinth and especially the Dark Crystal!

Well, I think the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" book is considered to be meant for children, yet the illustrations of charcoal and ink is downright terrifying and it's great. This is basically the creepypasta before the Internet.

Of course, in the book he was flesh and blood (or whatever Nomes have in their veins), and looked very much like Santa Claus.

Oz is not "nightmarish." If you've ever been there-- which is to say, read any of the books-- you know it's a very fun, exciting place to visit.

@@MaskedMan66 Thank you. Oz in many ways is like our world. They are many pleasant things to explore and love and also a lot of horrific and dark things that's scary to come across.

@@brandonspain12345 The charm of Oz-- and for that matter Narnia and parts of Middle-earth-- is that you find things there that are very familiar. The agriculture and food of Oz are very similar to those of our world, and the language is the same. So Dorothy was in familiar, if spectacularly beautiful and colorful, surroundings when she first went to Oz.

@@MaskedMan66 yeah it has some macabre ideas and characters at times like Mombi or the gnome king but it's more exciting than terrifying. I loved visiting Oz as a kid and still like to go down the nostalgia tunnel time to time. Hell I'm 43 and my Dad got me the first five books in one for Christmas. Anyway high five fellow OZ lover.

@@RemoWilliams1227 High five back! :-) Mombi might be classed as macabre in RtO, but in the books, she's really more of a meddlesome old woman with dangerous powers. As for the Nome King, he's a pretty typical Baum villain; take away his powers (as Dorothy did when she stole his magic belt) and his forces, and he's really not much to write home about. Of course, if he gets his hands on some powerful magic he can use, watch out! He was the closest thing to a regular villain in the Oz series. Have you read the entire Famous Forty?

Dawn Treader and the Silver Chair are the best, Tom Baker as Puddleglum

@Dan Manno I guess you could say I’m a fan 😏

I remember two different elementary school teachers I had taking the class to the school's library to watch LionWitchWardrobe and walking away both times feeling like a fever dream. What's worse is we never even got to finish it either time!

@@sambaxter7035 BRO 💀

@@sambaxter7035 I hate you in a very passionate and specific way I'm sure you're a nice guy, but due to the cursed knowledge you have unintentionally bestowed upon me and for this very reason alone , I despise your very being

It's not "dark." The whole point of the movie is Dorothy bearing the light of hope and restoration.

That was only in the first two books; after Ozma took the throne, the City became truly green. The books are excellent; do you plan to read all forty?

@@MaskedMan66 all FORTY? WTH? Really? Or u mean all 4 books?

@@OikPoinFive I mean forty. :-) L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen Oz books, and after he died (in fact, his last book was published posthumously), his wife Maud gave her blessing to the publishers to continue the series, which was taken over by Ruth Plumly Thompson, who wrote nineteen books. John R. Neill, who illustrated most of the Oz books, wrote three, Jack Snow wrote two, Rachel Cosgrove wrote one, and the final book, "Merry Go Round in Oz," published in 1963, was written by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and her daughter Lauren.

Grim as an adjective or a name? Like the brothers Grimm.

@@Inaworldoflove Grim. Grimm. See the difference? ;-)

History books turn villains into heroes. John Smith was a villain. So was Christopher Columbus. All the blood and gore is taken out of school history books too. Which is really disappointing since everybody loves a good R-rated story. It's sad that even grown ass adults prefer the sugar coated G-rated version of history. Proves how dumb they are.

@@savenetneutralityanti-repu7029 How were they "villains?" They may not fit your personal, out-of-time views of a "good" person (and what are those colored by, I wonder?), but they were just people. Your education has probably been highly twisted by chronological snobbery and wokeness. Also, do you realize that your screen name is contradictory?

No, because this was happening even before Disney. Take Frankenstein for example, the book was a thoughtful and tense story. But the 1920's movie was a stripped down version.

Wtf I thought I was the only guitar gearhead watching this

@@mattgilbert7347 make that 3

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6nZWGoD4ANM.html

I showed my daughter this movie at 2 maybe 3 years old and she was pretty unaware of the creepiness. Now she is almost 11 and we just watched it again yesterday and she is completely OBSESSED now!!!

EhhAaahgkkk

Don't worry, my son actually sat through this as his first live action film. The old movies will not be forgotten easily.

I will carry its legacy on

Tim Burtons hidden Gems

@@LEXICON-DEVIL Burton had nothing to do with this.

It's one of my all-time favorites 💙

There are forty in all!

@@MaskedMan66 the power of being broke. Most of those books Baum didn't even author.

@@Not_Always He created Oz and wrote the first fourteen books, creating dozens of characters. All the following authors gave him props.

Oh yeah he LOVES dragging people undeserving through dirt. Just ask wendigoon

Man, hindsight’s a bitch.

Damn those clueless dunderheads at Netflix for cancelling The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. They buy the rights to make it because they wanted to make a niche, cult hit to bring in subscribers, then get upset that it was a cult hit with little mainstream appeal!? *THAT* *JUST* *MAKES* *THEM* *LOOK* *FLAKEY* *AND* *UNRELIABLE* !! Who the hell would want to work for a company that cancels you after you get an *Emmy!!*

@@Popcultureguy3000 I agree I view A0R cancellation as the dumbest move ever, but it is becoming a theme on Netflix they only keep a show going for 1/2 seasons and if its lucky if it gets 3. The fall out from this is lack of trust in the platform.

@@Popcultureguy3000 wait they canceled it?! I loved that show and I saw it before the movie!

@@emeraldblack842 Right after it won the Daytime Emmy for *Best* *Children’s* *Program,* yes, really.

@@whitewolf1743 Netflix claims to have cancelled it because it cost way too much to produce it. Which yeah I get it but they could of at least given us 1 more season considering how excellent the first season was

That's hardly dissonance; even L. Frank Baum himself liked to change things up a bit. He co-created a stage musical of "Wizard" in 1902 which was vastly different from the book. He also made some silent films, one of which was a mashup of "Wizard" and "The Scarecrow of Oz."

Problem not a second thought was given, I work with substance abuse patients and we accept/appreciate donations when we can them. Once, we received a book that was heavily suggesting drugs are the only way for some people. Not the best book for addicts.

Dude I couldn't sleep for a week!

The Wheelers scared the crap out of me. Followed closely by the headless Mombi waking up. And yes, love this movie to this day

RtO isn't a horror movie. And the Bumpy Man is just bumpy; he has no disease.

@@MaskedMan66 RtO is for sure a horror. I literally have memories of this film where I think my imagination is fucking with me, only to realize "Nope. That shit was real." The existential dread when you realize that all the old characters are dead and anything that still is, does not look as it once did; subtle commentary on age and mortality of everything you love, including the parental figure of Oz himself.

@@kiandocherty3589 No, it's a fantasy adventure film, and no fantasy adventure is complete without a few scares, especially when the scares usually end up coming from ultimately harmless beings, like the Wheelers. Nobody died; they were turned to stone by an enchantment, as you'll remember. In actual fact, nobody can die in Oz.

@@MaskedMan66 It does not need characters to die to be horror. Return To Oz is categorized as "dark fantasy" which is basically fantasy mixed with horror.

@@TOMNICE I don't know who categorizes it like that; in all the places where I've seen it catalogued (such as the book store where I work), it's either been among the regular, non-"dark" fantasy movies or in with the other family films.

The movie was based on two books: "The Marvelous Land of Oz" and "Ozma of Oz."

What the heck are you even talking about?

@@MaskedMan66 A book. I'm talking about a book. Google it....

@@MaskedMan66how do you not understand what this person is talking about

@@michaelwills1926 Because I've read that book (I have a first edition of it, actually) and there's nothing "horrifying" in it, certainly nothing worth putting the book down for.

That's not at all what he had; that was just how he looked. Or do you think the Frogman suffered from some horrible ailment that turns people into frogs? ;-)

@@MaskedMan66 pretty sure she just means visually he reminds her of disease

@@MaskedMan66 I'm somewhat surprised to hear people considered the OZ books horrific. As a kid, and even now, the descriptions of the characters make me laugh. The vibe I always got was something like vaudeville or Loony Toons, where these broad archetypes feign injury or suffering for our amusement. The Hungry Tiger wanting to eat babies is really, really funny. We know, and the characters know, that he won't ever do that; it's a farcical character quirk. The ending of the first Oz story, where the Wizard is revealed to be all bluster, really sets the tone. It says not to take any of what follows too seriously because it's all a show.

@@episodenull Exactly, and it's worth noting that the Wizard eventually came back, and learned real magic from Glinda and Ozma, and became a bona fide Wizard. :-) Baum wrote a short story featuring the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger in which they finally made up their minds to assert themselves as wild beasts and do what they claimed to want to do. So off they went into the Emerald City to find a fat baby for the Tiger to eat and an adult for the Lion to tear to pieces. Instead, they ended up taking pity on a lost baby and his mother by reuniting them!

@@Birdyboys Reminds me more of a man with balloons stuffed into his suit.

Dustin Chlystek that's exactly right. There was one point where he tells Mombi that he will be completely human the second Dorothy failed at her attempt and be transformed into an ornament.

@@melissacooper4282 @Dustin Chylstek Yep, at 1:27:10 in the movie he says "Soon they'll be no one left who remembers Oz, and I will be completely human." In reference to Dorothy being the only one left in the ornament room to have any remaining guesses (and at that point, she only has one guess left).

@@VueFromTheTop I think its suppose to be about the doctor being a monster for what he does but wont be once Dorothy dies since presumably its because of her escaping that the police come and sentence him to death if the whole real world to oz counterparts are 100% true. The Nome King looks more human when her friends get transformed because the doctor was friendly to Dorothy and tried to make her less scared, then when she escaped he became the doctor became less friendly so the Nome King was less human. Though Oz has this weird real world base, personally i think the Nome King becoming human was just about the doctors being seen as good and being turned into ornaments was the electrotherapy. Also the Nome King had the ruby slippers and if i remember right, they had many different powers so i don't know how or why he needed oz to be forgotten to become "completely human".

@@melissacooper4282 Yep just rewatched and saw that. Never caught it before; just noticed the changes lol. Catch something new each run I suppose!

Yes Dustin I noticed that the first time I watched the film. He would have become the Doctor from the asylum after all of them were captured. At least they tried to have some characters from Dorothy's real world as Oz characters (like the nurse).

Denslow only illustrated the first book. But I can't see how anyone could find his work, or the work of John R. Neill, his successor, at all frightening. Do you have the whole Famous Forty, then?

@@MaskedMan66 not sure what famous forty is but it’s about 8 or 10 books. I was easily frightened as a child. Alice in Wonderland freaked me out too!😄

@@fritty9927 L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen Oz books, and after he died, many other authors took over the Oz series; the total number of books in the Oz canon is forty. The last book was "Merry Go Round in Oz" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and her daughter Lauren, and it was published in 1963.

@@MaskedMan66 All mine are from Denslow. Most were produced from 1900 to early 1900’s. Also have The Mother Goose one and a poster from around 1900 that was used to promote stage version of Oz.

@@fritty9927 Denslow only illustrated "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." John R. Neill took over on the second book and illustrated most of the rest, and even wrote three of his own. Do you have first editions, then? 😲

Thank you very much that really does mean a ton to me. And I absolutely agree, all of my favorite things when I was very young had a lot of things hidden underneath their surface.

Kids are too stupid and lazy to think for themselves these days.

@@Bell_Matt That's not remotely true. The environment kids are being molded by isn't particularly friendly towards their true natures, nor humanity as a whole. Young people are naturally inquisitive and aren't clad with the layers of sophistication and self-deception like we are, and are great observers of what actually is, as opposed to what one wishes things to be.

@@Bell_Matt because the cartoons they constantly watch treats them like idiots

@@Bell_Matt I'm glad I didn't turn into the kind of adult you are. I never talk to children in a patronizing way but rather the same way I would talk to an adult. The know more than you think even if they don't express it the way you can understand. Let them think for themselves and they will.

Filmmakers were a real close-knit bunch in them days.

She smiled a lot, actually, did Fairuza, and in my estimation, she is probably just about the best portrayer of Baum's Dorothy; innocent, matter-of-fact, practical, loving, unflappable, and sweet as pie.

Judy Garland, however, was not at all "camp" in any of her reactions. Whatever emotion she portrayed, she did it with total sincerity.

Is there anything that explains why he wants to become human? Aside from possibly ridding himself of his weakness to eggs, I can't find anything in the text stating why this is his goal. Although the process of removing anyone with memory of Oz puts me in mind of things like Neverending Story or American Mcgee's Alice: Madness Returns. Just something I have been puzzling over for the past 30 years or so.

@@EmerySea maybe emeralds were like a power source to him and when all of the other characters turned into them he got more power. It could explain why he was so bent on having emeralds

@@motorwayt-s628 I think the emeralds were more about him attempting to retrieve stolen property. When Dorothy is falling through the mountain, you can see he has no shortage of the things. If the emeralds are connected to memories, all that would be forgotten would be the Emerald City. What happened to the rest of Oz? Where are the good witches of the North and South? What happened to the cities the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion ruled over?

The Nome King doesn't have any motives, but your observation may be true about the Gnome King

@@sheeplehunter9651 I don't really think it's necessary to be so pedantic about the spelling but, since you brought it up, it is spelled "Nome King" in the books.

Just FYI, the abbreviation among Narnia bibliophiles is LWW. ;-) What particularly scared you about Maugrim?

But not after they were revealed as cowardly comic relief, right?

I never understood the fear of the wheelers, queen mombi was the one who scared the hell outta me as a kid

@@bezoticallyyours83 Princess Mombi, you mean, and it was an assumed title.

The crazy faces on top of their heads freaked me out as a kid! Plus the creepy squeaking sounds before you first see them in the movie.

@@hooksncrosses3419 Did you notice that it was the same noise as the wheels of the gurney that Dorothy rode in the asylum made?

All forty Oz books?

@@MaskedMan66 she had about 20 of them. I think she picked them up at a garage sale. There was a bunch.

@@fersuvious Cool!

The Wicked Witch, I assume you mean, seeing as how there were two good witches in the book. And if your book had the illustrations by W.W. Denslow, then the WWW was no taller than Dorothy. What's "disturbing" about the Scarecrow getting belted by the Hammer-Heads? It's not like he got hurt.

@@MaskedMan66 idk I was like six lmao

i always wanted one SO bad

That's kind of like what Kraft services feels like on a movie set, the bell rings someone yells "lunch!" And instantly you're in front of a long table filled with deliciousness and a cook to make your food the way you want it served. It was one of my favorite parts of Hollywood.

Agreed

@@emilyknight2435 I always wanted to try them. Sound so yummy.

No, it wasn't! It was a time of high adventure and great fun!

I missed it

@@PrincessMavenKittyDarkholme Those wonderful movies are still out there! Besides RtO, look especially for _The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Last Unicorn, The NeverEnding Story, Willow,_ and _My Neighbor Totoro._ :-)

I wish our media was challenging again. And I don't mean controversial.

a complete

I liked it better than I expected to, and especially loved Joey King as the China Girl. But I do wish that Oz movies would avoid the MGM trap.

I had reoccurring nightmares from this movie that were as bad as the nightmares I had from being sexually abused.

The restoration of Oz, Dorothy's reunion with her friends, and her joyful laughing at the end didn't leave you feeling good?

i did first. it is good.

Same

me too🐥

@Navarro Dodge Same, Books like that just sort of accumulate in schools, tucked back in dark corners of classrooms.

Pinocchio is also very similar. He actually murders a kid with a textbook in the original book.

You and me both! So many people get it wrong: "Why did they make Oz so dark?" they wail. "'They' didn't," sez I, "the Nome King and Mombi did, and Dorothy came back to put things right. By the end, we see Oz as it should be."

Totally and completely agreed

My guess lots of people grew up with the 1939 film, and somehow lots of people forgotten about the other sequels to the first book. And then people started making many adaptations of the first book, and only the first book, in which all the dark elements of the first book are heavily removed so that their kids will only read the very kid-friendly version of Wizard of Oz.

@@Isaac-gh5ku The books are all kid-friendly-- they're children's books, after all! But you're right about the MGM movie becoming all that people knew of Oz after a while. Practically every adaptation of the story for a long time was based, not on the book, but on the Judy Garland film.

@TheMaidofMiddleEarth Indeed! I thought she was an excellent Dorothy. I've been meaning to write her a fan letter for decades; I really must get cracking on that!

Sorry, what are you talking about?

Yup...

DOROTHY GAYLE!!!!!!!!

@@Forgiven2007 Gale.

The fucking wheelers gave me nightmares those creepy fucks

@@widdershins5383 You're kidding, right? They were very shortly revealed as bullies and cowards, in the story for comic relief.

Actually, the good and the bad were always clearly delineated; as it says in the first book: "The leader of the Winged Monkeys flew up to her, his long, hairy arms stretched out and his ugly face grinning terribly; but he saw the mark of the Good Witch’s kiss upon her forehead and stopped short, motioning the others not to touch her. “'We dare not harm this little girl,” he said to them, “for she is protected by the Power of Good, and that is greater than the Power of Evil.'" Some villains, such as Ugu the Shoemaker and Queen Coo-Ee-Oh, were reformed after being transformed (in both their cases, into birds), but no villain's actions were ever motivated by altruism; they were always after being cruel and selfish.

I mean, they were correct in their decision, as the tone of the movie led to a box office of half their budget.

Violence and silliness coalesce into one of the bits that made me laugh as a child, and that's when, in describing how his enchanted axe cut him to bits, the Tin Woodman says, "The Wicked Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first I thought that was the end of me." LOL

My 4th grade teacher read us much of the series, that was in 1960. I have loved it ever since, and shared it with my children and grandchildren.

@@bonniecandace Have you read the whole Famous Forty?

That's made clear from his dialogue.

That's how I always understood it too.

Makes me wonder, where was he, and Ozma during the story of the Original Wizard of Oz. The Gnome King explained, Emerald City stole the emeralds from him.

@@hardyjoe4278 recovering from their loss, in the books at least, this is a whole bustling economy in the nome kingdom, so, they had more important things to do, but when the emerald city was at its weakest, in a transition of power, the nome king decided to strike on a people that had long since forgotten of the tension

@@hardyjoe4278 It's Nome King, and as is shown in the movie, his realm is across the desert from Oz. It is located under the neighboring land of Ev, which featured in "Ozma of Oz," the third Oz book, and the one in which the Nome King made his debut.

Yes. Absolutely. Freddy has nothing on The Wheelers.

truly gave me the creeps just like the flying monkeys..and I saw it (return to oz) in 3d as a kid!

Boo!

Flying monkeys ~we are terror for kids~ Wheelers. ~hold our beer flying monkeys ~

That lady swapping her heads was a nightmare. Anyone making this film was on acid.

Have you read the books since? Because you never know when she might be looking in on you via the Magic Picture. :-)

You're right, Lewis Carroll doesn't deserve to be treated as a paedophile, since he kept his attraction to a platonic level and never touched a girl

That series is good. A lot of it didn't make much sense, but it was still a good adaption of the original book. I didnt like the side stories that linked into some of the other characters tho, I did like Dorothy's short story tho.

@@gravityfalls1826 It's a mockery of the book, no better than that "Wicked" rubbish.

Same! It hit me right in the middle of the video. I really liked that book!

@@ArtByTrahnay *smh*

My favorite thing about the book is how Dorothy is played up like a vain, yet charismatic starlet from the golden age of Hollywood. especially how they described what she is wearing.

@@gsesquire3441 IIRC he said, "Soon there'll be no-one left who remembers Oz, and I will be completely human."

@@MaskedMan66 the story sounds dark, twisted and complicated. Not a bad thing, I just forgot how interesting stories used to be.

@@whitedragoness23 The only dark thing about the story is the pall that the Nome King has cast over Oz, but the *point* of the story is that it has to be dispelled, and that is what Dorothy, bearing the light of her optimism, has come to do. It's also neither twisted nor complicated; it's a pretty straightforward story, really. :-)

Where was the Nome King and Princess Ozma, when Dorothy came through the first time trying to get home? Is that ever explained...? I understand that he claims Emerald City stole his emeralds, and well the Ruby Slippers just fell out of the sky.

@@hardyjoe4278 it was barely touched on in the movie, but that Deadly Desert separated the land of Oz from the other magical lands. It also separates the magical lands from the rest of the world. Ozma's father was deposed and she cursed around the time the Wizard came to Oz. She may not have trusted Dorothy until after her adventures with the Witch, but then she quickly left Oz.

Not gonna lie. I'm jealous.