Movies

Breathesgirl

New member
I thought I would start this here rather than monopolize another thread.

We were discussing whether Disney making the 14 book, L. Frank Baum, Oz series into movies was a good idea.

I think it is. Only one of the books, to the best of my knowledge & without googling, has been made into a movie--The Wizard of Oz with at least two take offs from that--The Wiz and The Tin Man (TV mini series).

I'm going to have to visit the library and check out the other ones.

I would love to see the others put out there.

Yes, it's true, there are an awful lot of remakes out there &, IMNSHO, a lot of not very original ideas for movies. The Oz series is close to a century old now and they've only mainstreamed ONE book? How unbelievable is that considering they're making absolutely any & everything into a movie or TV mini series?

The Harry Potter series was started a mere 13 years ago & they've already made all seven books into movies with the final installation, in two parts, coming out this November and next June.
 
I will cut and paste my other post over into here. This gets talked about lot amongst geek s haha...

I love seeing the remakes. Tin Man was downright awesome. The totally warped what the original Tin Man was supposed to represent, but hey, thats been lost in translation for years (early century sci fi..tin man was the dehumanization of the industrial revolution and men being replaced by robots...or some such stuff)...obviously it doesn't apply today as the fear is missing of industry, so they change the story line and make the tin man a hero :) Still an awesome remake, bringing it into todays concerns.

Harry potter is a perfect example of a well rehashed story line (god I can't believe I admitted that), rebuilt into child like novels and then perfectly fit into a movie setup. You can get the entire book into a movie. While I find that boring as a book, that makes it oddly unique. You can't...and could never do it, with Tolkien or Jordan for example. It would be impossibly large.

By rehashing classic mythology into something kids will read, she has created a new wave of people that will start reading fantasy. My generation had dragonlance and d&d books based on campaigns. While I disliked the potter books a great deal, the moves are good...and I can't fault someone for getting kids to watch and read more fantasy. The Lord of the Rings did it to a degree to. Although if anyone went to read those books and understand the time period they came from, the tolkien books hold an incredible amount of deep meaning to the industrial revolution as it occurred in Europe.

I love seeing rebuilt movies as long as there is a traditional spin and the story is adapted. If it is simply a carbon copy with bad actors....thats just an arg moment.
 
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little ole me said:
Its an interesting point but I think it has to do with how quickly things come out in todays media.

Look at the history of our mythology (greek, norse etc), it would recycle itself every, I don't know few hundred years. As we came closer to the 20th century the peasants became more literate, creating new stories and novels rehashed from previous mythology. Tolkien grabbed on, became popular and voila re-designed mythology into the genre of fantasy.

Scifi was a truly NEW creation as it was fed by the industrial revolution and people suddenly realizing they weren't limited to this planet. However sci fi has covered a lot of bases. And most modern sci fi is rehashed asimov who was truly amazing. There hasn't been anything truly new in decades. While asimov was a dull author, his mind was an acid trip * 10

Now, the point to that spiel...we in fact have a very limited number of stories and story lines. They used to take time to get recycled and rebuilt. But now with tv, movies and books and how quickly people absorb this stuff things get recycled more often.

Now more on topic. I would love to see a remake of oz. It has a lot of potential to be very dark and on point. I honestly believe they should bring back the drive-in style. When they had 3 mini stories...except make it the same movies with different interpretations. Could be a phenomenal way to tell a story. Take OZ and have it created in 3 distinct ways. Seeing a rehashed storey isn't the problem, its the fact they come at you too quickly.

*this is a very simplified breakdown and I am far from a true literary geek, I just like my genres and am pointing out something I realized a couple of decades ago.

HEre is my take on rebuilt and re-released stories.
 
I love anything that will get my boys to read.

I was in a bookstore over the weekend (ah the joys of a broken vehicle - get to explore strange new towns, but I digress) and happened to pick up the Wizard of Oz for my youngest to read while we waited for the Jeep to be fixed. Turns out it was done - but he can read in the car.... and in the space of a 3 hour drive - he had read the entire book.

I WILL be be getting the rest of them for him...

Yes I know this is a thread about movies.... Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief is a book I recently purchased for my older boy. He has struggled with it. Now that he's seen the movie, the book is a more interesting read for him.

The Karate Kid is a remake I REALLY enjoyed. I LOVED the orignal (Ralph Macchio was DREAMY) and was a little concerned about the newest one. As a remake - it DOES have all the elements of the original - Ralph's voice talking about Mr. Miagi rang through my head quite a bit in the final tournament scenes... but it was its own movie and a really good one on its own merits. It made for great conversations with my boys about bullying.

Would I like to see the Wizard of Oz remade?? Possibly... as long as it can be done in a way that differentiates it from the original. Annie was remade - but the Carol Burnett version is STILL the best. It's a stand-alone classic - even though it was a remake itself :)
 
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