The Chatty Pointless Thread

When the musical came out I was baffled because I'd read the book years ago and was like "how do you make a cheery musical out of barely coherent fan fic where a tiger kinda sexually assaults a munchkin on stage at a sex club?"

I find the metamorphosis from Baum's books to the film to McGuire's books to the musical one of the weirdest journeys in modern glorified fan fic/meta-textual storytelling ever. To each their own, but for my money, Baum's books and the old movie and if we're being really crazy, the drugged out fever dream that was Return to Oz.
 
My reaction exactly. I don't really know the author, but I assume they grew up on LiveJournal Into Tumblr.

Return to Oz is terrifying, but I feel like it's more accurate to the source material than the classic film.
 
This wicked fever is spreading.
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docsilence said:
I find the metamorphosis from Baum's books to the film to McGuire's books to the musical one of the weirdest journeys in modern glorified fan fic/meta-textual storytelling ever. To each their own, but for my money, Baum's books and the old movie and if we're being really crazy, the drugged out fever dream that was Return to Oz.
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I feel like it's a somewhat normal pipeline, actually. You have this thing that catches on that's generally appealing to all audiences, then you have someone that says "What if we did this, but darker?" That thing becomes popular for a bit, then when it starts to decline, they pivot back to a more family-friendly medium that makes more money. People discover that, perhaps even unaware of the thing that inspired it, write their own versions, and the process continues. Also very dependent on the times as well; look at the DC movies, for example. Started with Superman, which was bright and cheery, then Batman came along a decade later and made things darker. That got too dark, so we got the Schumacher films, then Nolan, then we got Snyder and it got too dark and angsty, and now we're seemingly toeing that line with the new DCEU, but certainly skewing a little brighter.

Oz has always been kinda Alice in Wonderland adjacent to me- there's enough symbolism and dark, twisted imagery in the books that it's not at all difficult to see how they could make a darker, more adult take on things. But there's also enough bright visuals and things open for interpretation that you can make them more family friendly too. Those old, psychedelic properties like Oz and Wonderland are what you make of them, and certainly in an age where we're increasingly less likely to look beyond surface level themes, it's easy to see how things can become overly sanitized. It's why I doubt we'll ever get a truly dark, R-rated Jurassic Park movie- the lighter fare appeals to more crowds and just makes more money.
 
docsilence said:
Those McFarlane figures, man. I'm not above a horror turn on a classic concept, but those things felt like someone's kink being revealed that should never have been put out in public.
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We got them in at TRU. In the process of morning stock, manager runs up with an email from corporate not to put them out.

Guess some buyer wasnt paying attention.
 
docsilence said:
I can't imagine why TRU wouldn't want a partially undressed Dorothy in bondage being branded by a naked munchkin on the shelves.
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Aheheheh I had the large version of that and also the large version of the Tortured Souls guy who was hanging on the cyber-rack and was . . . pregnant? . . . with something, both prominently on display in my Hollywood bachelor pad during my goth/industrial-and also-BDSM clubbing days (the scenes overlapped, still do).

. . . sigh . . .
😬
 
AceofKnaves said:
Aheheheh I had the large version of that and also the large version of the Tortured Souls guy who was hanging on the cyber-rack and was . . . pregnant? . . . with something, both prominently on display in my Hollywood bachelor pad during my goth/industrial-and also-BDSM clubbing days (the scenes overlapped, still do).

. . . sigh . . .
😬
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I remember seeing that stuff and thinking "I know what that is, and YOU know what that is, but a mom at Toys R Us either doesn't know what that is and is horrified or DOES and won't admit it..."
 
joshsquash729 said:
I feel like it's a somewhat normal pipeline, actually. You have this thing that catches on that's generally appealing to all audiences, then you have someone that says "What if we did this, but darker?" That thing becomes popular for a bit, then when it starts to decline, they pivot back to a more family-friendly medium that makes more money. People discover that, perhaps even unaware of the thing that inspired it, write their own versions, and the process continues. Also very dependent on the times as well; look at the DC movies, for example. Started with Superman, which was bright and cheery, then Batman came along a decade later and made things darker. That got too dark, so we got the Schumacher films, then Nolan, then we got Snyder and it got too dark and angsty, and now we're seemingly toeing that line with the new DCEU, but certainly skewing a little brighter.

Oz has always been kinda Alice in Wonderland adjacent to me- there's enough symbolism and dark, twisted imagery in the books that it's not at all difficult to see how they could make a darker, more adult take on things. But there's also enough bright visuals and things open for interpretation that you can make them more family friendly too. Those old, psychedelic properties like Oz and Wonderland are what you make of them, and certainly in an age where we're increasingly less likely to look beyond surface level themes, it's easy to see how things can become overly sanitized. It's why I doubt we'll ever get a truly dark, R-rated Jurassic Park movie- the lighter fare appeals to more crowds and just makes more money.
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I just saw this and thought it was funny. Does Dorothy make some questionable moral decisions in Wicked 2?
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altcunningham said:
We got them in at TRU. In the process of morning stock, manager runs up with an email from corporate not to put them out.

Guess some buyer wasnt paying attention.
Click to expand...

docsilence said:
I can't imagine why TRU wouldn't want a partially undressed Dorothy in bondage being branded by a naked munchkin on the shelves.
Click to expand...

I remember hearing when the 2nd Hellboy movie came out, and supposedly Toys R Us refused to stock the toys if they had his full name on the cover, since they didn't want kids to see the word "hell", so that's why the packaging said "HB II". Ironic, if true, since the actual figures of Hellboy himself still said his name on the packaging in the character slot. Shows how far we have (and haven't) come in a relatively short amount of time.
 
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