Most of us know the children’s fairy tale The Wizard of Oz and how it was generally a beautiful but eerie type of story. To refresh your mind, a child named Dorothy and her dog Toto were flown from Kansas by a cyclone to the land of Munchkin Country. They were told to get help from the Wizard of Oz to get back to their hometown and had wonderful adventures on their way there. Everyone is now up for a treat as the focus of the story goes away from the little lady with silver shoes to the man behind the curtain, Oz, where we will see his humble beginnings in the upcoming movie Oz: The Great and Powerful.
For a little extra info, Oz: The Great and Powerful is the lesser known adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum in the 1900. James Franco plays as Oscar Diggs, the mighty and powerful ruler of the Land of Oz, who is actually a lowly circus magician who has a questionable set of morals. He was then blown away from the grubby Kansas lands to the beautiful Land of Oz. With its rich environment and resources, Oscar thought he struck gold with his latest discovery until he faces the three witches of the land that question his legitimacy as the all-powerful wizard.
Michelle Williams plays as Glinda the Good Witch of the South while Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz play as Theodora the Wicked Witch of the West and Evanora the Wicked Witch of the East respectively. Oscar is then pulled in the ruckus of the problematic Land of Oz, using his cunning, trickery, magical arts and imagination to pull off both moves to prove his worth as the Wizard of Oz and segregate who’s good and who’s evil in the land while pulling himself to become a better man.
With Joe Roth of the movie Alice in Wonderland as the producer, Spiderman Trilogy’s Sam Raimi at the helm as director and Walt Disney at distribution, moviegoers will surely get a good taste of action, fantasy and a stellar storytelling worthy of praise. Trailers and posters show beautiful art and coloring, an environment that shows the amount of artistry that will show through every shot of the film. This reminds me how eerie it felt following the lush landscape of Oz through the yellow brick road and the Emerald City through the eyes of Dorothy in my imagination, so it will be a new and refreshing feel to imagine it in the eyes of Oscar Diggs, an adult tinker who was perceived as an intelligent man of mystery.
We are also set to see more of the three witches and how they were before their meeting with Dorothy and how they came to be. Overall, fans of the novel are sure to get a taste of a fantastic adventure set to make us remember that we will somehow get our own set of adventures in a land filled with opportunities that will establish who we are.
