Return to Oz (1985)

Even though released by Disney and (apparently) a sequel to the mega-popular Wizard of Oz movie starring Judy Garland, Return to Oz has gotten surprisingly little press. The main reason for this is that Return to Oz is a sequel in name only; it takes an approach to the material that's far darker and far more faithful to the original series of books than the movie. That, and there's the fact that there aren't any colorful musical numbers (or, in fact, musical numbers of any other kind.) This is really a shame, since in terms of depth and willingness to follow Baum's original vision in both tone and visuals, this take on Dorothy's adventures is superior to its prequel.

The darker and more realistic approach becomes apparent right away. Dorothy's life in Kansas isn't candy-coated; it's a hard life, although not by any means a miserable one. Even more surprising, the plot kicks off with Auntie Em taking Dorothy to an insane asylum for an early form of shock therapy to cure Dorothy of her dreams about Oz! The hints that poor Dorothy is really just schizophrenic or at least severely traumatized by the tornado in the original come in through out the film, adding an almost tragic atmosphere to Dorothy's character. Dorothy is liberated from the asylum by a mysterious blonde girl who turns out to be a parallel to the queen of Oz, Ozma (or may even be Ozma; it's somewhat left up to the viewer) but gets lost in a storm and almost drowned in a river. As you might expect, she wakes up in Oz, which she finds ravaged by an entity known as the Gnome King and his partner in crime, Princess Mombi, a sorceress who changes heads like one would change dresses. With a group of new companions- a talking hen, a clockwork man who needs to be wounded up to even think, a being with sticks for limbs and a carved pumpkin for a head, and a bizarre living contraption with a moose for a head and a couch for a body-she must find a way to rescue her old friends in Oz, restore Oz and the Emerald City to their former glories, and foil the Gnome King.

This Oz would chew up Judy Garland's Dorothy and spit her out limb by limb. Various times through out Fairuza Balk's Dorothy is threatened with a horrible death (death by fire, decapitation, getting her body ripped apart) and fates worse than death (having her body turned into sand or into an ornament). There's even a few eerie scenes that chilled even me, such as the sight of Princess Mombi's headless, extravagantly dressed body wandering through her gallery of peering, animate heads. Through out it all, Fairuza Balk plays Dorothy not as a spokesgirl for Prozac, but as a real, shy, and possibly slightly disturbed little girl with a taste for adventure and fantasy. Even better, she actually looks the part. In fact, fans of the book series will be very happy to see that just about everything is taken straight out of Baum's illustrations, most notably Dorothy's friends from the original "Wizard of Oz." The slippers are ruby instead of silver, but that was probably just put in to avoid confusion or pay homage to MGM's production.

The plot is a hodgepodge of events and characters from two of the novels from Baum's series, so the story suffers a few flaws as a result. A few facts about Oz's history and geography-never mentioned in the film Wizard of Oz-are brought up as though the audience and Dorothy should be familiar with them, even though we're led to think this is only Dorothy's second visit since Wizard of Oz. Also Queen Ozma's appearance comes as kind of an afterthought, while she plays a far more prominent role in the books (although there is the rather nifty if vague suggestion that the place Ozma was imprisoned through out the film was in Dorothy's world, where she was able to find and free Dorothy.)

Although it doesn't quite have the same broad appeal as other live-action "children's" films, such as Time Bandits and Labyrinth, Return to Oz is a forgotten classic overshadowed by its peppier prequel. Fans of Frank Baum's original vision of Oz should definitely seek this out, while anyone who happens to come across this sitting neglected on a shelf should give it a much deserved chance.

"If his brain's run down, how does he talk?"

"It happens to people all the time, Jack."

-Jack and Dorothy

Jean Marsh (Princess Mombi/the asylum nurse) played another villainess in another fantasy film (albeit a much better known one), Bavmorda from Willow.

Another fantasy film connection...Nicol Williamson (the Gnome King) played Merlin in 1981's Excalibur.