Return to Oz

So seeing as I reviewed The Wizard of Oz recently I decided to review the sequel Return to Oz. Well it's not really a sequel since the characters look different, Dorothy is younger, it's not a musical, and made 46 years after the first one. In fact it really seems to be more of a sequel to the books. Make your own decision on weather or not it's a sequel. Lets get started with Return to Oz (1985).

The movie takes place six months after the tornado that appears the first movie. Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) won't stop talking about the land of Oz and Auntie Em (Piper Laurie) is starting to think that window hit Dorothy a bit to hard. So Auntie Em takes her to a psychologist named Dr. Worley (Nicol Williamson). He say he is just going to run some "harmless" experiments on Dorothy to remove the memories of Oz. So the head nurse Miss. Wilson (Jean Marsh) shows Dorothy to her room while she sets up the experiment. But before they can start, a little girl (Emma Ridley) saves her. They jump into the river to escape. The girl is gone and Dorothy wakes up with the chicken from her farm, Billina (Mak Wilson/Denise Bryer). Except Billina can talk now.

Dorothy realizes she's in Oz. She finds where the house from the first movie landed. Except Munchkin Town is gone and The Yellow Brick Road is all destroyed. She follows The Yellow Brick Road and finds The Emerald City. Except the city is in ruins and the people are all turned to stone. The streets are being patrolled my creatures called Wheelers, which are like humans but with wheels instead of hands and feet. Dorothy hides in a room and inside she finds a robot named Tik Tok (Micheal Sundin/Tim Rose/Sean Barret). She winds him up and he says he is the royal army of Oz.  He tells her that after she left, the Gnome King (also Nicol Williamson) invaded, kidnapped the Scarecrow (who was the king after Dorothy left), stole the emeralds, and left a witch named Mombi (also Jean March) in charge of the Emerald City. So they go into the Emerald Castle and meet the witch Mombi who apparently wasn't satisfied with her face, so she stole the faces of other people and wore them all on different occasions. Mombi likes Dorothy's face and decides to lock her in a tower for a few years so she can steal her face. Tik Tok tries to save her but he breaks down and freezes. In the tower she meets a creature named Jack Pumpkinhead (Stewart Larange/Brian Henson) who says he was built by one of the prisoners to scare Mombi. It worked and that just made her angry. So Mombi brought him to life with The Powder of Life. Jack says The Powder of Life is with Mombi's original head. Dorothy decides to make an escape device out of stuff in the room and bring it to life.

***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

Dorothy steals the powder of life and creates a talking flying couch named Gump (Lyle Conway/Steve Norrington). But Mombi catches up to her and chases after her. She flies away and crashes on the Nome King's mountain. They enter and find the Gnome King. When the Gnome Kings sees Dorothy he feels sorry for her and tells her that she and her friends can have the Scarecrow if she wins at a game. Each of her friends have to go into a room with several objects in it and choose one. If they guess correctly that object will turn into the Scarecrow. They only have three tries and if they run out of tries they will turn into one of the objects. First Gump goes in and he fails, then Jack Pumpkinhead goes in and he fails. All that's left is Tik Tok and Dorothy. Tik Tok goes in and he freezes up. So Dorothy goes in to wind him up. But he says he only faked it so that if he chooses the wrong item Dorothy can see what item he turned into so that she can get an idea of what The Scarecrow could be. She manages to find the Scarecrow (Justin Case), get the rest of her friends, defeats the Gnome King, and makes it to the emerald city. When she gets back to the castle it turns out that the girl who saved her at the beginning is Ozma the rightful queen of Oz, who was freed when she defeated the Gnome King. Dorothy is sent home and she lives happily ever after. The End.

***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***

Return to Oz is a good follow up to the original. The story does seem to focus more on the adventure part than the fantasy part, but I think I kind of like that.The effects are very good and hold up really well and I see why it was nominated for an Oscar. All the side characters are very memorable and have a lot of good back story. But like in the original, the logic doesn't make sense sometimes and the character designs for the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly lion don't look as good as the other puppets (but mainly the Scarecrow). I think that Return to Oz is a good Follow up to the original and definitely worth seeing.

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