The Corridor Crew Reunites to Praise the Now Infamous 1985 Wizard of Oz film for its combination of stop-motion and VFX work to bring one of its new creatures to life. L. Frank Baum’s fantasy novel was first brought to the screen in 1910, but it’s the crux of 1939 The Wizard of Oz which is still most celebrated today. The Wizard of Oz stars Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, a young girl who is transported to the magical world and tasked, alongside three fantastic friends and her dog, Toto, with defeating the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) and returning home.
Since its release, there have been several retellings and reimaginings of Oz on television and film. This includes features made to continue the story, such as 1972 Journey back to Oz, to explorations of how the world became what it is, like 2013’s Oz the great and powerfulwhich explores the origins of the Wizard. 2024 saw the launch of Evila long-awaited adaptation of the show of the same name that tells a more sympathetic story of how Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) becomes the Wicked Witch of the West.
Return To Oz is a creatively dark sequel
The 1985 film highlights Oz’s least humanoid residents
As Evil arrives in cinemas, Runner Crew illuminates another visit to Oz with 1985 Return to Oz. Released by the Walt Disney Company, the film is an unofficial sequel to the original film that sees Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) return to Oz in danger and under the subjugation of the Nomes and their king, forcing her to work with a new group of magical misfits. to save Oz. With a conflicting reception, Return to Oz it underperformed upon release, but has since gathered a cult following for its impact on young audiences.
Focusing first on the introduction of the film’s antagonists, the Nomes, Sam highlighted how the face materializes on a rock. The effect uses a unique form of stop-motion where individually sculpted parts were created, rather than using a fully functional puppet. This allowed for a consistent stone look while a projector was used to evoke firelight.
This is actually stop motion, you could call it claymation, but it’s actually claymation. When I was watching it again, what struck me is that this is something unlike anything else. When you normally see these types of stop motion, normally you see, hey, here’s a character that we’re just seeing pieces moving and they’re animated like this, but this is a completely different approach where it’s not just about taking a piece and moving it one frame.
We’re talking about individual carvings and additive and subtractive layers to create movement, you know, it’s not like they can just move the rock up and down, yeah, if you look at it, the rock isn’t moving up and down. down, that’s not what they’re trying to show us. They’re showing the rock really transforming every frame.
Sam would then highlight Tik-Tok’s (Sean Barrett) complicated costumes, which required the performer to contort himself into a complicated ball shape to match his proportions, using levers to operate the arms.
There’s a guy who’s there just like that, and he has two levers like this, and he does this and it’s like this. He’s like this on a ball with two levers and he walks like this, and he presses the levers to move his arms without his head down… So he basically has to do that all the time with his head curled up in that position and you can see the little left – see those silver levers there, those articulate the arms, and then for the head it’s radio controlled.
Finally, Sam highlighted the process of bringing in headless Mombi (Jean Marsh, Sophie Ward and Fiona Victory), which involved the actresses carefully representing the movements of each head and body before carefully designed costumes and mats obscured their bodies.
Return To Oz is a reimagining worth revisiting
The unofficial sequel is a darker take on the lore
The world of Oz offers filmmakers and storytellers the opportunity to add their own new approaches The Wizard of Oz. From more sympathetic explorations of how the world’s power players became who they are, to sequels that explored different alternate sequels, to even retellings featuring other pop culture icons like The Muppets and Tom and Jerry. As such, each film brings something unique and original to the myth, even if the quality may differ.
Return to Oz is no exception to this, as despite a mixed critical response dooming it to become a box office bomb, its dark and somewhat dystopian reimagining of the world has been celebrated as stylistically distinct and faithful to the tone of its source material. As such, although Evil may be returning audiences to a brighter side of the Yellow Brick Road, audiences may be interested in seeing how Return to Oz Meticulously dedicated effects add a darker layer to listening to Corridor Crew’s praises.
Source: Runner Crew / YouTube