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Oz the Great and Powerful (2013 film directed by Sam Raimi)


Matt C

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Disney has released the teaser trailer for Sam Raimi's Wizard of Oz prequel Oz: The Great & Powerful in the wake of its Comic Con debut.

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It looks a lot better than I was expecting. I hope Danny Elfman can weave the same kind of magic he did for Alice in Wonderland three years prior.
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Just watch Return to Oz. Better music too, I'm sure.

Uh, no. The original book it was based on was so much better.

And did you not even listen to Elfman's Alice score? It's much better than David Shire's Return score.

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Elfman's score for Alice in Wonderland is a fantastic return to the fantasy scoring of Elfman's past scores. It's awesome.

As for this trailer, it doesn't look too good. And it looks pretty much like Alice in Wonderland...

I'm only excited for Elfman's score. If its along the lines or magnitude of what he did for Alice, then boy am I excited!!!

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And did you not even listen to Elfman's Alice score? It's much better than David Shire's Return score.

I'm not overly familiar with Elfman's score, but Shire's colorfully orchestrated work is one of the best of '80s.

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Not entirely sure if Hlao-roo's being sarcastic (I hope not), but I'm with him. Shire's Oz very nearly moved me to tears; Elfman's Wonderland never came CLOSE to that.

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Hey, this movie's got the little porcelain doll from the land of porcelain people somewhere to the south! Alright! I love the original book and correlating it to what had to be cut to make the original movie work, so this will be cool.

I avoided Burton's Alice in Wonderland like the plague, but this looks worth seeing.

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James Franco carried Rise of the Planet of the Apes well enough, I thought.

I am definitely more interested in this film and have higher hopes after seeing the trailer than I thought I would. Still a bit wary, however. I'm also a huge Return To Oz fan, and that is the film this one would really need to try and beat. Speaking of Shire's score, when's that one finally going to get a reissue that is deserves, perhaps with more music, too? I know you're listening, Intrada! :D

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Looking forward to the reunion of Raimi and Elfman!

Elfman's ALICE is one of my favourites of the last DECADE, so I have high expectations.

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Is Dorothy going to be in it. It'd be awesome if they could add in a CGI or animatronic Judy Garland for a cameo.

It's a prequel, which takes place a good while before Dorothy gets to Oz.

Doesn't look remotely interesting, to be honest. And James Franco in a lead role is no reason to get excited about.

Well, Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp were the first and second choices for the lead role, but they were "too busy". That's why James Franco was cast, since he previously collaborated with Raimi on the Spider-Man movies.

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I'm not using spoiler tags because this is based on speculation, viewing a trailer, and a quick Wikipedia check.

Is Dorothy going to be in it. It'd be awesome if they could add in a CGI or animatronic Judy Garland for a cameo.

It's a prequel, which takes place a good while before Dorothy gets to Oz.

Yes, but here's the thing: what is real and what is not?

In the first few minutes of the trailer, Franco's character is seen flying his hot-air balloon towards a tornado, and then inside it some some distance above a flying house in the tornado. Is that Dorothy's house on her initial trip to Oz? Is there another tornado and another house that gets to Oz before Dorothy? Does the tornado take James Franco to Oz, or is it a dream portal that takes him into Dorothy's head?

If that'd Dorothy's house, the problem would be that Dorothy and the man who would become the Wizard would arrive at Oz at the same time. This doesn't leave enough time for the Wizard to become the powerful household name the Munchkins mention as someone who could help Dorothy. Or is Dorothy knocked out a REALLY long time before Glinda visits her in Technicolor?

I wonder if Franco's character of Oscar Diggs, the real name of the Wizard in the book, will use the stage name of Professor Marvel in his travelling circus show. Except he really couldn't because Professor Marvel was "real" and the Wizard was part of Dorothy's dream. This movie is the backstory to a dream, and so for real people to enter into it crosses the line into Inception territory. After all, Dorothy's house travels to Oz, but when she uses the ruby slippers to go home wake up, the house actually never left Kansas, making the moment she thought the house took flight the moment she passed out in the real world.

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Doesn't look remotely interesting, to be honest. And James Franco in a lead role is no reason to get excited about.

Karol

This!

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This will be better than Alice In Wonderland for some very simple reasons: James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, and Zach Braff.

Well Johnny Depp is a great actor, and he was in Alice.

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This will be better than Alice In Wonderland for some very simple reasons: James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, and Zach Braff.

Well Johnny Depp is a great actor, and he was in Alice.

As was Helene Bonham Carter. Good actors don't guarantee good films...

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Yes, Johnny Depp was awful in that terrible Alice movie. It's unfortunate because he could potentially have been awesome in the role.

I like James Franco, but he's typically nothing special in more mainstream Hollywood flicks. You know? Feels like he's just collecting paychecks and then going off to spend the money on some personal project.

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This will be better than Alice In Wonderland for some very simple reasons: James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, and Zach Braff.

Well Johnny Depp is a great actor, and he was in Alice.

Johnny Depp under the direction of Tim Burton is not a great actor. At least not anymore. Helena Bonham Carter's roles in Burton's films aren't anything special either.

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I think I only saw it once in the theater. I remember liking it, and would consider it an exception. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Alice In Wonderland, and Dark Shadows are below his standards, I think.

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I thought everything about Alice In Wonderland -- including Elfman's music -- was abysmal. Therefore, I'm not too thrilled to see his name attached to this Oz movie. Where's Desplat when you need him?

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Johnny Depp under the direction of Tim Burton is not a great actor. At least not anymore.

You think Burton is killing Depp's performance?

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Let's not forget, Burton's cinema is exaggerated to achieve a certain effect. Don't expect low-key, subtle and subdued performances a la Donnie Brasco. In a way, Burton is a burlesque drama queen.

Alex

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I thought everything about Alice In Wonderland -- including Elfman's music -- was abysmal. Therefore, I'm not too thrilled to see his name attached to this Oz movie.

Now you have no credibility. I'm sorry, but if you like Elfman's work -- AIW was a glorious return to his late 1980s/early 1990s scoring. Magnificent.

I've listened to the Shire music for Return to Oz -- and there's some appealing bits (mainly those violin solos), it's a lot darker and somber than I expected. It's beautiful, but I prefer Elfman's more fantastical approach.

Where's Desplat when you need him?

His heart belongs to Wes Anderson and Jacques Audiard now.

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  • 4 months later...

Elfman says his Oz score will be a big, narrative score to fit the "big, blustery old-fashioned feel" to the movie:

[...] Already his eighth reteaming with Sam Raimi, Oz: The Great And Powerful, sounds like the type of epic, á la Lawrence of Arabia, that voters crave.

“The movie has this big, blustery old-fashioned feel, and I wanted to give it a big, effective, narrative score,” Elfman says. “It’s huge—105 minutes of music.”

And no matter what road Elfman embarks on musically with a director, it always comes back to Herrmann. “If anything, I’ll evoke more Herrmann-esque sounds inOz: The Great And Powerful than I did in Hitchcock,” says Elfman. “At times I can’t help it, I have to try not to be Herrmann-esque because his music is so much a part of my musical DNA. For that is from whence I sprung.”

Source

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  • 2 weeks later...

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