Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return
| Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Follow the yellow brick road to an tale of how two Carroll brothers and Greg Centineo scammed different investors in order to finance the movie out of spite of other films.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
"The big Hollywood studios do not want this effort to succeed because they don’t want any serious new competition. Maybe we got their attention because they amassed their army of top paid critics who wielded their poison pens in a smear campaign against this wonderful family picture. These seemingly aren’t just reviews of an average film not liked by critics, they are propaganda written expressly to dissuade everyone from seeing the film."
— David Yancey from his infamous rant on Facebook defending the film
Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return is a 2014 American-Indian 3D computer-animated musical fantasy film loosely based on the book Dorothy of Oz by Roger S. Baum, the great-grandson of L. Frank Baum, the original author of the Oz series. It serves as both a reboot to the original 1939 The Wizard of Oz film and a sequel to that film.
Plot
Soon after her return to Kansas, Dorothy Gale (Lea Michele) finds herself whisked back to Oz to save her friends Scarecrow (Dan Aykroyd), Lion (Jim Belushi), Tin Man (Kelsey Grammer) and Glinda (Bernadette Peters) from the Jester (Martin Short) -- the younger brother of the Wicked Witch of the West. The Jester is using his late sister's broomstick as a magic wand and is destroying Oz one yellow brick at a time. With new companions, Dorothy sets out to rescue old friends and restore order.
Why It Should Be Cursed to Always Be the Fool
- One of the main issues is the film was made out of spite of other films that was made at the time. According to 2019 lawsuit by the U.S. District Court of California. The Carroll brothers and, Greg Centineo ended up scammed at least 1,800 different investors in order to finance the movie. The insider according to TheWarp report said that "Their business model is based on raising money and taking a percentage. They never show anything to anybody. Money just shifts around and they write things up. They line their pockets, they think they’re businessmen."
- In fact the brothers had a history of doing it since 1993 which is a huge red flag. They ended up fundraising to different companies and with the help of Neil Kaufman ended up sell stock to accredited investors who did not satisfy these requirements through cold call solicitation.
- Ironically, the Appraiser, the other villain of the film, scammed the people of Kansas and tried to sell their houses.
- The film does not know what it wanted to be even as a sequel to original 1939 The Wizard of Oz or a full on reboot it tried to do both but it does not work.
- On one end it is practically a beat-for-beat retelling of the original classic, just with new characters and locations. But on the other end it does not had consistency with its "predecessor"; like leaving the iconic ruby slippers unmentioned and changing the setting entirely from the 1900s to the 21st century, since there are a ton of modern-day vehicles seen in the background of Kansas.
- Despite being based on the book Dorothy of Oz it changed so much it becomes a different story all together to the point it becomes "in name only"
- In the original book, the Jester was being controlled by the Wicked Witch of the West’s ghost and in the end redeems himself. While in the film he is a full on villain as he takes a more proactive role in the plot by actively using his magic to deceive and cause trouble for the characters, one example being when he tricks Dorothy into eating the candy of Candy County. Because of this he becomes a poor man's Joker.
- Sheriff Candy Apple becomes General Candy Apple, with the Great Royal Marshmallow's equivalent being Marshal Mallow, who is second-in-command of the army instead of Candy County's monarch.
- Princess Gayelette, Prince Quelala, the dragons, the Munchkin Boq and Ozma are omitted from the film.
- It tries to be hip and cool with the kids but ended up becoming laughably abysmal, with the majority of them being abhorrent puns such as "What a great wall of China!" or is made up of lowbrow jokes such as cringe comedy.
- There's a random use of product placement for Peeps, which is out-of-place and shameless.
- Disappointing way to end the problem since they are solved by the opponents learning that the girl they're dealing with is Dorothy, who is said to be one of Oz' greatest heroes.
- The voice acting is rather awful, especially with Lea Michele and Martin Short which has done many role better then this film.
- One of the film's investors, David Yancey, blamed the film's box office failure on a big Hollywood conspiracy about the industry paying critics to dissuade moviegoers from seeing it because they don't want any new competition. So, it's relatively clear that the people behind the film refused to take criticism.
Redeeming Qualities
- The animation is at least decent, and the new portrayal of Oz is rather fascinating.
- There are a couple of funny moments.
- The title does make sense for Dorothy to return to Oz.
- As previously stated, the Jester's backstory where he's been cursed by his sister (the Wicked Witch of the West of all people) to always be the fool is at least interesting.
- Wiser is a likeable character.
- Some decent songs, such as "One Day", “Candy Candy”, “Jester” and "Even Then".
- It at least isn't canon to the original Wizard of Oz as desperate as it tries to be.
Reception
Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return received generally negative reviews from critics as well as mixed responses from audiences, largely for its plot and unmemorable musical numbers. It currently holds a 16% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a 68% audience score, with its critical consensus saying, "Faced with the choice between staying in or seeing Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return, most filmgoers will be forced to conclude that there's no place like home." It holds a 5.1 on IMDb, as well as a 25 on Metacritic, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." Audiences also gave the film an "A" on CinemaScore. The film bombed at the box office, with only $20.1 million being grossed over its $70 million budget.
Possible franchise
Despite the film's underperformance at the box office, two sequels and a television series were said to be in the works, though the plan was that the sequels would likely go directly to DVD if the film did not perform well at the box office. As of 2024, no further developments regarding the sequels or the television series have been announced, and the websites for both Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return and Summertime Entertainment have since been taken down; the only active web media to date is the Facebook page of Summertime Entertainment, which has not shared any new posts since promotion for the film's home media release on August 26, 2014.
Trivia
- Even though the film bombed at the box office, Greg Centineo, one of the producers of the film, said in 2014 that there were two sequels and a television series in the works. However, nothing else has been announced since then.
- There is another animated film for The Wizard of Oz, this time its Toto, but with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, which is in development. It will be based on the children's book Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story of The Wizard of Oz. The animation will be done by Animal Logic, who also animated Happy Feet, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, The Lego Movie series and DC League of Super-Pets. It is originally set to be released on February 2, 2024, but was removed from the schedule.
- This was the only film to be produced by Summertime Entertainment, as the company apparently went out of business a year later following the box office failure of this film, along with websites about the company and this film being shut down.
- Greg Centineo who was one of the producers, before he helped work on the film, he was a coffee shop owner, and before that, he was a church pastor in South Florida.
Videos
Review
References
- ↑ While the film budget is $70 million the real budget was around $122 according to the document of the lawsuit in 2019
Comments
- Bad films
- Bad media
- Animated films
- Box office bombs
- Musical films
- 2010s films
- Sequel in-name only films
- Sequel films
- Family films
- Based on books
- Abusing the mascot
- Movies that killed their studios
- Films with cancelled/scrapped sequels
- Foreign films
- Obscure films
- Indian films
- American films
- Twenty-plus years too late
- Films aware of how bad they are
- 20th Century Studios films