Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return
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 Follow the yellow brick road to an adventure that bombed in the box office
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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
- The biggest problem with this film is that it has no consistency with its "predecessor"; not just leaving the iconic ruby slippers unmentioned (due to being owned by Warner Bros. through its ownership of the pre-May 1986 MGM library), but also 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.
- The returning sidekicks, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion have been suddenly watered down to the point where they become one-dimensional and often annoying.
- Marshal Mallow and the China Princess have a pointless romantic subplot that only serves as filler.
- The songs don't have the timeless feel of the original music and instead substitutes it for generic pop songs.
- The story is practically a beat-for-beat retelling of the original classic, just with new characters and locations.
- Jester had some decent ideas for a villain replacing the deceased Wicked Witch of the West, but unfortunately it gets ruined by being portrayed as a poor man's Joker.
- The film can get unintentionally horrifying at times for a Family-Made Film, especially with Puppet Glinda and the Waterfall Scene.
- The voice acting is rather awful, especially with Lea Michele and Martin Short.
- The jokes are laughably abysmal, with the majority of them being abhorrent puns such as "What a great wall of China!".
- Additionally, a lot of the humor is made up of lowbrow jokes such as cringe comedy.
- Most of the problems in the film 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 film's producers, Roland and Ryan Carroll, had a shady history of finding ways to swindle their way into financing movies, often earning them cease and desist letters, and this film was no different.
- There's a random use of product placement for Peeps, which is out-of-place and shameless.
- The film's production was practically a scam. The investors had to dip into their retirement funds to raise money for the film; considering the fact this film bombed at the box office, chances are they won't be able to get it back, and many of them (presumably up to 2200 investors) were left unaccredited.
- Ironically, the Appraiser, the other villain of the film, scammed the people of Kansas and tried to sell their houses.
- 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 Animation Group, 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.
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