I first saw this movie when it came out in 1985. I was living in Quincy
and the theater showed one movie a week so you saw what was showing.
Sometimes the movies were good (Silverado, Witness), and sometimes not
so good (Commando, Red Sonja). I recall it being rather silly and it
seemed strange that Dorothy got younger in this sequel to the Wizard of
Oz. I have recently (August 2012) seen it again.
The story opens six months after Dorothy's return from Oz and she is having trouble sleeping. Her aunt and uncle are sufficiently worried that they take her to a doctor (Nicol Williamson, who is best known for playing the ultimate Merlin in Excalibur) who plans to use shock therapy! The head nurse (played by Jean Marsh who eventually went on to play the wicked Queen in Willow) is obviously evil and the orderlies all roll gurneys with squeaky wheels. It is a dark and stormy night when Dorothy is strapped to a gurney and readied for zapping when the power goes out. While the clinic staff is distracted, Dorothy escapes with the aid of a strange girl.
Dorothy awakens in Oz with a chicken named Billina. The pair set out for the Emerald City to find the populace petrified, the city in ruins, and overrun by Wheelers (played by the clinic orderlies and sporting squeaky wheels). She recruits Tik-Tok the clockwork automaton who is the Army of Oz though he has no weapons. Next, while tangling with Mombi the Witch (also played by Jean Marsh), she recruits Jack the Pumpkinhead and finally Gump the thing. The band makes its way to the mountain of the Nome King (played by Nicol Williamson) across the Deadly Desert and there defeat him with a chicken egg. Eggs are poisonous to nomes, don't you know. It is also discovered that the mysterious girl, who appears as a ghostly figure in the mirrors of Mombi's palace, is Ozma, Princess of Oz. Dorothy pulls her from the mirror and now Ozma sits upon the throne of Oz.
Oz is a very peculiar world. The heroes don't battle the villains but rather outmaneuver them. After all, an 11 year-old girl isn't a formidable combatant but she proves resourceful.
Billina is from her aunt and uncle's farm, where she was soon to be cooked for dinner if she didn't start producing eggs. In Oz, she is a wise-cracking chicken with an opinion on everything. She appears to be Toto's replacement. But that makes you wonder why Toto didn't get a voice when he was in Oz.
Tik-Tok is a fine character, a mechanical wind-up soldier who is oddly unarmed. He's a variant on the Tinman, which makes me wonder why they didn't simply have the Tinman return. He has to be regularly wound which appears to be a serious design flaw.
Jack the Pumpkinhead is a mostly useless goof and is something of a clone for the Scarecrow. His great achievement is that he hides the chicken in his otherwise empty pumpkin head.
Gump the thing is probably the most bizarre character. Dorothy had gotten her hands on some life-imbuing powder which she sprinkled on a hastily constructed sleigh. The sleigh consisted of two couches, a broom, four wings, and the head of a gump (basically a moose). Gump flies the party across the Deadly Desert to the mountain of the Nome King but breaks apart there. He is partially reassembled so that he is a couch with a gump head. This is an interesting twist on the animate object spell.
The best effect in the movie had to be the Nome King's spy who would appear as a face on a stone, watching Dorothy. His reports back at the Nome King's mountain are great, even after all these years.
The silliest part was the lunch bucket tree. It was kooky when she plucked a lunch pail and then found a neatly-wrapped ham sandwich inside.
The villains are unusually wicked for a movie aimed at kids. Mombi had a room full of heads that were kept in glass cabinets. She could thus switch heads whenever she liked. She locked Dorothy in the tower and told her she planned to take her head when she was a little older. Yikes. The Nome King has petrified everyone in the Emerald City and has polymorphed Scarecrow into an ornament. He does the same to each of Dorothy's allies until it is all up to her to save the day.
Magic is very powerful in Oz. The Ruby Slippers are a major artifact. The Nome King explains that he conquered the Emerald City because he had the slippers and Dorothy completely restores the city with a click of her heels. Speaking of that, it is hilarious when the Nome King reveals them to Dorothy, lifting his stony robe to expose these very girlish shoes with red bows. Anyway, the slippers offer unlimited wishes with three clicks of the heels. The powder of life was interesting, having been responsible for both Jack Pumpkinhead and Gump's existence.
Oz is a very peculiar setting. It has golems, anthropomorphic animals, elementals, witches, wizards, munchkins, animated objects, and other standard D&D encounters but the heroes are generally unarmed and harmless. It is kid-friendly adventuring. It would be interesting to have a variant of the story where Dorothy is a warrior who is accompanied by an axe-wielding tin golem, a scary-looking scarecrow, a fierce lion, and a mastiff named Toto. There's a setting closer to a gamer's heart.
The story opens six months after Dorothy's return from Oz and she is having trouble sleeping. Her aunt and uncle are sufficiently worried that they take her to a doctor (Nicol Williamson, who is best known for playing the ultimate Merlin in Excalibur) who plans to use shock therapy! The head nurse (played by Jean Marsh who eventually went on to play the wicked Queen in Willow) is obviously evil and the orderlies all roll gurneys with squeaky wheels. It is a dark and stormy night when Dorothy is strapped to a gurney and readied for zapping when the power goes out. While the clinic staff is distracted, Dorothy escapes with the aid of a strange girl.
Dorothy awakens in Oz with a chicken named Billina. The pair set out for the Emerald City to find the populace petrified, the city in ruins, and overrun by Wheelers (played by the clinic orderlies and sporting squeaky wheels). She recruits Tik-Tok the clockwork automaton who is the Army of Oz though he has no weapons. Next, while tangling with Mombi the Witch (also played by Jean Marsh), she recruits Jack the Pumpkinhead and finally Gump the thing. The band makes its way to the mountain of the Nome King (played by Nicol Williamson) across the Deadly Desert and there defeat him with a chicken egg. Eggs are poisonous to nomes, don't you know. It is also discovered that the mysterious girl, who appears as a ghostly figure in the mirrors of Mombi's palace, is Ozma, Princess of Oz. Dorothy pulls her from the mirror and now Ozma sits upon the throne of Oz.
Oz is a very peculiar world. The heroes don't battle the villains but rather outmaneuver them. After all, an 11 year-old girl isn't a formidable combatant but she proves resourceful.
Billina is from her aunt and uncle's farm, where she was soon to be cooked for dinner if she didn't start producing eggs. In Oz, she is a wise-cracking chicken with an opinion on everything. She appears to be Toto's replacement. But that makes you wonder why Toto didn't get a voice when he was in Oz.
Tik-Tok is a fine character, a mechanical wind-up soldier who is oddly unarmed. He's a variant on the Tinman, which makes me wonder why they didn't simply have the Tinman return. He has to be regularly wound which appears to be a serious design flaw.
Jack the Pumpkinhead is a mostly useless goof and is something of a clone for the Scarecrow. His great achievement is that he hides the chicken in his otherwise empty pumpkin head.
Gump the thing is probably the most bizarre character. Dorothy had gotten her hands on some life-imbuing powder which she sprinkled on a hastily constructed sleigh. The sleigh consisted of two couches, a broom, four wings, and the head of a gump (basically a moose). Gump flies the party across the Deadly Desert to the mountain of the Nome King but breaks apart there. He is partially reassembled so that he is a couch with a gump head. This is an interesting twist on the animate object spell.
The best effect in the movie had to be the Nome King's spy who would appear as a face on a stone, watching Dorothy. His reports back at the Nome King's mountain are great, even after all these years.
The silliest part was the lunch bucket tree. It was kooky when she plucked a lunch pail and then found a neatly-wrapped ham sandwich inside.
The villains are unusually wicked for a movie aimed at kids. Mombi had a room full of heads that were kept in glass cabinets. She could thus switch heads whenever she liked. She locked Dorothy in the tower and told her she planned to take her head when she was a little older. Yikes. The Nome King has petrified everyone in the Emerald City and has polymorphed Scarecrow into an ornament. He does the same to each of Dorothy's allies until it is all up to her to save the day.
Magic is very powerful in Oz. The Ruby Slippers are a major artifact. The Nome King explains that he conquered the Emerald City because he had the slippers and Dorothy completely restores the city with a click of her heels. Speaking of that, it is hilarious when the Nome King reveals them to Dorothy, lifting his stony robe to expose these very girlish shoes with red bows. Anyway, the slippers offer unlimited wishes with three clicks of the heels. The powder of life was interesting, having been responsible for both Jack Pumpkinhead and Gump's existence.
Oz is a very peculiar setting. It has golems, anthropomorphic animals, elementals, witches, wizards, munchkins, animated objects, and other standard D&D encounters but the heroes are generally unarmed and harmless. It is kid-friendly adventuring. It would be interesting to have a variant of the story where Dorothy is a warrior who is accompanied by an axe-wielding tin golem, a scary-looking scarecrow, a fierce lion, and a mastiff named Toto. There's a setting closer to a gamer's heart.
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