I still think the Oz nipple joke was funny, harmless and it flew by. I thought such a mountain was made out of a Tin Thing.
My problem with Oz (Ashanti aside) was the lack of spectacle. There was so much in the corners that I thought would have made for a better richer scope, but they took the fork down the pedestrian avenue of the yellow brick road. Maybe it was a budget thing.
I liked OZ okay, but there seemed to be something missing. I don't think that there's one minute of that film that can compare with any given minute of the low budget sketches on muppets.com. That is what gives me hope.
I have felt that the Muppets are doing too many specific remakes rather than the genre remakes of the classic trilogy – the road-to movie, the thief/caper and the New York/Broadway-bound film. Now it is remakes of Scrooge, Treasure Island, Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life and even trying to spin off The Muppet Movie a little with Swamp Years. I can’t tell you what Muppets from Space was, but it appears to have been a good film that was slaughtered by too much meddling by careless executives.
That was the film that should have been, now we just might get that with this new offering. I won’t swallow whatever’s out there and say it’s great, but I am going into it with an open and hopeful mindset.
One type of film I’d like to see the Muppets do would be an old-style gangster period picture with many parodies and cameos of that genre. Kind of like the Muppet Show cast in Dog City. Not that this is what that is, but I think it would play well. The public likes gangster movies and the Muppets have always been skilled at skirting the gun issue in their plots.
I'm thinking this new project will be young and fresh while keeping the Muppets' classic mystique intact. It appears that these guys are fans. That could be a good thing.