We OZ fans have endured this "darkening" trend for years. I don't flip out if someone reinterprets something I like in a way I don't like, especially since Baum's Oz is now in public domain, but c'mon. How many times are we gonna see Sexy/Trampy Dorothy, Wicked Creepy Scarecrow, Axe Maniac Tin Woodman, Rabid-Looking-Not-Even-a-Lion-Anymore Cowardly Lion, and Evil Dictator Oz? Stuff like this is no longer even outrageous, it's just dull.
You're thinking of that Twisted WOZ toy line/video game, aren't you? Heh... Still, you have to admit, the original movie doomed the franchise for years to have anything else in its shadow, especially the books. Still, I'd want to see the darkness of the books, not the darkness of fake gothy fangirl stuff. I have to start actually reading those at some point.
But seriously, the gothy fangirls completely destroyed and ruined Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass. And druggies did too. And the book was all about being ticked off at new-fangled math concepts like imaginary numbers. I wanna see a math nerd spin on it. THAT would be an original take.
Because they have no creativity, nor imagination.
I see what you're getting at, but that couldn't be further from the truth. First off, there
is no way to be creative, since absolutely everything has been done before. After all, we've had thousands of years of storytelling that follows the same basic structure. I'm sure there are historical records of someone saying "Shakespeare is a hack! I liked Hamlet better when it was called Oedipus Rex. It's the biggest ripoff since Electra!"
Here's the thing... studios copy movies (either ones coming out of rival studios or their own remakes/same story different names films), not out of some lack of creativity, but the more obvious answer...
MONEY ! There have
always been trends in movies. We just wish to ignore them because we like being old fuddy duddies that talk about an imaginary "good old days" we
swear happened, all while ignoring the atrocious crap that we did co-exist with that we forgot all about. Look at the 30's! Everyone wanted to do Sam Spade type pictures. When Star Wars came out, everyone wanted to do sci-fi pictures again. And let's not forget the 1950's B movies, all trying to copy each other because that was the
only thing getting teenagers to the theaters since TV was widespread. You could go back to the silent era and say that Buster Keaton is cashing in off of Charlie Chaplin, and Abbot and Costello are clones of Laurel and Hardy. No generation's entertainment is safe from what came before it.
Movie studios follow trends because they want movies that get the highest amount of ticket sales. That means looking at what the hit movie is now and getting similar ones produced until one kills the trend. Then an original film will rise out of that one, and the studios will jump on that trend too, because they always have forever. it's like any time some food becomes popular and all the restaurants are making pallid imitations or one up'ed versions with a different ingredient. Pesto was big... people put it on everything, especially things that don't go with pesto. Then it was chipotle peppers... and then everyone's doing sushi all the sudden. Now we're shoving the word "Nappa" in front of everything because it somehow vaguely has the name of a classy wine region attached to it for some reason. Though I choose to believe that these guys are just
really big DBZ/Over 9000 meme fans.
In short, it's all about money. Directors might
make movies, but studios are the ones that greenlight them.