Your Thoughts: The Muppets' Wizard of Oz

[beaker]

the poppy club was kinda cool. expected something further in that part, like a mupept parody of hunter s thompson or something. good place to put clifford though.

A Hunter S thompson spoof would rock! Fear and Loathing in Oz! Man, where was the movie spoofs? I mean if they are ognna do a classic retelling in a cheap telefilm way, why not? I think they vaguely referenced Kill bill and The Village, but that was about it. But yeah, poppy fields...would the modenr version be the massive opium fields of Afghanistan?

So 'Girls Gone Wild'...um, whats so bad about that reference? A video tape with some toplessness. OH NOES! We can show people getting shot to death on tv but no toplesses. God bless America! We live in a country where half the magazines are gun and hunting magazines...where the millitary is worshipped, and violence is a religion.

Ya guys gotta read Jim Hill's recent article on Muppet Oz...Im glad there are well read Muppet fans who are openly saying what a stinking turn this one was.

 

[MWoO]

" So 'Girls Gone Wild'...um, whats so bad about that reference? A video tape with some toplessness. OH NOES! We can show people getting shot to death on tv but no toplesses. God bless America! We live in a country where half the magazines are gun and hunting magazines...where the millitary is worshipped, and violence is a religion. "

Now this I agree with. Violence is fine but a boob at the super bowl for 5 seconds makes the FCC go nuts? Of course i don't believe there is a need for an FCC now. With TV ratings the only thing the FCC should do is review TV shows and make sure they match the given rating. That way parents can use their v-chip to decide how far up the ratings system they want to go. If they don't want kids hear certain words they should just program their TV not to let MA shows into their house. There is no reason not to have adult programming on regular TV when the v-chip can easily keep the MA sows out of the hourse with kids.

Anyhoo, not many people today have read the book, they've seen the movie. So a lot of people probably were confused. Now,if they had references to them ovie it would have helped, but aprently all of them had to be cut out.

For example, when Piggy told Dorothy to put the silver shoes on it might have been good if Dorothy asked if Piggy had anything in red or something like that. That way they can follow the original book and have more freedom, but also let people know that is what they are doing. Plus it didn't help that they said it was a remake in just about every single interview they did. Even the trailer said it was a remake. If they had made it more clear that it followed the original story it would have been better.

I think the club scene was a wasted opportunity. That was perfectly set up for an Electric Mayhem song. They could have explained what the poppies were doing and why the club was there in a 3 minute song. 2 minutes! Wasted chance right there.

 

[Beauregard]

You know it's funny. I had MTI memorized for years, and then we read Treasure Island in school, and I was totally thrown off. I was thinking backwards- getting mad at the book because it wasn't the movie. And then I realized what I was doing, and I just started laughing at myself.
But I was kind of upset when we watched a different movie version in class that was soooooo boring and I just sat there like, why aren't we watching the muppets?

Oh and by the way BigTeacherMan, don't worry about not making sense. As I've said before, it's much more profitable to make dollars. And I ramble all the time. See, just look at this post... its solid rambling!

Goood gracious...I was using an extreme example because I knew no one would have really done that....

 

[MWoO]

Actually I did somethig similar simply because I never read the book before. I didn't go as far as to say the book was wrong though. lol I did find it weird to find out that Piggy's character was originally a guy. I actually preffer the MTI version.

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

Opening my mouth on all muppet films

ok ive had this on my mind and on my heart for so long and i never said beacuse i felt it wasnt nessecary.this isnt meant for everyone but only for certain people,i apologize if this shouldnt go here but its just seems to be the forum eveyone is going too so if it should be moved i ask to plase move it for me well here goes:

why does it seem that everytime a new muppet movie comes out we tear at it and find all the flaws instead of being happy that our childhood "friends" are back.i read the forums ,all we want is new Muppets movie, but when one comes out we hate it because "they arnt themselves" or thats not the way Jim would do it, look i love Jim he has been my hero, my mentor and my inspiration.but sadly he is no longer here. he lives in kermit no matter what hand munipulates him. Steve witmire is doing a great job and that goes for all replacement Muppeteers. back to what i was saying. the Muppets always have been themselves whether the have the name in the movie or not.the muppet show was a show they played different characters at times as well at them selves. as for MWoO they werent playing other chraters it was a "fantasy" like in the books or even the original WoO.i love the muppets as much as the next muppet fan. but i dont rip apart the movies i have enjoyed all the movies some of the new ones more than the old not because of story or quality but because they are coming back. now please elts be the muppet fans we claim to be and enjoy what is giving to us. as if missing Jim you think we are the only ones who miss him what about the people who worked with him for all those years,bet you anythink they think of him when writing a new movie, my fav part in Kermits swap years is the scene with the young Jim henson. so im done and im sorry but its been bugging me for a while if you have any problem with this post talk to me personally please and thank you

 

[dwayne1115]

i am behind you 100% this muppet movie to me had a lot of energy there where a lot of new preformers with some small speaking parts and it seemed like they where rich and really good voices. the Muppet magic was there some of you might not have seen it or felt it but i know i did. Yes i dont think Jim would have had some parts in this movie but we have to sadly realize them muppets dont have so many people it once did and that will ultmelty change what they do. Also durring the time this movie was being made Disney bought the muppets this could have been a factor in the movie or it may not i dont really know.
The only bad thing i will say this movie did do was not have Rowlf but i think i kind of got an ideah on why. He was one of the frist muppets Jim used on "jimmy Dean" i think thats the right name, anyway they may have wantted to retire him from speaking because of it. I dont know.

 

[Vic Romano]

I've got mixed emotions on this level. I am happy the Muppets are trying, and if a new generation loves them, then that's wonderful! But as fans, we're way too different individually (and that is a very good thing) so I think what everyone has to do is respect everyone elses opinion! What part of this am I saying that doesn't make any sense? If you loved it, GREAT! Rave about it! Praise it! Dance in the streets wearing umbrella hats and spandex singing it's glory! Post yer' brains out about how marvelous it is! And if you didn't like it, bash it! Ban it! Warn the unseeing of it's thin script and luke warm performances! But regardless of your side; you do not have the right to condone people for thinking that way! It mostly seems that the people who love it, are tearing their hair out over the people who didn't like it. GET OVER IT! It's an internet forum!!! What're you gonna' do? Find out where they live and beat them sensless until they say: "Muppets Wizard of Oz was the greatest film of all time!"? Let it go! They have as much a right to post their feelings about the movie as you do! Sheesh!

 

[Don'tLiveonMoon]

It was okay. I guess I was kinda disappointed. Come to think of it, I wasn't super impressed with "A Very Merry Muppet Christmas" either. Good to see the Muppets again, but it seems a certain amount of charm and innocence has been lost. They're trying to hard to be right in sync with modern times, which isn't always such a good thing. I don't know. It was still fun to watch it, but I wasn't wowed, and some of the scenes just kinda gave me a headache.
Erin

 

[count123]

They made too big of a deal that they were following the book.

my point is that if the muppets are trying to reach kids of today, those same kids wont know the book written over a century ago. They'll only know the MGM 1939 movie. So parody what they know...you really think kids are going to read the book before the movie if it doesnt have to do with school? maybe, but not likely.

overall, the film was too conventional.

 

[MWoO]

There is a Jim Hill article that says the Disney lawyers made the writer's take out every reference to the movie for fear of Ted Turner sueing them. There were suppose to be jokes and stuff dealing with the MGM film all over the movie. One thing I'm surprised at is that there wasn't a new rendition of rainbow connection. It could have been this versions somewhere over the rainbow.

Oh, and someone said Fozzie didn't get any jokeso ut. He actually did. That was part of him showing he really did have curage. It was during the scene with him in the cage and he had to get over his stage fright to tell jokes and distract the flying monkeys. It showed him being brave and quite clever.