redfiona99 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redfiona99) wrote2013-03-26 01:11 am
redfiona99) wrote2013-03-26 01:11 am
A Post About Things That Didn't Quite Work
Starting with the slippers that have been my most recent knitting project. They fit, and are warm and comfortable, but they don't match each other, or the pattern. I'm not sure what went wrong (I know what went wrong with the picot rows at the top) but they developed curly toes like Aladdin slippers.
Also in the same category - Oz: The Great And Powerful
The major failing of this film is that, as a viewer, I can tell that it's gone through more than 4 different versions of the script and no-one's bothered to smooth out the differences between them. My guess is that they also wrote some of the physical scenes to fit different actors, for instance, I guessed while I was in the cinema that they must have had Johnny Depp as Oz at some point because the scene as the balloon crashes is blocked as pure Depp. I like James Franco, I believe him to be the very best James Franco we have, but he's a poor Johnny Depp impersonator.
The problem this creates, other than mild unevenness in tone, is that some of the behaviour of the characters makes very little sense, particularly Theodora.
Another issue is that you can feel they want to tell the traditional story of bad man realises the error of his ways, becomes good, saves the day. They're were hamstrung by the fact that we know that Oz is still a wonderful, delightful old fraud years later (my favourite moment was the fact that the statue of Glinda's father looked like Frank Morgan), but you could feel them desperately trying to force the Wizard's story into that template.
The trailer gives, deliberately I think, the utterly wrong impression that everyone falls for Oz's lies. Which they don't. The only adult speaking character that falls for any of his bullshit is Theodora (hell the little China Doll barely falls for it and she's what ~15).
Theodora's character, in general, just doesn't hang together. I could just about buy the total innocent we see at the beginning, if there wasn't the bit at the end where the Emerald City populace were in near rebellion (I suspect the difference was a hangover from different scripts) because if Evanora didn't have tight enough control for them not to find out, there's no way her sister wouldn't have known, which suggests that she's not a total innocent.
And I'd be cool with Oz is a bastard who leads people on, except, you know, he doesn't really. Taken together it kind of makes Theodora's revenge look less heartbroken innocent seeking justice and more self-deluding fool.
It's made worse by the transformation sequence where she suddenly realises that Evanora set her up. Even if, up to then, we go with heartbroken innocent, that one scene ruins it. Because she knows who is responsible, and instead takes it out on random Quadlings, Munchkins and Tinkerers. The film keeps trying to make me feel sorry for her and I don't.
The suggestion was made by friend of friend I went to see it with that the only reason for Theodora in the beginning was because the film-makers suddenly realised that they had Mila Kunis so they might as well use her. I don't think that that is was happened but it might tell you exactly how much her character doesn't work.
That's before we get onto her outfit which was described by all the men present as more or less too obviously fanservicey to be titilating. Somehow, pre-greenifying, they made Mila Kunis unattractive, which, you know, suggests titanic fail.
Post-transformation, I really didn't like how they did the CGI for the Wicked Witch of the West. You know the Rob Liefield female character problem (boobs too big, waist too tiny, feet that just don't feet), it was basically that in CGI form.
Some of the "this is a 3D movie" shots were probably too obviously that, especially given that we were watching it in 2D. I also swear they pulled the trick of unfocusing from the background to make it look deeper, which tends to send my eyes a bit googly (um, my right eye is a lot stronger than my left, and that kind of unfocussing makes the correcting algorithm (or equivalent) in my brain go screwy for a few seconds).
Also, it hasn't escaped my attention of the 3 putative evil witches, the one that is thorough going evil is the one with a British accent. I am saying nothing ;)
There were things I liked, don't get me wrong, like Glinda knowing exactly how much of Oz's schtick is bullshit and being willing to use it, or Finley the flying monkey, and the opening credits. My favourite thing was their use of a puppet for the China Doll instead of CGI (the China Doll is also probably my favourite character, it's her or Finlay). It gives her interactions with the other characters some weight in a mental as well as physical sense. I don't think any of Oz's scenes with her would work as well if she were CGI.
Also in the same category - Oz: The Great And Powerful
The major failing of this film is that, as a viewer, I can tell that it's gone through more than 4 different versions of the script and no-one's bothered to smooth out the differences between them. My guess is that they also wrote some of the physical scenes to fit different actors, for instance, I guessed while I was in the cinema that they must have had Johnny Depp as Oz at some point because the scene as the balloon crashes is blocked as pure Depp. I like James Franco, I believe him to be the very best James Franco we have, but he's a poor Johnny Depp impersonator.
The problem this creates, other than mild unevenness in tone, is that some of the behaviour of the characters makes very little sense, particularly Theodora.
Another issue is that you can feel they want to tell the traditional story of bad man realises the error of his ways, becomes good, saves the day. They're were hamstrung by the fact that we know that Oz is still a wonderful, delightful old fraud years later (my favourite moment was the fact that the statue of Glinda's father looked like Frank Morgan), but you could feel them desperately trying to force the Wizard's story into that template.
The trailer gives, deliberately I think, the utterly wrong impression that everyone falls for Oz's lies. Which they don't. The only adult speaking character that falls for any of his bullshit is Theodora (hell the little China Doll barely falls for it and she's what ~15).
Theodora's character, in general, just doesn't hang together. I could just about buy the total innocent we see at the beginning, if there wasn't the bit at the end where the Emerald City populace were in near rebellion (I suspect the difference was a hangover from different scripts) because if Evanora didn't have tight enough control for them not to find out, there's no way her sister wouldn't have known, which suggests that she's not a total innocent.
And I'd be cool with Oz is a bastard who leads people on, except, you know, he doesn't really. Taken together it kind of makes Theodora's revenge look less heartbroken innocent seeking justice and more self-deluding fool.
It's made worse by the transformation sequence where she suddenly realises that Evanora set her up. Even if, up to then, we go with heartbroken innocent, that one scene ruins it. Because she knows who is responsible, and instead takes it out on random Quadlings, Munchkins and Tinkerers. The film keeps trying to make me feel sorry for her and I don't.
The suggestion was made by friend of friend I went to see it with that the only reason for Theodora in the beginning was because the film-makers suddenly realised that they had Mila Kunis so they might as well use her. I don't think that that is was happened but it might tell you exactly how much her character doesn't work.
That's before we get onto her outfit which was described by all the men present as more or less too obviously fanservicey to be titilating. Somehow, pre-greenifying, they made Mila Kunis unattractive, which, you know, suggests titanic fail.
Post-transformation, I really didn't like how they did the CGI for the Wicked Witch of the West. You know the Rob Liefield female character problem (boobs too big, waist too tiny, feet that just don't feet), it was basically that in CGI form.
Some of the "this is a 3D movie" shots were probably too obviously that, especially given that we were watching it in 2D. I also swear they pulled the trick of unfocusing from the background to make it look deeper, which tends to send my eyes a bit googly (um, my right eye is a lot stronger than my left, and that kind of unfocussing makes the correcting algorithm (or equivalent) in my brain go screwy for a few seconds).
Also, it hasn't escaped my attention of the 3 putative evil witches, the one that is thorough going evil is the one with a British accent. I am saying nothing ;)
There were things I liked, don't get me wrong, like Glinda knowing exactly how much of Oz's schtick is bullshit and being willing to use it, or Finley the flying monkey, and the opening credits. My favourite thing was their use of a puppet for the China Doll instead of CGI (the China Doll is also probably my favourite character, it's her or Finlay). It gives her interactions with the other characters some weight in a mental as well as physical sense. I don't think any of Oz's scenes with her would work as well if she were CGI.