[donaldscrankshaw] Donald: *Tin Man* and Frank Baum

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Posted by Donald:
*Tin Man* and Frank Baum
http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1197432469.shtml


   The Sci Fi channel is known for having some really great original
   series (Battlestar Galactica, Farscape), really bad original movies,
   and miniseries which are somewhere in the middle. The miniseries which
   are based on their original series, such as the Farscape finale, can
   be really good. Ones which are based on a pre-existing property, such
   as Earthsea, are usually pretty bad. Their original miniseries, which
   aren't based on any existing property that I know of, fall somewhere
   in the middle. The Lost Room had a meandering plot and sometimes made
   little sense, but at least it had decent acting and some genuinely
   exciting scenes.
   Tin Man is based on a pre-existing property, namely Frank Baum's The
   Wizard of Oz, which should tell you something right there. It tries to
   be both a re-imagining of the original story and a sequel to it (and
   maybe even something of a parody of it), and both the acting and the
   dialogue leave a lot to be desired. That said, I thought the core
   story, which wasn't made obvious until the end of the second part, had
   some good ideas. Not completely original, but an interesting twist
   which convinced me that I should watch the rest, which was satisfying
   enough in how the story worked out, if the way it got there wasn't
   perfect. In that sense, it's somewhat similar to the Star Wars
   prequels... an interesting enough story at the core, but we had to put
   up with a lot of bad acting and writing to get there.
   Anyway, the reason I mention it is not to say that you should or
   shouldn't watch the miniseries, but to note that it inspired me to
   take a look at Frank Baum's original stories, instead of basing my
   knowledge of Oz solely on the Judy Garland movie. Whick led me to
   [1]this site, where the full text of all of Frank Baum's Oz stories is
   provided, thanks to the wonders of public domain. I read/skimmed the
   immediate sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, namely The Marvelous
   Land of Oz, and I think I understand why there's no big name movie
   associated with it. It's not that it's a bad story, but the fate of
   the main character is kind of disturbing for a children's story--many
   parents would not approve. It has the added effect of presenting the
   wizard of the movie as a power-grabbing usurper. He was always a
   con-man, but in the original you got the impression that he didn't
   mean any particular harm. Of course, I didn't go back to read the
   first story, so maybe the movie version doesn't exactly line up with
   the original.

References

   1. http://www.literature.org/authors/baum-l-frank/