Muppet Wizard of Oz - Positives and Negatives

[jvcarroll]

Muppet Wizard of Oz is not really just a bunch of scenes thinly stitched together. Some scenes worked, others didn't. Middling it the perfect word for what happened. They either needed to invest more money in it or scale it back and create a more traditional television special. The mushy in-between just seems uncomfortable for audience and performer alike.

It needed music. Real music.

To be honest, I think Brian Henson would have done a better job directing this piece. He's proven himself in both tv and film. He would have been a perfect fit.

Ashanti's role should have been recast or at least she should have taken part in some workshops with the Muppeteers. I'm not saying that they should have used American Idol's cast-offs, but even they could have done a better job. 11th hour recasts are not uncommon and there was no lack of talent or interest.

The computer graphics were just lazy. Beautiful puppets or miniatures could have been constructed at a fraction of the cost.

I loved Miss Piggy's biker witch and minions. She was wasted on this film. This is one case when the project could have actually used more Miss Piggy!

Mo is right. Kermit and Gonzo aren't given anything funny to do or say. Well, except for that nipples line that seems to have come out of Goelz' desperation to have something strange and interesting for Gonzo speak. That's actually my favorite line in the movie! Kermit takes on this bland Mickey Mouse icon sort of role instead of the funny frog I grew up with. It makes no sense.

Those were just a few thoughts off the top of my head.

 

[rexcrk]

Wizard of Oz is probably my least-watched of all the Muppet movies... that's not to say I didn't like it, but just not as much as some of their other stuff.

I gotta say that probably the stand-out thing for this movie was Scooter's performance! The performer (Ricky Boyd right?) did such an impressive job I thought.

And I loooooved Johnny and Sal in this, how come they're not around anymore?! If it's because Brian doesn't perform anymore they coud always recast Sal.

 

[Mo Frackle]

Yep, that was Rickey Boyd.

And yes, the lack of Johnny and Sal is because of the lack of Brian Henson. I suppose they could recast Sal. Maybe Tyler Bunch would be a good fit?

 

[CaseytheMuppet]

Well, I can't say it's my favorite, but I still like it.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

Sorry I can't give any positives to this film whatsoever! I'd rather watch MFS if I had to choose between the two and even that's stretching it. Only thing MWO makes me wanna do is use it for target practice. At least with MFS they weren't playing storybook characaters.

 

[DannyRWW]

I don't know I feel that the whole Ashanti thing and her character kind of dragged down the whole movie...not that Dorothy had to be a muppet......but she kind of overwhlemed the Muppets like she was saying Look at me I'm a star ignore the muppets...and that kind of ruined it for me...I mean take a look at Muppet Treasure Island...again not my favorite Muppet movie but the human lead seemed more passive and Tim Curry is practically a muppet anyways...in bits and pieces there are things I like about the movie...Piggy as the Withc of the west is funny..and I like how she is disolved by using regular water (the actual disolving is disturbing though).......I also like Pepe in this....his little snide side remarks work well because lets face it we all feel a little snarky about this movie...a pepe commentary track for this would be fun " An d this is where I almost walked because of lameness, okay. But they offered me more monies...so I stayed."

 

[DannyRWW]

oh and I think Queen Latifah desreves a better Muppet Cameo than this

 

[Drtooth]

There's so much to take in here that I might as well go the route not taken.

Why the heck did they do Muppet Wizard of Oz, another tale told too many times by too many people, when they had much better scripts and concepts in the wings? At best this was going to be below MCC and MTI in quality, and it was a huge step back in the wrong direction, after the Muppets re-established themselves with MFS and VMX. While I think MFS was completely flawed, it at least was a step in the right direction of not having the franchise be entirely based on classic retellings. The Muppets certainly didn't need another project where they're second and third to humans playing the top roles in these stories. Even then, Micheal Cain and Tim Curry can actually act.

Basically everything in this movie that made it suck outweighed the positives. I don't really think the gambit of having Piggy as the bad guy worked that well. It made the film even more unbalanced.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

All in all this movie was A BIG EPIC FAIL!!!!

 

[Mo Frackle]

Personally, I wouldn't call it a big epic fail. Mostly an epic fail, yes. But after rewatching it recently, I did notice that there were a few things that weren't that bad. Specifically, certain character moments.