Just finished watching "Tin Man"...

[seawasp]

...and my question is, how in the HELL did Sci-Fi make THIS? I mean, it's GOOD!

I saw little pieces of it before, and as an Oz fan I twitched and avoided it. But Kathleen watched the beginning of it and felt it showed promise, so we decided to take a chance and get it.

Contrary to my original impression, despite all the drastic outward changes, this is a very "Ozzy" story in many ways. It's an ADULT story -- that is, it hasn't got the innocent and overly-shiny polish on it that the original books did, targeted as they were to children around 10 or so -- but it's still very much of the right SPIRIT. This contrasts markedly with things like Farmer's "A Barnstormer in Oz" and Maguire's "Wicked", which completely miss the POINT, as far as I'm concerned, or -- worse -- deliberately twisting it around in the sort of way I find most painful.

Instead, "Tin Man" gives us an Oz struck, many years after we knew it, with disaster, of a particularly Ozzy sort, and needing to be rescued -- in a way that parallels the original story, of course. But not so closely that we can know everything that happens.

It's a VERY clever show, well crafted, well paced, well acted, with tributes and nods to both the classic movie AND to the original written novels (one particularly nice point is that when we get a glimpse of the original Dorothy, she's wearing the SILVER (not ruby) Slippers.

Also, as Kathleen pointed out, it was essentially CLEAN. Unlike most Sci-Fi channel offerings, there wasn't really anything in it that we couldn't let our 12 year old watch if we wanted. The biggest piece of fanservice amounted to a push-up bra that didn't reveal any more than you are likely to see during any summer day anywhere in the U.S. There was almost no bad language, either.

The actors playing the parts that paralleled the original Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Tin Man were *AMAZING*. While these were in many ways very different characters, the actors carefully wove in mannerisms, expressions, and movements that were taken directly from their respective actors in the classic Wizard of Oz movie (Ray Bolger, Burt Lahr, and Jack Haley).

Overall, an excellent piece of work. I'm glad I've seen it.

Comments

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw it when they first aired it, and was impressed enough that I picked up the DVD when it came out. I'm guessing that somehow the production got mis-routed and the Sci-Fi Channel Department Of Making All Original Movies Stink overlooked it.

[xpioti.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that enjoyed it! I lack your experience with and knowledge of the original Oz material, since I've only seen the movie with Judy Garland, but one of these days I will have copious free time and will get to watch a different movie version that is, I think, older, and I'll get to read at least some of the books.

Who'm I trying to kid? It'd be easier for me to solve world hunger than get copious free time. Maybe... I'll get the books for my kids and read the books to them when they're old enough... hmmmm!

[alex swavely (from livejournal.com)]

That's because it wasn't made by the Making Original Movies Stink Department. It was made by the Making Halfway Decent Miniseries Department.

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

My nine year old loved it.

[k-kinnison.livejournal.com]

I think "Intelligent" is a good word for it. A lot of plot twists, and surprises to keep the audience interested. I loved it two.. but *I* saw it when it first aired, so never missed it =P

Tho my one complaint is the "Two little princesses" song kinda gets annoying after the 2nd part

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

I loved the fact that the Azkeldelia is absolutely wooden when you first meet her. We thought that she was just a bad actress. But as we got further into the series, we realized that the woodenness was part of the role and that it was actually a very good acting job! An amazing thing to find on SciFi, and I want more of it.

[sub-musashi.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed that a lot more than I expected. It was well done.

[full-metal-ox.livejournal.com]

This being Oz, I'm hazarding a guess that the word "wooden" may be more than metaphorical...

[lexomatic.livejournal.com]

I will go ahead and be my usual contrary self: unlike the other respondents here, I didn't enjoy "Tin Man" much. I didn't hate it, and I watched the whole thing, but it failed to enthuse me.

The cause of my dislike might be this: it was framed as a sequel to the familiar "Dorothy in Oz" story, (and indeed, D.G.'s grandmother "the Great Gale" seemed to be the Depression-era farmgirl) but the worldbuilding was clearly inconsistent with either the Baum story or the 1939 Technicolor movie. I couldn't avoid perceiving the characters as dark-mirror reimaginings of the iconic ones; I couldn't let them prove themselves by their own merits.

A similar dynamic is underway with the upcoming Abrams Star Trek movie, which is stuck in an uncomfortably indecisive superposition. "Is it a reboot? Is it a [common Trek plot device] as claimed? What are they saying here?"

Also, "Tin Man's" primary musical motif was repeated ad nauseum, and the main color was grey. (Or so I perceived -- I am reminded of a psychological experiment in which the subjects focused so much on a basketball they missed the gorilla.)

Compared to SFC's usual original-movie/miniseries productions? I've never watched the monster movies and I skipped the Earthsea adaptation. The two Dune miniseries were okay, but had some awkwardness about them. And again, forced to compete with precedent -- as book-adaptations, they were better than the 1984 Lynch movie on some points, worse on others. One review at the time decided that the first miniseries looked like a stage production, given its use of color and costume, and might very well work as a musical.