 All right today I'm gonna bike back to the theater, and I'm gonna see Legends of Oz I can't even say it without it may it's it may be very ill-advised, but I I Have to see what the deal is with this movie that is officially the biggest bomb in Animation history and for animated films in wide release. This is officially the biggest bomb in history and I Want to see why? I'm gonna bike over there I'll see you when I get back. Well, here we are again. God. This is gonna hurt Well, I Be each less I am Dumbstruck I'm gonna have to think about this for a few minutes on the bike ride home and I'll sit down and Tell you about it Okay, okay Oh What do I do? What do I say first? this um This was an experience an experience and a half, and I'm glad I did it. I have to tell you As surprising as this may sound and as much as I hate movies in general and as disappointed as I always am in everything this movie was not Nearly as bad as People are telling me it is not nearly as bad It's not a good movie Certainly But where do I start? Where in the world do I start? Boy I just started the beginning the beginning of the movie was was pathetic It was really really bad The animation and the character design were terrible just awful It's the opening of the film was so bad I was um I Was dreading having to sit there for the rest of the film the animation quality At the beginning was like the kind of the kind of animation you would expect to see on a local auto insurance commercial Like like that general character general insurance or whatever you call it was it was that bad it was truly truly awful and Dorothy sang a song and it was bad And the the first thing that surprised me was that it took place in present day in present day Kansas not Not a hundred years ago Kansas not Depression era Kansas auntie M and uncle Henry looked like college professors It was really jarring And they were they were very poorly designed and poorly animated just awful Just truly awful Thankfully much of the movie was not that bad. I am why I say not that bad. I mean not as bad as the the first few minutes So it's comparative comparatively oh The premise Apparently the story is based on a book by Roger Baum who was L. Frank Baum's great great Excuse me great grandson, and he was written Evidently a series of official books and in the Oz In the Oz pantheon, there's a lot of them. There's like more than a hundred I read all the books by Frank Baum. That's like 14 of them And I read another 10 or 15 by Ruth Plumlee Thompson, and they were good They're crazy books. If you've never read the original Oz books. They're insane. They are they're insane. They're truly insane They're not like anything you've ever read before they're just nuts and there's a lot of things about them that are downright frightening and That's one thing that The Wizard of Oz movie with the the one that we're familiar with the MGM classic It captures a lot of the essence of the original books it looks amazing and There are parts of it that are terrifying. They're absolutely terrifying, and that's what the books the original books are like the the Disney movie in 1985 the return to Oz with the the Nome King and Mambi that movie is as bizarre and and Strange as it was captured a lot of the essence of the original books. They were just they're terrifying This one although I understand it was based on a book by Roger Baum the premise was The setup for the premise was not good it wasn't handled well The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Cowley lion were awful. They were Terribly designed poorly animated their dialogue was was laughably bad. I mean it was terrible the dialogue in this movie. Oh God just awful The character design and animation of Dorothy herself is really bad. It's very stiff very generic It looks like something that came from a generic Unknown animation studio which it did I have to tell you I liked the way Dorothy got back to Oz I'm gonna tell you this I'm not gonna worry about spoiling this. I mean they're How do you spoil a movie this bad you can't The Scarecrow sends a rainbow To bring Dorothy back to Oz and Dorothy sees this rainbow over the Kansas Plains and she says oh how beautiful and Then the rainbow starts to move and she says and she's like wait a minute That's that's not a rainbow Oh, and then she starts running for her life, and I'm like this is yes that I like this That's the kind of thing that Frank Baum would have done it's terrifying just it was The villain is a guy named the jester who is evidently the brother of the wicked witch of the West and He's got a beef as you can imagine there were moments when the jester was actually frightening Mostly he wasn't but there were moments when he was when he was actually scary what he did to Glinda was impressive His songs again were bad The flying monkeys were not frightening The things that are keeping me from completely condemning this movie was that there were a handful of moments in the movie that I really liked I really did like That were that were funny and impressive and or impressive Mostly again the dialogue was just awful most of the characters were unimpressive poorly designed I Didn't much like them at all, but I did like I did like the china princess In fact, I liked her a lot She for me was probably the highlight of the film and I gasped out loud and what happened to her I won't tell you about that Okay I'll I'll say there must be some mystery As if you're ever gonna see this anyway The action scenes were pathetic. They were really sad, but there were moments um There were moments in the film that looked really good. There were moments when I I thought that that's pretty That's that's really pretty um The climax The big climactic action scene was was bad Um badly conceived badly executed not not impressive at all Uh, as one would expect but then uh and then And then Dorothy got back to Kansas and the the closing scenes Were or pathetic they were they were truly truly awful just as bad as the opening scenes in Kansas just Just bad badly Badly written badly animated bad dialogue um Even the voice acting wasn't good it was just Just awful just just really Just really awful But then But then Get this the the closing credits The closing credits were I I saw something during the closing credits that I've never seen before this astonished me The closing credits started with Just a list of names Just names by themselves individual names. There were one or two that were the so-and-so family and I realized Uh after I'd seen a few of these go by I realized these are the names of Of uh individual contributors These are the names of investors like uh like like you would see on a Kickstarter project It was it was amazing. I've never seen that in a theatrical film before you know what we're going to see that a lot In the future we're going to be seeing that very sort of thing in the credits in theatrical films in the future And it'll be a good thing things are changing Things are changing Uh, it's amazing. It it astonished me And then the rest of the credits there was a a slideshow of artwork from the film While credits for people on the animation staff rolled by and it was mostly names of people from india obviously people from india More power to them great But the uh The the animation art was good. It was beautiful stuff There are so many animated films. I've seen in recent years where the The stuff you see during the end credits is better than the rest of the film. That's a sad thing But the you know, I can't take away from people that the art that the art is great and then The very last thing that appeared on the screen the very last at the very end of the credits was the phrase Marshmallow peeps appear courtesy of the marshmallow peeps company There was a scene in candy country where there were marshmallow peeps chirping And they had to get their credit and it was It was the very last thing on the screen. So I left the theater smiling. I have to give them that Now I want to talk about the question of Why this movie is such Is such a failure and generating such hatred among critics Uh I have to say this is not anywhere near the worst film. I've ever seen Animation or otherwise it's not anywhere near the worst It had moments that I liked There was a handful of moments that I liked there were a handful of jokes that I liked and speaking of jokes There were zero Poop jokes there were zero fart jokes. There were zero pee pee piss jokes None There was absolutely nothing off color or gross in this movie at all This movie was genuinely and sincerely made For family viewing You can take your kids you can take uh Your nieces and nephews and you take your neighbor's kids And you don't have to worry that there's going to be some gag where somebody gets a mouth full of Elephant poop or something um, which Which uh comes back to what I was about to say before is why Why movies like hotel transylvania Are financially successful and this movie legends of oz is not Because as awful and ill conceived as this movie is Hotel transylvania was much worse. It was much much worse I had the sad misfortune of seeing hotel transylvania. I saw it one afternoon when Um, I was downtown. I had a couple of hours to kill. There was a cinema If I had known that it was an adam sandler flick I would have just sat on the bench for two hours On the sidewalk But unfortunately I walked into it and I saw the most awful thing I've ever seen There was not one single minute of entertainment in that movie. It wasn't just poorly written. It was cynical It was cynical. It was hateful the entire first scene of that movie was devoted completely to piss jokes seriously The wolf man showed up to the big Transylvania party with his family which was a pack of puppies of wolf puppies And they peed all over everything and they peed and peed and peed until there was pee flowing all over the floor and out of the castle And that was the joke That was the joke And then the frankenstein monster Detached his torso from his lower body so that his legs could sneak around behind the couch and fart on a friend of his and that was the joke That's the kind of thing you expect from uh So-called family Entertainment or children's entertainment today that was hotel transylvania Legends of oz has nothing like that nothing Legends of oz i contend is better than hotel transylvania Because it had a few shining moments that were Pretty good and a couple of jokes that I laughed hotel transylvania. No I have similar feelings about the shrek movies the shrek movies were overwhelmingly successful. They made millions And people love them. I I have no idea why there's an entire generation of young people who grew up with those movies And are nostalgic about those movies and who love them. I think they were just pure awful beginning to end At least legends of oz was sincerely trying To be a nice entertaining movie shrek if he asked me was just cynicism So Why are those movies financially successful and this movie? isn't And and rio 2 is out right now and it's outselling legends of oz rio 2 the sequel to rio Why does rio Have a sequel hotel transylvania is getting a sequel. Oh my god So why are they financially successful and legends of oz is not Successful the the guys who produced this movie the carol brothers are saying that the distributor has failed to um To support the movie and may actually be working against the movie. Maybe that's Maybe there's some truth to that. I don't know For what I read the the distributor of this film has only been in the business for two years That's amazing How did they get how did a company that's so new to the business get any film? Released in what's called wide release into thousands of cinemas how I don't know. I don't understand it. I don't know what the difference is. I don't know what the problem is I do have to tell you The reviews that I looked at before I before I went to see the film Fell into two distinct and very wide categories. There were the professional critics and the viewers The professional critics 100% slams this movie with the lowest ratings I think I've seen critics ever give to any film They were zeros across the board But you look at the reviews by movie viewers And they love it Five out of five stars one after another after another after another and they're all saying that their kids enjoyed that They took their kids and the kids enjoyed the film. I have to tell you I I saw this Mid-afternoon 1 30 in the afternoon on a weekday There were only there were three other people in the theater with me, which is more than I thought I thought I would be alone. There was one old man who Was either an old school animation fan or he was just killing an afternoon And then there was an elderly grandmother With what must have been a grandchild. It was like four years old or so I heard the kid laugh a number of times and at the end of the movie when the credits start to roll both of them Both of them clapped The kid liked the movie The four-year-old kid liked the movie I can't argue with that I can't I can't fight that I Have to tell you though if I had been if I had seen this movie When I was a child, I probably would have been terribly bored I probably would have had the same reaction that I'm having to having to it right now A couple of moments that I liked but other than that I don't know You know, I said in my Godzilla review that it's important that you don't support Bad movies don't give your money to bad movies. Well, this is a bad movie Unfortunately But it's also An independent movie a truly independent movie The kind of thing we don't see in theaters. So I'm wondering what what should be our priority with films like this. I have to tell you it's It is odd and and frustrating and unexplainable how expectation affects Uh our responses to things like this I was expecting to see the worst movie I've ever seen. I was expecting to suffer horribly With boredom throughout the every minute of this film and I didn't Which made me feel positive about the movie if people had sold it to me as the greatest movie ever I would be angry. I would have left angry our expectation of color Uh how we walk away from things like this and also context This is a really poor theatrical film. However, if I had seen this on television If this had been a sci-fi channel saturday morning series I would have said wow I would have said oh my god. This is amazing. This is groundbreaking. This is really So who knows who the hell knows See it if you want to I I don't know what to tell you I can tell you definitely if you've never read the original os books get them and read them. They're amazing They're for kids, but they're amazing read them yourself read them to your kids your kids will love you for reading those crazy old books to them seriously If you're not an os fan and by an os fan, I mean an elfrank bomb os fan you should become one Okay, that's it. I'm done Ah