"And monkeys will fly out of my... wait.. that's not right"
So, last night, I got to watch Part One of the new SciFi Channel miniseries, "Tin Man," which is a modernized update of "The Wizard of Oz," with a sci-fi-ish setting, I guess, except that there's still magic and so on. I'd read about it, and was actually intrigued; I love reinterpretations and new takes on fairy tales and folk tales and legends and so on... which, ok, the Oz books aren't exactly fairy or folk tales, but they've become pop culture legend, at least, and that counts. There's enough material to work with, and there have already been lots of adaptations ("The Wiz," and "Wicked," to name just a few).
Here, cut for spoilers, are my impressions:
D.G.-- and for any of you who remembered automatically without having to think much about it that "Gale" was Dorothy's very appropriate last name in the original, kudos to you. D.G. lives in a white clapboard house in the middle of- presumably-- Kansas. Lots of fields. Very few people. She has strange dreams of an unknown woman flickering back and forth in an atmospheric and dreamlike fashion and crying out that there's a storm coming. And, um, there are spinny ballerina dolls and lots of other random dream imagery.
She wakes up late, has to rush to her job as a waitress at the very traditional greasy-spoon, American-as-a-slice-of-apple-pie, diner she works at. Cue nod to the original "Wizard" movie with a ticket-obsessed cop taking the place of crazy, dog-napping bicycle lady. D.G., who has never felt that she fits in, doesn't care that her mother is worried about the ticket and upcoming court date, wants to run away to Australia (where all the cool people are!). Etc. Her dad shares homespun words of wisdom and rhapsodizes about how much better things were in Milltown. D.G. is sick of hearing about Milltown and her father's idyllic childhood, but he says her drawings remind him of home.
Then the camera pans away, up to the drawings.
And then through them.
And suddenly we are in the O.Z. (yup, indeed), panning up towards..um.. Barad-Dur? Which Saruman has rented out, apparently, to an evil sorceress, prone to slinking around in a gold corset and weird shiny shoulderpad thingies. Also has a set of interesting tattoos across the top of her cleavage, which... well, whatever, evil sorceress. Corsetty cleavage is kind of standard issue.
Sorceress is trying to find a magical emerald... because, well, of course she is. Upcoming double eclipse, magical whatever, etc. Practical upshot is that she sends a storm with a bunch of soldiers (which is kind of cool, actually) to go and get D.G., whose parents save her by _tossing her into the cyclone_. Yup, indeed. D.G. wakes up in the woods; there's an encounter with... umm... brightly-painted short guys on bungee cords, who have turkey tails attached to them and talk like they learned Shakespeare out of a grade-school primer. They think she's a spy; she finally escapes with Alan Cumming (woot!), who has lost his marbles and now wears a bad wig and zipper combo on his head.
The interesting thing, I guess, is that the entire thing is called "Tin Man," and the Tin Man is indeed who they encounter next. D.G. and Glitch (aka, zipper-boy) find a farmstead where they see soldiers beating up a man and threatening his wife and son. D.G. grabs a stick and rushes into the fray ("D.G. grabs a stick and rushes into the fray" could be a drinking game category, btw), only to discover that the whole thing is a camera-generated illusion, designed to play in an infinite loop in front of a man stuck inside a large metal suit, kind of like an Iron Maiden crossed with an early diving rig. Turns out that "Tin Man" is the O.Z. term for a policeman; this one rebelled, and his family was dragged off, presumed dead, and he was stuck into a metal suit to watch their fate over and over and over again. Kind of has a really strong Malcom-from-"Firefly" vibe going on, but it might just be the coat and the sense of righteous anger at supporting a doomed moral cause. There's actually a weird warped Old West thing for all the bits of the O.Z. that aren't vaguely classical fairy tale forest or sci-fi dystopia.
Major revelation of the first episode is that D.G. is actually the daughter of the former queen of the whole kingdom, and the evil sorceress is actually her older sister (who had succeeded in killing her as a child... [EDIT: and then the queen brought her back to life... she is not in fact ZombieHeroineGirl], leading their mother to engage a pair of guardian robots-- yes, really-- to take D.G. to the human realm and raise her as their own. Farmer robots.
Then the Sorceress has to chase down Our Intrepids... so she goes out onto the balcony, stands up straight, pulls her shoulder guard things to the side... and the tattoos on her chest writhe and twist and TURN INTO THE FLYING MONKEYS. Which then fly away.
Me: They... they... they put the flying monkeys WHERE?
Really, I don't see what can possibly top that. How can you beat flying monkey cleavage tattoos?
Here, cut for spoilers, are my impressions:
D.G.-- and for any of you who remembered automatically without having to think much about it that "Gale" was Dorothy's very appropriate last name in the original, kudos to you. D.G. lives in a white clapboard house in the middle of- presumably-- Kansas. Lots of fields. Very few people. She has strange dreams of an unknown woman flickering back and forth in an atmospheric and dreamlike fashion and crying out that there's a storm coming. And, um, there are spinny ballerina dolls and lots of other random dream imagery.
She wakes up late, has to rush to her job as a waitress at the very traditional greasy-spoon, American-as-a-slice-of-apple-pie, diner she works at. Cue nod to the original "Wizard" movie with a ticket-obsessed cop taking the place of crazy, dog-napping bicycle lady. D.G., who has never felt that she fits in, doesn't care that her mother is worried about the ticket and upcoming court date, wants to run away to Australia (where all the cool people are!). Etc. Her dad shares homespun words of wisdom and rhapsodizes about how much better things were in Milltown. D.G. is sick of hearing about Milltown and her father's idyllic childhood, but he says her drawings remind him of home.
Then the camera pans away, up to the drawings.
And then through them.
And suddenly we are in the O.Z. (yup, indeed), panning up towards..um.. Barad-Dur? Which Saruman has rented out, apparently, to an evil sorceress, prone to slinking around in a gold corset and weird shiny shoulderpad thingies. Also has a set of interesting tattoos across the top of her cleavage, which... well, whatever, evil sorceress. Corsetty cleavage is kind of standard issue.
Sorceress is trying to find a magical emerald... because, well, of course she is. Upcoming double eclipse, magical whatever, etc. Practical upshot is that she sends a storm with a bunch of soldiers (which is kind of cool, actually) to go and get D.G., whose parents save her by _tossing her into the cyclone_. Yup, indeed. D.G. wakes up in the woods; there's an encounter with... umm... brightly-painted short guys on bungee cords, who have turkey tails attached to them and talk like they learned Shakespeare out of a grade-school primer. They think she's a spy; she finally escapes with Alan Cumming (woot!), who has lost his marbles and now wears a bad wig and zipper combo on his head.
The interesting thing, I guess, is that the entire thing is called "Tin Man," and the Tin Man is indeed who they encounter next. D.G. and Glitch (aka, zipper-boy) find a farmstead where they see soldiers beating up a man and threatening his wife and son. D.G. grabs a stick and rushes into the fray ("D.G. grabs a stick and rushes into the fray" could be a drinking game category, btw), only to discover that the whole thing is a camera-generated illusion, designed to play in an infinite loop in front of a man stuck inside a large metal suit, kind of like an Iron Maiden crossed with an early diving rig. Turns out that "Tin Man" is the O.Z. term for a policeman; this one rebelled, and his family was dragged off, presumed dead, and he was stuck into a metal suit to watch their fate over and over and over again. Kind of has a really strong Malcom-from-"Firefly" vibe going on, but it might just be the coat and the sense of righteous anger at supporting a doomed moral cause. There's actually a weird warped Old West thing for all the bits of the O.Z. that aren't vaguely classical fairy tale forest or sci-fi dystopia.
Major revelation of the first episode is that D.G. is actually the daughter of the former queen of the whole kingdom, and the evil sorceress is actually her older sister (who had succeeded in killing her as a child... [EDIT: and then the queen brought her back to life... she is not in fact ZombieHeroineGirl], leading their mother to engage a pair of guardian robots-- yes, really-- to take D.G. to the human realm and raise her as their own. Farmer robots.
Then the Sorceress has to chase down Our Intrepids... so she goes out onto the balcony, stands up straight, pulls her shoulder guard things to the side... and the tattoos on her chest writhe and twist and TURN INTO THE FLYING MONKEYS. Which then fly away.
Me: They... they... they put the flying monkeys WHERE?
Really, I don't see what can possibly top that. How can you beat flying monkey cleavage tattoos?