Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Stitchpunks in Oz

Since the movie 9 came out, there's been a surge of the term "stitchpunk". This basically refers to any kind of sewn-together creation brought to life by some means. The actual word comes mainly from the Stitchpunk characters from 9 who are small robots with a body made of fabric resembling gloves, sacks, and other materials. Other examples would be the original stitch-monster Frankenstein, Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands, plus Sally and Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. It could be argued that living doll characters like Raggedy Ann or Chucky from Child's Toy could also count.

In the case of Oz, the accounting of characters like Jack Pumpkinhead and Sawhorse who were inanimate objects brought to life is slightly along the lines of stitchpunk, but mainly Scarecrow and Scraps the Patchwork Girl are Oz's resident "stitchies".

Scarecrow was an ordinary scarecrow who was somehow given life, even though he didn't have a brain. In some versions of the story, it turned out his essense was really the displaced spirit of either a dead farmer or the ruler of an underground kingdom, while in some others he was animated magically by Dorothy's will. Scraps on the other hand was created by Dr. Pipt using the Powder of Life(which was also used for Jack Pumpkinhead and Sawhorse), and meant to be a servant for his wife, but some added brains by Ojo made her alot more independent. While its been hinted that both Scarecrow and Scraps are a little sweet on each other, its nice to think that these two might get together and raise a future generation of stitchpunks someday.

No comments:

Post a Comment