New Tin Woodman trailer

Hash Inc. recently posted this new trailer for their completed CGI-animates version of Tin Woodman Of Oz.

Wizard Of Oz in 4-D

Madame Tuessaunds in NewYork is going to have a special Wizard Of Oz exhibition called The Wizard Of Oz: 4-D Experience this summer to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the 1939 movie.

Wicked book review

The crew from Spine Breakers recently did this review of the Wicked book by Gregory Maquire.

Emeralds Influences: Dorothy

The concept of a young girl being taken from her own world and thrown into a realm of fantasy and adventure is hardly a new idea, least of all in anime. If its not magical girls coming to Earth from Heaven or somewhere, then its the reverse of having girls from modern day Earth being sent to someplace like Wonderland. Once they're there, they usually do quite alot of growing up by becoming more responsible, usually because they were the key figure in some epic struggle of good vs. evil. Alot of these characters were influential to me when I was shaping my version of Dorothy, who is kinda the original "girl lost in space and time". One of the main ones was Hitomi from Vision Of Escaflowne. Hitomi is a highschool girl with the power to see people's fortune with tarot cards, and sometimes gets visions that warn her of impending danger(kinda like Spider-Sense). She gets sent to the world of Gaea which is a missing moon from Earth, and helps the handsome young prince Van in his struggle to liberate Gaea from the ruthless Zaibach empire. Hitomi uses her clairvoyant abilities to help Van and his friends, while dueling with her feelings for Van and the handsome knight Allen. The TV series has alot in common with Oz, including an enigmatic wizard/ruler, a lion man, and a young maiden who was unknowingly transformed into a boy. There was a movie remake too titled Escaflowne that remade Hitomi into a suicidal girl who comes to terms with her existence after her trip ot Gaea, where she's seen as a goddess.Another one worth mentioning(and that most Americans are familiar with)is Kagome from Inu-Yasha. Kagome is the modern day reincarnation of a priestess from fuedal Japan, of which she ends up going back to the past via a time-travelling well that only works for her, and meets up with a half-demon dogboy. On her frequent trips to the past, Kagome becomes psychically aware of the magical energies alive during this time, particularly from the ancient Shikon Jewel. This series went on for over 100 episodes, and was recently brought back under the new title, Inu-Yasha: The Final Act, which concludes the story. A final contender is Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth who is one of three girls who are transported to the world of Cephiro, and have to become the Magic Knights in order to save the Princess Emeraude from a supposedly evil priest. Along the way, Hitomi with her friends Umi and Fuu mature as characters, and become great friends despite never knowing each other before. Once their original journey ends(without giving away any spoilers!), Hikari and Co. get sent back to Tokyo, but return for the second season where they protect Cephiro from a new threat. This is a little where I came up with the idea of Dorothy, Trot, and Betsy Bobbin becoming witches to protect Oz. There is a darker OVA remake of this anime titled simply Rayearth about a slightly older Hikaru trying to stop the forces of Cephiro from invading Earth. I could name a few other anime characters similar to Dorothy, like Chihiro from Spirited Away, but these particular three really made a big influence in my ideas for Dorothy.

Video Review: Heartless-The Story Of The Tin Man

Whitestone Motion Pictures has completed their independent movie of Heartless-The Story Of The Tin Man. This short film deals with the origins of the Tin Woodman, or as he's original known, Nick Chopper.

In the movie he's simply called the woodsman. He is courting a maiden(who is revealed to be Nimmee Amee in The Tin Woodman Of Oz), and plans to marry her. The maiden's mother wants her daughter to marry a man of wealth, so she makes a deal with the Wicked Witch of the East to stop their affair. The Witch puts a curse on the axe to cut into its user. When the woodsman injures his arm, he has a master craftsmen(Ku-Klip)fit him with a new metallic arm. The woodsman eventually looses his other arm, his legs, and then his head. But when the axe finally cuts into his chest, his heart is destroyed, and the craftsman then gives him a psuedo-heart. Even though from this point, the Tin Man begins to nothing but continue chopping down trees for the house he was originally planning on building for himself and the maiden. However, he completely forgets his reasons for doing so, and ultimately rejects the maiden who pours her heart out to him. The Tin Man then rusts after getting caught out in the rain, but is released years later by Dorothy and the Scarecrow.

The movie is very well put together, and is delivered as a tragic fairy tale. A serious effort was made to make this seem like a steampunk-inspired production, with a fine set of actors and haunting soundtrack. The movie is currently available for download, with plans to put it in DVD too. The soundtrack is also available for download.

Emeralds ID tags now available

We now have a limited edition line of Emeralds ID tags in. Each one is sized 3x4 inches in plastic with a clip and features one of the original "Gang of 4" with their own personal motto. Each one is $2.00. When ordering, please indicate which one(s) you want. These are available only for a short time, so get yours now!

Book Review: Lost In Oz-Rise Of The Dark Wizard

The second in the Lost In Oz trilogy by Joshua Dudley takes place a few months after the original book left off.

Joshua and his other Oz tourist group are now in the Mifkets Asylum, along with Alice from Wonderland(shades of American McGee's Alice?). Tamara, Tommy, and Laura manage to get back to Oz along with Dorothy via her magic slippers. Once there, they learn that about a century has passed, and Oz has been dominated by a new evil overlord called the Dark Wizard. They ally themselves with a group of fairies lead by the mischevious Pina, who are really working for the Dark Wizard, which Dorothy discovers, but the pixies use some amnesia magic on her to make her forget. Meanwhile, to double his chances of total victory the Dark Wizard has resurrected Bastinda(the Wicked Witch of the West), and plans to find the Great Book of Records to rewrite all the great disasters of Oz into one killstroke. But he also needs to acquire the Candle of Truth in order to do this. Back on Earth, Joshua befriends Wogglebug who was sent to him by Ozma and the remaining Ozians from the original timeline. He warps back to Oz with Toto, and is introduced to Oz's heroes, including Glinda, Tattypoo, Tik-Tok, a resewn Scraps, and the new Good Witch of the West. Tamara and the others are surrounded by the Nome King and his troops, where Tamara learns that she can use dark sorcery to ward off the nome army. Bastinda summons the Jabberwocky from Wonderland to collect Dorothy and Tommy, leaving Laura behind and seemingly dead. Tamara follows them, only to learn that the Dark Wizard is really her father from Earth, who convinces her to use her newfound powers for the side of evil. Ozma informs Joshua that the Dark Wizard plans to kill both him and Tamara so he can gain both of their powers. Joshua leaves to confront Tamara about this, who transports them to the Dark Wizard. Bastinda in the meantime gets the magic slippers from Dorothy, which end up to turning her into ashes. Tamara them reveals that she was only faking being evil to learn the Dark Wizard's plan, and they manage to use the Candle of Truth to send them back to Earth just before they first arrived in Oz. Alive and well, things seem okay, but a whole bunch of tornados show up like they did at the beginning of the first book.

This book had a little more of an original adventure than the first one, and not just an alternate walkthrough of The Wizard Of Oz. Although there's a few things that were left out, like how realms like Wonderland are connected, plus the regular characters(both original and from Oz)don't seem to have room to develop very much. It's like we're introduced to Gloma(the new Witch of the West)but given no backstory on her, plus one of the original four characters from the first book just gets killed off because she didn't have much anything else to do in the story. Anyway, if the first volume peaked your interest, then you'll probably dig this one too. This leads into the upcoming third and final book, Temple Of The Deadly Desert. Plans are also in the works to do a Lost In Oz comic series too.

Book Review: Lost In Oz

So let's say that somehow you ended up going back in time and screwed up history(like in Back To The Future: Part II). That's more or less the premise for Lost In Oz, a trilogy by Joshua Dudley. While having no relation to the Lost In Oz TV pilot by David Hayter, or the original movie idea by Tim Burton, this book was concieved as an original idea, but still catering to fans of the original Oz book series.

First set in modern day, Joshua(named after the author), his twin sister Tamara, along with their schoolfriends Tommy and Laura are suprised to find themselves hurled to Oz. Once there, they run into Dorothy who has just befriended Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion. They are all on their way to see the Wizard, so Jousha and his crew have not only travelled to another realm, but gone back in time to when Dorothy first arrived in Oz in 1899. Plus, their initlal encounter with her has caused a whole new timeline to occur. Joshua and Tamara have an arguement, which causes the two girls to go stalking after Dorothy so they can find a way home, while Joshua and Tommy get left behind. Joshua can keep up with them though because his copy of the actual Wizard Of Oz book is now narrating what is going in Oz similar to Glinda's Great Book of Records. After encountering some flesh-eating merfolk(in Oz?), Joshua and Tommy meet Jack Pumpkinhead who was apparently sent back in time from some point of the original timeline that still exists, and tells Joshua he is part of some cryptic prophecy. Tamara and Laura get kidnapped by Bastinda, the Wicked Witch of the West, who Joshua and Tommy find out has been fronting as the actual Wizard as well. They learn of the girls' abduction and head out to the Witch's castle, only to run into another time-displaced character, Scraps, who is unfortunately torn apart by the flying monkeys. They are also captured while trying to save the girls, where Joshua meets Oscar Diggs(the actual Wizard). He reveals to Joshua that Bastinda was his wife from America who came to Oz with him, and she gained magical powers along with her sister to become the Wicked Witches. This isn't even more shocking as the fact that Joshua is their son, who was sent to America as a child, and his "sister" Tamara with her family were enchanted to thinking he was her twin. Oscar then just disitegragtes, leaving Joshua to reconsider Jack's prophecy. Tamara frees Joshua after Dorothy melts Bastinda. The foursome then decide to just tail Dorothy and her friends to Glinda's palace and try to catch a ride home from her when she "clicks her heels three times". However, they end up in their time about two years after they first left and have been presumed missing. They end up getting admitted into a asylum, where they meet a young girl named Alice chasing a rabbit. Now in case your wondering, yes this is the Alice from Wonderland, which crosses-over in the next volume of the series, Rise Of The Dark Wizard.

The second book is now out, with the third one, Temple Of The Deadly Desert, due out early next year. Currently, there are copies for sale through most regular sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It's also available on Lulu along with a Special Edition available only for download. The book itself is in a regular paperback edition as well as a deluxe paperback.

I am Iron Man, the Great and Powerful!

According to First Showing, Robert Downey Jr. might star in an upcoming Sam Mendes movie titled Oz The Great And Powerful. Mendes was originally going to do the next James Bond film, although that's been put on hiatus because of MGM's financial problems. This new project was first slated under the title Brick which was written by Mitchell Kapner who did The Whole Nine Yards, and is being produced by Joe Roth. Downey has been offered the role of the Wizard, which in this movie is supposed to be a prequal to the original Wizard Of Oz story that tells of the title character's life prior to coming to Oz and how he became the "man behind the curtain".

Behind-the-scenes of Heartless

Whitestone Motion Pictures recently posted this behind-the-scenes footage from their upcoming movie, Heartless, based on the Tin Woodman's origin.

They also posted some info on the movie sountrack, and you can download a track from it here.

The Oz Film Manufacturing Company trilogy

During the mid-1910s, L. Frank Baum took it upon himself to make independent live-action silent movies based on his Oz books. He set up the Oz Film Manufacturing Company in California. Three movies that were made back then have survived today.

The first one was The Patchwork Girl Of Oz which was based on the book of the same name. It only skewes a little from the original story by making Jinjur an antogonist in it, plus creating characters like Dr. Pipt's daughter Jesseva and her fiance Danx. Two other original characters who actually appear in a few of the other OFMC movies are the mule Mewel, and the strange creature called the Zoop who resembles a monkey mixed with a Chinese dragon. Following this was The Magic Cloak Of Oz which was inspired by Baum's novel, Queen Zizi Of Ix. It has was no direct connection to Oz, even though the country of Ix that it takes place in borders Oz. The only regular Oz character in it is the Woozy returning from the last movie, along with Mewel and Zoop. The last one was His Majesty, The Scarecrow Of Oz, which later became the basis for Baum's book, The Scarecrow Of Oz. It originally combined elements of Wizard Of Oz and Land Of Oz. It introduces Button Bright as an original character, plus Dorothy's first appearance in the OFMC trilogy, but this time she's profiled as being a girl from Kansas who is enslaved to the witch Mombi(how she got to Oz is never explained). Tin Man plays a significant part in the story too. The movie was originally retitled The New Wizard Of Oz in order to attract a larger audience.

On their own, these films manage to capture alot of the whimsy of the Ozbooks that alot of other movies haven't. There's several versions of these films on DVD, usually along with the 1925 The Wizard Of Oz movie. One is Wizard Of Oz: The Lost L. Frank Baum Versions, The Wizard Of Oz Collection, and The World Of Oz. I'd highly recommend that you check these out sometime, either DVD or online.

Wicked: Year 4

According to recent reports, Gregory Maguire is currently working on the 4th installment of the Wicked Years series. This originally started in 1995 with Wicked, followed by Son Of A Witch, and A Lion Amoung Men. The working title for the next book will be Out Of Oz, which will apparently start with the character of Glinda under house arrest by the Emporer Apostle(aka: the Wicked Witch's younger brother). The book is planned for an Oct. 2010 release.