Jackson Reviews the 2nd Oz Movie & 3rd Oz Book

After my six-year-old son Jackson and I finished reading Ozma of Oz, the third Oz book, my wife and I decided to rent of the second Oz movie. I remembered not being as happy with Return to Oz (it lost the fun and wonder of the first movie), but I wanted to see what Jackson thought seeing characters like Jack Pumpkinhead and Tik Tok on the screen.

As with his previous reviews, what follows are Jackson’s own words, with my comments and questions in italics.

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In the book they went to Ev. The Nome King captured the royal family of Ev. There was only one person left to rule, a princess. She had more than one head. But there was one of her heads that liked to do bad things.

I liked that in the movie they made it in Oz still instead of bringing it to somewhere else.  Instead of washing up on the beach, they washed up in the Deadly Desert, and they had to step on Nomes to get across. (Nomes can move to anything that’s stone!)

In the movie everybody turned  to stone, and the princess wasn’t the princess of Ev with the different heads, it was Mombi!

I didn’t like it (in the movie) that the Nome King took over the Emerald City and turned everybody to stone, and Mombi took all those heads from the dancing girls, and then they were headless. The wheelers looked really scary. In the book Tik Tok knew they were just playing to make people be scared of them, but they couldn’t harm anybody because they just had wheels.

So what did you like about the movie?

I liked that they had the ruby slippers back, because they don’t have to be lost forever, so Dorothy can get back to Kansas.

I liked the ending. Actually, the second movie, I thought the cowardly lion looked more like a lion. The first movie didn’t look at all like a lion. But why did they make the Tin Woodman so thin? He was a Thin Woodman!

At the end, Tik Tok looked like C3PO because they polished him. That was silly.

I didn’t like the doctors. They weren’t doing the right thing. They were toasting the patients’ brains! But luckily they got arrested.

What did you like about the book?

I like the Nome King in the book better, because  in the book he just sent out his army to fight, and then the Scarecrow got out his eggs and threw them at the Nome King. But in the movie, he came into the ornament room and started eating them! But he only got part of the Gump, and when he tried to eat Jack Pumpkinhead, Billina laid an egg in Jack Pumpkinhead’s head, and the egg went into his (the Nome King’s) mouth and he crumpled into pieces!

I liked that that they freed the royal family by Billina guessing the ornaments right. I liked that everybody was free. Billina was the last one to free everybody.