AGAINST THE OZ

Somewhere over Las Vegas...

Now that the Colbert cancellation is starting to fade from the front page, it's time for something else to get people riled up. So desperate are Americans to see how far their blood pressure can rise before it kills them, they have to turn to an 86 year-old movie most haven't seen since their ages were in the single digits: The Wizard of Oz. 

Oddly, it doesn't have anything to do with "troubling" moments like a teenager almost getting "unalived" in a tornado before being groomed by three older men; little people being the butt of jokes; or a person of color (green) once again being the villain. In fact, all these and more will be bigger and better(?) than ever, now that Oz will be shown at the Las Vegas Sphere. Oh, it'll be shorter, too, by roughly 27 minutes. But is anybody's attention span what it used to be?

According to CNBC, "Sphere Entertainment worked with engineers on using artificial intelligence-powered “outpainting” to expand the film’s original frames to fit the Las Vegas venue, which opened in September 2023. The goal, according to the company, is to make viewers feel like they were in the studio when the legendary movie — released in 1939 and starring Judy Garland — was made."

Now phonier looking than ever!

To clarify a couple of things, "outpainting" seems to be a new made-up word for
computer generated imagery, while there's no way you'll feel like you were in the studio because much of the outpainted imagery wasn't there. Nor was the confetti blowing in your face during the tornado scenes or the 167,000 speakers blasting your ears, aromas snaking their way up your nostrils, or something called "haptic seats" (which sounds cooler than "shaky").

Further separating it from its original version is that the average ticket price in 1939 was two bits. Ducats for the souped-up, 16K Oz range from $138 to $347 -- if you were lucky enough to score them on the Sphere site. Otherwise, those secondary market prices are currently close to $700 each. Feel like taking the wife and kiddies? Better get lucky at the craps table first! 

Don't give Trump any ideas.

At 366 feet tall and 516 feet wide, the Sphere makes Imax look like the portable
Panasonic TV you had in your dorm room. The images that flash on its outer portion are literally eye-popping, not to mention a dangerous distraction to drivers within five miles of downtown Vegas. 

Movie lovers and professional complainers are up in arms over the ticket prices, 4D effects and Sphere's decision to trim almost a half hour from the Oz running time (now it's 75 minutes, the better to squeeze in more showings). And if this were the only version that would ever exist until the end of time, I'd be ticked-off, too.

But what people don't seem to remember is that the complete Wizard of Oz in its original Academy Ratio (1.37:1) exists everywhere Blu rays are sold. They might even be in these people's very own collection. The missing footage will probably be trims -- 30 seconds here, a minute there -- that only the most Ozsessive fan would notice. 

Now this is an atrocity.

One more thing these folks forget: they don't have to see the damn thing! It's like bitching about a dopey theme-park attraction based on their favorite movie -- a ride they say "rapes my childhood!" -- that they won't go near anyway. 

Sam Adams in Slate goes so far as to call it "an atrocity" (a word usually mentioned in conjunction with genocide and the like). By the end of the piece, he seems to be one step away from calling it a deliberate distraction from the Epstein files.

You don't want to see the bigger-than-ever Wizard of Oz for aesthetic reasons? Fine. You don't like Vegas? I don't blame you. You don't want to take out a loan for a 75 minute movie? Join the club. Show your support for the real deal by buying the 4K Ultra HD/Blu ray combo, now going for only $19.03 on Amazon. Now find something important to complain about.

By the way, where are the Epstein files?

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