"Oz the Great and Powerful"

I came into this movie a Oz fan.  I read the books and have seen all the movies.  I do mean ALL the movies.  Including all the black and whites and extras on the three disk special edition DVD of Wizard of Oz.  More then Once. I must have seen Wizard at least once a week when I when a child.  I am one of the few fans of Return to Oz.  In fact, seeing as Disney owns the rights to Return To Oz, some things surprise me.  One, Disney paid for the rights to use the Ruby Slippers for Return so they would not have been using the MGM Ruby slippers but their 1985 version.  Two, why not use the characters from Return To OZ.  I can’t believe that Disney passed up a chance to MERCHANDISE!! They could re-issue the movie have the toys all ready to go… But enough of the tangent.
The movie started out with a flurry of black and white spinning credits.  Had I seen in in 3D, I would have had to leave the theater to vomit.  As it was, I ended up developing a migraine. The black and white and letterboxing was a nice nod to the original with many Easter eggs thrown in for the Oz fans.  I had watched several of the interviews prior to seeing the movie so I was aware of what to look for.  I sure that I missed things and I will probably see it again at some point and notice the things that I missed.  There were noticeable plot drags and clichés. It went dark at times and there were some things that seemed thrown in for the sake of merchandising and some because they were expected.  Overall, I gave it a six and a quarter out of ten.  They did okay.  They could have done better.  My dad saw it with me and he said it was a seven out of ten but he’s not the Oz fan I am.  It’s not that they didn’t try, It’s that they tried too hard.

N.B. After rewatching Return to Oz, they did pay some slight homage to that movie in the costuming.  Mila's and Rachel's dresses resemble Mobi's outfits.  Glinda's outfits show an eye towards Ozma.  Since they hint that Glinda is Ozma that is generous.