Next week, on March 8th, Disney's latest Movie, Oz The Great and Powerful, comes to theaters. Being the huge L. Frank Baum fan that I am, and having grown up enchanted by the 1939 version, I've been looking forward to this. I've read some of Baum's other works, so I thought I'd finally give the Wizard of Oz series a try. Granted, this latest movie serves as a prequel and goes outside of what Baum original wrote; I wanted to experience Oz the way it was first imagined.
I'm not far into the story, only the fifth chapter, and I already feel as if my Oz World has been shattered. Not in a bad way, but in a, "Wow, they seriously changed some things" sort of way. Glinda The Good Witch, enchanting in technicolor pink, greats Dorothy when she literally falls into Oz. That image will forever be in my mind, and Glinda standing on the yellow brink road while giving Dorothy advice is iconic. But that's not in the book.
In the book it is the nameless Good Witch of the North, though Baum later named her Locasta in a 1902 stage musical, who greats the mistaken "sorceress" Dorothy. The good witch of the north is described as a "little old women." Nothing glamorous in that. But with all movies, characters are typically eliminated or combined, as was the case here. Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, was named the Good Witch of the North in the Judy Garland version. Though why she couldn't just keep the South title is beyond me.
(Good Witch of the North as pictured in Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Public Domain)
Then I realized something, I believe this character was once again eliminated from the new Disney version. In the trailers they keep showing Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, and Michelle Williams. A little Old Women wouldn't fit in very well next to them.
Sarah
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