NBC's Emerald City

So remember a couple of years ago when a whole bunch of Darker and Edgier Wizard of Oz TV Show re-imagings were anounced. Well it looks like one of them actually got made, specifically Emerald City; a.k.a the one described as The Wizard of Oz meets Game of Thrones.

Here's the trailer:

The official synopsis:

And some character images:

• Dorothy Gale
• Jack Pumpkinhead
• Lady Ev
• Lucas (The Scarecrow analogue)
• Tip
• The Wizard
• The Wicked Witch of The West
• The Wicked Witch of The East
• Glinda
• Eamonn (The Cowardly Lion analogue)

Hmm, I have mixed feelings about this. While the idea of Wizard of Oz meets Game of Thrones is an interesting and potentially great one, I'm not sure how well meshing (presumingly) the tone and scale of Game of Thrones with the world and characters of Wizard of Oz will work. As per usual, it'll be the writing and acting that'll help or hinder this idea.

I do like the steampunk-ish feel of the city settings and in general, the idea of there being a conflict between science and magic I think works with the Oz setting. (I was a bit concerned in the beginning of the trailer that the show will go with a medieval setting and be too derivative of Game of Thrones, but thankfully it doesn't seem that way.) Some of the acting seems a little off, but that might be because of lost context. I'm a bit annoyed they went with making the non-human characters human, but considering how expensive doing CGI or practical effects that still looks good would be, it's a minor nitpick. There's a couple of elements that seems to be a bit cliche (the Scarecrow analogue character having amnesia, Dorothy being a cop) but again, the writing is going to be what makes or breaks the show.

So basically what I'm getting at with my rambling is that Emerald City looks pretty interesting that could be great if the showrunners take advantage of the concept. I'll have to check it out when it comes on.

edited 26th Nov '16 1:03:38 PM by SkeletalPumpkin

Enh, SyFy did this already. I may still watch depending on...stuff.

Well, it's out. I like it. Yeah, it's basically Game of Thrones IN OZ, but I think it's doing well so far. Anyone else watching this?

Also, am I the only one who sees the Emerald City as blue? It's not my color-blindness, either; it looked perfectly green in promotional materials.

edited 9th Jan '17 4:31:13 PM by Discar

Well let's see, on the one hand there's Wicked, and on the other, didn't Sy Fy do something like this a few years ago? And also something similar with Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan?

I liked the production design and the look of the series, but it just seems like standard darkish high fantasy. And dark re-imaginings of children's books seem a little tired by now.

I'm probably a bit biased against this, as I really dislike it when a series or a work is attached to an already existing property but subverts the tone and intent of the original work. It feels like they just extrapolated this out of The Wizard of Oz for the sake of brand recognition, because otherwise nobody'd care about it. I feel the same way about Sleepy Hollow.

edited 10th Jan '17 10:02:31 PM by Robbery

Anybody still watching this? I missed a couple episodes, but I'm caught up now. I'm still liking it, and it looks like we're getting answers to a few mysteries soon.

It's to be commended that the producers remembered Mombi and Tip existed...

All the same, however, do we really need another reimagining of a great work of children's literature?

It's a real shame that there are so many awful reimaginings of The Wizard Of Oz and yet we have no good quality film version of The Marvelous Land Of Oz or any of the other Oz books in existence.

Wizard of Oz is one of those movies that has long outlasted its original source material's intent. People are far more familiar with the movie than the novels.

My mother loves the movie, but she could never explain why the Yellow Brick Road was yellow, or that Dorothy's slippers were originally silver and who the Cowardly Lion was an allegory for. I doubt most people watched it could, and it doesn't really matter. The politics have faded and the more basic story themes are remembered.

So with that in mind, the show feels as true to Oz as any other adaption-it hits the fact that Oz was always pretty dark (in fact one novel has the wizard do something rather distasteful and maliciousness because you know, the author wanted that to happen. Readers disagreed so he changed it in later books, Baum wasn't concerned with continuity that much)-and its not the last we'll see of the concept, as the CW is working on a TV adaption of Dorothy Must Die, which details another girl from Kansas coming to Oz to kill an evil ruler, said ruler being Dorothy Gale.

Having the Wizard listening to a song from Dark Side of the Moon was a fantastic touch, among other things. I really like Jack and Langwidere, though its one of those relationships that is actually kinda disturbing but that's what makes it fun to watch.

Is Jack supposed to be the Tin Woodsman, or is he some clock-word character that I'm unaware of (I vaguely remember there being a clockwork character in one of the Oz books)? If he's the Tin Woodsman, it's a bit of a departure given that he's not a woodsman, and the Tin Woodsman's name was Nick Chopper.

You're thinking of Tik-Tok.

I think he's supposed to be Jack Pumpkinhead, only he's not a pumpkinhead anymore because... I don't know.

edited 2nd Feb '17 5:35:54 PM by Aldo930

He's a composite character, combining aspects of both Pumpkinhead (who was completely artificial magical life) and the Tin Woodman who like Jack was mutilated and restored.

I recently finished watching this. I went in rather unsure of what I'd be getting—I was dubious of it at first glance. However, I found that I actually really enjoyed it—indeed, I'm disappointed to read that it was cancelled.

Most of my knowledge of the Oz stories comes to me via Popcultural Osmosis, I believe—I'm not sure that I've seen any of the direct adaptations, let alone read the books. That said, I rather liked what they did with the various characters, and enjoyed the story that they were a part of.

(Although I will say that Emerald City it self seemed oddly... un-emerald, to my eye. o_0)

edited 29th Dec '17 3:26:38 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

In the first book it didn't have any more emeralds than other places, but everyone wore green glasses so everything looked green.

Hah, that's interesting—I didn't know that! I suppose that the un-emerald Emerald City does make sense, then. Thank you for sharing that! ^_^