Tin Man and Frank Baum
The Sci Fi channel is known for having some really great original series (Battlestar Galactica, Farscape), really bad original movies, and miniseries which are somewhere in the middle. The miniseries which are based on their original series, such as the Farscape finale, can be really good. Ones which are based on a pre-existing property, such as Earthsea, are usually pretty bad. Their original miniseries, which aren't based on any existing property that I know of, fall somewhere in the middle. The Lost Room had a meandering plot and sometimes made little sense, but at least it had decent acting and some genuinely exciting scenes.
Tin Man is based on a pre-existing property, namely Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, which should tell you something right there. It tries to be both a re-imagining of the original story and a sequel to it (and maybe even something of a parody of it), and both the acting and the dialogue leave a lot to be desired. That said, I thought the core story, which wasn't made obvious until the end of the second part, had some good ideas. Not completely original, but an interesting twist which convinced me that I should watch the rest, which was satisfying enough in how the story worked out, if the way it got there wasn't perfect. In that sense, it's somewhat similar to the Star Wars prequels... an interesting enough story at the core, but we had to put up with a lot of bad acting and writing to get there.
Anyway, the reason I mention it is not to say that you should or shouldn't watch the miniseries, but to note that it inspired me to take a look at Frank Baum's original stories, instead of basing my knowledge of Oz solely on the Judy Garland movie. Which led me to this site, where the full text of all of Frank Baum's Oz stories is provided, thanks to the wonders of public domain. I read/skimmed the immediate sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, namely The Marvelous Land of Oz, and I think I understand why there's no big name movie associated with it. It's not that it's a bad story, but the fate of the main character is kind of disturbing for a children's story--many parents would not approve. It has the added effect of presenting the wizard of the movie as a power-grabbing usurper. He was always a con-man, but in the original you got the impression that he didn't mean any particular harm. Of course, I didn't go back to read the first story, so maybe the movie version doesn't exactly line up with the original.
Tin Man is based on a pre-existing property, namely Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, which should tell you something right there. It tries to be both a re-imagining of the original story and a sequel to it (and maybe even something of a parody of it), and both the acting and the dialogue leave a lot to be desired. That said, I thought the core story, which wasn't made obvious until the end of the second part, had some good ideas. Not completely original, but an interesting twist which convinced me that I should watch the rest, which was satisfying enough in how the story worked out, if the way it got there wasn't perfect. In that sense, it's somewhat similar to the Star Wars prequels... an interesting enough story at the core, but we had to put up with a lot of bad acting and writing to get there.
Anyway, the reason I mention it is not to say that you should or shouldn't watch the miniseries, but to note that it inspired me to take a look at Frank Baum's original stories, instead of basing my knowledge of Oz solely on the Judy Garland movie. Which led me to this site, where the full text of all of Frank Baum's Oz stories is provided, thanks to the wonders of public domain. I read/skimmed the immediate sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, namely The Marvelous Land of Oz, and I think I understand why there's no big name movie associated with it. It's not that it's a bad story, but the fate of the main character is kind of disturbing for a children's story--many parents would not approve. It has the added effect of presenting the wizard of the movie as a power-grabbing usurper. He was always a con-man, but in the original you got the impression that he didn't mean any particular harm. Of course, I didn't go back to read the first story, so maybe the movie version doesn't exactly line up with the original.
