Star Wars is generally considered to be the most fan-obsessed movie(s) in cinema history, but don’t discount The Wizard of Oz‘s level of admiration. For instance, someone bought Princess Leia’s iconic gold bikini in 2015 for $96,000. That sounds like a lot of money, until you remember Dorothy’s dress went for $1.5 million that same year. Neither franchise will ever go out of style, either: Star Wars will outlive us all, and at one point, there were five Oz-themed shows in development, and I don’t mean the HBO prison drama.
There are thousands of Star Wars mashups and trailer recuts out there, but no one [whatever the Star Wars version of a Trekker is called] has accomplished what Matt Bucy did with The Wizard of Oz, or should I say, Of Oz the Wizard. Bucy edited the 1939 film so that it’s in alphabetical order. Not just the on-screen words, either, but every single line of spoken dialogue. Um, why?
It was a challenge from a friend, Ray Guillette, to do something never done before. While on a short road trip, he said he didn’t think anything original was possible. I said nonsense! He asked for an example. I hatched the idea then, pretty much complete, and we riffed on the idea for a while. Then I totally forgot about it. But a couple years later he asked me when I was going to make this original thing. I said I’d hop on it right away and thanked him for saving the project! (Via)
It’s maddening because it’s so familiar, and weirdly hypnotic, like listening to Lou Reed’s pop-leaning “Sweet Jane” played over the avant-garde insanity of Metal Machine Music. Bucy discovered that there are “less than a thousand unique words in the film” and he “heard how much the soundtrack is edited to sound smooth,” two reasons why Oz has remained a classic nearly 77 years after its release. It’s disarmingly simple with a friendly soundtrack, until you chop it up and hear the word “road” said a million times in a row.
Then it’s somehow worse than Oz the Great and Powerful.
(Via Dangerous Minds)
