Some flying monkeys on a UPS truck brought The Wizard Of Oz in 3D Blu-Ray, and it was curious me that loaded up this first-ever classic retrofitted for depth projection. Does 3D Oz work, or is it sacrilege? I say Yes to One and No to Two. Seems to me if you can juice up an oldie to such striking degree as here, why not do so? It's not as though they're replacing the originalwith this. Oz is running on IMAX screens, I'm told. That's like projecting it upon a skyscraper. We're sure enough not in Kansas anymore. Mine eyes saw this 3D Wizard as very much a whiz of a wiz, with depth effects to make it look to have been shot that way. I was waiting for the House Of Waxpaddle ball man to greet Judy at Oz gates. Search me how they did it. Must have cost like dickens. I checked B/W plus color scenes and both looked fine. This negative's in obviously good enough shape to stand the tampering. The twister gains force from several levels back: you actually feel the thing at a distance but moving near. I'm a purist on matters like the Shane ratio, and yes, The Wizard Of Oz gets a makeover here to top widescreen conversion for 1955's reissue, cuts by CBS to accommodate ever-more advertising, and electric eel color-enhance to early DVD's, but where's harm of a Yellow Brick Road we can follow into distance, so long as the standard version remains an option as well?
My prediction, and I'll bet it comes true in our lifetime: Oz will one day be a place we'll visit in terms of total immersion in the film. The setting will surround us and we'll walk among the characters. Home projection will encompass the whole of screening rooms and ones with resource to buy in will truly experience the drama being played. We look at three-dimensions now, but they're still on a flat screen. One day, that screen will swallow us whole and make a real journey of moviegoing, not unlike those World's Fair or Disney exhibits with picture encircling viewers. Difference is, we'll no longer be isolated from what's happening in the movie. Watching with an audience won't be necessary, or even desirable, because you will have left a spectator's seat to live the action as it unfolds. For all I know, technology has already come this far. Last night, I watched Judyopen her door into Oz and wondered when I'd be able to enter the Technicolor dream with her. Shouldn't be long, what with anything digitally possible. Most of us have imagined what it would have been like to stand on the set of a film beloved. I now see that day coming. How will this change movies? Probably for the worse aesthetically, as ones designed for true viewer absorption will omit techniques that once simulated involvement, like close-ups. If movies have become more or less video games, how long can it be before we're "watching" from the inside? I fully expect to walk down Casablancastreets and linger among Xanadu treasures before I die.
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