Tin Man

If you watch this simply because you love the old OZ, whether the book or the movie, you wont find what you expect when watching this one.

Sci-fi Channel's Tin Man is a work of art on its own, though it uses some of the original characters and locations, it is its very own unique tale, completely rewritten and turned into a fantasy adventure for the MODERN age.

It's not the old adventure, instead of just trying to get home, they have to try and save the O.Z.

Keeps you on the edge of your seat, waiting to see what happens next. Each new episode adds a new twist making you rethink your original ideas of OZ.

It's definitely worth watching if you like to see old stories retold in completely different ways. Not what you'd expect.

if the old Oz was Kansas, this version would definitely be WAY over the rainbow.

First the negatives. TV suffers from a style of script writing and directing that is optimized for the "series". Real movies are initially drafted for size, depth and complexity to complete a story. Real movies have to be cut and edited to fit the 90 to 180 minute length tolerable for a feature film. This is why many great movies end up having a "directors cut".

TV movies are based on the contract with the network and the longer the series, the more advertising can be sold. Tin Man only had about 180 minutes of story material but they needed to fill 360. Some of this additional length is "padding" and not cutting useless scenes.

The other major negative is that Zooey Deschanel's acting was very weak. I'm reminded that the initial films of John Wayne and Jack Nicholson was some of the absolute worst acting caught on film. Jack improved much more than John and perhaps Zooey will improve with age.

As for the positives. I give this a fairly high rating because of the admirable approach of giving all the principle characters a deep multi-dimensional role in the story. As much as I love the 1939 classic, it was a children's story, and a musical at that. The tin man, scarecrow and lion were symbolic vehicles of the lack of heart, intelligence and courage respectively in both films, but here they have a history. And that history is an important part of a deeper story. It is that deeper story that kept me coming back to watch parts 2 and 3.

Some of the better aforementioned "padding" are the scenes that presented more character development of all the principles.

Parts of this oz interpretation are hard to swallow but none the less the show has held my interest. The way they've incorporated elements of the story into the movie is sometimes clever and sometimes not so much. The acting can be irritating and forced-Glitch is very Jar Jar Binks at times... At first I wasn't a fan of the Tin Man but as the show goes on he is starting to grow on me. I love Zooey Deschanel however in this movie there are times when it feels like shes just reciting lines from the script or seems bored. If you have an open mind and can get past the bad parts over all its pretty good. Visually it excels for a movie mini.

I was rather surprised that I enjoyed this. The story was obviously dragged out a bit thin to reach 6 hours in length. The stretching causes the pace to seem a bit too slow. Possibly better editing could have alleviated that. The characters are well thought out and thankfully not exact copies of the originals. From what I gathered after seeing all three episodes is that this story takes place 500 years after the original Dorothy came to Oz. The story is much darker, which is refreshing.

The leads do admirable jobs in their roles. I found only the lion to be somewhat boring, probably due to his inability to vocalize very much. He just didn't emote very well, although he did have some decent screen time, I just didn't connect with him at all. Toto was another character that confused a bit. His motivation was questionable considering the devotion he professed to have. I also wish the Wizard was a more prominent fixture, but all in all, I was OK with that branch of the story.

To sum up. Good acting, and I think a good choice on the lead for Zooey. I found her quirkiness and general kind of cute gutsiness refreshing. The special effects are better than average and certainly better than the typical home-made sci-fi look you may be used to. The scenery was also very nice in the movie (albeit with a darker twist). If you enjoyed the original, and you aren't a die hard fan hoping for a rehash of the same old story, then check this one out. It may be worth your time ;)

An interesting take on one of the oldest classics. If you love the science fiction genre and the wizard of oz, you should love this imaginative display of the original ideas of The Wizard of OZ. It has the main characters of the Wizard of OZ still searching for the same things. I found it extremely entertaining, so much so that I actually decided to watch the second part. (And I can only remember to watch shows if they REALLY capture my attention. Few do.) So far i've not found it lacking. It looks exactly like the commercials portrayed it It is extremely well acted and the scenery is amazing.

All in all, i've found it to be a good show so far. It's twenty minutes into the second episode and i'm already planning on watching the third part. (Show's on commercial right now.)