(E03) So, I thought that last night's Tin Man was a vast improvement from the first night. Sunday night felt like a Sci-Fi Channel rip-off of the original story -- slightly modernized with scarier special effects (scarier in comparison to the overall-wearing lollipop-holding munchkins). By contrast, Monday night proved that Tin Man had its own story to tell. This was a story that would use the Wizard of Oz as a jumping off point and rethink the classic.
We open with D.G. remembering this magical lake and skipping a heart-shaped stone to reveal a message from her mother. How did she know to skip the stone across a bunch of leaves or even at all? Either way, her mother gives her a message: Go find your father. When they do, he isn't of that much help. Did anyone else think that he really didn't explain much (at least at first)? I know he gave her a compass but I was hoping for some more of the back story.
Tin Man finally figures out that Tutor has been playing both sides -- he even discovers those holographic casino chips. After way too many dog references, Tutor agrees to change himself back into a dog for the remainder of the journey.
But who cares whether tutor is a dog or a magical old man because Azkadellia gets sick of waiting for reports back at the palace and has put on her riding clothes. Finally! I was wanting Azkadellia to follow D.G. immediately after she broke out of the dungeon. The only reason I can think of for having her stay behind is that the palace holds Lavender Eyes's prison. How can Azkadellia torture her mother if she is out in the field?
I like the angle for Azkadellia established the second night but I hate this battle of the memories. Having Azkadellia share a body with the evil witch definitely makes her interesting. Furthermore it makes her sympathetic because she didn't choose the evil path. In fact, D.G. left her for dead with that old hag. But what's with all the concentrating on old memories? I understand why D.G. has to battle for the answers but Azkadellia should just know them--she's ruled the O.Z. with an evil queen inside her for how long now?
And finally--an appearance from the Resistance we've been hearing so much about. I was waiting for them. Turns out that Tin Man's son is the leader of the rebels. But what was with the cool reunion between father and son (and I don't mean cool in a good way)? Judging from his jaunt through the fields shouting "Adora!," I was expecting the Tin Man to be ecstatic when he found his son previously thought dead but instead all he can muster is a "I thought you were dead" and a "I'm proud of you, son."
The Tin Man's son, by the way, is a bad ass. I thought that was an awesome bluff--spoons! And that tough-guy Zero sure gave up the information quickly. Really, what's a few fingers for his loyalty to the queen? Cain's son wants to kill Zero after the interrogation but Cain stops him citing that it won't bring back Adora (a symbolic sign of Cain's regaining his heart). But Cain still wants justice for Zero (justice not vengeance) so he traps Zero in the metal suit in which he was held captive for so many years. (Brief aside: The line about "ya gotta have heart" was cheesy. Also, cheesy was D.G.'s speeches at the end but I guess I should have seen those coming.) 
But back to D.G. who finally figures out how to use the compass and the henna tattoo on her left palm. I really enjoyed the connection to the original Dorothy Gale. The original Dorothy has been keeping the emerald, which is much smaller than I imagined, for D.G. She doesn't have it long as her witch of a sister grabs it from her and locks her in a marble tomb.
And that brings us to the final battle and the denouement. What did you think of the ending? I thought parts of it were predictable and the whole thing was a bit slow. The predictable parts were (1) D.G. appealing to the sister locked inside the evil witch and (2) Glitch recovering the other half of his brain to mess up the master plan. I also thought that the holding hands gimmick ruled out any possibility of a cool magic fight.
Overall, I thought Tin Man was good. Good enough to buy the DVD when that's released? Not really. Good enough to watch bits and pieces when Sci-Fi reruns it? Probably. What did you think?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
12-05-2007 @ 8:18AM
Ryan said...
I actually thought the last part was the worst out of the bunch. The ending was anticlimactic. They should've done more. Still overall, the three parts were good.
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12-05-2007 @ 8:44AM
Courtney said...
I have to agree with Ryan. My son and I eagerly looked forward to each night's episode. After last nights ending we looked at each other and said "What?!" The ending was a great disappointment. It was almost like they ran out of steam and quit. I really liked the series until that point.
12-05-2007 @ 9:44AM
lauch said...
I'm still at a loss for why this mini-series was called "Tin Man". He didn't even have an interesting side-story, but that's all it was.
I liked the movie overall. I really thought it put a more interesting twist on the original.
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12-05-2007 @ 10:46AM
Ryan said...
BTW Part Two was my favorite part. I just had lots of problems with Part Three and especially the ending.
And to clarify my "by more" comment above I mean something like...
- Doing more with the mother. Throughout the series she was shown more or less doing nothing. Yes, she lost her power when she saved D.G's life, but one would think the family reunion would've sparked something magical within her. Anything at all.
- The showdown between Azkadelia and D.G. was pretty anticlimactic. Ooh the old witch threw D.G. off the balcony and... that's it. I expected D.G. to bust out some of the magic she learned she had within herself to kick some booty. Instead she sings. Um, okay.
- I know some people would complain, but I wouldn't have said no to an end montage seeing the O.Z. getting back to its former glory and the characters we've grown to love moving on and being happy. The way they did it, the ending was more than rushed, it was stopped abruptly.
- This is not really a complaint, but I loved how they threw in many references from the Wizard of Oz, so couldn't they have thrown in a rainbow at the end as a shoutout to the iconic song? I think that would've been a nice little thing.
- So uh, what about the prophecy? Was that really just a tale or was something else supposed to come from that?
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12-05-2007 @ 11:25AM
semperfibrandy said...
I actually loved it, but there should have been more in the ending. Maybe they will do a sequel.
12-05-2007 @ 11:59AM
superrrguy said...
Why was this called Tin Man? They should have named it after another character that did nothing, The Magical Mystic Man of the O.Z.. For calling it the Tin Man, we should have found out that he was D.G.'s father.
I liked the music and the idea behind everything but overall it was done so poorly. They should have just stuck to the original script already or went the complete other way trying to keep everything in real life, but a mix of the original with some random stuff changed. Scarecrow has no brain, but the tin man has a heart, and the lion can read minds with his heart, not his brain, but he's a coward because he doesn't like getting zapped.
This really had nothing to do with the Wizard of Oz.
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12-05-2007 @ 9:14PM
JaneyD said...
The whole big sodding disaster blew chunks.
It was so awful that Dirty Jobs turned it down.
SciFi should be ashamed of themselves for dishing up this (bleep) after canceling DRESDEN FILES.
I'm not the only one who thinks so, either:
http://p-n-elrod.livejournal.com/33721.html
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12-05-2007 @ 1:44PM
LRS62 said...
OMG! Some clown's random blog says something! Who cares?
No matter, this rather stunk up what could have been a decent premise with bad casting, bad writing and bad acting.
And I don't get the rabid love for Dresden. It was okay, possibly a tad better than the average SCI FI channel drivel, but it's not like they canceled BSG after one season or something.
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12-05-2007 @ 2:08PM
Joe said...
I know I most likely am the only one but for me I liked this version over the older one. May be it has to do with me being a guy and not liking the movie years ago. But for me it felt like a breath of fresh air. I even feel this not a Wizard of Oz movie. Because they took things from the old version and gave it a new spin with mixing old stuff with stuff never in the other movie.
So for me it was an ok movie. A lot better then I would have ever thought. So I am thankful for that.
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12-05-2007 @ 2:58PM
YouFaceTheTick said...
Watched ten minutes. It was horrible. Even with Zooey, I can't sit through this kind of crap. Really, really bad writing, direction and prop work.
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12-05-2007 @ 7:54PM
mouse said...
I thought the whole movie was crap. Zooey acted like a 10 year old. the lion looked like he was wearing ratty old coat. Neal and Alan were sort of good in places. Dreyfus walked through. Tutor was tired. the only good actor was TOTO.
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12-05-2007 @ 10:34PM
Man said...
Horrible, the worst part was the recycled Stargate soundtrack.
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12-06-2007 @ 9:31AM
KenMo said...
@12
Thank you. I thought I was the only one who thought that music reminded me of Stargate.
I agree with a lot of the pans from everyone, but overall I don't consider it a waste of time having watched it.
However, compared to every other Sci-Fi channel mini series (I can remember the titles of any of them, but they were all terrible), this was a great success.
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12-06-2007 @ 12:39PM
JaneyD said...
LOL-- only Stargate SG1 wrote MORE music for the show.
That blog I posted went a step farther--today she did a redux of the redux.
Beverage alert! (And language alert for you sensitives!)
http://p-n-elrod.livejournal.com/34028.html
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12-06-2007 @ 3:02PM
Nathaniel said...
Well, I enjoyed it. Loved it, in fact. I have this unique ability to look past faults and still enjoy something as mindless entertainment. I do think Zooey could have performed a little better (loved her in Weeds, plus if she's Bones's sister surely she has more talent than this), but overall I still enjoyed the whole thing.
I wonder if the ratings held up after part 1. If they did, I bet we can guarantee some form of a sequel from SciFi.
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12-07-2007 @ 2:22PM
LRS62 said...
Okay, TVsquad- tell me why my reply to JaneyD's #11 comment shows up BEFORE hers?
It makes no sense whatsoever in the context it's in now.
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12-09-2007 @ 11:40AM
Gen said...
In the third part, when DG goes into Dorothy Gales's tomb to get the emerald and goes back to Kansas, did anyone notice the heart shape with the #39 on it on a fence? What does that represent?
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12-10-2007 @ 9:55AM
Gen said...
Never mind my previous question - I think I figured it out. 1939 was the year the original Wizard of Oz was released. So they wanted the viewers to know DG was in Kansas in 1939.
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12-11-2007 @ 1:56PM
Adam said...
It's probably a little late to throw in my two cents, but I think that the whole mini-series is a classic example of budget gone wrong. Build expensive sets, use exotic locations, hire some pretty good actors... wait... we don't have money for a director that can make this series look like something more than a script walk through and the writers we can afford are busy doing new episodes of Dora the Explorer, so we got 100 flying monkeys clicking away on 100 typewriters. The last time I saw such a poor execution of a very interesting concept was Revenge of the Sith. I think that the Tin Man "writers" used Sith as their goal. Keep typing flying monkeys - maybe it will be better next time...
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12-11-2007 @ 8:11PM
Fox said...
I would like to know if I could get it on DVD I miss part 3
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