Tag Archives: The Wizard of Oz

Conventional wisdom holds that stories should be held together by “but”s and “therefore”s instead of “and then”s. Each new scene, each beat in the narrative, should be motivated by what came before, either as cause and effect or as a change and reaction, rather than a random series of events. That approach is supposed to preserve the weight and momentum of your story, giving the actions taken and the choices made more meaning within a greater whole.

Return to Oz, however, is squarely an “and then” movie. As I discussed on the We Love to Watch Podcast, the nearly-half century late sequel to The Wizard of Oz brings back the iconic Dorothy Gale, and it shows her making a few key decisions here and there. But the film is mainly an accumulation of events that simply roll into one another, with minimal connective tissue between them. It roundly violates those dearly-held storytelling principles, which should consign it to the scrap heap of the languid or unsatisfying.

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