Not in Kansas Any More, Toto!

Wikipedia defines an epic film as one having large scale, sweeping scope and spectacle. Universal Pictures' new movie, Wicked qualifies as an epic because it has all three elements, especially large scale, and especially, in this writer's opinion, the scale of large Time, or, to put it a better way: That movie has been blowing around in my mind for most of my lifetime! A new kid on the block, you see, Wicked . . . a 2025 blockbuster movie completes the cycle that was set in motion when I first saw The Wizard of Oz, back in the day. . . in the early 1950's when I was a baby boomer, and . . . 

Where's Scarecrow?for whatever reason, my memory of Dorothy, Lion, and Scarecrow was blown like a Kansas tornado into my young brain, year after year, as Warner Brothers' 1939 motion picture was subsequently broadcast by CBS, year after year, for as long as this 74-year-old time-traveler can remember. . . watching TV back in the day, before the '60's rolled in, when assassinations, Vietnam and Kent State tragedies blew in like a Kansas tornado and whirled our boomer dreams away. But now, now, we discover, as Paul Harvey used to say. . . the rest of the story. Now we pull back the curtain to see what was going on behind that behind-the-scenes rivalry between the wicked witch and and good witch. Now we see! Now we understand! And this widening of our vision, this telescopic sighting on a multiplex scale as wide as a Kansas cornfield expands our awareness into the epic realm. The windswept adventure of Dorothy, Tin man, Lion and Scarecrow launches our baby-booming American imagination into the epic realm of ancient past epics, Gilgamesh, Beowulf and George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. . . . here to tell y'bout: We ain't in Kansas any more, Toto! Now we're caught up in that new , blockbustin' Wicked Hollywood Universal twister! Now we know the rest of the story! Glass Chimera