I just recently revisited Walter Murch’s 1985 Return to Oz, a film I have always loved since I was a wee lad.
Much like The Neverending Story, Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, Return to Oz isn’t dated at all, and is just as fantastic as I remember it being. In fact, I got obsessed all over again and started seeking out fresh information about it and learned that it was quite a troubled production. In fact, there was a fan-made documentary (since removed from the Web completely) that detailed all of the problem that started with a ballooning budget.
Starring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy, I learned that Return to Oz was a legitimate sequel to Wizard of Oz, and even more faithful to L. Frank Baum’s books. There’s a plethora of interesting fact if you scour the Web.
In it, Dorothy is saved from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl, and is somehow called back to Oz when a vain witch and the Nome King destroy everything that makes the magical land beautiful.
Thanks to Reddit user Scottland83 we have the following collection of rare behind-the-scenes images from the puppet-centric movie that was part of Jim Henson’s filmography.