Back from the wilderness

My husband and I finished watching “Tin Man” last night.  It was fantastic!  I hadn’t realized it was such a recent production, but it was aired in 2007 as a miniseries.  There are 3 ‘episodes’ that are about 1 1/2 hours in length.

So obviously this is an off shoot of “The Wizard of Oz” but in a more sci-fi kind of way.  DG (Zooey Deschanel) is brought back into the world of the O.Z. (Outer Zone) by her ‘parents’.  Lost and confused, DG is determined to find her parents and know what the heck is going on.  Not too long into her journey she is captured by a warrior version of the Munchkins (can’t find what they are called).  They are sure that she is a spy of Azkadelia (the evil witch) and have locked her in a hanging cell.  In her cell she meets Glitch, a victim of Azkadelia’s violence.

While the ‘munchkins’ are ambushed by Azkadelia’s soldiers, the Longcoats, DG and Glitch escape.  Glitch explains that he was once somebody, but Azkadelia has removed most of his brain and set him off into the wild.  Because of his lack of brain, he often repeats himself and forgets what’s going on.  He claims to know the direction her parents have gone and they start off on their journey.  Along the way they see a band of Longcoats torturing a family.  DG darts towards them and attempts to attack them but discovers they are simply a holographic image.  They wonder why someone would leave this holographic image on replay until Glitch notices the metal man.  Inside of it they find Wyatt Cain.  He tells his story of how his wife and son were tortured and he was locked into this contraption for his ties to the Resistance.  Ignoring their request for help, he says that he needs to find his family and begins to walk away.  DG tells him where exactly they need to go and he says that he can’t let them go alone, it’s too dangerous.  So the three of them head off towards the Central City.  Along the way they save Raw (a telepathic man beast) and come across Milltown, the hometown of DG’s ‘parents’.

It is here in Milltown that DG learns that her ‘parents’ were really androids who were programmed to take DG out of the O.Z. and back into the real world.  They were instructed to tell DG stories about their world so she would be able to recognize the O.Z. when she came back.  Before they leave to continue their journey, a man-bot (he’s man from the waist up and then some funky robot from the waist down) tells her that she will need his gift for her journey.  He takes her left palm and engraves a symbol upon it and then tells her to find the Mystic Man who knows more about her mother and what she needs to do while in the O.Z.

When Cain and the others are planning to sneak into the Central City, it is revealed that Cain is a ‘tin man’.  ‘Tin Man’ was the nickname for cops in the Central City.  He uses blackmail to make a previous acquaintance smuggle them into the city.  From there the foursome make their way to a magic show where the Mystic Man performs.  While in the audience they discover that he has been put on drugs to keep him from being any kind of useful.  Azkadelia, discovering that DG is in the O.Z. and that she is the missing link between her and the emerald, sends her troops out to find them.  Zero, Azkadelia’s right hand man, and his men discover the foursome in the club and begin the hunt for DG.  DG has slipped into the Mystic Man’s dressing room and insists on answers from him.  He recognizes her for who she is and weans himself off of the vapors.  Before the troops find her, he tells her that she needs to go to the North and there she will find more clues on where to find her mother.  Cain takes out a few guys on his way to DG and the Mystic Man.  Once there, DG insists that they have to get moving.  Before they leave, the Mystic Man pulls Cain aside and tells him to keep DG in his sight at all times, for he now knows who she is and what she means to the O.Z.

From Central City they forage on to the ice castle where the former Queen once lived.  Inside DG learns more about herself and why Azkadelia is after her.  DG’s mother is the Queen of the O.Z. and Azkadelia is her sister.  Azkadelia killed DG once by sucking the life out of her.  Her mother used the rest of her magic to revive her baby and that is when she decided to send DG to live on the other side where she would be safe.  Once again the Longcoats catch up to them and this time Raw and DG are taken captive while Zero shoots Cain out the window.  Raw is put into a cell with his fellow creatures while DG is put into a cell next to the Mystic Man.  Glitch saves Cain when he comes to and they hop onto Cain’s ‘friend’s’ wagon and go back into Central City.  A small horse that belonged to Cain’s son is what saved him from the bullet.

Azkadelia first uses sweetness and charm to coax DG into telling her where the emerald is.  She tells DG that when they were younger, they were very close sisters and did everything together.  DG tells her that she doesn’t believe a word of it and refuses to give in because everything Azkadelia has done is filled with darkness.  Azkadelia gives up and orders one of the telepathic beasts in to ‘read’ DG’s memories.  No one is able to read DG because the Queen has cloaked her memories in powerful magic.  DG is sent back to her cell while Azkadelia goes to talk with their mother.

When Azkadelia overpowered the O.Z., she put her mother into a different realm.  The Queen is standing all alone on an island and her only visitor is Azkadelia.  Only somehow she has been able to get into DG’s dreams and feed her information.  Azkadelia only comes to visit her mother to berate her and dig for information.  Seldom do we see her being kind and when she is, everyone knows it is a farce.  The Queen tells her time and time again that only death will release the secret of the emerald’s whereabouts from her lips.

The Mystic Man and DG speak in a funny kind of code about where she should go to seek the emerald and who she should go seek once she gets there.  Azkadelia kills the Mystic Man and hires a spy to travel with DG.  A small terrier helps DG escape and free Raw from his cell.  Together they make their way out of the Central City and reunite with both Cain and Glitch.  Once out of the city limits, the dog morphs into a man who DG comes to recognize as Tutor, the magic tutor for Azkadelia and DG.  He helps her reconnect with her magical powers and the group allows him to come with them.  As they travel, Tutor drops small discs on the ground that are taken back to Azkadelia so she can track their progress.

The group must cross the fields of the Pepe, where the farmers have become hunters due to their dead crops.  To save them, Tutor helps DG use her magic to enliven a tree with food.  In honor, the Pepe bow and give thanks to the travellers.  Once safely across, they find a cabin and call out that they are seeking shelter.  Cain uses code words from the Resistance to gain trust and the family grudgingly welcomes them in.  Before leaving to sneak across the chasm, Cain discovers a toy horse that is identical to the one that saves his life.  He questions the husband who tells him a woman and little boy had stayed with them and moved on to a cabin by an elm (?) tree.  When they arrive at the cabin, there is nobody there and only a metal man suit remains.

The group is closing in on their destination when Cain shoots down a Mobat (one of Azkadelia’s flying henchmen).  When he inquires as to why this mobat was following them, he discovers that Tutor is a spy for Azkadelia.  Most of the group demand that he be left behind and DG says no.  Instead they insist he travel as his dog counterpart and they confiscate the discs.  In Finaqua DG disappears into the great hedgemaze and transports to a wasteland.  Here DG remembers what happened to make Azkadelia the way she was and remembers how to find the clue to the emerald.

When Azkadelia and DG were little girls, DG led them to a cave because she heard someone crying.  Inside the cave Azkadelia translated the pictograms and insisted that they leave and get their parents to help whomever was trapped inside.  DG persisted that they save whomever was in the tomb.  When the tomb exploded open, they found a little girl who transformed into a terrible old witch.  The girls tried their hardest to keep holding hands and hold the evil at bay, but DG got scared and ran away, leaving Azkadelia victim to the witch’s wiles.  After this moment, the witch lived in Azkadelia and controlled her.  DG thought hard to remember what else would help them discover the emerald’s whereabouts and ran to a group of stones where a heart stone was hidden.  She skipped it across the water and a hologram of her mother appeared in the gazebo.  Her mother told her that she needs to find Ahamo who will help her the rest of the way.  The group head toward the Realm of the Unwanted and try to find Ahamo.

Meanwhile Azkadelia is using her own memories to recount the same images DG has.  In doing so she also conjures up the hologram of their mother and knows what they are up to.  Instead of journeying to the Realm of the Unwanted, the witch inside of her tells her to think of her father’s weakness and use that against him.  A clip of the two young girls leaving wood carvings of themselves in his home remind Azkadelia of something they did to the carvings.  The girls left a magical spell on the dolls so that they shone with their love for him.  Azkadelia decides to use this glow as a tracking device and then stakes out his home.

In the Realm of the Unwanted, Glitch is intrigued by a machine that claims to answer unasked questions (or something of that riddle).  He asks if the box is cramped and another silly question before DG blurts out that if the teller cannot help them find Ahamo, then she is not worth their time.  One of the tellers comes out of the box and says that for a fee she can hook them up with the Seeker, who will help them find what they are looking for.  At the appointed time, the group shows up and the Seeker asks to see DG’s palm.  Wittily she shows her right palm and then he asks again and she reveals her left palm where the mark is.  At that moment the teller backstabs the Seeker with her own plan.  Everyonce except for DG and the Seeker are caught in nets and then given up for a reward to the Longcoats.  When the Seeker and DG are alone, he reveals that he is her father.  She reacts by beating him with a broom and yelling about how she can’t believe he left their family.  But he tells her that this was all a plan that her mother and he put together to keep Azkadelia’s power at bay and allow DG to triumph.  He gives her a compass that the Queen wanted her to have and tells her to concentrate and use her powers to discover what it has to tell them.

DG and Ahoma travel in his balloon towards the compass’ directions.  They find themselves in a forest and it takes a little bit of magic for DG to discover the hidden door.  Once through it they see a door that is protected by a gray gale and DG walks through the door.  Past the door the world becomes black and white and a girl with pigtails, sequined shoes and a gingham dress  walks up to her and tells her that she’s been waiting a long time for her.  DG calls her Dorothy and accepts the box from her that contains the emerald.  Unfortunately after DG and Ahoma walk out of the building feeling triumphant, Azkadelia takes Ahoma hostage and swipes the emerald from DG.  To keep DG from interrupting her plans, she sends her into an emerald tomb and walks away.

Cain, Glitch and Raw are being escorted by the Longcoats back to the Central City to be killed/imprisoned when a band of the Resistance attack.  Zero is taken hostage while DG’s friends are set free.  Cain recognizes one of the Resistance leaders as his son and looks hurt when his son treats him coolly.  That night Cain steps in when his son orders to kill Zero and instead takes Zero out into the forest and puts him in a metal suit.  Before Cain and the others move on with the Resistance, Tutor comes back and tells them that DG is in trouble.  The group head out towards DG and are surprised when they see her walking out.  DG has used her magic to unscrew the bolts and escape out of the tomb and back into action.

With the assistance of the Resistance, the group sneak back into the Central City and start working on stopping the Sunseder (sp?) machine.  Glitch, Cain and Raw are in the room and reversing the numerical order while DG is attempting to remind Azkadelia of their special bond as sisters.  In the end, the sisters band together to defeat the old witch and are reconnected with their parents.

I realliy liked how they took the basic story of Oz and made it their own but did throwbacks to the original.  Things like:

The Old Road/Brick Road=The Yellow Brick Road

Raw=the lion

Glitch=the scarecrow

Cain=Tin Man

DG’s speech at the end=what the wizard says to the group

The Mystic Man’s performance=the Wizard’s facade

The Mobats=the flying monkeys

Dorothy Gale & slippers=original Wizard of Oz movie

I think it worked really well as a miniseries and wonder if there is a book version of it.  In a book I would love to read a background on the telepathic animals and how they came to be and of the Resistance and the coup d’etat of the Queen by Azkadelia.  I heartily recommend this to everyone!