The Wizard of Oz

I was watching this classic film on Sunday evening, I am sure that most of us have seen it at least once in our lifetime. As many times as I've seen it since I was a kid though, it was not until last year that I first noticed that the Scarecrow was holding a gun when they all went back to the haunted forest looking for their beloved Dorothy. I love this movie and since it is almost always shown right around Thanksgiving, I watch it every year. When I was little and would watch it, I would always go outside whenever the Witch would show up. I would listen to the movie thru and open door or window and once I heard that her scene was done, I would go back inside and continue watching. I'm a grown man now, but still a kid at heart, but I have to say that those flying monkeys still creep me out, especially when they start flying from the witches castle to the haunted forest and they are making that creepy sound. That is trippy to this day. Now that one particular monkey that is with the witch in that one room, is too real for me. I know that little people were used in the making of this film, but that one monkey...hmmmm, I don't know....lol. I have to say that I do have a different perspective for this movie since I read the book "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire. I became more of a fan of the wicked witch after reading that book. To me it's one of those "walk a mile in my shoes" scenarios as far as the witch goes. The movie will be shown again a few more times before we all carve our turkeys on Thanksgiving day, and I will more than likely watch it again a few more times. It never grows old, I'm sure we all put ourselves in Dorothys place and wonder what we would do, how we would handle being in Oz with the Scarecrow, the Lion and the Tin Man and of course Toto. Makes me wonder also, what if Dorothy had taken the other road when she first encounted the Scarecrow? Would things have turned out differently for her? Would they have met different characters and not met the Tin Man and Lion? Would she have ever have made it out of Oz then? What if she had followed the red brick road when she was leaving Munchkin land? From what I know the red brick road leads to the witches castle. Would she have been doomed then to encounter the witch by herself with Toto or maybe she would have encounted some characters along the way that would have provided more help than the Scarecrow, Lion and Tin Man. Makes me wonder. Speaking of Tin Man, if you have not seen the movie Tin Man that originally aired on the SciFi channel, take a look at it, it is a different twist on the Oz tale, very cool, very good, I may have to pop in that dvd and watch that one and see what questions come of it.