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“The Wiz” Appreciation Thread

While the moonwalker really doesn't have an story. i think michael could of did much better with it. like the movie didn't really start until like 40 mins into the film. i heard he was trying to make it into an musical but i guess it didn't worked how he plan it. i love the moonwalker but i do agree it could of been better. compare to now and then this movie was a big deal. so for today standards it made not be such an big deal.

i really feel he could of did more with him and the kids. but hey. i truly believe the moonwalker was basically for kids because michael was an big kid so that's one of reasons why some people didn't fit much to it. i think you have to be an big kid to appreciate the moonwalker.

love smooth criminal. we'll going off topic but until i see the wiz i can't say i will like it or not.
 
NatureCriminal7896 said:
While the moonwalker really doesn't have an story. i think michael could of did much better with it. like the movie didn't really start until like 40 mins into the film. i heard he was trying to make it into an musical but i guess it didn't worked how he plan it. i love the moonwalker but i do agree it could of been better. compare to now and then this movie was a big deal. so for today standards it made not be such an big deal.

i really feel he could of did more with him and the kids. but hey. i truly believe the moonwalker was basically for kids because michael was an big kid so that's one of reasons why some people didn't fit much to it. i think you have to be an big kid to appreciate the moonwalker.

love smooth criminal. we'll going off topic but until i see the wiz i can't say i will like it or not.
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I consider this a weak excuse. If the film is for children, this does not mean that everything should be like this in it.

The Neverending Story, E.T., The Goonies, Star Wars, etc. were not so helpless in a narrative sense.
 
LOL of course not. not all things made for kids has to be the same. i agree at some shape or form a movie meant for kids should at least make alittle sense. other than that i try not to always judge things meant for kids.

i love et michael loved et my mom loves et. et was very appreciate. all the movies you said up top and the wiz are really family movies. so you got things the kids and adults will enjoy.

one thing i did notice that the little black boy in the moonwalker was actually suppose to be michael as an child. so yes. i really think this was michael movie as him as an child with other kids and his adult self.

but we'll going off topic this the wiz thread not the moonwalker thread.
 
Blaxploitation

Dart_Jack said:
It's just that 70's "Blaxploitation films" began to lose their popularity.
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The Wiz isn't Blaxploitation. Those are mostly action movies generally about some dude (or woman) fighting against "The Man" or "whitey". The Wiz is just a film version of a stage play. None of the Wizard Of Oz based movies were really a box office success, including the 1939 Judy Garland version. It only became popular when it started to get shown on TV decades later. Same for the Christmas movie It's A Wonderful Life. It didn't do well when originally released.
 
Re: Blaxploitation

DuranDuran said:
The Wiz isn't Blaxploitation. Those are mostly action movies generally about some dude (or woman) fighting against "The Man" or "whitey". The Wiz is just a film version of a stage play. None of the Wizard Of Oz based movies were really a box office success, including the 1939 Judy Garland version. It only became popular when it started to get shown on TV decades later. Same for the Christmas movie It's A Wonderful Life. It didn't do well when originally released.
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Yes, The Wiz isn't blaxploitation, but has a trace of this atmosphere "70's B-movie blaxploitation". The scenes with Dorothy in the real world are very evocative of this whole atmosphere. Sparkle has it too (also written by Joel Schumacher). Sparkle's story is based on the ascent of the Supremes and Diana Ross.


70's films with Diana Ross also bear "vibes" of this atmosphere (Mahogany, Lady sings the blues).

These films are not blaxploitation in their pure form, but at the same time they were shot on a close to them in general (soul soundtracks, musicality, hairstyles).

Under can blaxploitation be seen more broadly as 70's films category B in which blacks were the main role. Many media outlets see The Wiz's failure as the end of an era of such films.
 
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the wiz didn't do so good when it was release. i think because it had something to do with the white community. the black community loved the movie. i guess it cause alot controversy due to the fact it was all black cast doing the wizard of oz. even brooke shields mother had a problem michael dating brooke and also she didn't like the fact of wizard of oz having a all black cast.

it was different time somethings has change since then also it was the late 70's blacks was still being treated bad in movies during that era not to meant the civil rights movement wasn't that so long ago.
 
Re: Blaxploitation

Dart_Jack said:
Yes, The Wiz isn't blaxploitation, but has a trace of this atmosphere "70's B-movie blaxploitation". The scenes with Dorothy in the real world are very evocative of this whole atmosphere. Sparkle has it too (also written by Joel Schumacher). Sparkle's story is based on the ascent of the Supremes and Diana Ross.


70's films with Diana Ross also bear "vibes" of this atmosphere (Mahogany, Lady sings the blues).

These films are not blaxploitation in their pure form, but at the same time they were shot on a close to them in general (soul soundtracks, musicality, hairstyles).

Under can blaxploitation be seen more broadly as 70's films category B in which blacks were the main role. Many media outlets see The Wiz's failure as the end of an era of such films.
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Lady Sings The Blues is a biopic about jazz singer Billie Holiday. There's no soul soundtrack. Diana was also nominated for an Oscar for playing Billie. That didn't happen with actors in Blaxploitation movies, which were mostly low budget. Issac Hayes did win a song Oscar though for Theme From Shaft.
 
Dart_Jack;4318629 said:
For all its downsides, The Wiz is still Michael's best movie. A good imagination of the authors was attached and filmed in a very atmospheric way.

Sidney Lumet decided to unwind and try himself in an atypical genre.

Moonwalker is weaker as a movie than The Wiz.
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‘The Wiz’ was a complete let-down, even by the vast majority of Michael Jackson’s fans.

‘Ghosts’ (1997) is regarded as his best film, not just by his fans but also by the general public (including critics, as well).

‘Ghosts’ has a decent background story (the allegory works), impressive special effects/visuals and make-up effects, and very good dance choreographies which some of them were even brand new at the time of the film’s release.

Dart_Jack;4318631 said:
Michael brought in such a wonderful screenwriter who wrote Bonnie & Clyde and the original Superman. As a result, despite his work, we saw a very weak film without a clear script, acting and plot.

The Wiz is much better in this regard.
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Screenwriter David Newman began writing the screenplay of ‘Moonwalker’ knowing that this film was meant to become an experimental film.

That is why, the script, plot, narrative and acting of ‘Moonwalker’ became rather unusual and were presented in a different form compared to Michael Jackson’s other films.
 
mj_frenzy;4318839 said:
‘The Wiz’ was a complete let-down, even by the vast majority of Michael Jackson’s fans.

‘Ghosts’ (1997) is regarded as his best film, not just by his fans but also by the general public (including critics, as well).

‘Ghosts’ has a decent background story (the allegory works), impressive special effects/visuals and make-up effects, and very good dance choreographies which some of them were even brand new at the time of the film’s release.



Screenwriter David Newman began writing the screenplay of ‘Moonwalker’ knowing that this film was meant to become an experimental film.

That is why, the script, plot, narrative and acting of ‘Moonwalker’ became rather unusual and were presented in a different form compared to Michael Jackson’s other films.
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Ghosts this short film. The Wiz this тest full-length film. And don't speak for everyone. I know many who find The Wiz one of the best film adaptations of Oz. In addition, this may have been the only time Michael was actually an actor rather than making a cameo of himself.

I think all these attempts to call Moonwalker an "experiment" are just excuses. They just covered up the bad job with this excuse.
 
mj_frenzy;4318839 said:
‘The Wiz’ was a complete let-down, even by the vast majority of Michael Jackson’s fans.
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It was? The how come NBC redid it in 2015?
 
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NatureCriminal7896 said:
frenzy right when it was first release it didn't do good read my last reply on page 14.
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The Judy Garland Wizard Of Oz movie flopped too. But it is considered a classic today. A lot of movies/TV that are considered classics today did not do well when originally released.
 
DuranDuran said:
The Judy Garland Wizard Of Oz movie flopped too. But it is considered a classic today. A lot of movies/TV that are considered classics today did not do well when originally released.
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Many films written or directed by Joel Schumacher did not have good reviews at the time of release, but are now considered cult: Sparkle, The Wiz, St. Elmo's Fire, The Incredible Shrinking Woman etc. Even Batman and Robin are not as hated as they were in the 90s/00s.
 
i guess what they say is true. not all shows get popular when their first release. the first batman tv show in the 60's wasn't good too in my opinion. i guess as time changes people changes and things that wasn't popular then became popular in the present day.
 
NatureCriminal7896 said:
i guess what they say is true. not all shows get popular when their first release. the first batman tv show in the 60's wasn't good too in my opinion. i guess as time changes people changes and things that wasn't popular then became popular in the present day.
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It seems to me that the main thing is that the film is creative.
 
Batman

NatureCriminal7896 said:
i guess what they say is true. not all shows get popular when their first release. the first batman tv show in the 60's wasn't good too in my opinion. i guess as time changes people changes and things that wasn't popular then became popular in the present day.
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The Adam West Batman show was really popular in the 1960s. That's how they got famous guest stars to appear on it. It was so popular they even made a theatrical movie for it in 1966. The Batman that's popular today (Dark Knight) was created in the comic books during the mid-1980s. The earlier versions of Batman wasn't like that. The 1960s show is what made Batman popular to the mainstream audience in the first place. Rather than just to comic book readers. Like the MCU today. The general public did not know Marvel characters like Iron Man, Ant-Man, or Black Panther. It was mainly Spider-Man & maybe the Hulk who had widespread recognition as far as the general public is concerned. Which were characters the Marvel movie studio did not own.
 
Batman

NatureCriminal7896 said:
60's batman looks crazy today. LOL! but what you expect?
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That's just late 1960s style. If you watch Laugh In or The Monkees, those shows also have a wacky pop art psychedelic style. Technically the Batman TV show was a spoof of the 2 Batman serials from the 1940s. During the 1960s the serials became popular with some college students in the USA. The show usually ended on a cliffhanger just like movie serials did in the 1930s & 1940s.
 
Could The Wiz be viewed as possibly building on the wave of Star Wars success? A wave of many fantasy / science fiction films has begun with a bright concept in later 70s.
 
Dart_Jack said:
Could The Wiz be viewed as possibly building on the wave of Star Wars success? A wave of many fantasy / science fiction films has begun with a bright concept in later 70s.
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I'm not sure what The Wiz has to with Star Wars. The Wiz was a really popular Broadway play in the mid-1970s. Ted Ross (The Lion) & Mabel King (Evilene) were both in the original Broadway cast and the film. It was thought that Stephanie Mills was going to be in the film too and she was the around the right age unlike Diana Ross, who was too old for Dorothy. 1970s movies were made from other popular musical stage plays like Hair & Jesus Christ Superstar. Grease was also a popular stage play.
 
while the thing about diana being too old to play dorothy look what we have now? we now have different versions of the wizard of oz.
 
DuranDuran said:
I'm not sure what The Wiz has to with Star Wars. The Wiz was a really popular Broadway play in the mid-1970s. Ted Ross (The Lion) & Mabel King (Evilene) were both in the original Broadway cast and the film. It was thought that Stephanie Mills was going to be in the film too and she was the around the right age unlike Diana Ross, who was too old for Dorothy. 1970s movies were made from other popular musical stage plays like Hair & Jesus Christ Superstar. Grease was also a popular stage play.
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They didn't make the film in the middle 70s, but in the late 1970s, when the demand for fantasy films began.
Perhaps Motown could see a benefit in this. Thanks to the boom in science fiction and fantasy films. Which started thanks to SW.

All films related with Motown were previously realistic.
 
Dart_Jack said:
They didn't make the film in the middle 70s, but in the late 1970s, when the demand for fantasy films began.
Perhaps Motown could see a benefit in this. Thanks to the boom in science fiction and fantasy films. Which started thanks to SW.

All films related with Motown were previously realistic.
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Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, there were several film musicals released around the same time period as The Wiz and most of them did not do well. None have any relation to Star Wars. Anyway it was likely the popularity that the 1960s Star Trek TV show started to get in reruns in the 1970s that paved the way for Star Wars. There was a Star Trek cartoon series during the early 1970s with the original cast doing the voices for it. It was the 1970s when the 1st Star Trek convention happened. The Wiz is not the 1st nor last movie about The Wizard Of Oz. I don't think the audiences for sci-fi and musicals are necessarily the same. The musical that was a big success was Grease, which is set in the 1950s and has nothing to do with sci fi or space. Grease came out in the same year The Wiz movie did. Motown could have just made an outer space musical instead of The Wiz if they were trying to attract the Star Wars audience. If you notice, some of The Wiz songs have disco style arrangements, so maybe they were trying to get the Saturday Night Fever audience. Same with the Sgt Pepper movie since it starred the Bee Gees who were on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It was based on the album by the then still popular Beatles. Wings (Paul McCartney) in particular. All This And World War II is another movie musical of the period based on Beatles songs.
 
Imagine if Motown did an fantasy and sc-fi film. i guess you can call the wiz kind of. i mean michael and diana was in it. they was both from Motown so i guess it's close but not quite.
 
So I decided to watch "The Wiz" today! I saw it when I was about 10 years old in music class at school and I remember LOVING it. Though I didn't become a fan of Michael until this year, I distinctly remember having a crush on the scarecrow and telling everyone in my family about how amazing the movie was and how much I loved him lol.

Fast forward to now, 33 years old, watching The Wiz in bed while I'm quarantining with Covid for the 6th day in a row and wow. It is unreal how much the entire film comes to life when Michael comes on screen. Everyone is fine, but Michael is just 😍... he is so charismatic, so sweet, so funny. I keep laughing because he's just so adorable. I love how he just fully commits to whatever he does. There's no self consciousness. He's just so pure in it, so committed to the role. It's precious.

That said, he's really the only part I'm enjoying. I don't think the rest is bad at all, really, I just don't feel particularly interested in the rest of it. I'm finding myself a little bored during the non-Michael scenes. Considering the scarecrow was the only part I remembered from the movie my whole life, this sort of makes sense. It also makes sense why all these years later I finally am so crazy about Michael!
 
Oh boy I tend to forget about this film, have,’t seen it in a long long time. Should give it a rewatch one day.
I have always seen it as the start of Michael’s solo career, from what I remember it was the first time the brothers weren’t on his side during a project, he met Quincy as he produced the tracks and Michael had his distinct grown up voice fully blossoming.
Around this time MJ also dated Stephanie Mills who start in the broadway show of the wiz in 1975.

As for the film I remember finding it a tad too long, I have always preferred the original 1939 version. I did like the art direction and creativity of the sets and dancing sequences. Pretty wild film really.

Michael could have pursued a successful career in musicals and on broadway if that was what he aimed for as he had the talent and charisma to perform this kind of art.
 
filmandmusic said:
Oh boy I tend to forget about this film, have,’t seen it in a long long time. Should give it a rewatch one day.
I have always seen it as the start of Michael’s solo career, from what I remember it was the first time the brothers weren’t on his side during a project, he met Quincy as he produced the tracks and Michael had his distinct grown up voice fully blossoming.
Around this time MJ also dated Stephanie Mills who start in the broadway show of the wiz in 1975.

As for the film I remember finding it a tad too long, I have always preferred the original 1939 version. I did like the art direction and creativity of the sets and dancing sequences. Pretty wild film really.

Michael could have pursued a successful career in musicals and on broadway if that was what he aimed for as he had the talent and charisma to perform this kind of art.
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You should definitely rewatch it and then share your thoughts here! I agree with you completely that it's too long. I read on Wikipedia that it was shortened and played on TV in the 80s because of Michael's popularity. I would love to see that version. I'm sure only minimal Michael would have been cut out of that.

I agree with you about it being the start of things for him! I love the stories Stephanie Mills shares about that time. He wrote about it a little in Moonwalk too. I also just like that Michael got to be young and pursue something on his own like that. It's really amazing that it led to his collaboration with Quincy too. Kismet. It was all meant to happen!
 
I really love The Wiz! Honestly, it was such a creative "modernized" rendition of it for the time, and it always makes me burst out singing and dancing lol. Of course, there were parts that really made me shed some tears, and my goodness Michael was fantastic and so adorable throughout it all.
 
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