"We murder to dissect." I don't want to dissect either the book or the movie, or even to pin either down enough to carefullly distinguish them. So this will be mostly from memory.
Imo Rilstone's takedown of the family drama plot that Adamson added to LWW, applies even more to the movie TWOZ. Adamson didn't invent the Blitz, but the Hollywood of the 40s did invent the whole Kansas plot with the mean neighbor etc.
The movie had iirc more than one ‘lesson’. In addition to ‘home is best’ (which was a reply to the movie Dorothy who had dreamed of a better world), near the end there was the movie Glinda saying something like ‘Click your heels, you could have done this any time, but you had to learn for yourself that you could do it.’
In the book, at the end they meet Glinda for the first time, who says: “Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert," replied Glinda. "If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country."
But there’s no preachy ‘lesson’ of it, there’s no ‘had to learn it for yourself.’
We might find a lesson in the book by how Dorothy’s attitude about home vs Oz changes between the beginning and the end of the book.
On arrival she says "I am anxious to get back to my aunt and uncle, for I am sure they will worry about me.”
The Munchkins can’t help, and instead tell her all about the Wicked Witches, at which Dorothy understandably “began to sob at this, for she felt lonely among all these strange people.”
At the end, she’s back to her first thought, less anxiously: "My greatest wish now," she added, "is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it."
What’s happened in the mean time is that she has met her friends and helped them and helped the country get rid of the other wicked witch, freed the Flying Monkeys, etc. The book Dorothy hasn’t learned that ‘home is best’ or that she could have wished herself home any time or anything that connects with our world. She’s learned to function in Oz and that Oz is a wonderful place, not a place to be lonely in.
Personally, I doubt that Baum felt required to teach any sort of big lesson to Dorothy (any more than Dodgson to Alice, or Lewis to Peter). Baum did plenty of small lessons to other characters, though, if that helps. (Hm, actually it’s the humbug Wizard who goes into (humbug) lessons for the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, and Lion.)
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Imo Rilstone's takedown of the family drama plot that Adamson added to LWW, applies even more to the movie TWOZ. Adamson didn't invent the Blitz, but the Hollywood of the 40s did invent the whole Kansas plot with the mean neighbor etc.
The movie had iirc more than one ‘lesson’. In addition to ‘home is best’ (which was a reply to the movie Dorothy who had dreamed of a better world), near the end there was the movie Glinda saying something like ‘Click your heels, you could have done this any time, but you had to learn for yourself that you could do it.’
In the book, at the end they meet Glinda for the first time, who says: “Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert," replied Glinda.
"If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em
the very first day you came to this country."
But there’s no preachy ‘lesson’ of it, there’s no ‘had to learn it for yourself.’
We might find a lesson in the book by how Dorothy’s attitude about home vs Oz changes between the beginning and the end of the book.
On arrival she says "I am anxious to get back to my aunt and uncle, for I am sure they will worry about me.”
The Munchkins can’t help, and instead tell her all about the Wicked Witches, at which Dorothy understandably “began to sob at this, for she felt lonely among all these
strange people.”
At the end, she’s back to her first thought, less anxiously:
"My greatest wish now," she added, "is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last, I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it."
What’s happened in the mean time is that she has met her friends and helped them and helped the country get rid of the other wicked witch, freed the Flying Monkeys, etc. The book Dorothy hasn’t learned that ‘home is best’ or that she could have wished herself home any time or anything that connects with our world. She’s learned to function in Oz and that Oz is a wonderful place, not a place to be lonely in.
Personally, I doubt that Baum felt required to teach any sort of big lesson to Dorothy (any more than Dodgson to Alice, or Lewis to Peter). Baum did plenty of small lessons to other characters, though, if that helps. (Hm, actually it’s the humbug Wizard who goes into (humbug) lessons for the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, and Lion.)