To start off the new year, Walt Disney has released a modern spin on an old classic. “Oz the Great and Powerful” takes the classic story of “The Wizard of Oz” and gives us background on how he came to be. However, it is such an old and loved story that remaking it in anyway might have seemed pointless because the first was such a hit. However, the creators of this movie clearly made it with that in mind. This new movie is not a complete redo of the original. It has many familiar scenes but instead of focusing on Dorothy, it goes back earlier into the history of Oz. We meet a man from earth who winds up in Oz and is believed to be the man that will save all of the land. He is put through many trials and ends up realizing that with the good of his heart and knowledge of magic, he can save the land. Due to the advanced technology that has been developed since the first movie, this most recent one looks much more realistic. As a result of this, it is much more frightening as well. In the first “Oz,” you could tell the witch was human and the flying monkeys were just people with lots of makeup and fake wings. However in the new one the computer animated images make everything look one hundred percent real. Everything is much darker and the evil beings are much more convincing. Joyce Carpenter grew up with the old “Oz” and remembers when it was a huge deal for everyone. However, she says, “I am skeptical about them trying to redo ‘Oz’, it would be hard to touch the old one.” With the new technology and effects in the movie, Carpenter agrees it “could be much more enjoyable and realistic.” However, she disagrees with the turn that many modern movies are taking. “They make everything dark and scary, even when it doesn’t need to be,” said Carpenter about the new movie. Isabel Mills, a former Dimond student, has just recently watched the movie as well. She said, “I enjoyed it, it was a good movie. I thought that they did a really good job with respecting the old one. They stuck to what happened, and did not change too many things.” Mills also commented about the plot, “ I thought it was really cool to see what happened before the original ‘Oz’, they did a really good job with that part. The whole story led up to a really good explanation to why things were they way they were in the first ‘Oz’.” “Oz the Great and Powerful” is overall a very enjoyable movie. It stays true to the old one while giving us an interesting story that explains the background to the much loved classic.