The problem with the Las Vegas Sphere's new take on ‘The Wizard of Oz'

Boston Globe

2 days ago

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The 17,600-seat, 366-foot-tall, 516-foot-wide Sphere is the largest spherical structure on Earth and features an Exosphere with a 580,000-square-foot display, the largest LED screen in the world.Advertisement
So, why is all hell breaking loose in online cinephile circles? Because, as the CBS This Morning feature reported, 'The Wizard of Oz' is being modified by AI to create images and performances that were not present in the original film. Characters who were not originally in the frame now appear onscreen, as does scenery that was originally offscreen. All of this is generated by AI.
'Our standard on this was not to modify the film at all,' says Dolan in the CBS interview, 'but to try and bring you into the film, as if you were in the studio when it was shot.' Then, CBS showed a scene where AI created onscreen actions that one of the actors, who was offscreen in the original film, did not perform.
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Sounds like a modification!
This alteration brings to mind that commercial where
Actress Margaret Hamilton is shown in character as the infamous Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz."
AP
Adding to the online fury, the CBS reporting cited here was done by Ben Mankiewicz, the primetime host and the face of Turner Classic Movies. In the interview, Mankiewicz seemed unfazed by a billionaire sanctioning the artistic butchery that changed director Victor Fleming's original vision. For fans of the network, this is akin to the world's most famous vegan interviewing Colonel Sanders and raving about his chicken.
The entire interview clearly hit a nerve, especially for folks who remembered how TCM's founder, Ted Turner, originally had
This is what Mankiewicz tweeted:
'[T]he concerns over AI are real. But it is here. We must accept that. But this is not what our concern should be. The actors are gone. All they're doing now is extending performances to fit a large screen – completing work Fleming and LeRoy would have if it had been possible.'
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Frank Morgan, Jack Haley, Ray Bolger, Judy Garland and Bert Lahr in the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz."
Warner Home Vide
How do we know what Fleming or LeRoy (who also directed some scenes) would have done? We can't ask them. And no, we don't have to accept AI chicanery, no matter how hard tech bros and websites are trying to cram that technology down our throats.
These assumptions are infuriating. Remember that the excuse for colorizing movies was a billionaire's assumption that contemporary audiences would only watch black and white films if they were in color. This reasoning failed to take into account that Technicolor existed when those films were made, and also ignored that shooting in black-and-white was a stylistic choice that required different lighting and color schemes.
Keep in mind that this alteration of 'The Wizard of Oz' is different from George Lucas updating the special effects in the original 'Star Wars' trilogy, or Steven Spielberg replacing guns with walkie-talkies in a re-release of 'E.T.'. For better or worse, those instances were a case of the director modifying his own vision. We can argue that these alterations are also wrong, but at least we know the filmmaker's intent wasn't violated.
Regardless of the quality of a film, each shot, scene, and camera movement represents what the filmmaker wanted to convey to the consumer. Without that knowledge, adding or removing something from the frame, or changing angles or aspect ratios, may very likely alter or distort that intention.
For example, when Orson Welles's 'The Other Side of the Wind' was finished by others in 2018, 48 years after Welles shot the footage, the editing job didn't always feel Wellesian. Everyone involved did their best to mimic the director, but the 'happy accidents' Welles always said influenced his decisions will never be known.
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Margaret Hamilton as The Wicked Witch, arms extended towards Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz."
Turner Entertainment
That violation of a filmmaker's original intent is the major issue those cinephiles arguing with Mankiewicz have with the Sphere version of 'The Wizard of Oz.' (Which will cost you between $150 and $350 to see, by the way.) The idea forces the question: 'what next?'
Will some billionaire bankroll an immersive 'Gone With the Wind' where Prissy is seen learning something about birthing babies, and audiences can feel the heat of Atlanta burning? A reimagining of the lost footage of 'The Magnificent Ambersons' featuring AI-generated performances? A version of 'Titanic' where the door is big enough for Rose and Jack?
'The Wizard of Oz' is only the beginning. And to think, this nightmare started with Fred Astaire being forced to dance with a vacuum cleaner.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.