Display MoreEveryone loves The Wizard of Oz! From my mom (I always tell her about the movie club movie!) to our youngest member, the movie is timeless in a way that isn't just lip service because we expect a classic. It's proof that you don't need modern special effects or quippy actors or any other flavor of the day to make something permanent and magic. Or maybe we're all just connected to the similarly timeless understanding that Kansas kind of sucks.
And here's our direct connection, author L. Frank Baum's credit versus his immortalization in Wing Commander Armada. One thing that it's interesting to think about is that the Wizard of Oz had a 'canon' just like any modern science fiction universe decades before this movie even came out. I remember learning all about that as a kid reading the original dozen or so books... it was sort of training wheels for a modern fandom!
One Wing Commander-adjacent element of the movie is of course... the Cowardly Lion! That is to say, the Wizard of Oz shows us that it has been a challenge to depict felinoids in live action for a long, long time. Since well before Larry Niven ever dreamed up a Kzin (in fact, Mr. Niven was born just months before the film premiered!).
Sully has a heart and courage and a brain (but it didn't quite grow all the way).
