I started this story many years after I saw the unofficial prequel to the Wizard of Oz, Disney's Oz the Great and Powerful, starring James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams. While I greatly enjoyed the actors and actresses who starred in it, there were still many aspects of the film I found lacking. First, while I was really intrigued by Theodora's character and thought her story had so much character potential, I found that the directors and screenwriters underwhelmed her arc and undermined her character development in many significant ways, which proved deleterious to her motives and to her ultimate transformation. Because her background and upbringing were largely unknown throughout the film, her transformation served as a weak plot point. I was dissatisfied with the way the film treated her character.
Overall, I found that the characters were one dimensional. James Franco plays an immature womanizer who has cringe worthy moments throughout the film. While James Franco is a talented actor, it again went to the failure of the screenwriters. Franco is supposed to play an unserious man-child who "grows" and becomes a serious and empathetic leader. However, that is not at all convincing even by the end of the film.
Unlike Franco, the Wizard in this story is a serious person who gets caught up in the dramas plaguing the Land of Oz. He is not a womanizer, but at one point in his life, he was an illusionist. And unlike James Franco's character, who could be dubbed a "loser", this version of the Wizard is already a success even before he finds himself in this strange and alien world. His backstory is examined in greater detail, you get to know his tragedies and his internal struggles.
The witches are also flushed out and they are given lengthy and detailed backstories. And unlike the film, where the motivations of each character are incredibly one dimensional (The Wizard is simply "greedy", Theodora is simply "heartbroken" and Evanora is…well… simply "evil"), I greatly expand not only each character's motivations, but also on their own internal complexity. I incorporate their own thoughts and add their own upbringing into the story. And while it is incredibly hard to showcase all of this on film (you can't "hear" what the characters are thinking and you can't add much to an already short two-hour film), Disney could have done a significantly better job with plot development on a 200-million-dollar budget. In my opinion, Disney has become incredibly complacent with its work product since its renaissance days of the 1990's and it shows. Competing with incredible works like Wicked, the film simply missed its mark.
In writing this story, I also wanted to correct the inherent sexism found in the Disney film. This issue could have been fixed if the screenwriters simply showed that their version of Oz existed in a sexist society. But since there was almost no backstory at all to the Ozian culture or its characters in the film, it was not unreasonable for the critics to conclude that it was the screenwriters themselves who were the sexist ones.
Overall, I combined four sources when writing this story: The Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum, the 1939 Wizard of Oz Movie by MGM Studios, Wicked by Gregory McGuire and Oz the Great and Powerful by Disney. There were also contemporary changes personally incorporated by me and these changes will become quite clear as you read the story.
Overall, I wanted to correct what I believed to be the mistakes and the discrepancies found in the Disney film, while giving the idea of the unofficial prequel a new beginning and a fresh start.
This is a "spiritual" prequel story about how Oscar Diggs becomes the Wizard of Oz. There is no Dorothy here. With this being said, be prepared for some major plot twists, including the development of the Wicked Witch of the West. In my opinion, this is how Disney SHOULD HAVE done it.
Finally, none of the characters are owned by me. If you want to use any of what I write and incorporate them into your own story, then by all means feel free to use it. If you want to make a movie out of this, feel free to take any of these ideas, too. I stand nothing to gain by writing this story and I am not looking for anything monetary should you decide to use any parts of this story in your own project, whether it be written or visual. I simply had this idea for a long time and wanted to write my version of Oz the Great and Powerful down on paper. All of this is open source and you don't need to ask me for permission if you want to use any of this. All I ask is that you just credit me if you take large chunks of this written work.
I wrote the entire story before publishing, so this will not be an unfinished piece of work. At minimum, I will post at least one chapter on a weekly basis, with some notes at the end of each chapter. I value your feedback, whether it be positive or constructive.
You can also respond to this story by emailing me at or by leaving a comment in the comment section. Enjoy.