Book Review : The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L.Frank Baum

November 15, 2019 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the first book in a series of stories by L.Frank Baum, later reprints of the book took the name the Wizard of Oz instead which was the title of a highly beloved Broadway musical adaptation of the story.

In the story a young girl called Dorothy who lives a grey and boring life in Kansas gets transported to the colourful world of Oz when she and her dog Toto are picked up in a cyclone.

The house they were in lands on the Wicked Witch of the East and kills her, an event which attracts the Good Witch of the North, Dorothy explains how she wants to go home and is encouraged to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald city and seek the help of the Wizard of Oz.

This all sound very similar to those who are familiar with the 1939 film starring Judy Garland, however I was surprised with how different the book was to this film adaptation.

I don’t want to give away too many of differences but I would like to talk about some of them with as few spoilers as possible.

The biggest surprise is the lack of a Wicked Witch of the West, she is in the book but only appears in one chapter half-way through the story so after her demise the groups journey is still not over.

There are various different lands and species in this book that do not appear in the film, one area that stands out is a land that is completely made out of porcelain china.

A pre-warning that the book carries quite a heavy body count of various creatures that are slain by the four heroes of the story (Scarecrow, Lion, Tin-Man and Dorothy), these are not too graphic but younger readers may find them a little bit disturbing.

I love the 1939 film but I think I prefer this version as I felt that this adventure was so much more interesting and intense. I loved the character developments and the conversations they would have, one of my favourite moments in the book was when the Tin-Man and the Scarecrow were debating whether its better to have a brain or a heart, the characters have back stories in this too explaining how they became the way that they are, the Tin-Man’s backstory is particularly quite tragic.

This is a wonderful book and to be honest I was expecting to read a story I already knew and was pleasantly surprised when I read this and it was almost completely different and that reason alone is a great reason to pick up a copy and check it out for yourself.

I hope you enjoyed this review of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L.Frank Baum

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The Battle of Olympus (NES) Review

March 14, 2018 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

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Released in 1988 by a small game company called Infinity, Battle of Olympus is a really interesting game, it was the first game released by the developers and the entire thing was designed and programmed by the companies president at the time, five years later a game boy port was released and its actually a very good port apart from the black and white visuals which couldn’t be helped and a few items and areas being differently designed or found in different locations its a very strong release which is similar to the original. Battle-of-Olympus-The-U

The game takes place in ancient Greece where Hades the ruler of the Underworld is terrorising the land, you play as Orpheus who needs to get to the Underworld and defeat Hades in order to save his girlfriend Helene, in order to succeed in defeating Hades Orpheus must gain help from the other gods you first visit Zeus who encourages the others to help Orpheus in his quest by granting him special items and abilities.

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This game is very similar to Zelda 2 the adventure of Link, for the most part its a side scroller, you will need too get around the game by finding hidden doors, traversing through labyrinths and discovering hidden treasures, fairies are extremely useful as most will fully heal you and some will even give you necessary items, fountains can be used to heal you also but first you need to obtain the flask in order to store some of the fountains water, other discover-able items are also handy but most will come at a price, some of these prices are ridiculous, throughout the game you will need to collect olives from fallen foes as this is your currency but enemies dont drop them nearly enough so collecting enough to pay for things can often become a drag, in the game boy version items cost half of the price of the original game which is a nice update.

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There are nine locations in the game, eight of these are shown above on the in game map while the gate to Tartarus (where Hades resides) is hidden and is only accessible late into the game, a lot of these areas are extremely well hidden and you have to travel back and fourth between these areas often, thankfully you can obtain a harp which will summon a Pegasus which makes getting around much faster.

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The only enemy I would consider to be a boss would be the final battle but you will need to beat some very tough enemies who are lurking around in various locations, personally my favourite was the cyclops but there are a lot to get through including a Siren, a Minotaur, a Centaur and many more, each is defeated in a different manner and all of them are very fun to fight.

The music is ok there isn’t much to it and nothing really sticks with you once you beat the game but the music is fun and doesn’t effect the game-play in anyway.

The Battle of Olympus is a hidden gem on the NES, not many people know about it but its quite cheap to pick up and is a really good third party game, its very difficult and may leave you screaming at your TV at times but with enough patience and learning you can quickly adapt to it, I wish it had a proper save system instead of passwords and some of the grinding for olives became too much of a nuisance but apart from that this is pretty solid game and is well worth your time 8.2/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of the Battle of Olympus on NES

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The Care Bears Movie (1985) Review

January 31, 2015February 21, 2016 ragglefragglereviews6 Comments

First appearing on television screens in 1981 the Care Bears are a group of colourful bears that live in the clouds, each bear is named after a trait and each bear has a symbol on their belly representing this trait.

The Care Bears originally started their debut through TV specials airing between 1983 till 1985. In 1985 the Care Bears were given their own television series which was very popular amongst young children but before the television series was released we were given a movie based completely on the Care Bears toy line.

The movie starts in an orphanage where one of the staff voiced by Mickey Rooney is reading the story of the Care Bears to the children.

The Care Bears live in a land of clouds called Carealot, The Care Bears have the ability to travel to earth to help those who don’t care any more, the reason they do this is because the stability of Carealot depends on people on earth caring about each other, while visiting Earth the Care Bears try to befriend two young siblings called Kim and Jason.

Kim and Jason have given up about caring for people because both of their Parents left them at an orphanage at a young age, the Care bears want to befriend Kim and Jason to show them that they will not always be alone and to hopefully get them to care again.

Not much later and we are introduced to some new characters a magician and his apprentice Nicholas.

Nicholas is a young boy who has never had a friend in his entire life, this has made him very depressed and angry at the world, an evil spirit trapped inside a book encourages Nicholas to set it free and in exchange it will teach Nicholas how to be more recognised.

A desperate Nicholas agrees to the deal and he uses a key to unlock the book releasing the spirit inside.

The evil spirit starts teaching Nicholas dark magic which Nicholas uses to turn people against each other and eventually taking all of the care out of the world.

Of course this has massive effects on the stability and the well being of Carealot so the Care Bears quickly investigate and learn about Nicholas and the reasons he is angry at everyone, after quickly realising that all three of these children need people to care about they all decide to head to earth to find Nicholas, but just as they start to transport the transporter is destroyed sending the children and the two Care Bears to a land between worlds.

The remaining Care Bears decide to get aboard a boat and travel down a river in the clouds in the hopes that they will find the children and the missing Care Bears, they eventually find the children and the other two Care Bears in a new land called the Forest of Feelings, here they meet some new animal friends including Brave Heart Lion, Swift Heart Rabbit, Playful Heart Monkey and Lotsa Heart Elephant.

The animals join the children and the Care Bears in their quest and they all head out together on a big adventure to save Nicholas from the evil spirit.

The animation is basic to say the least, it looks more like a direct to VHS release than it does a movie that got released into theatres, it’s not terrible though the animation plays very smoothly and the movies use of shadows and shading is very impressive, the only real problem I had with the animation is that most of the time the characters lips don’t sync with what they are saying and this can be very distracting.

The songs in this movie are just awful, they are all very forgetful and genuinely annoying with lyrics that make very little sense, every song in the movie honestly feels like it’s just there for filler and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case.

The Care Bears Movie is not one of the best children’s movies I have ever had to sit through, the plot is not very interesting, the animation is fairly basic with the exception of the films use of shadows and shading, the songs are not fun to listen too in the slightest and apart from a pretty cool villain the movie is really bad.

I suggest skipping this one unless you have very young children who you want to keep quiet for an hour.

I hope you enjoyed this review of The Care Bears Movie

If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

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Madagascar as a whole

April 20, 2013April 20, 2013 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Welcome to yet another review today I will be looking at the entire Madagascar trilogy, giving my own personal views on the movies and eventually deciding which one is the best so without further ado lets jump right in.

If you don’t already know, Madagascar is about four zoo animals a lion called Alex, a zebra called Marty, a giraffe called Melman and a hippo called Gloria they all love the zoo life but Marty wants more, with all the pressures of Zoo life Marty runs away and the other Animals go to find him they eventually get caught and are boxed onto a boat to Africa they try to escape but end up shipwrecked on the island of Madagascar.

So that’s pretty much the plot to the first Madagascar it has a few funny scenes the best are near the end Alex becomes a true ferocious Lion due to the lack of meat, a good movie but not as funny as people make it out to be.

Part 2
At this point the animals have built a plane and are heading back to new york but end up crash landing in Africa, they find a bunch of wild animals and they ask for hospitality while their plane is being repaired. Alex soon finds his real mom and dad and decides to live with them problem is that Alex needs to fight another lion and win to prove he is worthy of living there. During the movie Alex learns a lot about his past and at the same time he has to proove that dancing isnt lame so his father will except him not being a fighter but a dancer. Oh and I think dancing is awesome btw

Madagascar 2 has very few scenes that will make you laugh out loud, but I do think it has a better setup than the first movie I can’t really say its better though.

Part 3
The plane is finally finished but the penguins who built the plane fly to France and say they are never coming back, Alex and the gang are having none of this and decide to go to France to give the Penguins a piece of their mind. They get to France only to attract a Crazy French woman to likes to collect the heads of animals and yes she really is monster because she also kills puppies. The French phycho chases after the animals but both them and penguins escape onto a cirus train which is heading to Rome. In order to not get reported by the dude who owns the circus the animals pretend to be a human and buy the circus, Alex and the gang find out that after Rome they are going to London and if they peform well in London they will get the chance to do a show in New York and at the same time still being hunted by the villain of the movie.

Madagascar 3 is hilarious, I was pretty much laughing the whole way through. I also found that it was a very powerful movie I even cried at one point because I’m just that manly. I won’t ruin the final circus peformance but I will say that is magnificent and truly a piece of Art and for these reasons I believe that Madagascar 3 is the best Madagascar movie

I hope you enjoyed this review
This review was written by Dan ( Padawan)