Better Than I Was Yesterday

Once and Future Fandom, how we doing? 😭😭😭

RIP Anthony Head. Absolutely a legend.

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

Ok, First of all, Dorothy Gale is played by a young Fairuza Balk.

These pictures do not do justice to the raw Traumatized Child energy she brings to this role.

A bit of plot: Dorothy Gale won’t sleep. She’s always talking about Emerald Cities and Talking Scarecrows and Ruby Slippers. At her wit’s end, Aunt Em decides to commit her to the sanitarium for electroshock therapy.

Disney made this.

This is where one of the core Uncanny elements of the film first appears; this movie does not share continuity with the 1939 Judy Garland film.

It is a much more faithful adaptation of L.F. Baum’s Books, but despite being a sequel both objectively and canonically, it really just pretends the ‘39 film doesn’t exist.

They land in a desert that turns people to stone called the Deadly Desert. They get food from a Lunch Pail Tree. The chicken can talk. The Scarecrow is King of Oz, allegedly.

But, like,

Here’s her house from the first movie.

The one that landed on a witch? Right smack dab in the middle of a whole dang Munchkin Village?

There was literally a whole song and dance!

Where did the Munchkins go, you might ask?

Well, while Dorothy was away,

There was an Apocalypse.

OZ HAS FALLEN

And this is where we meet the nightmarish Eldritch spawn of Roller Disco and David Bowie:

I don’t-

What is-

This is one of the Good Guys

He’s just a guy. Like, really, very much, Just A Guy of a character. His entire personality, such as it is, is comprised of

His quest to find his Mom (we’ll get back to that) and

Commenting on his lifelessness. For example, when faced with death, he comments calmly that he won’t miss eating or sleeping, since he does neither.

His mom ends up being this girl:

I LIVE TO PLEASE

Ahem. Sorry. Anyway.

So. I mentioned an Apocalypse.

Behold! The citizenry of Oz!

They have been turned to stone by the evil Nome King! Why, you ask?

For stealing his Emeralds, of course!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I forgot to introduce The Army of Oz, affectionately referred to as Tik-Tok!

This guy

That’s… apparently the whole army?

He’s spring-wound. Has 3 winding keys: one for moving, one for talking, and one for thinking. At one point his thinking gears wind down while his action and talking gears are still tight and he creates a lot of trouble. He has a… spin attack…

I used get dad to rent this film for us when I was 8 or so. Mostly because I knew it was the only film my tough little sister was visibly scared of. Children are brutal.

This breakdown doesn’t even touch on Mombi, who scared the living daylights out of me. She is played by the same actress who plays the nurse at the sanatorium. And she is the reason the citizens of Oz up there are missing their heads. She keeps the still living heads locked in glass cabinets in her palace and swaps them out for her own head depending on her mood.

There is a later scene where all the heads are screaming as Dorothy makes a run for it. Mombi’s original head bellowing ‘Dorothy Gale!’ It is genuinely disturbing. I love this film so much.

because see it’s an adaptation of book 3, Ozma of Oz (which has very little Ozma in it) with random pieces of book 2, The Marvelous Land of Oz (Ozma’s origin story) jammed in at weird angles.

so like. the wheelers weren’t alarming, but the absence of the extended ‘besieged on lunchpail hill with talking chicken’ segment was a disappointment to me.

the retooling of Princess Langwidere of Ev into a Scary Villain rather than a lazy vain girl who accessorizes by changing her entire head was one thing, but giving her the name of the witch who raised Ozma was baffling and offensive.