Puff'n'Stuff's nemesis, WitchyPoo, owes something to Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the East/West, and Obi-Wan Kenobi was clearly inspired by the Wizard himself ("You must go with me to Alderaan...if you are to become a Jedi" / "Bring me the broom of the Witch of the West and I will grant your requests!"). But no one ever seems to have lifted a character from the memorable ScareCrow ("If I only had a braaain!"). Self-deprecation is usually assigned to Asian characters in Hollywood movies ("This one is ashamed to have to say such bad lines"), but Jackie Chan has raised humility to new heights by kicking butt with SUBDUED humility.

"The Wizard of Oz" proved, in 1939, that quest stories could be transposed from the printed page to the big screen without completely destroying the fabric of the quest. Which is not to say that Dorothy's journey through Oz on the big screen was as fascinating and time-consuming as her journey through Oz in the original story. One sort of misses seeing the little porcelain people in the movie. And the Winkies turn out to be a very interesting people in the book. The flying monkeys are also depicted more favorably by L. Frank Baum than by Victor Fleming.

Baum's monkeys are almost human, which is a necessity in good story-telling. That is, the story has to be relevant to human experience. We have to be able to identify with its characters and the events they experience. We have to feel a rapport with the characters, or else we find the story to be boring and uninteresting. Fleming's monkeys are little more than window dressing. They do serve a purpose with respect to the plot. They get Dorothy into the Witch's castle, thus ensuring that the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man have to fulfill their mission.

But Fleming doesn't have the time to show that the monkeys are enslaved to the Witch, as Baum reveals to the readers. He doesn't build a rapport between Dorothy and the King of the Flying Monkeys. He doesn't even give the monkeys a voice. And that is the greatest magic about Oz itself: nearly everything talks. When Dorothy passes out in the poppy field, the Queen of the Mice helps save her in Baum's version of the story, but Fleming has Billie Burke (the Good Witch of the North) wave her magic wand and dis-spell the evil curse of the Witch of the West.

Despite its short-comings, "The Wizard of Oz" is a ground-breaking movie which set the pace for decades to come for fantasy movie productions. In fact, nothing quite like it has ever been produced again. And now that we have the magic of computer animation, probably nothing like it will ever be produced again. "The Wizard of Oz" is special not just because it's a great movie, but because it stands alone in its production values and techniques. For example, if anyone wants a tornado in their movie today, they'll either film a real one or create one with CGI. Fleming's special effects guy had to make do with a sock (a sock which proved to be so convincing that meteorology classes used that film sequence for decades).

Fleming was not the first (or last) producer to take on Baum's story. Earlier productions were forgotten. Later productions should be forgotten. The first attempt to bring "The Wizard of Oz" to film occurred in 1910. The most recent productions date to the 1990s. So, in the course of more than 80 years, only one attempt to create a movie based on the book really succeeded. Is that a sad statement about the quality of our movie-making industry, or is it a testament to the superb achievement of Fleming and his cast and crew? Perhaps it is both, but it is also a dark omen for fans of many popular fantasy stories.

The most recent major translations of fantasy books-into-films are based on J.R.R. Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS and J.K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER books. Millions of people around the world have hailed these films as great achievements. Vocal minorities have deplored them as boring, unfaithful/too faithful, poorly conceived, ill-managed, etc. Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" movies have generated more hard-core rebukes -- rebukes which seem to be mounting as LoTRmania subsides. Chris Columbus' "Harry Potter" movies have generated more religious rebukes -- rebukes which seem to be mounting as more movies are produced.

As a long-time Tolkien fan and writer, I was thrilled to see someone take on "The Lord of the Rings". I could not stand the Ralph Bakshi movie from the 1970s, and I can only barely stand to watch the Rankin/Bass adaptation of "The Hobbit". Their "Return of the King" sickens me, especially when the song "Where there is a whip, there is a way" cranks up. Your mileage may vary.

Being a Tolkien purist, I can easily point out deficiencies in Peter's adaptations. I have both defended and derided the movies, but in general I am pleased that they were made. In fact, I am very glad they were made. I am even happier that the project was brought to completion. It raises the bar, no doubt. It may be that, like "The Wizard of Oz", "The Lord of the Rings" will inspire a long parade of half-hearted adaptations which don't come close to matching Peter Jackson's vision. That, of course, is what many Tolkien purists are afraid of. We WOULD like to see someone do it better. But then, like "The Wizard of Oz", "The Lord of the Rings" stands out as a ground-breaking movie. This is the first time anyone has successfully adapted Tolkien's book to the big screen. And despite the numerous departures from the literary storyline, the basic plot was well-preserved: Jackson gets Frodo from the Shire to Mordor via the same route as Tolkien. Almost no short-cuts were taken.

I sometimes think people don't realize just how difficult that sort of thing proves to be for film-makers. They always want to change the story. Frodo's journey could have been retold very badly. In fact, we have glimpses of just how badly it could have been retold in one of Tolkien's letters, in which he slices and dices a script by Morton Grady Zimmerman. Compared to the first attempt to produce a movie based on Tolkien's book, and compared to the last few, Jackson did a pretty good job. My compliments outweigh my complaints.

Poor Harry Potter has trod a different path, however. Chris Columbus decided to be very faithful to the books with the first two movies. I, for one, am glad he made that choice. Many people who read the books first have told me they didn't think the movies were well-done at all. They said too many things were left out and the movies were too predictable. Well, tough. All my life, I've had to endure bad film adaptations which change stories, butcher characters, and compress events and landscapes so as to spoil my image of the original stories. The "Beastmaster" movies (and television series) had their fan bases, but they are nothing like the original Andre Norton books.

I enjoyed "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone/Philosopher's Stone" immensely. I saw the movie before I read the book. Okay, that makes me different from the Rowling purists who read the books first. But Chris Columbus' depiction of Harry's world is so realistic and so faithful to the books that I don't feel my vision of Rowling's stories is tainted. In fact, since Rowling herself approved Columbus' work, I feel comfortable basing my interpretations of the text on the movies.

By contrast, anyone who tries to interpret the Tolkien book on the basis of Peter Jackson's movie is wasting their time. Visually, Peter Jackson's Middle-earth barely resembles Tolkien's at all. Historically, Peter Jackson's Middle-earth leaves out most of Tolkien's Middle-earth. And Jackson's visualization doesn't fail to come close to Tolkien's for lack of trying. Regrettably, Jackson wasn't free to use all of the Tolkien source materials, so many details which were published in books other than THE LORD OF THE RINGS had to be ignored. But Jackson also relied upon numerous Tolkien experts who did not have the benefit of Tolkien's criticism and approval. Tolkien, after all, died in 1973. No one who has ever made a movie based on his works has had the opportunity for his direct input and criticism. So, the Jackson project had to move in directions away from Tolkien because it was, ultimately, not Tolkien's movie.

The lack of participation by an author is not necessarily the kiss of death for a film adaptation. Take the Tarzan movies, for example. That franchise was launched by Edgar Rice Burroughs himself, and he more than once made a production decision -- sometimes with disastrous consequences. In fact, the most popular group of Tarzan films -- the Johnny Weismuller movies -- are often derided as being unfaithful to ERB's Tarzan (who was not an illiterate "noble savage" like Weismuller's Tarzan). ERB also once chose an actor to be Tarzan based on how the guy appeared at a party. ERB supposedly thrust his way across the room shouting, "You're Tarzan! You're Tarzan!" The actor, actually an athlete, couldn't act. But he got to be Tarzan because he LOOKED like Tarzan to Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Which just goes to show that you cannot judge a story by what its author says, something that literary critics -- who often disagree with authors about their stories -- have been saying for years. Isaac Asimov supposedly attended a conference where a literary critic dissected one of his stories. According to this anecdote as related to me, Asimov couldn't believe the nonsense this critic was saying about his story, so he raised his hand and stated his objections to the critic's point. Unperturbed, the critic rejected Asimov's objections. "But I am the author of the story!" Asimov supposedly cried out. "I think I know what the story means better than you." To which the critic replied, "Your opinion doesn't matter."

An author's opinion only matters as long as he is writing his story. After he sets down his pen, or lefts his fingers from the keyboard, the story is no longer his. It becomes the property of his audience. The author retains the RIGHTS but not the STORY. The story moves on and takes on a life of its own, or dies a quick death. A good story inspires other stories, but it also inspires other versions of itself. Think of the multitude of adaptations and productions of the Shakespeare plays. It doesn't matter who wrote them, or if there was really a William Shakespeare. People love those stories and they continue to adapt them to film, stage, and book in a multitude of ways. Disney's "The Lion King", for example, is a (controversial) tribute to "Macbeth". "Ever After", starring Drew Barrymore, is the 500th retelling of the Cinderella story (or is that 5000th?), which supposedly originated as a Chinese folk tale.

The authors of these stories are no longer with us. What they might have thought about their stories is not relevant to us. In fact, how they told their stories is not relevant to us. That is something which Steve Sears, one of the producers for XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS once pointed out to me. I asked him how he thought Xena might be portrayed, if the show were revived in 20 years. He said he couldn't imagine how it would be done because the show was relevant to its audience. That is, if X:WP is successfully reinvented in 20 years, it will be relevant to the audience of that day, not the audience of the 1990s and 2000s.

The HARRY POTTER books, since they are still being produced, are very relevant to today's audience. It remains to be seen whether they will continue to be relevant. In literary terms, they could prove to be no more than a flash in the pan, although the conservative Christian objections to the books (founded mostly upon ignorance) may inspire a long-term interest in the books simply out of spite. By contrast, Tolkien's work has almost passed the test of time. Almost, but not quite. Too many people who read the book when it first came out are still alive today. Many of them continue to proclaim its merits or decry its existence. In another two generations, perhaps, we'll know for sure if THE LORD OF THE RINGS is really all it is cracked up to be. I hope the book makes it.

The Shakespeare works, the stories of the Brothers Grimm, the old Norse sagas, the Greek and Roman myths -- these are timeless stories which have inspired countless generations to wander in the lands of their imaginations. They found their ways via different paths into the land of Oz, proving their worth -- and their relevance -- to audience after audience because they retain something relevant to the continuing human experience. These stories are not tied to political events -- or, if they are, they depict events which are so universal as to be metaphorical for the repetitive mistakes and glories of humankind. Nor are these stories tied to personal experiences -- unless such experiences are so commonplace and necessary to human life as to be axiomatic in our dogma of existence.

The basic human struggle is about life: we are born, we grow to maturity, we bear offspring, and we advance into old age with the hope of seeing our offspring outlive us. It is all about making babies, or keeping the babies from starving, or about getting home to mom and dad (or Auntie Em) so that we can grow up to have babies of our own. But it is also about the sacrifices we make to ensure the survival of what we value. Hence, we have movies like "Armageddon", which despite the nasty things said about them appeal to broad audiences because they have heroes who sacrifice themselves to save the world. Not just humanity, but also the animals and the trees and the plants and the bugs. Everything survives because one man gives up his life.

A story is relevant to us because it resonates in our hearts. Something happens in that story which means something to us. How popular would Harry Potter be if our society suddenly gave up the tradition of schools? How relevant would Hermione's love of examinations be to an audience which knows nothing of the stress and pressure derived from having to make the grade? How relevant would Ron Weasley's Howler be if we had never been yelled at by our angry mothers in front of our peers?

The story means something to us because it draws upon common human experience. But it is also a fun story. Kids love to take on the monsters and win. They love to experience the magic of discovery, to learn how to do things in a new way. We love to learn about ourselves through the eyes of others. There is nothing so fascinating as the unfolding drama of your own life, and if you see that drama reflected in a book or movie, you feel a little less alone, a little less naked.

And that is what makes the movies so fun. We love them, and we know we are not alone in that love. In great movies, we see ourselves wandering down the yellow brick road, singing songs and dancing like the stars. And there is a plane waiting in the fog, ready to take us away to freedom. We know we'll always have Paris because Paris will always be just a DvD or videotape away.

Here's looking at you, kid.