Anyone not interested in Glinda’s new gift of a car-mounted spherical globe evil: doing good Maybe take the yellow brick road to Las Vegas and its own magical bubble. Known primarily for hosting live concerts, James Dolan’s Sphere is currently home to a wildly inflated, dizzyingly oversized and grotesquely manipulated version of the 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz.
All the action unfolds on a 160,000 square foot, 16K resolution LED screen, dominating the audience with images more than 300 feet tall. (Enjoy it, IMAX.) Each screening has a capacity of 10,000 people, and audiences have been flocking to the show since it opened on August 28. Initial screenings were scheduled to end on March 31 and have been extended to May.
Not exactly a reinterpretation in the movie evil The movie offers up this newly dazzling curio – formally known as The Wizard of Oz by Sphere And presented in 4D – in its own way, equally subversive, if not downright corny. Get ready for a teeth-rattling tornado sequence with real wind machines blowing debris around while your tactile seat shakes and shakes! Dodge Styrofoam apples falling from the ceiling as sentient trees throw fruit at Dorothy! Feel the thunderous declaration of the great and powerful Land of Oz as white flashes and fire erupt around the venue! Do those mannequin-sized drones buzzing overhead look like flying monkeys again?
The carnage is undeniable: the orb ounce At 75 minutes long, it’s nearly 30 minutes shorter than the beloved classic. Hopefully you’re not a big fan of Cowardly Lion, because his song about the King of the Jungle has completely disappeared. Other cuts include less time with the evil Almyra Canyon, a shortened visit to Professor Marvel, a shortened conversation with good Glinda, a condensed version of “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,” and brief introductions to the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion.
But the spectacle here is impressive enough. The film literally expands in every direction, giving a truly immersive dimension to Hollywood’s adaptation of Frank Baum’s fairy tale. Do you think the Tin Man got polished and shiny in the Emerald City? this ounce The digital and AI enhancements are incredible, with beautifully crisp landscapes and architecture that feel incredibly real.
Kansas is even more beautiful in sepia tones, with sharp hay bales, lifelike farm chickens and cows, and a vast coppery sky overhead. When Dorothy sings about the happy little bluebird in “Over the Rainbow,” one of the chirping warblers is soaring above, matching her upward gaze.
When the tornado lifts Dorothy’s house with its powerful winds, we are no longer inside looking out; we are outside. Now we’re in the eye of the storm, seeing not just houses flying by, but spinning cattle, airborne crews in rowboats, and, in an extended version of the iconic scene, a bicycle-riding Ms. Gulch who transforms into the Wicked Witch of the West on a broomstick. (By the way, looking straight into the sphere’s domed ceiling, you can see directly into the tornado’s cylindrical shape and notice a perfectly calm circle in the sky.)
Set piece after set piece was amazing. The yellow brick road looks newly paved and takes on a bright canary hue; the merry old land of Oz has vast expanses of rolling hills and picturesque mountains; the candy-colored Munchkinland is an absolutely vibrant village; the haunted forest is filled with menacing darkness; and the Emerald City sparkles with art deco gleams with its sprawling towers and ornate walls. The wizard’s huge dark green chamber now has a skylight; the evil witch’s castle looks even more sinister. Ruby slippers sparkle with vibrant sparkle. The gorgeous production design is absolutely stunning.
There’s just one problem, and it’s a big one: the cast. Currently, no amount of digital technology can convincingly re-render real actors from 1939 into a 2025 production. You can only increase the visual resolution of a film character so much – completely erasing film grain eliminates skin pores and leaves faces incredibly smooth and sculpted.
Dorothy and her trio look like they were peeled off a perfect revival of the yellow brick road and then put back together, like figurines in a sticker book. Their movements lost gravity. Sometimes, they even appear to be floating. The same goes for Toto, who is covered in matted fur and looks vaguely digital. Others have gimmicky enhancements, too: the evil witch suddenly sprouts a very prominent black hair from a mole on her green chin.
Even worse are the background actors. The main reason why so many scenes were cut from the original film was not necessarily to shorten the length of the film; It can also cannibalize additional content and reinsert them to the left and right of the newly expanded digitally enhanced scene.
So Munchkinland now has a whole bunch of people standing behind Dorothy in a sweet loop of artificial intelligence, extending their screen time by swaying back and forth, waving their arms, or constantly changing their weight in a computer-generated spell. Some of the extras’ faces look smudged and oddly deformed thanks to the same AI enhancements. On several occasions, they even looked directly into the camera with dead-eyed smiles. This is deeply disturbing and a bit distracting.
Interestingly, many scenes have fewer cuts: for example, instead of cutting between shots of the Tin Woodman dancing solo and Dorothy and the Scarecrow looking at him, all three scenes now share the same giant frame—the Tin Woodman in the center, Dorothy and the Scarecrow on the right. Thanks again to artificial intelligence, the Tin Man’s entire dance routine is seamless. But now Dorothy and the Scarecrow’s eyes did not coincide. Dorothy actually looked a little bored and seemed to be staring off into the distance.
Worst of all is how the AI marred the film’s poignant emotional climax. In the original film, as Dorothy bids her companions farewell, the camera fills them again and again, each tender farewell. In the Sphere, three people stood in a row, waiting for Dorothy to talk to them. Oddly, everyone was slightly out of focus, and it was only when Dorothy started talking to them that everyone became clear. When she stops talking to them, they stop being emotional and lose focus. Then, just like Extras, everyone goes into blackout mode, moving back and forth as if in a trance.
As an example of the use of cutting-edge technology to transform a national cultural treasure into a glorious, action-packed thrill ride, The Wizard of Oz by Sphere Undoubtedly great and powerful. As a tool for enhancing relationships through storytelling, it requires constant waving of the wand. We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, but we still have a long way to go before we get to Oz.
