A Timeless Classic that revolutionized movies

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2014)

There are a few reviews of The Wizard of Oz that say it is an outdated and hokey movie that should be remade. Well, I'm glad it has an 8.1/10 stars currently because it deserves them and I don't think it should ever be remade, it's timeless and nostalgic and I can remember seeing it with my family back when I was four, living in Sydney, Nova Scotia (I had The Wizard of Oz on VHS).
When I was a kid, I watched into the first scenes and it was all in black and white, which certainly doesn't appeal to four-year-olds. A grown woman played the part of a little girl named Dorothy which I thought was strange at the time. I was way too little to really understand the movie, but I do remember the tornado sucking away Dorothy's house, sending her off to a world beyond imagination. This was a revolutionary effect in its time; Dorothy steps outside and the movie is in full color, and she meets a variety of characters straight away, from a beautiful witch to a city of small people to a very ugly wicked witch. Dorothy's only friend from her home in Kansas is her beloved dog, Toto. As the movie goes on, Dorothy meets three beings who become her closest companions during her journey to find an enigmatic and powerful wizard who will supposedly send her back to her aunt and uncle.
Okay, the movie does get a little hokey at times, but given what they had to work with and the era it was made in, I was very surprised. I recently re-watched The Wizard of Oz and it made me really sad, believe it or not. Here's why: in the current year 2014 in less than a year a movie can just be thrown together with cheap voice acting, bad singing, a bunch of CGI that looks fake and a cheesy plot and still be more appreciated than The Wizard of Oz (EG The Hunger Games, Frozen, The Lorax, all of which I deeply hate by the way). Think of all the effort that went into making The Wizard of Oz such a stunning movie! Some of my friends have never seen it, and when I told them about it, they said, "that sounds stupid, can't we just watch Dumb and Dumber instead?" Well, that's society's intelligence today for ya.
I think some of the effects were very impressive for the 1930's - even for the 1970's some of these effects would have been difficult and costly. Examples include the horse that changes color, the tornado and the wizard himself. The acting was excellent, no doubt about it, and there was a lot of singing but come on, it was made during WWII, people needed something to make them happy. There are still bits of interesting trivia I'm learning about this movie, such as the fact that the snow in the poppy scene was created with industrial asbestos (carcinogenic which was sort of known even back then).
All I have left to say is that this is a movie that should be watched by continuing generations, because not only is it a timeless and amazing film but it also reminds us of how lucky we are to just have the technology to film in color and how often we take these types of things for granted.