“Grand things are happening in the world of cinema”: The internet is losing their minds over “Wizard of Oz at The Sphere” memes

The Wizard of Oz’s AI-enhanced screening at The Sphere has already attracted a lot of controversy. But now, it seems like netizens are seeing the funny side of the cinematic ordeal by making memes.

What’s the backlash all about?

It was recently announced that the classic movie The Wizard of Oz will be screened at The Sphere in Las Vegas. However, this screening comes with a twist — it is restoring and enhancing the film with AI.

In addition to removing the 1939 movie’s classic “soft” look in favor of realism, it also expands the background of some scenes beyond the frame in which they were filmed.

This especially caused a lot of controversy, but now, the backlash seems to have transitioned into memes. It all started with a legitimate screenshot of one of these enhanced frames, which shows an extended background around Scrarecrow.

The Wizard of Oz at The Sphere memes

But it didn’t take long for people to share their own parodies of this screenshot by sharing an extended background of other movies, including The Room, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Shrek, and High School Musical 2, among others.

The general premise of the meme is to effectively ‘zoom out’ until the subject of the frame is comically small — and if I’m being honest, there’s not much difference between the memes and reality. A selection of these memes can be found below:

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There are also more abstract versions of the meme, including a reference to Pearl’s infamous scarecrow scene and the disastrous Willy Wonka experience in 2024.

In addition to this, there are memes that straight-up mock the idea entirely.

For better or worse, the screening opens on August 29. But I have a feeling that there might be a few more detours down this particular yellow-brick road.

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