When comparing the ending of the book and film version of the Wizard of Oz there are many differences both in plot and dialogue. The manner in which Dorothy does return to Oz is the same. The good witch Glinda tells her all she needs to do is click her heels together and command them where to take you. One difference in props is that in the book the heels are silver where as in the movie they are red.
But the way that the good witch appears is different. In the book Dorothy and her friends must travel to through many dangerous areas like the woods filled with wild beasts and travel through the china country then must find out how to cross the land of he quadlings. Finally once they are with the good witch, her friends must explain where they will stay after Dorothy leaves and she uses the cap to help the lion, scarecrow and the tin man get back to the lands they will rule. Like in the movie Dorothy becomes upset when leaving her friend. Then the witch tells Dorothy how to return to Kansas.
In the movies Glinda appears as a pink bubble floating through the air. This scene is only prolonged because Dorothy laments over leaving her new friends. One major dialogue difference is in the book she yells “Take me home to Aunt Em!” In the movie she continually says the well known line “There’s no place like home, there’s n place like home.”
Finally when the Dorothy in the book returns home she has traveled over distance and through the air and falls to the ground. She then realizes she is back on the Kansas prairie. The book ends with the shortest scene of Dorothy running towards her aunt. She tells her aunt where she has been and time lapses of days since her uncle was able build a new farmhouse after the cyclone destroyed the last one.
This ending is completely different from the movie. When Dorothy utters the line “There’s no place like home” the scene and images fade into each other. Then the film turns to the sepia tone it was in the beginning and we see Dorothy waking up from a dream. It turns out that Dorothy had been asleep the whole time after hitting her head. We then see all the character; the lion, scarecrow, tin man and the wizard as normal men that are in Dorothy’s everyday life. She starts to tell her aunt and uncle and the men around them where she as been but her aunt just dismisses the place of OZ as dream.
While the end to the movie was disappointing that it was all dream it was much more plausible that it was a dream than in the book where a young girl is alone with these creatures for days and just returns home. The ending to the book just drops off and does not explain anything. The ending to the movie is much more pleasing both cinematically and in its plot and resolution.
