Real reason Dorothy's shoes in new Wicked film aren't red

Die-hard Wizard of Oz fans have noticed an inconsistency while watching Wicked which landed in UK cinemas last week, but it turns out there's a good reason that stretches back beyond both films.

Bizarrely, the iconic ruby slippers that lead character Dorothy famously tapped together to escape from Oz in the original 1939 movie have changed colour entirely, and in the new blockbuster, they're an ethereal shade of silver.

One of the most legendary storylines included in the Judy Garland movie was that her character, Dorothy, could only return home to Kansas by knocking her gorgeous red shoes together three times.

Remember? They were originally spotted on the Wicked Witch of the West's feet at the beginning of the film, when she was discovered having been crushed by the house that landed upon her?

Well, the poignant addition was cleverly included by Wicked producers in the magical new flick, which centres on the 'Bad Witch's' (known as Elphaba) relationship with 'Good Witch' Glinda when they were in high school - basically, a prequel to the events in the original movie.

Naturally, therefore, fans of the vintage blockbuster were delighted to see Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion appearing before the Wizard at the very end of the movie.

Many were baffled after noticing, however, that Dorothy could be seen wearing silver slippers, instead of the famous ruby ones from the OG film.

"Now why couldn’t they just make the shoes Ruby," one begged on social media afterwards.

Dorothy's slippers were shown as silver in Wicked (Universal)

"Okay but how magical would it be if they actually did license the Ruby Slippers for the Wicked movies…" another added.

And after a multitude of others wondered why the decision had been made, one devoted fanatic of the franchise spilt the tea.

In fact, the Twitter user - who goes by the username @gothspiderbitch online - crafted a lengthy thread of tweets in order to explain the 'real reason', revealing 'there are actually multiple'.

The long history of Dorothy's ruby slippers

She began with the first and 'most obvious' reason, revealing that the original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - written by L. Frank Baum back in 1900 - contains both illustrations and descriptions of a pair of pointed white shoes with a Mary Jane-style buckle.

The fan then reminded viewers that the Judy Garland film was the very first movie to feature colour, and that this served as one of the reasons why producers wanted to include as much of it as possible.

"For the debut of this revolutionary Technicolor technology, MGM was pulling out all the stops," she explained, adding that The Wizard of Oz was 'their most expensive film to date'.

Frank Baum's original book described the slippers as silver (George M. Hill Company)

"[They] wanted to showcase as much color as possible, and use it to the very best of their ability. Each individual hue was painstakingly selected, with the set designers spending over a week just deciding which precise shade of yellow paint to use on the brick road."

Sharing a snap allegedly of the original 1939 script, the picture showed that the shoes were originally intended to be silver, but that producers had crossed out the colour and penned 'ruby' over it.

"In a film made to introduce the world to the magic of Technicolor, silver would look far too similar to black-and-white," the fan went on.

"So to make the slippers stand out onscreen, they were later changed to ruby."

She then went on to note that the Wizard of Oz's costume designer Adrian Adolph Greenburg had originally crafted a pair of red shoes that were similar to that in those in the book, but that these were rejected by movie bosses, who reportedly wanted a 'more "American" style'.

There's another reason for Wicked producers' choice, which the Twitter user described as 'way less exciting', though.

Dorothy wore red slippers in the original film (MGM)

You guessed it, good ol’ copyright.

She added that though Baum's novel has been in the public domain since the 1950s, the 1939 film remains copyrighted until 2035.

"In 2011, a court ruling determined that while the story and characters created by L. Frank Baum are technically public domain, any aspects of those pre-existing characters that were created specifically for the film (or any other work) are protected by copyright."

She continued: "Because the film isn’t an entirely faithful adaptation of the books, all those nifty little changes that I mentioned were made during production — like the choice to make Dorothy’s slippers ruby, or the 'simpler' style of the shoe — are protected under the film’s copyright."

All of these reasons summarise why Wicked bosses changed the colour of Dorothy's infamous shoes at the end of the movie.

The more you know, eh?