Wizard of Oz   at Sphere Las Vegas     October 4, 2025 - 11:00am

My very short review of Wizard of Oz at Sphere is this: Disappointing.

Want a long review? Here it is, but buckle up. It's over 3,000 words!

Note: Click on most photos to get a high-res version.


While there was plenty of technology involved in the presentation, as well as during the pre- and post-show activities in the atrium, they did not come anywhere near my expectations.

Note, I'm talking about MY expectations.

I went alone. Had I been in a group, or had kids with me, particularly those that may not have ever seen the movie, I've a feeling my reaction would be different.

I got an email a few days prior with instructions on where to park, how to get there by taxi/rideshare, or if walking, what was allowed inside, no photos during the show, etc. It made getting there rather easy, and prepped me well.

Entry was very fast and simple. I merely had my TicketMaster app open to my ticket. I didn't see a QR code (I may not have noticed), but the ticket person just tapped her device (which also looked like a phone) onto my phone. Her device chimed, and I was let in. Next step was metal detectors, which was also quick. Most people with any kind of package or bag had a quick look-see but generally not much of a delay.

Inside there were plenty of signs as well as staff to help. No problem finding a rest room where there was no line, no problem finding concessions, and no problem finding my way to my seating section.

The pre- and post-show activities in the atrium were very Disney-esque. Podiums with holographic images of Oz characters that can interact with whomever was talking to it seemed gimickey and forced. Of course, interacting with it while you have friends or family watching might make it fun.

There's also a miniature sphere that makes for great selfies.



One impressive part of the atrium was a large video panel made up of about 200 'fans' with LEDs on their spinning arms, kinda like the arm of this metronome style LED clock, but much more high tech, since there was a grid of them forming a single seamless image.

 

This photo from the pre-show doesn't do it justice. In person, you can clearly see the image being shown as well as whatever is behind it. During the post-show, (sorry, no photo) this was a live/interactive image of the Wizard. Below him was a guy dressed as the Oz doorman, with a microphone, selecting people in the crowd to talk with the Wizard. Cool but somewhat predictable. Again it would have been better if I was with a group and someone from the group was selected.



My only purchases were an overpriced 20oz bottle of water for $7.50 plus tax, and this relatively reasonably priced magnet for $10.95 plus tax.



I've seen enough of the atrium. In preparation, I watched plenty of influencer videos, so I knew the atrium stuff would be gimickey and time drains. Many of those videos, as well as Sphere and TicketMaster emails, stressed getting to your seat early.

After a few escalators to get to my level, I entered the actual theater, at about 30 minutes before showtime. I'm glad I had that much time to spare because I used a lot of it to get to my seat. I was in the upper level - section 405, row 18, center. Pretty much dead center of the upper center section of the theater. I'm not a sports or concert guy so I haven't been to a stadium in a long time. Therefore I don't really know if stadium nose-bleed seats are any better, but it was a rather steep climb up to row 18. TWO steps per row, and the steps seemed a little higher and not as deep as normal stairs. I had to pause every few rows, not just from exhaustion, but also from vertigo and fear. I was tempted to take a break for a minute in aisle seats that weren't filled yet.



That's what I had climbed up. I don't think I was even at my row yet when I took that picture. It was after the movie that I realized that I could have gone up a regular staircase in the atrium (or maybe there was another escalator), to go to the top of the seating area, then climb down to my row.

After quite a climb, I finally got to my row. Middle seat and there are several people already seated that I need to squeeze past. They all stood to let me pass, but that didn't make it any easier. In a normal theater, the seat backs of the row in front become something of a hand rail. Here they're only about 2 inches above the floor, plus a not so small gap. I'm nervously squeezing thru, and one of the people I'm passing gives me some advice: Don't fall! Great idea. Thanks buddy.



I finally sit down, about 15 minutes after entering the theater. The seat was tight with no leg room. I've got longer than average legs for someone 6 feet tall, with size 15 shoes. It was painfully tight. I think I was more comfortable on the flight.

But the view was fantastic. This was what was providing most of the lighting in the seating area, which is why the seating photos have that reddish / orange tint.



This looks every bit as good as Radio City Music Hall. I mean, this is a great looking theater! Every bit as nice as any Broadway theater or opera house.

Except it's all fake.

That row of foot lights might be real, but everything above and around it is sphere video. The stage, curtain, speaker stacks, video monitors, air ducts, baffled lighting... all just an image.

After a few minutes, my neighbors and I agreed that the footlights were real, but everything above and around was the sphere image wall. Since this image was designed to look like a classic Broadway type theater, we wondered why they didn't include an orchestra in that orchestra pit area just above the footlights, and have them appear to be playing the background music we were listening to while waiting for showtime. (Yes, I realize that the orchestra pit in a real theater is actually in front of those footlights, but they could have faked it.)

The emails said no photos, so I obeyed the rules and didn't take any additional photos during the show until the ending credits. There are plenty of YouTube videos if you're curious. I didn't see any other people taking photos during the actual movie either.

The very first 'scene' was just that little curtain opening to show the MGM logo, not with Leo, but the Cowardly Lion doing a somewhat cowardly version of their trademark roar. That was a nice touch.

Then the entire wall dissolves and we're in Kansas. Holy crap this is gonna be cool.

It doesn't take long before I start to notice CGI errors. Like some objects in the center (i.e. on the edges of the original images) being out of focus as they were in the original movie, while other objects are in focus even though they are further away from the virtual camera.

I wasn't looking for these CGI errors, but the videos I saw said that it's hard not to notice. And once you notice them, it's hard to not see for them elsewhere. And it was true. They were everywhere and hard to miss.

Be it the munchkins, witch's castle guards, Oz city residents, etc., those people further out from the center of the image, I.E. those digitally added, tended to be in focus, but not 100% fleshed out, and they didn't move in a natural manner.

Maybe that's why there was no fake orchestra pit.

It's easy to argue that these errors were part of Dorothy's dream sequence, and dreams are always a little weird. Except these same types of errors happened in Kansas too.

Plenty of sources say that about 26 of the original 101 minutes were cut. Some of the cuts left me wondering if I missed something. Others were more obvious - I recognized certain key lines being missing, and some scenes edited badly.

For example, when first entering the city of Oz, there is the 'horse of a different color'. I think there were only two colors while the original movie has about six. And the color change was accomplished the same way as it was back in 1939 - the horse goes off camera, there's an edit, then he comes back in a new color. This is clearly an area where the CGI could have made a big impact by actually changing the color on screen, but no.

I believe the wizard's oversize image in his throne room, and probably the background behind his head, was completely new CGI. And that makes sense since they were using the same Wizard's image in the atrium's post-show. The man behind the curtain was original.

Then there were the 4D 'enhancements'. As the tornado is heading towards Dorothy's house, the lights in the theater flash to simulate lightning, wind starts blowing, and thousands of leaf shaped tissue papers are blowing.

Very cool effect. At least a cool concept. The wind started about 10 seconds before the tornado scene with an audible starting of the fans. And although the wind dies down right after Dorothy lands in Munchkinland, the leaves keep fluttering around like the confetti that they are. Kinda ruins the effect when the good witch appears and is talking to Dorothy, and people are still reaching up to catch the leaves.

Whenever the good witch appears, the footlights and lights at the back of the theater come on in pink, making the entire theater turn pink briefly as her bubble approaches or departs. Kinda cool, but the first time, it really illuminated how many leaves were still fluttering around.

Whenever the wicked witch appeared, or when she said something particularly ominous, your seat shook in an attempt to make her more seem terrifying. Although it was also unnecessary, I think it was the only 4D effect that was done right.

When in the forest and the living apple tree starts throwing apples at Dorothy, foam rubber apples drop from the ceiling. Not a lot, and certainly not above the nose bleed section of cheap ($109!) seats I was in, but it created a frenzy much like people scrambling to get foul and home run balls at a baseball game. Except here the movie was still playing.

During the scene where the good which makes it snow to wake Dorothy and the gang while they are sleeping in the poppy field, 'snow' was falling in the theater. I couldn't tell where it was coming from but they were the kind of very small soap bubbles that are sometimes used in nightclubs and other places.

But the stupidest 4D thing of all was the flying monkeys. During that scene, there were inflated monkeys floating around, powered by unseen drones. I say 'floating' for a good reason. While the monkeys on screen were fully active, looking around, waving their arms and flapping their wings, the floating drone monkeys were very still and merely floating round.

Even things a first year art student learns, were done wrong. Normally, images of landscapes have the mountains in the distance appear in a somewhat faded color. Not here. They were all quite vibrant. Was that another error that is attributed to Dorothy dreaming?

All in all, it was disappointing, overpriced, and could have been much better.

It wasn't until the 'new' credits at the end of the movie that I started taking pictures again. While the long list of people is typical of movies these days, bear in mind that this impressive list is just the people that worked on the conversion for use in the sphere. I'm a little surprised that this list wasn't scrolling on the screen. But since they already cut 25 minutes of the movie, adding excess minutes of credits would have been wrong.



Most puzzling is that the original movie was an MGM production, but one of the production partners on this was Warner Brothers. I wonder how that happened. It's hard to see, but that's the WB logo in the green circle that I added.

But this production makes me hope / wish that the next movie they do is the first Star Wars movie. I still remember seeing it in the theater, third row center. And with the opening scene of the star destroyer coming in overhead and just filling the screen, holy crap, that would look so cool in the sphere.

It's been reported that $1 million per minute was spent converting Wizard for the sphere's video and audio. George Lucas has famously already done a lot of digital editing to the Star Wars movies. Maybe converting it would be cheaper and therefore economically attractive.

Except Lucas sold the entire franchise to Disney. I doubt Disney would be interested. Sigh. Then again, with the weird MGM/WB connection for Oz, I guess anything can happen. So maybe there's hope.

The credits were on screen for less than a minute. Then it changed to this selfie friendly image.



As I was climbing down from my row, I picked up several leaves from the floor. At the bottom was a woman / usher with a laser pointed up at a rear section of the video wall. I asked what she was doing. She was drawing circles around a leaf that got stuck. There are guys behind the video wall that see the laser on the wall behind the screen and remove the stuck leaves after each show. Interesting.

That image stayed for the duration of my exit. I suppose it not only encourages selfies, but makes it easier for the staff to find the stuck leaves since the image doesn't change and is mostly plain. Plus it was much brighter than the fake 'theater' image at the beginning, making it easy to leave quickly.

Back in the atrium, merely 10 minutes after the movie ended, the ushers were starting to direct people out, with instructions like how to get to the witch's legs & shoes under the sphere, and that there are additional concessions outside next to the legs.

I wondered how soon they'd get more forceful in trying to empty the place as there were plenty of people engaging in the interactive atrium stuff, with crowds / lines behind each.

I originally wanted to see the movie because I was interested in all the buzz I had been hearing about, and the stuff to see and do in the atrium. But the crowds forced me to change my mind.

Plus, I had little desire to linger, so I went out fairly quickly only to see plenty of people for the next show already waiting to enter. That was at 12:30. The next show was at 2:00. And it was a typical hot, sunny day in the desert.

Although not a selfie, I got my requisite shot of the witch's legs & shoes.



As you'll notice, there's a short temporary fence around them. The same type of fencing is all around the sphere. It was simple to move a section so I could get next to the sphere to use my hand for scale. My thumb is touching one of the pucks. They are about 2 inches in diameter and about 8 inches apart, and there's plenty of space to reach behind. But from far away, it looks like a seamless image.



I felt safe doing this one sizing selfie. But even though there was no security nearby, I wasn't gonna try to reach behind.

In retrospect, after climbing down from my seat, I wish I had gone to the side of the theater to see the individual pixels close up. I mean, just how tight are they and how easy would it be for the guys to reach in to remove the stuck leaves?


I originally wanted to see the Wizard because I DID want to see the sphere, but had no desire to spend hundreds on a concert. I also passed on the first film produced for the sphere, "Postcards From Earth" because of its mixed reviews and somewhat preachy storyline. Plus the price.

The announcement for Wizard came after a few months of rumors that a second film was in the works. I immediately became interested, but was already turned off by the price. Sure, I wouldn't mind paying to see a movie I loved, but did I love Wizard that much? It was only days later that I started to think about Star Wars at Sphere. Finally months later I bit the bullet and got my ticket. And that was only days after I decided to watch the movie at home - and fell asleep while watching it!

Now I'm left wondering if I should have seen Postcards when I had the chance, or if I should have waited for the next movie announcement. Of course I'm still waiting, but I really don't know what I'll do - unless it's Star Wars.

On a side note, a week after I saw it, I was listening to a podcast. The host said he was in Vegas recently and discovered that the Eagles were in town at the Sphere. His wife jumped on TicketMaster and got two tickets for the next night for $106 each. $3 LESS than what I paid for a 85 year old movie, to see the Eagles. LIVE. I know I said I'm not into concerts, but $106??? Weren't U2 tickets like a $1,000?


I hope you enjoyed my review. Keep in mind this is MY review, which probably would have been different if I were with friends or family.

Your mileage may vary.

Note that this isn't a blog where you can enter your own comments. However, I linked to this review on the Wizard of Vegas forums, where I am one of the most prolific contributors. There, I go by my former stage name, DJTeddyBear. Feel free to read other people's comments, and even join the forum if you want to comment yourself.

I also posted a link on TwitterX, LinkedIn, as well as on my poker league's FaceBook page.

Lastly, I linked this from within a few semi-private groups as well.

If you prefer, you can just send me an email:

Got a minute? Check out the other cool stuff on my Dave Miller Gaming website.