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At the start of it Evanora is evil, and Theodora is kind of good but easily angered and kind of a sucker. Oz then makes her mad and Evanora leads her to evil. She didn’t bite the apple because Oz is an abuser, she bit the apple because she was angry and Evanora used that against her, Oz angered her, but she already had the core of being over trusting and seeking vengeance.

Although I don't disagree with most of that, I am still somewhat led to a different interpretation. Oz was shown to be a real womanizer. You don't go to all the trouble they went to, to portray him that way to simply take a pass on it being the cause celebre. It is reasoned to say Theodora was manipulated. I believe that to be true. I do have to come down on the side of Oz tilling the soil so that she was ultimately susceptible to being manipulated though. Had he not been a womanizer, she would probably never have been inclined to bite the apple. Heretofore, she hadn't been convinced to do it. It was only after exposure to 'this man and his vile ways' that she was at her most vulnerable.

He was shown to have toyed with the initial thin brunet, the visiting blond girl a former assistant, and a former assistant only referenced as leaving with a broken heart, before he ever entered Oz. And in Oz I thought he was shown to have toyed with the two sisters as well. One person said he didn't Evanora, but I'm going to have to review that. I believe he did. I do know Theodora was standing there thinking he was.

The message at the end seemed to be, that if he would only mend his ways, he would find true happiness. Why that message, if his womanizing ways weren't the central focus?

I still believe this is somewhat of a nice fable framed to cause evil men to reconsider their vile ways, and then find true happiness.

Why was it necessary to loft this transparent stereotype causing both young guys and girls to think this is what men, well at least some men, are all about? It's not exactly a nice sweet fairytale IMO.

I enjoyed the movie, but I didn't care for the central sub-plot. A different form of angst could have been a better contribution to the production overall.

It’s true Oz was shown to have a woman in every town, thus the behavior that pushed Theodora over the edge. But the choice to go all the way to evil over it was all Theodora, not to mention the choice to hero worship him from the first minute they met, and to decide their one night together meant they were forever. Theodora is well established as being a kind of crazy all or nothing girl.

Actually given that she hero worships him even before deciding she was in love with him, she pretty well set herself up for a crash even if there are no hookups. Oz is bound to let her down eventually, even if he isn’t deeply flawed. Look at his relationship with Glenda, she too has extremely high expectations of him when they first meet, and he lets her down also. But she doesn’t fly into a rage, she doesn’t bite the apple to become evil, she shames him a bit and then helps him find his core of good.

It’s “necessary” for exactly why you don’t like it. It’s a transparent stereotype that’s well understood by the audience, even a young audience, because it’s a standard Hollywood trope. How do you show a guy has character and loyalty issues in less than 5 pages of dialog? Multiple women. Add him being sorry for the hurt he’s caused (one closeup of sad face) and you’ve established he has a core of good that keeps being overridden by his bad instincts. Transparent stereotypes are very useful in movies because story telling time is short and these stereotypes can be referenced quickly, audiences are familiar with them, they give tons of fake back story for free (it only takes us 2 girls to know Oz is a ship in every port guy), and they inform us what to expect (as soon as he meets Theodora we know he’ll let her down, as soon as they hookup we know there’s a breakup coming). It’s easy story telling, not necessarily good, but it give you room for other stuff.

I would have liked Raimi (the director) to do more Raimi in the movie and less Disney. But Disney was paying the bills, and given the money it made their decisions were right, even if it made the movie kind of disappoint me.