The Willy Wonkas
Since Sebastian has been a bit crazed about Willy Wonka lately, I've been thinking about the movies. In my web perambulations, I found a review...and couldn't resist commenting:
My 4-year-old is a HUGE Wonka fan at the moment, so I've seen both movies many times lately. I've also read the book to him, and had read both of the original Dahl books many times before.
I'm a purist; I like movies that are faithful to the books on which they're supposedly based. That makes me one of the very few people who dislikes The Lord of the Rings movies, for example.
In this case, I'm honestly torn. Both movies are faithful to the books in some ways, and not in others - but in *different* ways.
Take the character of Willy Wonka himself. He's a small man, looking almost Chinese (as described in the sequel, "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator"), with enormous amounts of energy - he moves in quick little jerks like a squirrel. And he's almost constantly giggling or laughing. Most of his sentences end with an exclamation point, in the book - which can be very tiring to read aloud; there are a LOT of exclaimations throughout both books. They're very high-energy.
Wilder's Wonka had the basic cheerfulness from the book, but was more languid; Willy Wonka on 'ludes. Depp's Wonka was frankly a surprise, particularly because I'm a big fan of Johnny Depp. He was NOTHING like the Wonka in the book, not at all. Of course, some of this was due to the whole grafted-on father/flashback plot in the new movie.
The Wilder movie also had a major plot element which wasn't in the original book (SPOILER WARNING): Wonka's testing of Charlie and the other children with a fake Slugworth. But that wasn't out of line with the original idea, since Wonka invited the children to the factory to test them and decide which one should be his heir.
(Since the Wilder screenplay is credited to Dahl, I assume that he was responsible for that addition.)
The Wonka father plot of the new film, however, is in no way derived from the books. There's never any hint about the origin of Wonka, and he certainly shows no sign of having a problem with parents or fathers.
"Another difference with the original movie version (although, I understand, more true to the source material) was the ending."
That's why I'm writing this; if I understand what you're saying, you got it exactly backwards. The ending of the Wilder movie was MUCH more faithful to the book. The Depp movie was not.
Another substantial change that Burton made was to the character of Mike Teavee. In the book, Mike Teavee was a violent, gangster-loving gun-and-violence nut (he carried 17 toy guns at all times). Occasionally he asked a mildly perceptive (or obnoxious) question, but he certainly did not "crack" the system that Wonka used to distribute Golden Tickets - the whole idea of a system didn't even come up, in the book.
The reason that I mention this is that this addition by Tim Burton actually contradicts the very point that Dahl wanted to make with the Mike Teavee character; TV seems to have made Burton's Teavee smarter, since he was the only one who could crack a system that presumably everyone else in the world was trying to decode.
Some elements of the Depp movie were more faithful to the book, of course; the squirrels, for example, rather than the golden-egg-laying geese. Likewise the pink viking-style boat. The lyrics for the Oompa Loompa songs were virtually all taken from the original text, unlike those in the Wilder movie, which were entirely original. Although I was surprised to see that about 90% or more of the words for each Elfman song had been eliminated, and the rest had been rearranged from their order in the book in many cases.
I've gone on for too long here, I'm sure. So let me close with two points. First, great though Johnny Depp is, to my mind this is the first real failure he's had as an actor; his Wonka is nothing like the character in the book, being more like a creepy cross between his Ed Wood and Michael Jackson. This was almost certainly Burton's fault rather than Depp's, though, since it was apparently made necessary by the father-plot addition.
Lastly, I'd urge you to read the original book, if you can. It's a classic for a reason. And it's one of those rarities that's as enjoyable for an adult as for a child.
My 4-year-old is a HUGE Wonka fan at the moment, so I've seen both movies many times lately. I've also read the book to him, and had read both of the original Dahl books many times before.
I'm a purist; I like movies that are faithful to the books on which they're supposedly based. That makes me one of the very few people who dislikes The Lord of the Rings movies, for example.
In this case, I'm honestly torn. Both movies are faithful to the books in some ways, and not in others - but in *different* ways.
Take the character of Willy Wonka himself. He's a small man, looking almost Chinese (as described in the sequel, "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator"), with enormous amounts of energy - he moves in quick little jerks like a squirrel. And he's almost constantly giggling or laughing. Most of his sentences end with an exclamation point, in the book - which can be very tiring to read aloud; there are a LOT of exclaimations throughout both books. They're very high-energy.
Wilder's Wonka had the basic cheerfulness from the book, but was more languid; Willy Wonka on 'ludes. Depp's Wonka was frankly a surprise, particularly because I'm a big fan of Johnny Depp. He was NOTHING like the Wonka in the book, not at all. Of course, some of this was due to the whole grafted-on father/flashback plot in the new movie.
The Wilder movie also had a major plot element which wasn't in the original book (SPOILER WARNING): Wonka's testing of Charlie and the other children with a fake Slugworth. But that wasn't out of line with the original idea, since Wonka invited the children to the factory to test them and decide which one should be his heir.
(Since the Wilder screenplay is credited to Dahl, I assume that he was responsible for that addition.)
The Wonka father plot of the new film, however, is in no way derived from the books. There's never any hint about the origin of Wonka, and he certainly shows no sign of having a problem with parents or fathers.
"Another difference with the original movie version (although, I understand, more true to the source material) was the ending."
That's why I'm writing this; if I understand what you're saying, you got it exactly backwards. The ending of the Wilder movie was MUCH more faithful to the book. The Depp movie was not.
Another substantial change that Burton made was to the character of Mike Teavee. In the book, Mike Teavee was a violent, gangster-loving gun-and-violence nut (he carried 17 toy guns at all times). Occasionally he asked a mildly perceptive (or obnoxious) question, but he certainly did not "crack" the system that Wonka used to distribute Golden Tickets - the whole idea of a system didn't even come up, in the book.
The reason that I mention this is that this addition by Tim Burton actually contradicts the very point that Dahl wanted to make with the Mike Teavee character; TV seems to have made Burton's Teavee smarter, since he was the only one who could crack a system that presumably everyone else in the world was trying to decode.
Some elements of the Depp movie were more faithful to the book, of course; the squirrels, for example, rather than the golden-egg-laying geese. Likewise the pink viking-style boat. The lyrics for the Oompa Loompa songs were virtually all taken from the original text, unlike those in the Wilder movie, which were entirely original. Although I was surprised to see that about 90% or more of the words for each Elfman song had been eliminated, and the rest had been rearranged from their order in the book in many cases.
I've gone on for too long here, I'm sure. So let me close with two points. First, great though Johnny Depp is, to my mind this is the first real failure he's had as an actor; his Wonka is nothing like the character in the book, being more like a creepy cross between his Ed Wood and Michael Jackson. This was almost certainly Burton's fault rather than Depp's, though, since it was apparently made necessary by the father-plot addition.
Lastly, I'd urge you to read the original book, if you can. It's a classic for a reason. And it's one of those rarities that's as enjoyable for an adult as for a child.