I Give Myself Very Good Advice...
But I Very Seldom Follow It.
Yes, I'm putting this up here, too, because I feel like I need to get it out onto the Internet and out of my head:
Like many other people over the last two weeks, I saw Alice in Wonderland...
and wrote this in response:
I would like to take this moment to give credit where credit is due on an ambitious project such as this film undoubtedly was.
First and foremost, I’d like to congratulate Helena Bonham Carter on her perfect portrayal of the Queen of Hearts (ah, I know what you are about to say here, but I promise to get back to that in a minute). I felt that as an actress, she brought one of Lewis Carroll’s most iconic characters to life the way that I imagined her in the text. To you, Ms. Carter, Bravo!
Also, I thought that Steven Fry was an excellent voice actor for the Cheshire Cat. The character has always been a particular favorite of mine in every incarnation of the story, and this was no exception. Mr. Fry did an excellent job capturing the perpetually smiling feline who is “not all there” himself.
I would like to give credit to the team of artists that brought the creatures of Wonderland to life through their incredible talent. You are all truly blessed and I thank you for sharing your talents on some of British literature’s most imaginative characters. I don’t know all of your names, but you deserve recognition.
That’s where the positives end, in my humble opinion.
Everything else feels like it spits in the eye of the original author’s intentions. Never before have I seen an adaptation grind its heel so horribly on the source material.
Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland is full of nonsense, the good kind, not the brainless summer blockbuster kind that so many people seem content to enjoy. Nonsense, word puns, Victorian satire, popular culture references that are largely missed today all play a huge part in the narrative and his books are marked by an air of lighthearted charm throughout. Through The Looking Glass is ultimately much more about chess and mathematical logic than its predecessor, there are still instances of fantasy such as the talking flowers and Alice’s encounter with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. I don’t feel like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland captures the world of the original at all. I’m not even sure the writer OR the director read the books the same way I suspect the people in charge of the Super Mario Brothers movie never actually played the game it was based on.
In the book, The Queen of Hearts’ reach, in terms of destruction and chaos does not seem to extend beyond her palace. For example, she ordered the Mad Hatter to be beheaded, but he escaped and she did not pursue him. In fact, when he appears at the Trial (which was also missing from the new movie), the Queen remarks that he looks “familiar,” which makes him visibly uneasy. In the book, the Queen of Hearts doesn’t have a sister, at least one we see in canon. She isn’t the Red Queen. They are two completely different characters. The Red Queen and the White Queen both appear in Through The Looking Glass, as do the talking flowers and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. I find the merging of two characters who are unique and in two separate canon texts to be horrendously confusing.
The thing I despise most about this film is Alice herself. In the books, Alice was extremely curious and fairly good natured. She seemed to find wonder in everything, even gruesome things like the Queen of Hearts’ penchant for beheading people. She seemed to just accept things the way they are, which was helpful in the episodic flow of the original novels. However, Burton Alice is portrayed as being dull and flat, though I suppose this allegedly because, as the Mad Hatter says, she has “lost her muchness” due to repression in Victorian society. I call it lazy or intentionally aggravating. I can’t decide which, maybe it is both. In any case, Alice spends most of the movie insisting that she is not the Alice everyone thinks she is, which gets very old...very quickly. The only one who believes she is herself is the Mad Hatter. In the end, when he is proven right, how does she thank him for his support? By leaving him behind without so much as a peck on the cheek or a hug...or even an “I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow” moment. Nope, she returns to dismal England, marches right up to her spinster Aunt and informs her that she has to stop living in a fantasy. Well, excuse me, Ms. Alice, I don’t mean to point fingers, but what exactly have you been doing for the last two hours? Hypocrisy. Also, the ending is completely unbelievable from every conceivable standpoint. Alice seems to magically be good at business and finance, and even more strangely, people actually take her up on it even though we have seen no evidence whatsoever that she is good at any of the previously mentioned fields. She also wants to be the first to trade with China. Earth to Burton Alice, there’s a thing called the Silk Road, go read about it. I know I wouldn’t trust anyone with finance who wasn’t up to date with their history for say, oh, the past few thousand years.
The Mad Hatter was never meant to be serious, or at least as seriously as they play him in Burton’s vision of Wonderland. He was meant to be mad. He also does not actually own the hat he wears. As he mentions in the book, he is a hatter, but does not own any hats himself as they are all for sale. He was never meant to be a freedom fighter or a love interest. In the book, he enjoys making personal remarks about Alice and asking her impossible riddles. In a bit of sloppy filmmaking that demonstrates how little was actually researched for this film, The Mad Hatter mispronounces the word “Borogoves” when he recites from “Jabberwocky.” The Hatter is so completely out of character through the entire movie that it is hard for me to praise or criticize Johnny Depp’s performance.
There is also the ungodly amount of unnecessary cameos. Characters appear only to disappear or die while others, such as the Knave of Hearts, are mysteriously expanded to have their own story arcs. In the book, the Knave of Hearts stole the Queen’s tarts and he is the one on trial, which is a scene that mocks the legal system. Here, he’s the kind of/maybe lover of the Queen of Hearts who has a “large” fetish and rides around on a horse wearing a cool looking eyepatch. A character who appears in one chapter is now a main character...but wait, there’s more! The Jabberwock (referred to by the characters as the Jabberwocky), from the in canon poem, Jabberwocky, is made into an enforcer character and that’s not who he is. The Dodo makes a cameo, but doesn’t make any mention of politics, which is his purpose in the text...to mention and make jokes about politics. Also, there is a brief, blink and you miss it, Mock Turtle cameo, but it feels so inserted and out of place that I can’t help but throw up my hands and scream “WHY?”
Oh, and let’s not forget the hound that came from nowhere and is suffers from Sandman in Spider-Man 3 syndrome. Remember how the Sandman had a sick daughter that he could not afford medicine for and that’s why he stole? It is the same thing here, except with a captive wife and puppies. If you don’t side with either character, you are instantly a bad guy. Because who doesn’t want puppies to be free to chase bread and butterflies? It wouldn’t have been bad if they hadn’t kept inserting that particular character into scenes. He wouldn’t go away. He just kept showing up...and he was so normal looking! Everything else in Wonderland was fantastical, but here, we have a realistic looking dog who doesn’t drink tea or evaporate...and who isn’t in the book at all.
Reboots are fine and alternate universes can be very refreshing, however, they aren’t given the same title. I wouldn’t have minded if this was called “Return to Wonderland” or “Almost Alice” or any number of alternative titles. Then, I would have just seen it as another retelling. I think that something that purports to be an adaptation should at least follow the text it is based on. At the end of the movie, the credits say “based on the books by Lewis Carroll” not “inspired by the books by Lewis Carroll” or even more appropriate “inspired by characters created by Lewis Carroll.” Once again, I would have been a lot more forgiving of the film as a whole had it not claimed to be “Alice in Wonderland,” which it clearly is not. It even goes so far as to say that Alice herself got it wrong and it is, in fact, called Underland. Yes. You read that right. Burton actually tries to retcon classic literature by informing the heroine that she had it all wrong.
In the end, I can’t say that I liked this movie. I just can’t. I liked parts of it, but as a whole, I found it frustrating. As it stands, I don’t feel like any of the writers/directors even connected with the text at all. It feels like they took a bunch of interesting, pre-existing characters and slapped them all together in a hastily contrived story.
For those of you interested in experiencing the real Alice in Wonderland and the Looking Glass World, I cannot emphasize the book The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition by Lewis Carroll with Notes by Martin Gardener. It is definitely worth the time and money to have. I got mine from Amazon. It contains both the Alice books, poetry, original illustrations, and sketches.
P. S. Did anyone else notice the White Queen’s disappearing, reappearing horse stepladder. Somebody call the Script Supe, continuity error!
Also: The "inspired by" music album, Almost Alice, is surprisingly good. I like it better than the movie.
Yes, I'm putting this up here, too, because I feel like I need to get it out onto the Internet and out of my head:
Like many other people over the last two weeks, I saw Alice in Wonderland...
and wrote this in response:
I would like to take this moment to give credit where credit is due on an ambitious project such as this film undoubtedly was.
First and foremost, I’d like to congratulate Helena Bonham Carter on her perfect portrayal of the Queen of Hearts (ah, I know what you are about to say here, but I promise to get back to that in a minute). I felt that as an actress, she brought one of Lewis Carroll’s most iconic characters to life the way that I imagined her in the text. To you, Ms. Carter, Bravo!
Also, I thought that Steven Fry was an excellent voice actor for the Cheshire Cat. The character has always been a particular favorite of mine in every incarnation of the story, and this was no exception. Mr. Fry did an excellent job capturing the perpetually smiling feline who is “not all there” himself.
I would like to give credit to the team of artists that brought the creatures of Wonderland to life through their incredible talent. You are all truly blessed and I thank you for sharing your talents on some of British literature’s most imaginative characters. I don’t know all of your names, but you deserve recognition.
That’s where the positives end, in my humble opinion.
Everything else feels like it spits in the eye of the original author’s intentions. Never before have I seen an adaptation grind its heel so horribly on the source material.
Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland is full of nonsense, the good kind, not the brainless summer blockbuster kind that so many people seem content to enjoy. Nonsense, word puns, Victorian satire, popular culture references that are largely missed today all play a huge part in the narrative and his books are marked by an air of lighthearted charm throughout. Through The Looking Glass is ultimately much more about chess and mathematical logic than its predecessor, there are still instances of fantasy such as the talking flowers and Alice’s encounter with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. I don’t feel like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland captures the world of the original at all. I’m not even sure the writer OR the director read the books the same way I suspect the people in charge of the Super Mario Brothers movie never actually played the game it was based on.
In the book, The Queen of Hearts’ reach, in terms of destruction and chaos does not seem to extend beyond her palace. For example, she ordered the Mad Hatter to be beheaded, but he escaped and she did not pursue him. In fact, when he appears at the Trial (which was also missing from the new movie), the Queen remarks that he looks “familiar,” which makes him visibly uneasy. In the book, the Queen of Hearts doesn’t have a sister, at least one we see in canon. She isn’t the Red Queen. They are two completely different characters. The Red Queen and the White Queen both appear in Through The Looking Glass, as do the talking flowers and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. I find the merging of two characters who are unique and in two separate canon texts to be horrendously confusing.
The thing I despise most about this film is Alice herself. In the books, Alice was extremely curious and fairly good natured. She seemed to find wonder in everything, even gruesome things like the Queen of Hearts’ penchant for beheading people. She seemed to just accept things the way they are, which was helpful in the episodic flow of the original novels. However, Burton Alice is portrayed as being dull and flat, though I suppose this allegedly because, as the Mad Hatter says, she has “lost her muchness” due to repression in Victorian society. I call it lazy or intentionally aggravating. I can’t decide which, maybe it is both. In any case, Alice spends most of the movie insisting that she is not the Alice everyone thinks she is, which gets very old...very quickly. The only one who believes she is herself is the Mad Hatter. In the end, when he is proven right, how does she thank him for his support? By leaving him behind without so much as a peck on the cheek or a hug...or even an “I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow” moment. Nope, she returns to dismal England, marches right up to her spinster Aunt and informs her that she has to stop living in a fantasy. Well, excuse me, Ms. Alice, I don’t mean to point fingers, but what exactly have you been doing for the last two hours? Hypocrisy. Also, the ending is completely unbelievable from every conceivable standpoint. Alice seems to magically be good at business and finance, and even more strangely, people actually take her up on it even though we have seen no evidence whatsoever that she is good at any of the previously mentioned fields. She also wants to be the first to trade with China. Earth to Burton Alice, there’s a thing called the Silk Road, go read about it. I know I wouldn’t trust anyone with finance who wasn’t up to date with their history for say, oh, the past few thousand years.
The Mad Hatter was never meant to be serious, or at least as seriously as they play him in Burton’s vision of Wonderland. He was meant to be mad. He also does not actually own the hat he wears. As he mentions in the book, he is a hatter, but does not own any hats himself as they are all for sale. He was never meant to be a freedom fighter or a love interest. In the book, he enjoys making personal remarks about Alice and asking her impossible riddles. In a bit of sloppy filmmaking that demonstrates how little was actually researched for this film, The Mad Hatter mispronounces the word “Borogoves” when he recites from “Jabberwocky.” The Hatter is so completely out of character through the entire movie that it is hard for me to praise or criticize Johnny Depp’s performance.
There is also the ungodly amount of unnecessary cameos. Characters appear only to disappear or die while others, such as the Knave of Hearts, are mysteriously expanded to have their own story arcs. In the book, the Knave of Hearts stole the Queen’s tarts and he is the one on trial, which is a scene that mocks the legal system. Here, he’s the kind of/maybe lover of the Queen of Hearts who has a “large” fetish and rides around on a horse wearing a cool looking eyepatch. A character who appears in one chapter is now a main character...but wait, there’s more! The Jabberwock (referred to by the characters as the Jabberwocky), from the in canon poem, Jabberwocky, is made into an enforcer character and that’s not who he is. The Dodo makes a cameo, but doesn’t make any mention of politics, which is his purpose in the text...to mention and make jokes about politics. Also, there is a brief, blink and you miss it, Mock Turtle cameo, but it feels so inserted and out of place that I can’t help but throw up my hands and scream “WHY?”
Oh, and let’s not forget the hound that came from nowhere and is suffers from Sandman in Spider-Man 3 syndrome. Remember how the Sandman had a sick daughter that he could not afford medicine for and that’s why he stole? It is the same thing here, except with a captive wife and puppies. If you don’t side with either character, you are instantly a bad guy. Because who doesn’t want puppies to be free to chase bread and butterflies? It wouldn’t have been bad if they hadn’t kept inserting that particular character into scenes. He wouldn’t go away. He just kept showing up...and he was so normal looking! Everything else in Wonderland was fantastical, but here, we have a realistic looking dog who doesn’t drink tea or evaporate...and who isn’t in the book at all.
Reboots are fine and alternate universes can be very refreshing, however, they aren’t given the same title. I wouldn’t have minded if this was called “Return to Wonderland” or “Almost Alice” or any number of alternative titles. Then, I would have just seen it as another retelling. I think that something that purports to be an adaptation should at least follow the text it is based on. At the end of the movie, the credits say “based on the books by Lewis Carroll” not “inspired by the books by Lewis Carroll” or even more appropriate “inspired by characters created by Lewis Carroll.” Once again, I would have been a lot more forgiving of the film as a whole had it not claimed to be “Alice in Wonderland,” which it clearly is not. It even goes so far as to say that Alice herself got it wrong and it is, in fact, called Underland. Yes. You read that right. Burton actually tries to retcon classic literature by informing the heroine that she had it all wrong.
In the end, I can’t say that I liked this movie. I just can’t. I liked parts of it, but as a whole, I found it frustrating. As it stands, I don’t feel like any of the writers/directors even connected with the text at all. It feels like they took a bunch of interesting, pre-existing characters and slapped them all together in a hastily contrived story.
For those of you interested in experiencing the real Alice in Wonderland and the Looking Glass World, I cannot emphasize the book The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition by Lewis Carroll with Notes by Martin Gardener. It is definitely worth the time and money to have. I got mine from Amazon. It contains both the Alice books, poetry, original illustrations, and sketches.
P. S. Did anyone else notice the White Queen’s disappearing, reappearing horse stepladder. Somebody call the Script Supe, continuity error!
Also: The "inspired by" music album, Almost Alice, is surprisingly good. I like it better than the movie.