Curioser and curioser - in Canton
Has anybody seen the new Alice in Wonderland movie early? I'm certainly going to see it opening weekend, whatever flaws it might have, and as a Burton/Disney production it will probably have plenty. For example, I'm not scared off by the fact that it clearly follows Disney tradition in combining Wonderland and Looking Glass Land into one realm and conflates the Queen of Hearts with the Red Queen (looks like Red gets the cards theme and White gets the chess theme, which kind of works).
But I am curious about a detail shown in some of the supporting material, that after her Wonderland adventure, young Alice Kingsleigh has the 'visionary' idea that one of her family friends should open up trade with China. I take it that the real world segments of the story are therefore placed prior to the opening of the Canton tea for silver trading post by the East India Company in 1711, so probably sometime during the reign of Queen Anne. Funny how the costumes look much more mid to late-19th century than early 18th, but that can't be right. What would be the point of opening trade with China when the English had already instigated several Opium Wars in order to prevent a massive trade deficit with the Chinese?
Huh, could the simplest explanation be that somebody was sampling some of that opium when they were supposed to be studying their history?
Or another explanation might be that the reason why everybody thought Alice's father to be mad was not because he wanted to trade with Asia, but because he couldn't seem to fathom that this had already been going on for more than a century. Therefore, when Lord Ascot invites Alice to work for the company at the end, he might just be having her on, or he just might be sending her into slavery in return for the slight to his son...
In other news, one wonders why even Brave Hatter (whom I refer to that way because Depp plays the Hatter as the Underland version of Highland Scots, complete with claymore) reciting the actual poem Jabberwocky didn't remind anyone for the entire rest of the movie that the name of the creature is the Jabberwock, and only the poem about the killing of the creature is properly referred to as the Jabberwocky. Or was that a giant clawed poem Alice was killing in the climactic battle?
And yet, I still have to say I liked the darn thing.
But I am curious about a detail shown in some of the supporting material, that after her Wonderland adventure, young Alice Kingsleigh has the 'visionary' idea that one of her family friends should open up trade with China. I take it that the real world segments of the story are therefore placed prior to the opening of the Canton tea for silver trading post by the East India Company in 1711, so probably sometime during the reign of Queen Anne. Funny how the costumes look much more mid to late-19th century than early 18th, but that can't be right. What would be the point of opening trade with China when the English had already instigated several Opium Wars in order to prevent a massive trade deficit with the Chinese?
Huh, could the simplest explanation be that somebody was sampling some of that opium when they were supposed to be studying their history?
Or another explanation might be that the reason why everybody thought Alice's father to be mad was not because he wanted to trade with Asia, but because he couldn't seem to fathom that this had already been going on for more than a century. Therefore, when Lord Ascot invites Alice to work for the company at the end, he might just be having her on, or he just might be sending her into slavery in return for the slight to his son...
In other news, one wonders why even Brave Hatter (whom I refer to that way because Depp plays the Hatter as the Underland version of Highland Scots, complete with claymore) reciting the actual poem Jabberwocky didn't remind anyone for the entire rest of the movie that the name of the creature is the Jabberwock, and only the poem about the killing of the creature is properly referred to as the Jabberwocky. Or was that a giant clawed poem Alice was killing in the climactic battle?
And yet, I still have to say I liked the darn thing.