I just felt like the Depp version also had no real wonder to it. Everywhere I looked I felt like, “Ooh, CGI,” “more CGI,” and “CGI!” The Gene Wilder Wonka factory felt like a place that kids would genuinely be awed by. And the way the parents and kids are rushing around (before Augustus falls in anyway) felt so magical and charming. Like they really were kids in the proverbial candy store.
(Singing quietly with a thousand yard stare) :
There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There’s no knowing where we’re rowing
Or which way the river’s flowing
(Starts the high-low sing-song portion where it ends with a lilt of menace) :
Is it raining? Is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing?..
Ah!
(Speaking apprehensively with the build up to a COMPLETE break from reality) :
Not a speck of light is showing, so the danger must be growing. Are the fires of hell a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? Yes! The danger must be growing for the rowers keep on rowing and they’re certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing!
Depp will NEVER match Wilder in terms of pure gleeful insanity.
I liked the non-Oompa-Loompa songs in the original, I loved Gene Wilder but I HATED the Oompa-Loompas in the original. Just hated them. Hated their moralistic, snotty song (the same damn song each time), hated their look, just everything about them.
And I am old enough to have seen the film after having read the book, so I remembered Dahl’s original poems about each child. And Elfman used those poems for the songs, which were all far better than that wretched “Oompa Loompa” song in the original.
I didn’t have any problem with Depp’s performance. He was following a classic and had to re-invent it. He was closer (IMO) to the book than Wilder.
I also just asked my daughter which film she preferred, and she very quickly said that she preferred the old one. The new one was just too creepy. She was about 9 when the new film came out and only saw the older film afterwards. and had read the book several times before seeing either. I’m not sure the film was really aimed at kids that age.
Neither of us cares which is closer to the book - the films stand or fall on their own merits.
I think you’re right. In the Nostalgia Critic review I linked to, he points out that the message of the new movie seems to be targeted more at adults, something about lost childhoods and whatnot. Since the focus of the movie is on Wonka rather than Charlie, this seems reasonable. The old movie adheres more to Dahl’s central message of “Be a good child and you’ll be rewarded (or at least not turned into fudge),” and has Charlie as its main, identifiable character.
I’m another who loves both movies and the book all in different ways.
The Ooompa-Loompas pretty much ruin the Wilder movie. They’re just awful, and not in a good way.
Last time I watched it, they edited out the entire boat ride, which I specifically was waiting to see, after that awesome Lost promo that used the poem. Augustus shoots up the pipe, take away Mrs Gloop, Oompa Loompa song, cut to commercial, come back to them entering the lab. Absolutely infuriating. Cue me changing the channel in disgust.
I much prefer the new one. The 70’s version is much too sweet to be true Dahl. Dahl is one of my favorite authors and I love him for his creepiness. Burton captured that beautifully. I also love that the original poems were used for the Oompa Loompa songs and that the plot stayed closer to the book.
I think a lot of the preferment for the mediocre 70s version is nostalgia. I didn’t see the movie until I was an adult and I hated it because it wasn’t that faithful and completely missed the true Dahl creepiness.
The only thing better about the original is Gene Wilder. And the boat ride. The new one is much closer to the book (even having the same title), except for the added dentist-Wonka backstory. I’m ordinarily not a fan of musicals so I like that they threw out all the non Oompa Loompa songs in the second one. Johnny Depp wasn’t Gene Wilder but he did a good job if you ask me. Frankly I think Tim Burton is getting a little too big for his breeches these days but this was a good movie.
I know I’m alone on this but I think it’s easy to imagine Jim Morrison also intoning this.
I loved the book (as a kid)
I was a bit ambivalent on the original movie
I hated the remake.
I dunno, Depp just seemed to completely misinterpret Wonka. Wonka shouldn’t be a creepy Michael Jackson figure, he should be exuberant though slightly cracked. The children should have fallen because of their flaws; not been despised before said flaws were apparent. Depp’s Wonka seemed to hate the children before he even knew them, which seemed wrong.
It’s not just nostalgia. There are people who don’t judge the quality of a movie solely by how well it adheres to the original source.
The original is too sweet for the most part (which is a huge flaw), and I think that distracts and detracts from Gene Wilder’s excellent performance. While being charming on the surface, he is acidic, sarcastic, and occasionally truly frightening. Only the sweetness of the rest of the movie robs him of some of his effect.
Depp fails utterly. Despite being creepy on the surface, there is nothing to him. You can’t believe in Depp’s Wonka. He couldn’t have done the things we know he is supposed to have done, and he wouldn’t have done them if he could. He isn’t up to it, and we can see that clearly.
He is less of a fully fleshed out character, and more of a paper-thin idea for how a character looks. Hey, what if Wonka was a Michael Jackson children’s show host amalgamation… well, my job is done! Where’s my paycheck?
And again, there is more than one kind of creepy. Personally I think it is far more jarring for an ostensibly charming, good-natured man to act with nonchalance and humor towards the deaths of children (as in the original), than for a straightforward child-obsessed, child-hating Michael Jackson impersonator to act exactly as you would expect.
Have you heard Marilyn Manson’s version?
Yeah, I agree. Depp’s Wonka was an interesting character, but…to me, he wasn’t Wonka. Wilder’s Wonka reminded me (don’t laugh) of Mr. Roarke in the early seasons of “Fantasy Island”–it was very clear that both were powerful, but not which side of the moral fence they hung their hats on. Both Wonka and Roarke had a very obvious “potentially dangerous” side to them, and that appealed to me a lot. Depp’s Wonka was…ineffectual. I agree that there’s no way he could have built the empire that it was claimed he did. Wilder’s Wonka, though–yeah, definitely. He was smart, powerful, and had the force of personality to be able to carry it off.
Frankly, I was kind of disappointed when they remade the movie and didn’t get my first choice–Alan Cumming. If you saw him as Fegan Floop in “Spy Kids” you’d know why I thought he’d make a perfect Wonka in the Wilderesque vein.
I loved both the movies but I vehemently disagree with both the premise and the outcome of the story itself. I want to do my own remake someday and that dumb, uncharismatic, broke, little shit Charlie isn’t getting the factory at the end in mine as a surprise twist.
Coming late to the party without reading any of the other posts:
I hate, hate, hate Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. I love, love, love Charlie & the Chocolate Factor.
It may be unfair of me to say I despise the former, as I’ve never been able to make it through it. Though I adore musicals more than any straight boy should, that stupid “Candyman” song sends me screaming from the room. But I love nearly every moment of the Burton effort; the one scene that falls flat for me is the brief bit with the young Willie Wonka walking through the hall of flags.
I would also protest that it’s not accurte to call the earlier film the original. C&tCF is not a remake of WW&tCF; it is an adaptation of the Roald Dahl story, which WW&tCF also uses as a source.
I like the Burton film better than the original (other than Wilder). I love the book and all Dahl’s works. It did bother me that Burton somehow managed to make all the candy, the candy scenery, and the fudge river look disgusting instead of fantastically delicious.
Chicken Fingers–yes, it was disgusting, wasn’t it? It also didn’t feel real. It just felt computer generated. I really wanted to walk off into the Gene Wilder version and actually eat the cream filled shrooms (heh) and the flower tea cup (which apparently was really made of wax, I think).
Oompas on the storm…