The official Tim Burton's "Alice In Wonderland" trailer (spoilers)

Cafe Society
#1

Here it is. And it looks as if the film is going down the rabbit hole indeed!

I’m iffy about it. The SFX, sets & costumes look quite imaginative, but Alice is no longer an adolescent girl, but a late teenaged girl. Tweetledum & Tweetledee are present, so it certainly won’t be a faithful adaptation (they didn’t actually appear in the original “AIW”, they’re characters from “Through the Looking Glass.”)

It looks as if they’re cramming a not-to-subtle sexual subtext into the story. When Alice drinks the shrinking potion, she shrinks right out of her proper Victorian dress, and apparently struts around in ‘drawers’ (Victorian word for undies) that for some reason expose a lot of her chest area. (If her dress doesn’t shrink, why then do her drawers shrink?) The Mad Hatter also seems to be lusting after her something bad as well.

I suppose I’ll go see it, but from the look of the trailer, it seems as if it’ll be more “Planet of the Apes” than “Edward Scissorhands.”

#2

Fuck Tim “Let’s Goth This Up A Bit” Burton. He’s a hack.

His wife is a shitty actress, too.

#3

Meh, I’ll probably watch it as well. It will be hard to get disappointed if I’m not expecting anything of it.

#4

Doesn’t look all that interesting to me frankly.

I’d rather see the McGee’s Alice movie that is (apparantly…) coming out.

#5

Someone recently commented that adaptations generally suck when the person making them has no understanding of what makes the original great. Just from the trailer it’s obvious that this is the case. It’s just an Alice themed Tim Burton film. If it looked like it had its own story, rather than just being an adventure story like the original, I might be interested in seeing it. But I don’t get the sense that it does. That means that it’s just going to be a series of scenes that are meaningless because the original point has been lost, and all that has been put in to replace it is fancy art direction.

I’ve already seen Burton’s artistic sense in plenty of movies. And while I don’t dislike it, I need more than that in a movie.

#6

While I personally like Burton’s work, I’ve always maintained that Terry Gilliam would have been been perfect for this. In a pinch, maybe Joe Dante or Sam Raimi.

Burton tends toward pathos and melancholy, neither of which suit this material.

#7

Terry Gilliam would have brought a great aesthetic to the film, but Joe Dante gets what it is to be a kid, without being stupid. I’ve long thought that the job he did on the first 2 Harry Potter movies will never be matched by any other director for that series. They looked great, they were fun and engaging, fast paced, and never dumbed down or maudlin. Yer right: he would have done a great job.

Unfortunately, Mr. “I ‘Re-Imagine’ Shit 'Cause All I Got Is Goth” was handed the job.

#8

It wasn’t bad enough that he made such a mess of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, they’re going to let him fail at another children’s movie? Ugh.

#9

Am I the only one to LOVE the trailor, and put the date in my calendar? I’m a big Burton fan, and this movie looks wonderful. I will try to see it in 3 D!

#10

My sentiments are similar. After what was done to Charlie, I don’t think I’ll bother, unless I get good feedback from people who’ve seen it.

#11

That wasn’t Joe Dante, that was Chris Home Alone Columbus, and IMHO it was only after they got rid of him did the HP series have some real life breathed into it.

#12

How many Goth-y versions of Alice in Wonderland does the world need? I’m not just talking this and McGee’s but it seems to be the go-to story for artwork and the like. Yeah, yeah… it’s all trippy and if you give everyone pale makeup and have them giggle in an uncomfortable manner it’ll be just mind blowing.

Meh. I just can’t imagine anything new being added to it.

#13

I agree on all counts. Columbus is pedestrian, IMHO. (He wrote the story for Dante’s Gremlins, which may be the source of the confusion.)

#14

Burton’s schtick is tired and overdone. He needs to go back to what he was doing with Big Fish and get away from the goth shit.

It used to be that hearing his name on a film meant something good, now it’s just another piece of crap that is bound to have his wife and Mr. Depp in starring roles. The guy keeps doing the same thing over and over and it’s way past it’s time.

It’s really sad that he turned Sweeney Todd into something that bored me, because I love the original soundtrack with Angela Landsbury. It’s just disappointing.

#15

No. I think it looks awesome and I can’t wait to see it!

#16

While some of his films in the past have indeed been marvelous, I have to concur that many of his recent projects have been soulless enterprises, heavy on the production values but with little heart. Charlie. Sweeney. Apes. Hollow. All stylized to the gills but with very little alive underneath. This looks very much the same (w/even more irritating CG than anything else he’s done). :sigh:

#17

I look forward to it - style over substance has never offended me when it comes to art.

#18

There is plenty of pathos and melancholy in the original work. Even the sexual subtext fits the underlying theme – Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass are full of angsty subtext about growing up, dealing with arbitrary rules and living in a society where conformity is expected regardless of the rationale behind that expectation. The novels have a tragic undertone meant to underscore the process of losing one’s innocence.

AIW &TTLG are my favorite books ever, so I am out of my mind excited about the possibility of this film. I’ve yet to be satisfied with any movie adaptation of the novels, though the Disney version was nice (despite being a bit too sanitized.) I really don’t think I can predict anything about this film from the trailer.

At any rate, my ass will be one of the first in line on March 5th (incidentally the day following my birthday… happy birthday to me!)

#19

Didn’t I hear that this is essentially a sequel to the Disney animated Alice? Or did I imagine that?

#20

:smack:

thanks for the correction

Nah, I’m going to blame my insomnia. Yeah, that’s what it was.