A couple of years ago, I suggested that a good mind to tackle Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland would be Tim Burton, as he has the surreal mind to handle it properly, at the disturbing and twisted level it ought to be portrayed. Larry Mudd seemed to agree.
Well, the Gods are smiling. Burton has been asked to do a 3D version of Alice for Disney involving some amount of motion capture. Plus a new version of his own story, Frankenweenie.
I can’t wait to see what he comes up with!
That is unbelievably exciting. I am a tremendous fan of the books, but I’ve yet to see a truly great adaptation to film. Here’s hoping…
That’s good news, but there’s something really hosed up in your link, unless that’s your version of linking down the rabbit hole…
Bollocks, I messed up. Sorry. Not sure how I managed that.
Yeah, there was a video game called American McGee’s Alice. Sounds about right. probably give the kids nightmares.
The video game gave me nightmares. Though it was awesome. But I love Tim Burton and am looking forward to it.
What parts are played (voiced & motion captured from, I suppose) by Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter? Has he said yet?
Just an easy guess, but I can see Depp as the Madd Hatter and Carter as the Queen of course.
Lol, I heard of this news earlier, and this is exactly what me and a friend agreed on.
Depp would also make a great White Rabbit - that wide eyed startled thing he did so well (and annoyingly) in Sleepy Hollow…
Ok, I’m a touch confused. Is this just based on the books or is it an adaptation of American McGee’s Alice? The AM version has been in the works for years.
I don’t think this has anything to do with American McGee’s Alice. This is going to be a Disney film, so it won’t be quite so murderously twisted, just dark and edgy like the original book (I hope).
Maybe I’m the only one but I’m pretty much over anything done by the Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Danny Elfman trio.
I think they peaked with Edward Scissorhands. After that it goes downhill.
Sure the films are pretty to look at but they come off as so emotionless.
Sleepy Hollow was boring as well as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride.
Just how many times can you do “Creepy-Whimsical” before it gets old.
I was really pumped when i read the title seeing as Alice and Wonderland was always one of my favorites growing up but why the health does it have to be 3D?
Gah, I can’t stand 3D. I hope there is a non 3D option.
I liked Sleepy Hollow, disliked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride.
Ed Wood was a good movie and Big Fish was great. (Obviously no Depp in that one).
Jim
Which is my main concern too, fearing this will be more about Tim Burton than Lewis Carroll. Such is the diva-heavy era in which we live. Poor Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass. There’s so much cerebral enjoyment from its logician author, most of which gets jettisoned when it’s dramatized and all they leave us is costume design.
Here’s an overview of the last century’s worth of Alice movies, (YouTube Link) (Yes, they made a porno/musical of Alice, back in the ambitious 1970’s. She’s been exploited for the conceits of every era, but still she endures; hopefully until the day when girls emulate her but who will have never heard of Cinderella.
I can see Carter as the Duchess, but I’m picturing live action here, with Carter in a fat suit and a prosthetic chin.
I’m not convinced. I tend to agree more with Slithy Tove (who, with a name like that, ought to know what he’s talking about):
The Alice books are, first and foremost, works of humor, in much the same vein as Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett—humor which is at times dark, at times surreal, at times cartoonish, but very much logical. Lewis Carroll had the mind of a parodist, not a surrealist.
The closest I can come to thinking of a good mind to tackle Alice In Wonderland is the collective mind of Monty Python in their prime.
I think the mere fact that it’s all inside Alice’s head is enough to say there are elements of surrealism.
But you’re not going to get that, of course. Terry Gilliam, maybe, but he’s probably too dark. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, maybe, or Guillermo Del Toro might do a good job. Or Alfonso Cuaron. But I think Tim Burton suits the storybook stylisation of the tale, giving it the lighter tone it would need to appeal to a wider audience.
Czech animator Jan Svankmajer’s 1988 film Neco z Alenky, aka Alice, is the definitive weird Alice movie. Burton’s just a hack, a dabbler with a fourteen year old’s view of what’s dark and disturbing. Shit, check out Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which covers similar ground to a lot of Burton’s movies but is just plain terrifying in its bleakness and horror: no happy endings here, kids.