How old is she? As others have noted, kids won’t sit for something just because it’s animated. Younger kids, especially, need something happening every few minutes just to keep them engaged. She might be more up for the Spongebob Squarepants movie instead (recommended in a Tex Avery screwball comedy way).
Pixar, yes; Disney, no.
Sorry, Cal. I don’t mean to continue the hijack too much, but I can’t really see it that way. The Disney version is simply the worst when it comes to fidelity to the text. Carroll’s extremely clever puns are discarded and replaced with weak ones. Why? Lines are mangled and then put into different character’s mouths as though it doesn’t matter who says them. It’s infuriating how often Wonderland creatures’ lines are given to Alice, completely altering the concept of her character.
Not a single verse of a single poem makes it into the film without dubious ‘improvements.’ Bits of Jabborwocky spoojed into The Walrus and the Carpenter?
A representative example of how Carroll’s verse it treated: Alice’s recitation of Father William. Only one verse makes it in, and it’s given to Tweedledee. Carroll’s version:
Put through the Disney-fier, it becomes:
And Alice wanders off, leaving Tweedledee bouncing up and down. Oh yeah. Brilliant.
The ‘abridged’ Walrus and the Carpenter isn’t much better. Again, there’s only one verse of poetry, and it’s a spooje of Carroll’s 1st, 4th, and 5th verses. I’m sorry, but…
…does not remotely do justice to…
After that one mangled verse, the Disney version degenerates into a manic exchange with only the most tenuous connection to the poem. Don’t get me started on “Callooh! Callay! Come run away! We’re the cabbages and kings!” :rolleyes:
Whoops, too late.
Anyway, back on topic, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with Disney’s '50s animation tech – it’s that the script is very, very poor stuff. They use a lot of fragments that, in the book, are set-ups for jokes, and then leave out the punchlines. Carroll’s witticisms are refered to, but mangled to the point where the joke is lost. That “two spoons” bit you like is a prime example. It’s an elegant joke in the book. “Two days wrong. I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” “But it was the best butter.” “Yes, but some crumbs must have gotten in as well. You shouldn’t have put it in with the bread knife.”
Having the March Hare and the Hatter cramming everything on the table into the watch for five minutes while the White Rabbit (Argh! He doesn’t even belong at the table – it ruins an esoteric joke,) goes into hysterics about it, the joke (that it’s accepted that quality butter is better for watchworks than the cheap stuff) is lost in the noise.
Timeline:
November 1937: The Old Mill is released.
December 1937: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is released.
March 1938: Walt Disney Productions receives an Academy Award for the development of the multi-plane camera. Note the two original release posters halfway down that page: “in the marvelous MULTIPLANE TECHNICOLOR”.
August 1942: Bambi is released.
How could she possibly like Bambi? Does it have ninja assassins? Giant robots? I didn’t think so.
Is there such thing as “real” (as in hand-drawn cell animation) anymore?
Masamune Shirow’s Appleseed (http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/appleseed.html) uses some kind of motion-capture technique combined with CGI models with a “pen and ink” or “toon” shader to give the illusion of cell animation. Some scenes look really cool but others look too “rendered” and almost 3D for my tastes. Also the characters seem to lack the expressiveness of traditional anime.
The new Keanu Reeves movie A Scanner Darkly (http://www.apple.com/trailers/warner_independent_pictures/a_scanner_darkly.html) looks like they used some kind of rotoscoping technique. I’m still on the fence whether I think it looks cool or like they traced over the characters.
Peter Chung (Aeon Flux, Reign) does some good work, but it’s a little too bizaare for little kids.
I guess Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke) still does traditional cell animation. He uses CGI techniques but at least he’s subtle about it.
Then who killed Bambi’s mom?
Drat.
I was going by the way they spoke about it on the Bambi DVD as though it was all new. But of course, now I remember that it’s also referred to on the Snow White DVD, so I should’ve checked first.
A giant robot ninja assassin! From off camera…
Both make family movies.
Disney makes movies for kids and their parents.
Pixar makes movies for parents and their kids.
Pixar makes movies that an adult could concievably go see on their own and not feel embarassed about. Disney will slip in a reference here or there that young children will totally miss, but the parents may catch.
Hey, Larry , I didn’t say it was faithful. I said it put more of Carroll’s verse in, and it was a helluva lot more entertaining han any other version. And I stand by that.
I don’t care if Paramount had W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty. He shoulda been perfect, I agree. But he isn’t – he’s a bore.
I agree that they ddn’t use a lot of Carroll’s jokes. A lot of Carroll’s jokes wouldn’t have worked today. Times change, and a lot of them don’t work if you don’t know the context. Jokes based on conditions at Dodgson’s college and the Liddell’s girl’s school and using 19th century advertising simply won’t play in he mid- 20th century (or early 21st). If I didn’t have my Martin Gardner’s Complete Annotated Alice I wouldn’t get most of those jokes, either.
Poor joks? I’ll still take the ones I cited above. In the context of fast-moving performed comedy, I’ll take “two spoons” over “It was the best butter.” Blasphemy, but the one makes me laugh when I watch it, and the other doesn’t.
Well, I can’t argue with you there. De gustibus non est dispudendum, and all that. I suppose it’ll have to come down to a slapping contest.
Let’s fight 'til six, and then have supper. 
I can agree with that. It was more of the lumping of Roald Dahl and Lewis Carrol seming like a bit of “Whhaaaaaaa?”
But I do think that it isn’t “dark humor” so much as presenting allegories for the adult world–turning the scary parts of adulthood into lunacy to make it funny, so that Alice Liddel (or any other child who is told the story) when encountering these things in real life the first time, instead of being scared will be able to laugh off those bits and not worry so much.
But as for Disney messing with the specific lines from the book…I saw the movie first so I would imagine it is less disastrous to me. For me it was a reverse experience where the book was able to expand on the things I had already encountered and that was a nice experience after already having enjoyed the condensed version.