I have seen both movies and have been wondering which was more true to the book? I had read James and the Giant Peach several times as a youth, but none of Dahl’s other books. Particularly, I was wondering which ending was more like the book’s.
The book ends with Wonka, Charlie, and his family flying off into space in the Great Glass Elevator.
Neither movie ends like that, though I think the new one is closer.
No it doesn’t. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ends with them getting into Great Glass Elevator, to go directly back to the factory and live happily ever after.
In The Great Glass Elevator, Dahl introduces the whole space hotel thing, but there’s no hint of it in Chocolate Factory. Maybe a slight continuity problem if there was ever any intention to adapt The Great Glass Elevator for film – but I think we all know that that’s never going to happen.