Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

Am I the only one happy about this? My favorite movie director is doing a movie version of my favorite book (even though AIW has been done more than once).
We already know the casting of Alice, the Tweedle twins, and possibly the Mad Hatter. Who do you think should play the other characters? Here's who I think (well, the people I picture playing):

White Rabbitersonally, Anthony Daniels should play him. It would be awesome! (pictures C-3PO wearing a pair of fake bunny ears and carrying a large pocketwatch).
Queen of Hearts: Helena Bonham-Carter (no surprise if she does)
Cheshire Cat:Either Danny Elfman or Tim Curry (lots of women will find that attractive)
Caterpillar:Alan Rickman!!!!!
Dormouse:Timothy Spall
Duchess:Cathrine O'Hara (I would love to see her in another Tim Burton film).
Bill (the lizard who goes down the White Rabbit's chimney):Eric Idle.

Sorry, couldn't think of anybody for the March Hare and such.

 

Wow.
What can I say...
I can't imagine a movie I'd be less interested in seeing. Except for that Quarentine film with the blair-witch motion-sickness cam and the really moronic-looking story.

Let's see: Slightly vampish Alice finds a heroine needle with just a little left in it, and goes on the drug trip from hell. Her jungian protoforms and archetypes emerge to help her deal with the HIV ripping apart her system.
Can't you just see it?
Maybe if they gave it a different title...
How about "Tim Burton tortures another british children's novel"? No?

Sorry. After TB's Chocolate Factory and the last version of saw of AiW (horrible video transfer of some BBC production), I don't care if I never see another. If I get nostalgic, I'll pick of a copy of the book.

 

I may not be his biggest fan either but I don't recall Burton ever exploring Drugs or HIV in his films.

 

I'm actually excited about this. Burton is capable of fine work, and the Alice "duology" (Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass) seems perfect for his sensibilities. Fantasy and absurdity are his bread and butter; where he usually falters are action sequences, of which Alice contains relatively few. As brilliant as the Disney animated classic is, it excises a large number of Alice's encounters, and focuses on song and visual spectacle as opposed to a faithful rendition of the text. I don't expect Burton to be any more faithful necessarily -- with its wordplay and lack of plot, it could be argued that the Alice books are unfilmable -- but we may see the Pig and Pepper and Tart-Stealing chapters come to life, and, if Burton decides to tackle Looking Glass, the chess elements that are so intrinsic to that work. I think this is an excellent opportunity for Burton to flex his imagination muscle, which is considerable in size.

Meanwhile, I cannot imagine where Koohii is deriving his feeling that drugs, AIDS and Jungian archetypes will somehow play a part in this film. Burton has never dealt with any of those topics.

 

I've disliked Burton ever since "Sleepy Hollow".

I mean, that was suppose to be spooky, he should've knocked it out of the park...instead, it became a bizarre cavalcade of his usual troop of weirdos doing things that had nothing to do with the original story.

I would expect much the same of Alice.

 

My parents have a copy of the 1972 version called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (had to check wikipedia to see which version it was).

It still scares me...I just watched a clip on YouTube...gave me the chills.

 

Well, it's a Tim Burton film, so Johnny Depp will be in it and Danny Elfman willm do the music. That's always a given when Burton is involved.

 

Alice in Wonderland IS freaky, for years and years I mistakenly thought of it as a children's story until I found out that Carroll was high as a kite when he wrote it.

 

^ ^ ^ That is not a known or in any way a proven assumption. Carroll (ne Dodson), like many of his contemporaries, may have taken a legal and socially acceptable opium derivative called laudanam which, in large doses, could produce a dreamlike, mild hallucinatory state. But he also had a condition, associated with migraine headaches and epileptic seizures, which caused an optical size-differentiation problem, and some other visual distortions similar to those described in the Alice stories. He was also a clever wordsmith who enjoyed playing with language and, oh yes, the Alice stories were written primarily for children.

 

It's the perfect project for Burton. I hated "Sweeney Todd" and hope he never does a dark musical again. But Alice in Wonderland is weird enough for him to bite his teeth into.

 

Alice in Wonderland is the ultimate Druggie story, to the point where you have that obnoxious 70s song that is used by unimaginative directors whenever they want to show that someone is tripping out on drugs ("One pill makes you big, and one pill makes you small... Go ask Alice"). Another popular deconstructionist idea is that Alice was experimenting with drugs, which is why the stories don't make much sense. The same people like to cue up "Dark Side of the Moon" while watching Wizard of Oz. While the rest of my rant was outside Burton's usual tactics and range, it is entirely within the scope of the modern drug world.
If Burton is willing to turn Icabod Crane from a school teacher into a forensic investigator and Willie Wonka into a Michael Jackson-style pervert, who knows what travesty he'd be willing to commit now.

 

I could see Alan Rickman being a really good Cheshire Cat, actually.

 

Apparently Anne Hathaway and Helen Bonham Carter have joined the cast.

 

Great casting so far. I'm really looking forward to this film.

 

A series of minor corrections: "Go Ask Alice" was composed in the 60s by rock group Jefferson Airplane, and on a personal note is one of my favorite songs. However, any notion that the Alice author (Lewis Carroll, born Charles Dodgson) was experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs is purely a 20th-century invention. Dodgson experienced seizures and suffered from intense migraines, one of the effects of which is spatial and size distortion. He was also fascinated with language and had a penchant for absurdity, which playfulness shows up not only in Alice but many other works of his as well. This "druggie" idea derives from contemporary minds applying modern thought to an earlier period, and is not substantiated in any of Dodgson's numerous letters or writings.

Since Burton has never shown a penchant for addressing drug-related subject matter, there is no logical reason to conclude he'll do so with Alice.

 

Sorry, not my vintage of song.

I agree with you about the modernist reinterpretation/deconstruction. Some of the "it makes perfect sense if these characters are drug addicts/deviants/alternate lifestyle" annoy me.

Again, however, Tim Burton is prone to making major changes to character types and backgrounds to suit himself. Remember, he changed a nerdy school teacher to an inquisitor/special investigator/detective.

I'll stop now, and leave this thread to people more interested in the movie.

 

I am intrigued, at least. I think I'll go from there once I see some trailers. Anyway, Tim Burton has had his hit and misses, but also some fairly good movies. He does have a way of changing characters to fit his own interest. However, this could be a pretty good match up with him. After all, it's already a rather strange and creepy story.

 

Wait. Hold it right there. You mean that Tim Burton is putting Helena Bonham Carter into his movie? Shocking! Unprecedented!

I'm getting sick of it. Saw Charlie, saw Sweeny, saw Corpse Bride. Liked the former two. I also like Nightmare Before Christmas. But how often is Tim Burton going to do creepy stories with weird, messed up characters and put his wife in them? Too much. I think I'll be skipping this one.


Edit: By the way, Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter. I'm sick of him in all of Burton's movies as well. And just in general. Is seems like every time there's a weir character, he's played by Depp. I know he's done some other stuff (Finding Neverland, Secret Window) and other non-Burton stuff (Pirates) but I'm still really sick of him.

 

Totally agree! ^^^ So predictable and annoying. I'll put money on Danny Elfman doing the music, too.

 

It might be predictable casting, but Bonham-Carter is a damn fine actress, and I can't think of a single reason to despise Depp. Anyway, both roles are small. Alice is very much an ensemble piece, with the heroine meeting madness and absurdity in a variety of forms. Why not give the film a chance to prove itself, and take it on its own merits, rather than dismissing it because the director likes casting the same actors in most of his films?

 

Because after a while, it starts to seem like the same thing. I adore Sweeny Todd, bought the movie and the soundtrack, but I saw it in theaters and was like "This is amazing, but after this, it's time for a break." It just gets stale. Even Burton's weirdness gets old. It stops being new and different. Even though it differs from movie to movie, it becomes boring.

 

I'm not exactly the world's biggest Tim Burton fan. I love Ed Wood and the original Batman, and, if I'm in the mood for a sappy modern-day fairy tale, Edward Scissorhands. But Big Fish is vastly overrated, Mars Attacks! is only mildly amusing, and POTA is probably the worst big-budget film ever made in the history of cinema. That said...

This is Alice! A work of superb literary genius! An absurdist romp into the depths of abstract mythopoeia and surrealist fun with language! The children's classic to end all children's classics! Living chess boards! Mad denizens of the deep dark woods! Idiotic queens issuing executive orders! Talking animals! Nevermind talking animals -- animals wearing waistcoats!! Hookah-smoking caterpillars! The Lobster Quadrille! Stolen Tarts! A pool of tears! The Jabberwocky! A Lion and a Unicorn! I ask you -- how can you miss such fantastical frivolity?

Simply because you, er, loved the director's last movie but are tired of his "weirdness" and his repetitive casting efforts? Pardon me, but the absurdity of that line of reasoning belongs squarely in Wonderland.

 

I did love the last one. Sweeny Todd is brilliant. But after it I couldn't watch Depp or Bonham Carter in another movie without sighing.

Plus, I never really liked the Disney Alice, and I've never read the book, so I'm not drawn to it.

 

Oh, I highly recommend the two Alice books: in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass. It'll take you perhaps an afternoon and an evening to read them both. They're ridiculously funny, wickedly witty and eye-poppingly imaginative. Parts are dated and quaint, but overall they stand the test of time. Moreover, if you look closely you can discern a degree of influence on nearly every children's tale to follow through the 20th century, from the Oz books of 100 years ago to Miyazaki's films today.

If you're not interested in reading Alice or seeing the upcoming Burton film, that of course is your choice. I for one am hoping this thread will pick up more traffic from posters who actually want to see the film, or who love the books, rather than people dismissing them.