Is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland really that awful?

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

It certainly wasn't anything more than mediocre at the best of times, competent in some areas like some of the visual design but that's about it. I could not tell you a single thing that happened in the film. All I remember is cringing on multiple occasions due to painful script writing and whatever the fuck that was at the end. TO completely honest, that pretty much sums up my opinion of Burton's films in general.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

It kinda is, yeah. They took a book that, to this day, is one of the most unique, clever and witty childrens stories and tried to turn it into... well, Narnia, pretty much. I was really dissapointed in it. But to Burtons credit: It looked fantastic, the direction was really not what was wrong with the movie. The problem was the script.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

But that's just it, it's NOT Alice in Wonderland, any more than "Fallout: Equestria" is a loving adaptation of the exact same story as My Little Pony (and no, don't let anyone tell you that it is).

It's a completely different setting that just happens to have all of the same characters....in name at least, though their characterizations have shifted significantly to drive the film's new tone. It's not Alice in Wonderland, it's a movie with Alice and her friends in it, but the plot is different, the tone's different, their behavior and reactions are different, etc. It goes beyond stylistic changes. Burton ripped out everything that made the original story what it was.

Maybe that's just the way I've come to see adaptations of any sort. At this point I'm really not sure why people (Tim Burton in this case) can't resist putting their own "spin" on things. I can understand it if the source material is scarce in story (the Battleship movie, they had to come up with something[footnote]Which, of course begs the question why bother to call the movie "Battleship" to begin with?[/footnote]) or if the source is just plain bad to begin with (Eragon [footnote]Not like this gives the movie much excuse since all they did was make a bad book into a worse movie.[/footnote]), or if there would be difficulties because of technology limitations, budget, running time, or what you can actually show (Constantine and his smoking), but if you have a good source, and all people want is to see that source translated as directly as possible, why do the extra work? The template already exists, you won't get in trouble for plagiarism, just friggin copy it.

For what it's worth, I don't like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, I have no knowledge of the original source material (the book), as far as I'm concerned, the first movie is the source material, and in comparison, it seemed completely pointless to make another film as I see nothing wrong with the original. I like the portrayal of Willy Wonka by Gene Wilder much more than Johnny Depp in the same role, amongst other things.

yeah although i didn't mind alice in wonderland, nightmare before xmas, 9 and frankenweenie are all amazing and show off his work a lot better. not to say he hasn't done good live action, but animation is where he really does shine.

I'm not sure if I want to give credit for 9 to Tim Burton, he's a producer, but it's more Shane Acker than it is Tim Burton. I can see why Tim Burton would support it, but it's not the same style of "weirdness" that's seen in The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, Vincent and Frankenweenie.

 

[Axolotl]

It's not a good film.On it's own merits it's just a generic fantasy film with decent actors and an awful script. However as an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland it's a vacuous that misses the point and replaces what was unique and interesting about the story with the typical chosen one in epic war of good against evil garbage that Hollywood's so in love with.

Also the main moral is that Alice learns to be herself and defy convention by doing what everyone around her tells her to do without question so it's message is pretty fucking dumb.

 

[Nazulu]

Every time I heard Tim Burtons name on something I would always go out and see it. He wasn't anywhere near the best at any thing but I generally enjoyed most of the films he was a part of.

His Alice In Wonderland though is possibly the most painful pile I've had to sit through. I can't remember all my problems with it now since it's been awhile. Actually, I can't say much at all.

I found all the characters annoying one way or another, especially Alice. I can remember she believed she was in a dream for most of the movie, even after she got cut. They showed all the classic characters at one point early in it and then most of them were never saw again. Johnny Depp and he's retarded dance. I generally found the dialogue either corny or stupid and their was nothing to the execution for the intro and everything else.

I did like the design of the armoured card men and the dragon though.

 

[McMarbles]

Tim Burton's been making the same movie over and over again for the last twenty-odd years, and I'm glad people are finally acknowledging it.

 

[lacktheknack]

Tim Burton's been making the same movie over and over again for the last twenty-odd years, and I'm glad people are finally acknowledging it.

Having a certain aesthetic style doesn't mean you're making the same movie, and you look silly for saying that.

But go ahead: Tell me how James and the Giant Peach is the same as Sweeny Todd is the same as Corpse Bride is the same as Dark Shadows is the same as Sleepy Hollow.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I like weird stuff.

I like gothic aesthetic.

I don't really like Tim Burton's work; you're right about his pandering to emo gothic kids, even though actual gothic culture and aesthetic has little to do with what it's considered now, except from a few historical connections. I do like some of his movies, though. I thought Alice in Wonderland was ok, though. Then again, I haven't read the books, so any of my assumptions about innacuracies are just going to be speculation.

 

[Strain42]

Tim Burton is still a perfectly fine director if you like his visual style, which I'll confess that I do, despite growing out of my pseudo-goth phase about a decade ago.

Alice in Wonderland though was bad. It wasn't bad because of Tim Burton though. It was just poorly written. The script wasn't interesting, and the talented actors that worked on this movie felt badly directed (okay, maybe that was Tim Burton...) like Anne Hathaway as the queen is super annoying, and I usually like her in things. Also it doesn't help but that the majority of his films, ESPECIALLY Alice in Wonderland boil down to "Come watch Johnny Depp be 'wacky' for about two hours."

I'm at the point now where yeah, I pretty much don't like most Tim Burton movies anymore. Even if they look and sound beautiful (thank you Danny Elfman for being the only good part of Charlie and the Chocolate factory) a lot of the times they just suffer from a bad script so what I get is the movie equivalent of ribbon candy from an old folk's home.

It may still look shiny and pretty, but chances are good it's going to leave a pretty bad taste in your mouth...

For what it's worth though, I did really like Frankenweenie. I mean it's not phenomenal, but it's still enjoyable. It was well written, well paced, well directed, overall just a fun movie.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

It was just a rushed experience in my opinion. Had they taken a calm pace in a longer movie and given everything a chance to sink in, it could've been pretty good. But what they ended up with was something that went from one rushed action scene to the next meaningless one.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

It was very, very...

meh.

I'd say something about it being an insult to its source material, but then again, the source material isn't as good as its cult status would lead you to believe. It all revolves around one gimmick: a world without basic logic. That's it. It's a bland character meeting wacky character after wacky character without anything having a point. (Which is kind of the point, because it's a world without logic, get it? har-die-har-har-har! ugh...)

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I watched it for the first time recently (as in a few days ago) and just thought it was a bit crap. The only thing I really remember was the cat, which was kind of cool looking and slightly creepy. Apart from that it just seems like a generic adventure movie, and something has gone horribly wrong if you manage to make Alice in Wonderland seem boring and mundane.

Also, the Jabberwocky pissed me off. It's a nonsense creature in a nonsense poem. It's supposed to whiffle through the tulgey wood, burbling as it comes. How do they represent this bizarre creature in the movie?

...

It's a dragon.

...

Alice kills it.

I think that just about summarises what is wrong with this movie.

That's a terrible reason to dislike the movie, it's Jabberwock is entirely consistent with the source material.

Spoiler: Compare the Jabberwock in the film

Spoiler: and this actual Lewis Carroll approved illustration in 'Through the Looking-Glass'

The whole plot of the movie is basically 'Jabberwocky' as a prophecy about Alice. You can say it's a boring prophecy but I don't think there's any arguing that it's an inaccurate execution of the idea.

 

[Axolotl]

It was very, very...

meh.

I'd say something about it being an insult to its source material, but then again, the source material isn't as good as its cult status would lead you to believe. It all revolves around one gimmick: a world without basic logic. That's it. It's a bland character meeting wacky character after wacky character without anything having a point. (Which is kind of the point, because it's a world without logic, get it? har-die-har-har-har! ugh...)

Um, no. It's not a world without logic, that's like as far as you can get from what it's about. It's about logic, Lewis Carroll was a logician and Alice in Wonderland is a protracted series of logic games that are entertaining enough to sucker in a much wider audience.

 

[Story]

Throw me in with the bunch that thought it was a pretty awful movie.

I also love Tim Burton's stuff too, but Alice was easily the worst I've seen of his movies. I'm actually kinda baffled that the movie was as successful as it was, considering how "by the numbers" it felt. The biggest problem I had with the movie was the "its your destiny plot". Alice was said to defeat the evil queen and slay the Jabberwocky right near the beginning of the film. From that point, at least for for the audience, it was just waiting for that climax. Thus there was really no surprises because the movie practically told us what was going to happen from the get go.

I can't say I hate Alice that much though. Thanks to that film's success, Hollywood started this wacky "dark fairy tale trend". Believe me when I say we have Alice in Wonderland to thank for Jack the Giantslayer, Hansel and Gredal, Snow White and the Huntsman, The Wizard of Oz, and even that up coming Sleeping Beauty spin off. Some of those movies I actually really liked.

 

[The White Hunter]

So far as I'm concerned it'sd not bad in itself, but as an adaptation/sequel/thing to alice in wonderland it's pretty much as Doug Walker puts it in his latest NC video.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

I have't watched the whole thing. The bit I did catch on TV was about when she was holding hands with the Twiddles to when she slayed the dragon jabberwalky.

It did feel like somebody decided this had to be the next Lord of the Rings (and considering how much money this film made, it succeeded on that front), so we had to have the macguffin that Alice slays the dragon jabberwalky with, as foretold by prophecy a list of ... days?

Johny was pretty good as the hatter, Alice was just boring. The most interesting character in my mind was the little mouse, of all things.

The CGI and design was wonderful, although "American Mcgee's Alice" had a more interesting "dark wonderland" than the film. It felt like Burton wasn't willing to go whole hog in either direction of "childlike wonder" or "dark land," so we get an unhappy medium.

What really killed the film was that I never felt sold on the story or the illusion. There was never any tension, it never felt like Alice was doing anything but being dragged to the next story check mark on the "Hero with a thousand faces" plot-line. It never felt like she was ever in any danger.

Maybe I just spend to much time on TVtropes.

For comparison, the Disney movie had colorful and cheerful visuals. Yet, the world felt like a dangerous, evil place hiding under all the beauty. Alice was brought from one crazy, uncaring person/thing/place to another. There was this undertone that Alice was as alien to the everyone in Wonderland as they were to her. She isn't a great savior, who was destined to bring peace to the land, she was a lost girl desperately trying to find her way OUT of the mad house, yet every step she takes following the rabbit only brings her deeper.

 

[DementedSheep]

I've found that Burton does reasonably well with his own products (minus a couple of misses like Dark Shadows). His adaptations tend to horribly mangle the source material and be a little one-noted in tone though. His fascination with Johnny Depp also tends to muck things up since Depp has entered his caricature phase in the '00s.

Dark Shadows is an adaptation of an old TV soup opera not his own creation and yes that movie was awful.

 

[Voulan]

It was meant to be American McGee's Alice at one point, so that's mostly why I hate Burton's version because we really missed out on a better adaption.

Then there's the weird forced sort of love interest between Hatter and Alice which was stupid and awkward, the boring war and the One Hero ending, and let's not forget that he made the same stupid mistake as most Alice adaptions where they make the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen the same bloody person. They're not even in the same original books! The Red Queen features in Through the Looking Glass as the queen piece for the red chess pieces. She's not even shown as being enemies with the White Queen. The Queen of Hearts meanwhile is only in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He probably did it to make the bland film trope of good against bad army.