Friday, March 19, 2010

Did Walt Disney off Tim Burton's head?

... in Harry Potter execution style, Chronicles of Narnia execution style, Lord of the Ring execution style?

I can't come up with another explanation for Tim Burton to turn the curious Wonderland to this dull "Underland". And I can't help but think of...

Six impossible things in Wonderland:

  1. "The" Alice. We are all Alices. And Alice could be Ada, Mabel, or her sister. Alice could also be dreaming this, or being dreamed of.
  2. "The" path pre-told on a scroll. To wonder in Wonderland is to endlessly meander in the land of undecipherable, unknowable mysteries. If you can predict what's going to happen next (like you could in the movie), it isn't Wonderland.
  3. Slaying or flesh eating of any kind. All the animals and even plants could talk. It's much too confusing to even begin to think about turning these creatures into food. The queen only yells "Off with their heads!" as an expression of her uncontrollable passion. No head ever flies off. The Jabberwocky is a long riddle, not an actual dragon. You can try to solve it; there's no point in slaying it.
  4. Not being confused about proper manners, or laughing at them. How else can you learn who you are while navigating in a world of unanswerable puzzles and unreasonable demands? How else can you fight boredom on a hot summer day?
  5. Action before reasoning. After all, that's how one keeps one's head amidst all the madness.
  6. Mad Hatter dancing like a poor Michael Jackson impersonator.
And these six impossibilities (maybe minus the last), together with Tim Burton's imagination and seeing Johnny Depp in 3D, are precisely the reasons why we were all excited about the movie before it came out, and got invariably disappointed after seeing it.

I did like Anne Heatherway's rendition of the "white queen". She was more Alice than Alice herself.

1 comment:

eva lee said...

Cosmo-alice, don't be maddened by Tim's version.

As long as I 'survey' on the movie-seers, it is funny to find out:

1. those who haven't read original "Alice in wonderland" b4, love Tim.

2. those who read the book hate Tim.

For me, I keep questioning about the Ads... Shouldn't Alice be the one to look at? It turns out the Hatter --- (Ha, FAMOUS Depp)over-rules all the poster upfront.

What message did Tim want to bring out?

At first I thought 'Alice in wonderland' was somekind of hidden political-Sarcasm; just like "Gulliver's travel". But according from newspaper's review, it was merely a little story---
A teacher (neighbour) who befriended with little girl Alice.

Alice's grandma once suspected this neighbour wanted to marry Alice, but they were just friends. After Alice married, she named her second child for his name.

Better mood now?