"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at."
We're getting our first official peek at Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland, set to be released in 3D next March. And well… wow.
I guess, as Erika noted last fall, we all knew Burton's phantasmagorical surrealism and Lewis Carroll's absurdist fantasy would be a good match, but… well, wow.
USA Today has an exclusive look at some of the film's stunning, panoramic production art, full of vivid, perfectly realized flowers with faces, giant mushrooms, dazzling animal topiary, and even a very cool, lumpy Tweedledee and Tweedledum. (You can jump right to the gallery here.) The stuff looks amazing, and I like the fact these designs have a sort of hazy feel. I hope that aged gauziness carried over to the actual sets and FX–too often Burton's finished product can look a bit plastic.
The new Alice is shot by Dariuze Wolski, the cinematographer for Burton's Sweeney Todd, as well as the Pirates of the Carribbean series and Dark City way back when. The production designer is longtime effects supervisor Robert Stromberg (this is his first PD role–he's also PDing James Cameron's Avatar), and the art direction supervisor is Stefan Dechant (Lady in the Water, and also Avatar).
Of course, the character everyone really wants to see is Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter and he's looking deadly, disturbingly perfect. And quite mad. Meet the Kabuki Carrot Top of your darkest nightmares!
The rest of the cast includes Mia Wasikowska as Alice, Burton's girlfriend Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, Micheal Sheen (the Hardest Working Man in Sho-biz, '09 Edition) as the White Rabbit, Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar, and Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat. Cripsin Glover and Timothy Spall are also on board.
Although this is a Disney film, as he did with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Burton is clearly treading that line between beloved children's story and his usual creepy, macabre sensibilities: the Red Queen's moat is filled with bobbing heads. (Videogame designer American McGee trod this sort of Dark Alice path in his very gothic 2000 PC game, a film adaption of which has long been in production limbo.) But Carroll's books themselves are filled with the sort of dark, disturbing imagery kids always crave. And no, Miley, not with drugs and perversion, you pinhead.
Well, okay, to be fair to the pinhead pop star, yes anyone dealing honestly with Carroll these days has to admit that his interest in young Alice Liddell is troubling to us now. (Scholars have long debated the nature of Carroll's attraction to young girls–and lack of interest in adult women.) Burton and screenwriter Linda Woolverton (the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Mulan) have side-stepped the issue somewhat by having their Alice be 17 years old, dragged on the day of her (arranged) engagement party back to a Wonderland she first visited a decade earlier but has forgotten.
As for Burton, I've always agreed with the stance that he is an amazing, imaginative visualist whose films, story-wise, are usually less than the sum of their dazzling parts. Lately he's been doing well by me with Big Fish, Chocolate Factory, and Sweeney Todd, but even those stick with me as wonderful moments, not brilliant overall films. Of course, Lewis's novel defies any sort of conventional plotting, relying more on logic and mathematical games for it's inner structure. But a Disney writer like Woolverton might give Burton exactly the sort of narrative grounding he so often needs.
I'm going to guardedly raise my expectations to "somewhat giddily hopeful" bordering on "I want to go there." This could be just the sort of uncommon nonsense we've been craving.
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Posted on June 24, 2009 at 7:43 pm
I don’t hate Burton’s Chocolate Factory — I don’t LOVE it, but then I never LOVED the Gene Wilder version. I guess my attitude is always, if you’re going to remake something, show me something new–either give me a faithful adaptation that hasn’t been truly done before, or go wildly off the rails and surprise me. Sure, most of the time the surprises turn out to be bad, but honestly, I’m all FOR epic mistakes rather than playing it safe.
And what I love about this very small look at Burton’s Alice is he seems to be doing BOTH: going back to a more faithful approach to some of the book’s wierdness AND coming up with new visual takes on it.
I am in no way “betting” Burton’s Alice will be as magnificent as many of us are hoping it will be–as I’ve said, he’s pretty consistent at disappointing expectations. You’re right–he is VERY capable of screwing stuff up. But what’s great about Burton is he’s always right there on the EDGE of something AMAZING, even if he rarely acheives it. And so again, it’s wonderful to THINK of what this MIGHT be.
Posted on June 24, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I was the OP on the Tom Petty post. Uh, I was kidding. I read the blog and the song started running through my head. I had to look up the video on youtube because it’d been 20 years since I’ve seen it. I didn’t realize how cool it was when I was a kid!
Yep. We’re all mad here.
Posted on June 24, 2009 at 9:33 pm
I think you mixed up my post & name at June 24, 2009 at 05:41 PM with the next one.
Alyss Heart Fan should’ve been with mine, not Locke Peterseim. Can you please fix?
Posted on June 24, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Ooooh, we found the Petty culprit!
See what happens, kids? You make a little casting joke and it becomes a chat room debate, then an Interwebs rumor, and eventually someone in a studio says “hmmmm, why not?”
That’s exactly how Liz Taylor ended up in the Flintstones…
Posted on June 24, 2009 at 9:46 pm
What does the ordering and authoring of the posts matter, Alyss Heart Fan? Everyone knows *I* write all the comments anyway… you’re all just online figments of my fevered imagination… Like right now — I’m arguing with myself about this…
(Hmmm, the Interwebs as Wonderland… THERE’S your new book premise…)
No, actually Alyss, the name of the commenter comes BELOW the comment — I know, it is genuinely confusing and you’re not the first to make that error.
But while you’re here, Alyss, can you tell us more about the “complete lie” and the Beddor books–I’m looking them up on Wiki right now and they sound great. Can you (or your daughter) give us a quick description of their premise?
Posted on June 25, 2009 at 8:21 am
I’ve never even seen the music video in question. I just think that appearance-wise, Petty would make a good mad hatter. But like I said, he doesn’t have the over-the-top personality to go with it.
As for the Chocolate factory, Each one had it’s incredible moments, and each one had a few that fell flat. Personally, I like the Charlie from the second better. I also think Depp did a great job with Wonka. I just wish the boat scene in the second had included the monologue from the boat scene in the first and not been so cartoonish. Other than that, I thought the Oompa Loompas were WAY better in the second. The songs weren’t nearly as catchy as in the first, but they were still fun to watch.
Posted on June 25, 2009 at 9:00 am
Remember — “Willie Wonka” was a silly, funny movie. It was remade as “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory”. It had a darker feel. Burton & Depp are like that. Now Tarantino — sick and twisted. But these styles and qualities of actors/actresses, producers & directors are WHAT sets them apart from their mundane peers. Face it — they’re making great movies for those of us who like them and that’s their job.
Posted on June 25, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Emily,
Put on your “big-girl pants”, pick up the shattered pieces of your sheltered, pitiful life, and go on.
Posted on June 25, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Okay, folks. I DID publish that last post from Emptybarnes. I didn’t really want to, but I’ve always said publish this stuff (except profanity) and let you guys sort it out.
But come ON.
Really?
Oh, I know, I know… “Emily” started it by saying “You all are so DAMN stupid, Johnny Depp is not all that freaking great,” and yep, that was a moronic comment on Emily’s part. But–and this is why I publish comments like that–it DID start a long, interesting and mostly thoughtful discussion about Depp. In hindsight, yeah, I think I should have just edited out the “You are all so DAMN stupid” part, and in the future I will.
But both of you, really? We can’t have a lively, passionate discussion about actors we like and dislike without calling names?
I’ll say this in Emily’s defense: She stupidly called names, but then at least she EXPLAINED why she was upset and in doing so raised interesting topics of discussion. Emptybarnes, what did YOU contribute to the discussion?
Sorry folks–I want to just publish most everything (except profanity) and let you guys talk it out, but in the future comments like Emptybarnes’ comment that are ONLY personal attacks and have NOTHING to say about any other topic will probably just not get published.
– Locke
Posted on June 25, 2009 at 2:46 pm
J DEPP IS GOOD AT WHAT HE DOES EVEN IF THE ROLES HE TAKES ARE NOT THE NORM AS FAR AS ACTION OR THRILLER ETC. YOU DO HAVE TO CONSIDER ALL THE OTHER GREAT ACTORS OUT IN THE MAINSTREAM AND J DEPP HAS BEEN THE CONSTANT FOR WELL OVER TEN YEARS. NOT MANY ACTORS CAN DO WHAT HE DOES, HOWEVER I BET IF YOU PUT HIM IN OCEANS TWELVE,MATRIX OR EVEN 300 I BET HE WOULD STILL PUT ALL THE EFFORT INTO HIS ROLES AND MAKE THE PART HIS OWN.. JUST THINK WE NEVER REFER TO THE NAMES OF THE MOVIES HE’S IN, WE REFER TO THEM AS A DEPP FLICK , CASE CLOSED.. I’M OUT IZZYDHAMUS
Posted on June 25, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Yeah, I don’t think his comment really qualified as anything but Majoritrolling.
Majoritroll – noun or verb.
1. As a noun: A person who makes inflammatory statements against those perceived as trolls or at least rude.
2. As a verb: to make inflammatory or derogatory statements about a person who dissents from the majority opinion (whether through derogative statements or actual conversational points) without including any actual value in any part of the post.
Posted on June 25, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Reverse Troll – See Majoritroll.
Posted on June 25, 2009 at 6:13 pm
…i guess i opened a can of worms with my Petty infatuation…i wonder if anyone figured out who “Zimmy” was…i’ll give you a hint–(’85 tour)…
Posted on June 26, 2009 at 12:43 am
This looks like it is going to be great I know I can’t wait Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are the best
Posted on June 26, 2009 at 4:26 pm
If Alan Rickman is in it i will deffenitly be seeing it. He wasn’t just in harry potter, his real claim to fame(in my opinion)was his role as the terrorist in die hard. but back to burton
i can’t wait to see this movie. all tim burtons films are “dark” and “creepy” it’s just haw he is. if you don’t like his films why see it?
Posted on June 26, 2009 at 6:50 pm
“Johnny Depp is not all that freaking great. I’d watch it even more if he WASNT in it. Right now I think he looks like a HORRIBLE Madd Hatter and Helena looks like a HORRIBLE Queen. They BETTER not ruin it or I will be furious. This is coming form an AIW fan who was one since I was 10. Im NOT a fan of Johnny Depp, stupid Depp. They COULD have found someone BETTER”…
…you DO realize that this AIW movie will mostly likely not take the same steps and expectations everyone has as the disney cartoon film, right?!? If you hold it to the cartoon, you may be in for a disappointing surprise. Remember how everyone got upset because Star Trek did not follow the same plot everyone was expecting from the TV show? The writer made it that way to tell the stories to people who “were not original die-hard fans”…probably the same thing Burton will be doing here…so beware, you may get your panties in a twist!!
Posted on June 27, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Hey zerxies, if you’re wondering why your comment wasn’t published:
“in the future comments… that are ONLY personal attacks and have NOTHING to say about any other topic will probably just not get published.”
Posted on June 27, 2009 at 11:27 pm
i remember johnny depp from 21 jump street, he also had a movie in the 80′s with the guy that plays don epps in the show numbers, and also the original nightmare on elm street so he can play different roles and he has been around for a lond time. i also love tim burton movies i’ve been watching them since i was little. i can’t wait to see it!
Posted on July 6, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Was’nt Marilyn Manson sposed to play some sort of character in this movie??
Posted on July 6, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Vampira, Manson is involved with directing and starring in a very different Alice project, Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, which, as the title suggest, will focus more on Carroll.
It’s a small-budget independent film (really!? Manson as Lewis Carroll? You mean Disney’s not pouring tens of millions into this?) that has been struggling in development for about five years now. Currently shooting has not yet begun and does not have a scheduled start date.