"Everyone in Wonderland was insane but not stupid." THANK YOU. The whole idea with Wonderland is that it makes sense, but doesn't make the kind of sense we're _used to._ To quote the Caterpillar in the 1999 Hallmark version: "Everything has a purpose, even here."
Exactly! I'm reading it now and once you realize it's a story for children by children, basically, then it starts to make sense. Food is meant to make you grow strong and healthily, so drinks are meant to shrink you, clearly. A footman is meant to open the door but won't cause he's not on different side to Alice. You want to go somewhere, just walk anyway and you'll reach anywhere. What they do isn't stupid or inefficient, it's just foreign and the logic à child could see adults employing
I think the reason this story is so popular for filmmakers is that the original book is so weird in of itself it just allows for all sorts of creative lee-way. _ANY_ interpretation of the story is correct!
Okay! If Disney adaptations are now on the table, I'm BEGGING you, Dom, you-beautiful-example-of-manliness-you, to do The Hunchback of Notre Dame! Please!
Okay so this thread is super old but since he doesn’t videos suggested in the comments and I didn’t see it in upcoming list, I would suggest watching Lindsey Ellis video. It’s not primarily focused on adaptation but does go into it how it’s influenced by earlier adaptations
If I'm right they actually meant to include the mock turtle and the gryphon, but they were cut for time's sake. Their designs would later reappear in a Jell-O commercial. Dead serious.
+Jack Spratt Same with the Jabberwoki being cut for time. The making of this movie was rather grueling if I remember correctly. Mary Blair was really the unsung hero of the production.
Jack Spratt I remember reading somewhere that he Duchess scene was also supposed to be in the film (like we’re talking they had the scenes drawn but without the animation) but was cut for being too disturbing for kids
I've both read the book and seen the movie. I liked the book's story better, but I did enjoy the visuals of the movie. The movie's Queen of Hearts is actually a mix of two characters from the two books - The Queen of Hearts (obviously) and the Red Queen from Through The Looking Glass. The line "All ways are my ways," is the Red Queen's line, and it's a reference that the queen go on any square on the chess board in a way that no other piece can.
+cheezemonkeyeater Well, I would say 90% Queen of Hearts, and 10% Red Queen, mostly with a few lines here and there. Its nowhere near as mixed like in all other adaptations, where they are basically one character. That always kinda bothered me, people mix the two characters up so often, hell it even happened frequently in Lewis Carol's time.
"Short story? What version was he -- oh wait, he's probably not reading the annotated Alice...the version where the notes in the margins occasionally get so long they have to stop the story to fill pages with notes." On the plus side, the annotated version walks through how Wonderland is actually a mathematician's fever dream
Yeah, I was expecting a nod to some of the weirdness being a pushback by Carroll against his era's version of "new math" or whatever. Plus, there's so much to love about the use of language in this piece!
I think my biggest pet peeve is when people mistake the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen for the same character. Well, that and, say, making an adaption of an adaption rather than the source material so it all ends up looking incredibly inbred.
+Maria Rae I agree, that is a pet peeve of mine as well. And it's EVERYWHERE. It happened a lot when Lewis Carol was alive, and its only gotten worse. I love the Jefferson Airplane song White Rabbit, and even they called her the Red Queen. Same with the Tim Burton version, but that's the least of that movies problems. American Megee did that as well, but I think he may have done that intentionally.
Some people would argue that Disney's Queen Of Hearts was actually a mix of the original Queen of Hearts and Red Queen. But again, that's one reason why the Tim Burton movie annoyed me. If she's in Wonderland, the Queen needs to be called the Queen Of Hearts, no matter how much of the Red Queen's character is borrowed. Then again, if they did that, they wouldn't be able to include the White Queen at all.
@@lalaicyling8429 "I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion - a blind and aimless Fury The Red Queen I pictured as a Fury, but of another type; her passion must be cold and calm - she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly; pedantic to the 10th degree, the concentrated essence of all governesses" Lewis Carrol A shorter answer would be the Queen of Hearts is from Alice in Wonderland whereas the Red Queen is from the second book Through The Looking Glass.
I'm glad you showed clips of the 1999 version. I know the Disney film is a classic, but that one is my favorite version, and it is by far the most faithful to the book.
In Disney's defense regarding the changes, there's only so many things they COULD do with just one film, and likely would have added more if they didn't run out of time. As for the sequel, Disney likely DID want to make another film, but since Alice didn't do too well in the 50's, the idea was scrapped. Side note, with the 50's box office bombing in mind, is it any surprise that they re-released it in the 60's and gained a much bigger following?
+joinmarch76 Funny how most of the Disney films that bombed generally come back really strong with a cult following. Not this one though, its not even a cult following, its just universally beloved. Funny thing, its pretty accurate, but there are more accurate versions. But none of them are as faithful to the spirit of the story, which is why I think its the best version.
+joinmarch76 I wonder if the reason it got more popular was because the 60s and 70s were very colourful and flowery and all about peace and love? "Alice" is supposed to be trippy, no matter what you think of it, and I think the movie is pretty trippy, although having not done drugs, I don't know for sure. Still, I loved it as a kid (I was born in the mid-90s) and it was my sister's favourite Disney film for some time (mid-80s).
Hannah Shribman-Brown Probably; I suspect part of it's because the 60's were less uptight than the previous decade, allowing for a much more open-minded audience.
I was always sad they left out the Duchess and the Baby and her poem. I remember in high school we were talking about poetry and I realized that the caterpillar's poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile" was a take on "How Doth the Little Busy Bee" and how excited I was to read the original, only to get bored because there was no crocodiles or fishes in the original.
There was an extra layer of irony to the songs/poems in the book...most of them are parodies of instructive children's verses that taught kids how to be good little Victorians. The fact that these are parodied (often, in rather morbid ways--see the above "How Doth The Little Crocodile") emphasize that Alice is now in a world where Victorian order, tidiness and logic do NOT apply.
A lot of things like the duchess and the mock turtle were planned for the movie, but were cut for both time reasons and to make it flow better as a movie.
What needs to be taken in account is that the film was heavily inspired by the Tenniel illustrations of the book (some of which you showed in the video). IIn these illustrations, the King and Queen, while still lookinh more like cards than their film counterparts are three dimensional characters as opposed to playing cards with heads and and feet like he rest of the card deck, so I wouldn't call this a change. Bill is also only portrayed as a lizard in the illustrations. In the book itself his species isn't made clear (as at that moment Alice is caught in the house and can't see what's happening outside). As for the scene with the Duchess, I am quite happy it was eft out as it was the most confusing, frightening and - frankly - weakest part of the book. I'm a little more sad that the Griffon and Mock Turtle had to go, but most of their jokes were based on the school system in 19th century Britain and would have been lost on modern children
+Anti-HyperLink What exactly is your point here? Yes MODERN children, once upon a time the 1950s was the modern day, and it was extremely different from the 19th century. Or do you think things just sort of pop into existence already considered old?
+MrsXanatrix When Alice escapes the house: "she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle." which, at least in my book, makes it clear that he's a lizard, even if "she couldn't guess of what sort it was" when he was in the chimney.
In my childhood I made a point of reading all the books that had been made into the Disney films I so loved. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass were my favorite books over every other original story I read. Really worth a read to anyone who wants a refreshing bit of literature.
When I first read the book as a teenager, I assumed the part where Alice punts Bill out of the house's chimney was a joke about the Houses of Parliament's ability to pass laws.
In the cartoon adaptation, the scene where the flowers ruthlessly turn against Alice horrified me as a child. (I was bullied viciously at that age by my schoolmates.) Even as a grown*** adult, seeing real-life daffodils and especially pansies provokes in me a visceral reaction of disgust bordering on malice. Thanks, Disney.
That moment your binge watching one of your favorite youtubers videos and just enjoying the in depth analysis of each episode. Keep up the great work Dominic!
The 1999 Hallmark version is my favorite :) I'm a huge fan of Jim Henson (especially Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, and The Storyteller) and Jim Henson's Creature Shop did the puppeteering on this one. They as well as those cheesy 90's miniseries events like "Merlin" and "10th Kingdom", (which is fitting because it was made by the people who made Merlin) and that one was in keeping with the sensibilities of both. At the time I also really liked the "Magic in the Mirror" series and "Halloweentown", so maybe I'm just a cornball ;)
You said something about a part of our brains recognizing dreams on some level and I have to contend with you here Dom. I have very vivid dreams to the point that even the most absurdly looney tunes things can happen in my dreams and my brain will 100% believe it. To the point I often wake up crying desperately because I fear for my life or I fall out of bed because I wasn't flying fast enough and my body jerked trying to go faster. My dreams, in particular my nightmares, are extremely exhausting because my brain believes they're completely, authentically real without question.
What I found really frustrating was that, while I can tolerantly look at the cartoon and the book as subsequently separate entities, one borrowing liberally from multiple sources, I don't feel I can give that same window of grace to Burton's 2010 version. It very clearly sets itself up as a sort of pseudo-sequel. On the one hand, its usage of Tweedledee and Tweedledum and the mischievous Cheshire Cat both suggest it might be a sequel to the cartoon. On the other, its usage of the Knave of Hearts and the fact the caterpillar was not at that time a butterfly suggests it's more a sequel to the book. As it stands, it's a sequel to nothing and it's just a deeply frustrating film for anyone who actually gives a crap about the original book OR cartoon.
+Mr. Nichtus Tell me about it, I get a headache just trying to think about stuff like that. I mean hell, why call it Alice in Wonderland? Its meant to be a sequel, but we already had a sequel, so I guess its the third sequel? And while Wonderland is never called that in the book's, it was certainly not called UNDERLAND! Where they came up with that confounds me so badly. Oh, and did they really have to make Alice a Tim Burton stock goth character with basically NO wonder? Or how about the part where everything is real? And the White Rabbit really came to her? God, that movie will drive any fan of the book or the 1951 animated film up a fucking wall.
It drives me up the wall when I see merchandise for sale on Etsy (pendants, bookmarks, etc.) that feature that quote: "Yes, you are mad. But I'll tell you a secret--all the best people are."...and attribute it to Lewis Carroll. That quote is perfectly fine, but it was NEVER IN THE BOOK, DAMMIT.
One thing that struck me when I finally read the original book is how trollish everyone in the movie was. I swear, in the books everybody just seemed nuts, but in the movie it felt more like they were deliberately fucking with the girl they'd identified as the new kid.
Nice episode on one of my favorite golden age Disney movies & one of my favorite classic books (and frankly one of the few books literature scholars deem a "classic" that I found the least bit readable). Personally, I love the interpretation that Charles Dodson, who was a reverend and a mathematics professor at Oxford at the time, wrote this book as a protest to what he perceived as the absurdity and nonsense of post-Euclidean mathematics, including what we today acknowledge as modern algebra, thereby placing him on my short list of "Historical Figures I'd Love To Have A Drink With" right alongside Theodore Roosevelt and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Edit: It actually took me a minute or two to remember that the Disney version omitted the Duchess, the Grifon, and the Mock Turtle, perhaps a testament to how all of these parts felt to me like needless, unwanted, and frankly irritating padding, even by the book's whimsical standards.
+sirrliv You don't say, I would totally kick back a few beers with Lewis Carol and Teddy Roosevelt, such fascinating people. And yeah, I love this film so much, its easily on my top 10 favorite Disney films list. I know its not 100% accurate, but those few omissions don't bother me at all.
Jabberwocky is the name of the POEM, not the CREATURE! "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!" "The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame...." "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?"
I find the change away from the book's insistence that no one is actually executed in Wonderland to be so strange! It seems to have stuck so well in popular knowledge of the story that folks are being beheaded, but I think it's a pretty notable detail that that's not actually intended to be happening! Shifts the tone a bit, IMO :)
Oh, and this probably goes without saying, but Tim Burton's version is a disgrace on a massive scale. I mean good lord, you would think it would be a match made in heaven, but nope! NOPE! HE FUCKED IT UP! And I wait with dread to see the sequel coming out in May. At least the reviews will be entertaining.
To be fair, it wasn't entirely Tim Burton's fault, and he has largely distanced himself from the film to the point that he was simply a producer in name only for the sequel. The films were scripted by a woman named Linda Woolvertine, who if you want to know, is a Disney screenwriter and a massive feminist. Other than The Lion King and Homeward Bound, all of her screenplays have some element of feminism in her films. She also wrote the script for Maleficent, a film so horrendously bad that even the CinemaSins video on the film was rendered unwatchable.
Mike Gordan, the feminism wasn't the problem in either of those films. Actually I found it to be the only redeeming quality. The writing and character choices were the bad parts. (such as the queen of hearts having a giant head - yikes. The bad CGI didn't help.)
I hated Tim Burton's adaption of Alice in Wonderland. And the sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass. Neither of them were faithful to the books at all!
The Duchess section was originally to be in the movie but Disney deemed it too confusing and a bit frightening so they opted not to keep it. There is some test animatics which exist on the special addition DVD.
I did read the book when I was a kid and I found it to be an interesting read. Recently saw the Disney film 3 days ago actually and I did like it. Can't wait for the Dom Oscars version of it.
Since I was a child I was always a big fan of the book, but something about the tone of the movie felt a little too cartoony-but-squeaky-clean-Walt-Disney for me and I ended up preferring some of the made-for-TV movies as far as adaptations go. I watched the Disney version about a year ago and was _shocked_ that I actually felt kind of bored by it (Alice being relatively bland being the reason for this) considering that I usually have a better opinion of movies I saw as a kid now that I'm an adult. The animation itself is very nice though.
Even Walt said that he felt Alice lacked "heart". It can be very difficult to adapt the Alice books for the screen, because (a) there isn't a real story or character arc, and (b) for all its visual opportunities, most of the humor is verbal, with an emphasis on puns, and rather cerebral.
your videos are always really well done, real quality work, man! I really enjoy these and I never miss one, I love the subjects you always choose as well
The Dom should do an episode on "the Godfather". Or "the Hogfather". Or "the Silence of the Lambs/Red Dragon". Or "Goodfellas". Y'know, one of the classics.
+Valter Östberg I partially agree; while I wouldn't subject any living soul to multiple full analytical viewings of both the Godfather movie & book (I'm sure he has some life beyond this show), I would love to see a series of episodes on the Terry Pratchett books compared to their film/miniseries adaptations. Having only seen "Going Postal" myself, I can say that that book, in my eyes at least, got some elements spot on while missing many more and adding its own spins on some parts that I felt wildly missed the point of the original book, the results being downright bizarre.
I was assuming you'd be comparing all the film adaptations to the book as well as this one, like the 1903 British silent film version, the 1933 Paramount version that caused Disney at one point to shelve his version, the 1966 BBC film version, the 1972 British film version that had Fiona Fullerton, the 1985 Warner Bros. version that was part of a 2-parter with Through the Looking Glass, Jan Svankmajer's 1988 stop-motion with live-action girl version, the 1988 Australian animated version, the 1995 GoodTimes Entertainment animated version and the 1999 Hallmark TV version that had Tina Majorino. Because there are several film adaptations of the book. And nope, I'm not counting Tim Burton's 2010 movie (which was also by Disney) among them because that was an unofficial sequel to the books, like what Steven Spielberg's Hook was to Peter Pan.
As a child I really liked another film adaptation, which is the one in colour you showed while talking about the duchess, maybe even better than the Disney one
The Alice books were some of my favourites as a child. Funnily enough, as an adult I came across a very adult retelling- using the same story (ish) in order to teach Alice a particular moral- not to judge people for their kinks and fetishes. Yeah. It was actually really interesting and well written, even if it was basically just a kinky Alice in wonderland porn story.
This all just made me recall I recently finished the book Heartless by Marissa Meyer, which is a sort of origin story to the Queen of Hearts. Pity it doesn't have an adaptation, I'd be curious to hear your opinion about it.
Even as a kid, I think my general reaction to this movie was "what the heck is even going on?" rather than thinking it was actually good or bad. But I am so with you with being glad they left out that whole "titanaboa neck" thing. Ugh...
Urdnot Stark Ah yes, the bizarre retcon sequel made for the sake of making a sequel film, except Spielberg kinda didn't use it for the bases of the sequel movie. Strange story, but would make a rather interesting episode.
Urdnot Stark I used to like the movie when I was younger, but looking back, its not really that great. Hell they cut out of my favorite part of the book, the camouflage chameleon Carnotaur, we had to wait for Jurassic World to get anything like that.
Lol those glimpses from the 1999 movie were a serious blast from the past, I'd completely forgotten I watched that version as a kid way more than the Disney one
I just finished reading the 2 stories and in my GoodReads review I said the same exact thing you did! I called Alice more "motivated" in the film, and while in every story that would be a needed change, here it worked the other way around.... how very Wonderland of Alice to be the exception to that rule.
Fun fact: this and through the looking glass are peppered with accurate scientific theory and fact. Alice, for instance, remarks that milk from beyond the looking glass might disagree with her (a nod to what happens with matter and anti matter). There are other little bits, like the mushroom she ate was originally designed so the top makes one grow big and the bottom makes one shriek. There are also cute little physics theories in, like Alice grabbing a jar of jam and is afraid to drop it, fearing it might land one someone's head
This movie scared the crap out of me as a kid. Anything that involved travelling to a magical world where you couldn't get home again when you wanted to gave me extreme anxiety. Wizard of Oz set me off in a similar fashion. I feel so bad for all the aunties and babysitters who thought they were treating me to a fun movie and were instead turning me into a nervous wreck for the rest of the day.
As a massive fan of the 2 Alice books I am forever pissed off by almost every adaptation mixing them up. Like, the first book is a deck of cards, the second book is a chess set. Not to mention the insistence of personifying the Jabberwok when it was only ever a creepy poem in the books. The 70's miniseries for all its flaws has been the closest to a faithful adaptation I have ever seen and it still makes some of the aforementioned mistakes. The books partly served as a parody of Victorian era schooling and the insistence on rote learning of poems etc. I would kill for a straightforward adaptation of the 2 books as a 2-part movie series (they're short books and you could keep everything in a 90-120 runtime). Either animated or live-action with modern special effects. Age-up Alice by all means, but it's really not hard to make an entertaining movie-audience-friendly faithful adaptation of these books.
Im not realy asking you to do this one, but dom have you ever considered doing "redwall" vs the animated series. Apologies for asking this in a non related video just curious
I watched this movie once as a kid, alone at night, and then never again. I was terrified of it. Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, sure thing. this madness? Nopenope. I might read the book though!
It gave me such bad anxiety! I thought I was the only one, but I couldn't watch this movie. Even when I knew it was a dream and she was safe, I couldn't control how freaked out I was at the thought of her not finding her way home and having to live in Wonderland. Even though by that time I'd discovered 80s campy horror movies and thought they were funny. Wonderland is terrifying.
This review inspired me to finally read the book Alice in wonderland! I'd seen the movies over time, primarily the 1999 version directed by Nick Willing and the book was quite lovely. Like you said, it just has something about it that compels you to keep reading. I don't think I've ever seen the Disney version of it however and I worry after seeing the 1999 version my expectations of it might flounder. But otherwise I loved your review! Keep up the good work :)
I’ve always loved Alice and Wonderland because I always felt comforted by the dreamlike insanity of it all, I was never exactly sure as to why it felt so familiar until I learned that allegedly Carroll suffered from epilepsy. As someone who suffers from particularly bad epilepsy myself with post ictal mania…nothing has ever made so much sense before in my life. One day I hope an adaptation manages to capture the exact level of distant insanity the books capture.
fun fact, the scene where the baby turns into a pig was actually going to be in the 1950s movie, but Disney had trouble animating it properly sonit became a deleted scene
Slight nitpick (because I’ve read the book so many times that I have to use my thorough knowledge of it for something): The queen of hearts is never described as a playing card like the soldiers in the book. In the original illustrations by John Tenniel, she does look like the queen displayed on classic playing cards, but she is not a card herself.
I think her investment in the movie was a good choice. It made her a more interesting character than us just observing her "dream selfs" responses to things. That and they were combinding some bits of Through The Looking Glass, where she did seem a bit more invested and assertive. It also seemed to reflect that childhood apathy and perturbance that would arise here and there. I remember reading the sepernt bit in the book and going "oohhhhh!!!!" as it clicked into place why the bird accused her of it in the movie.
I always thought it was a bad adaptation of the book but a great animated film on its own (Disney's version of the Chesire Cat is probably my favorite of all the Disney characters). There's a book that was published about 2 decades or more ago that showed the concept art for "Alice" (Disney had been planning a film version of the book since the late 1930s - so there was plenty of time for artists to render their reactions and ideas based on the two books). The drawings depict characters and situations like the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon. I don't know why they left such characters out while including the pleasant but ultimately pointless diversion of the poem "The Walrus & The Carpenter". Disney cut out a whole bed-building sequence in "Snow White" that had been painstakingly animated because he said it didn't advance the story - yet the "The Walrus & The Carpenter" stops Alice's progress through Wonderland cold. Odd (then again - it's an odd film).
This is one of my favorite books of all time, I agree with the hypnotic feel, I just feel like I'm in a dream myself while reading, weird, whacky but still pretty relaxing
This was a scary movie for me. Then I went on the ride in Disneyland when I was, I think, 5 and then I was traumatized for a bit because of the flashing lights and the cat's smile.
I hope you do 2001: A Space Odyssey at some point. It was one of my favorite books, and I was really disappointed when I saw the movie and realized Kubrick really......Kubrickified it, not explaining anything and just making a bunch of trippy images. Plus the whole deal which resulted in the book and the film coming out almost the same time is an interesting story by itself.
Tyler Bioshock R They were made at the same time, but quasi-independently. I don't think it breaks his "no novelizations of movies" rule. Both the novel and the film are originally based on an Arthur C. Clarke short story called "The Sentinel." Kubrick wanted to make a movie based around it so he got together with Clarke and wrote a "prose treatment," just a basic outline of the plot that made the short story feature length. Kubrick then wrote the actual screenplay by himself, and Clarke decided to write a full novel because he didn't like how vague the final script ended up being.
EaglesRugby Huh, I thought it went a bit differently. Well then I am sure that would count, though my point still stands, that has to be one of the strangest movie/book writing stories out there.
Clarke didn't like how vague the film was, yet his "2010: Odyssey Two" takes more from the original film than from the book? I'm pretty sure Clarke realised the film version was better, or at least as good as the book.
After Disney made so many forced Sequels to their films, it's a wonder that they never made a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, especially when there is literally a sequel book.
As far as the addition of material from Through the Looking-Glass, my understanding is that "Alice in Wonderland" is officially the title from omnibus editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
I nearly lost it when I saw this, I've just recently started reading the book and already noticed a few differences between the film and book such as with Alice herself like you said Dom. Even though I've seen this I'm still going to continue reading the book cuz I do find it interesting but the lack of a plot is annoying me a bit but not enough to stop me. I look forward to the DomOscars with this~!
I'd be interesting to hear him break down the Tim Burton Alice movies. From what I recall of both movies and both books, the first movie was really much of the plot of the second book, so the second movie was completely made up (basically). I mean they don't both need their own videos, but the Dom just does such a good job that I'd like to hear him talk a little about them
It would be awesome if you could cover the soviet adaptations (of both books), although it does seem highly unlikely to happen since I doubt that there is an english version.
I insist that the only other stories that can get away with the "it was all a dream" ending are The Wizard of Oz and The Nutcracker, because the dream aspect is set up beforehand (e.g. Clara falls to sleep in the drawing room) and in both, the waking up resolves the story in a way that makes sense rather than being a copout.
They also left out the tale they told in order to get dry, but that was a long and boring part that it wouldn't have fit in with the rest of the movie, so I'm fine with it.
The scene with the Duchess was going to be in the Disney version, but it didn't get beyond the story board stage. However, enough of the original drawings survived that they "enacted" the unfilmed scene for a special featurette for a special anniversary video release. Also the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle was going to be used, but it was going to be mixed in with the Caucus Race scene. However, it got dropped and in effect they substituted the Tweedles scene from Looking-Glass. However, the Gryphon and Mock Turtle did get to appear with Alice in a Jello commercial!
