Alice in Wonderland is a well known book throughout the world. It was written by Lewis Carroll in 1865. This book was the first book in his series Adventures of Alice in Wonderland, the sequel is Through the Looking Glass which is also being made into a movie this year. Alice in Wonderland reached out to people of all ages but was mainly aimed at the children’s audience. This book supplies an abundance of amazing imagery for the kids to go into her world as they read through her adventures. Since this was such a well known novel, Disney took his story and turned it into an animated film.
This film brought everything to life, to vividly see the imagery Carroll used throughout the novel. This became the first film adaptation of this book as Disney released this in 1951. The second film adaptation came out in 2010, this was still produced by Disney but instead of animation they used CGI(Computer-Generated Imagery). This was also followed by real actors such as Johnny Depp. This led into debates about all the differences and what was left out in the movies. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is about a young girl who goes by the name Alice.
It all starts when Alice notices a rabbit running by as she is sitting along the bank of a river. She hears the rabbit saying that he is late and he decides to chase the rabbit and jump down the rabbit hole with him. Little did she know, that jumping down the rabbit hole would be the start of a brand new adventure in her life. These adventures include bizarre happenings and meetings of different people. Strange things happen to her, such as a shrinking potion and cake that makes her grow back to her actual size.
She then finds out how wonderland works, by using the ability to shrink and grow to maneuver her way around this wonderland. Alice then meets these playing cards that belong to the queen of hearts, the cards were making white roses red, so that they won’t be in trouble by the queen. Alice decides to help them by hiding them and making sure they aren’t found. The book ends with Alice waking up and telling her sister about her wonderful dream in wonderland. The sister tells Alice that she will still grow up but to keep her “heart of childhood”.
This book was very much alive in my eyes and also by other readers. Carroll uses a lot of imagery throughout this novel, such as how he paints the garden in beautiful green shades and and bright colors. I enjoyed reading this book, and this book was so popular even in modern times. This book was good enough that Disney made two and about to be three film adaptations of this book. The 1951 film adaptation has a bunch of plot addons that weren’t in the book. The first key difference I noticed was that there was an unbirthday party instead of a never ending tea party.
It was suppose to be a never ending tea party because in the book the mad hatter had a quarrel with time which led to the never ending tea party. Another difference was when Alice turned into a large person while in the white rabbits house. In the movie, the dodo declared to burn the house down with Alice in it as in the novel it was the white rabbit who declared to burn the house down. This movie interpreted the setting very well though, it bought all of Carroll’s wonderful imagery to life.
From his beautiful and vivid garden to the characters and how they look . I must say that Disney outdid themselves in the animation of this film as it turned into a very successful film adaptation. This stood with the plot line with a few minor differences here and there but overall it was excellent to watch. On the other, Disney remade this movie in 2010 using CGI and real actors which really made this film blow up. The 2010 film isn’t strictly based off the book at all. The plot starts with a 19 year old Alice about to get married to some wealthy man.
She then follows the white rabbit once again as she didn’t let up on her dreams. When she goes down the rabbit hole it adapts from the book very well, this relates back to her original adventure but now things have changed. The plotline is all altered after this, as she is there the characters tell her that the red queen has taken over the land. This film is more action/adventure than anything else. It doesn’t compare to the first film as Tim Burton directed it and he made the world more dark, instead of how it was in the story.
It was a whole mix up between Carroll’s book, Disney’s commercial aesthetics, and Burton’s dark sensibilities. Basically it’s just Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland and what he thought should happen, even though it was entertaining to watch, it did not follow the plot line at all. The setting was the same but more vamped by the new technology, which was very pleasing to the eye. Though the 1951 film version stood more true to the plot line of the book, this movie was just entertaining to the viewers, to see something different than the old version.
