Movies

Lewis Carolls (born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) Alice in Wonderland is a classic tale written in 1865 about a young English girl named Alice who stumbled into a world called Wonderland that is full of peculiar things and inhabited by peculiar beings from a frantic white rabbit to an ill-tempered queen with a penchant for demanding the heads of anyone who displeases her at the slightest.  The story, though nonsensical as it appears to be,  has made quite an appeal to both children, his intended audience, and (even) adults.  It was so popular that nearly 20 years later, he wrote a sequel titled Alice through the Looking-Glass (mirror).  The novel went on to be published worldwide and has gained appeal.  As technology allowed for movies to be made, it has depicted in film and television several times beginning with the first (silent) film in 1903.  since then, there has been a plethora of film and television versions of the novel and perhaps the most famous and recognizable version of this classic story is the full-length animated version made by Walt Disney in 1951 which continues to be very popular today.  In 2010, by far the most recent version, Tim Burton directed his version titled Alice in Wonderland which combines both Lewis original novel and his sequel, Alice through the Looking-Glass .

The purpose of this paper is to make a comparison and contrast of Caroll original novel to the film made by Burton.  The original novel by Caroll shall serve as the basis of the comparison and contrast.  In essence, the comparison and contrast shall be based mainly on the plot and the characters.

Plot
Carolls story begins with a young girl named Alice who was sitting along a riverbank with her sister when she saw a white rabbit frantically running and muttering being late.  Out of curiosity, she followed the rabbit down a hole, fell through it and came to a totally strange world which she could barely understand because of its peculiarity.  Such as taking a certain food or drink that can cause her to shrink or increase in size (Caroll, 5-7) plants that behave strangely talking creatures such as hookah-smoking caterpillar who comes off as being rude to her at first (Caroll, 31), the grinning Cheshire Cat that can disappear and appear at will and whenever it disappears, its grin lingers on and has sort of become the closest thing to a friend for her in Wonderland when everybody else appeared to be hostile to her though his advice to her can be rather perplexing (Caroll, 48-49).  There is also the eccentric (Mad) Hatter who does nothing but serve tea all day because he claims he is cursed to stay frozen at 600 pm which is tea time eternally, which they would call the  un-birthday  party in the Disney version (Caroll, 55). She has gotten tired of the pointless riddles the Hatter and March Hare incessantly throw at her, that she walked away, remembering the warning from the Cheshire Cat that the Hatter is truly mad.

Perhaps the other most peculiar character Alice has encountered in Wonderland would be the Queen of Hearts whose name alone strikes fear in the hearts of her subjects who are primarily playing cards.  The Queen has a notoriously foul temper and is easy to anger at the slightest displeasure which would prompt her to shout,  Off with his head  to the poor unfortunate soul.  Alice found the Queens activities to be peculiar such as playing croquet where flamingos are the mallets, hedgehogs for balls and her card-subjects serve as arches who tend to behave in the Queens favor lest they lose their heads literally should the Queen lose (Caroll, 65-67).  Another peculiar event Alice observed is the trial of the Knave of Hearts for stealing the Queens tarts. Alice is flustered on the way the proceedings are going and it does not help that she is growing in size which angered the Queen who gave her familiar order to have Alice decapitated but Alice stood firm and told them they are nothing but a pack of cards.  The story ends with Alice being woken up back to reality by her sister and left along the river bank to ponder what has happened (Caroll, 105-107).

In Burtons film version, he combined the plot of the original novel by Caroll and its sequel.  It is also worth noting that this is a film made by Tim Burton, who is known for giving his films a  Gothic touch  which is his trademark as seen in his earlier films such as Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride and A Nightmare Before Christmas and Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street where the atmosphere or tone of his films are often gloomy or quirky to the point of being bizarre. His version of Alice in Wonderland is not spared from this treatment.

The plot is somewhat different from the novel.  The story is set more than 10 years since Alice first set foot in Wonderland.  Alice Kingsleigh (played by Mia Wasikowska) a 19-year old woman who is set to be married to a man she does not love and be stuck in what she feels would be an unhappy married life.  She spots a strange white rabbit running frantically and curiosity made her follow it and she fell into a hole landing in what she thought is Wonderland but turns out to be Underland where everything appeared to look grim and gloomy which is consistent with Burtons style.  The peculiar thing about this story is that, although Alice has encountered the same creatures she met before, she could had no recollection of everything and it is as though she is visiting WonderlandUnderland for the first time and getting acquainted again although most of them do remember her and were quite surprised she is not the same Alice they used to know (Burton).

Whereas in the novel, she is depicted as a sort of a  tourist,  in Wonderland, in Burtons movie, she discovered she has a destiny to fulfill   to free the land from the tyranny of the Red Queen (played by Helena Bonham-Carter).  In the first novel, Alices nemesis is the Queen of Hearts who rules over playing cards.  The Red Queen is based on the character in Carolls second sequel whose kingdom, based on this novel, is a chessboard.  But in the movie, Bonham-Carters character is an amalgamation of the two queens as seen in her dress.  The Queen is still foul-temepred as before but as mentioned by Alices Wonderland friends, she has become tyrannical and she even had her husband, the King of Hearts, executed (Burton).  

Alice reluctantly leads this  rebellion  of the other Wonderland creatures after stealing the Vorpal sword from the Red Queen and it is here in the film, viewers are introduced to the White Queen (played by Anne Hathaway), another character in Carolls  second novel.  The White Queen is the sister of the Red Queen but is the opposite where the latter is always on the offensive, the former tends to retreat or hold back.  Nonetheless, the White Queen made Alice her champion as she confronts her sister in a battlefield that looks like a chessboard without the other pieces.  The battle pits Alice against the Red Queens champion, the Jabberwocky. The Red Queen turned down a chance for peace by her sister and the duel commenced and Alice, after gathering courage, manages to kill the Jabberwocky.  The White Queens forces emerged victorious and the Red Queen was exiled to the Outlands.  The White Queen gave Alice a vial of the Jabberwockys blood which will take her home when she drinks it and she did.  Upon arriving back in her (real) world, Alice is completely transformed into someone who used to be hesitant to being decisive as she dealt with her problems and did not marry.  Instead, she became an apprentice to Lord Ascot and was engaged in helping out in business ventures (Burton).

Characters
Alice. The difference between the two as they are depicted in the novel and film are different.  Whereas Alice is a young girl, barely an adolescent, in the novel.  She is a blooming young woman in the film.  Typical of any child or young girl for that matter, the girl Alice (novel) is very curious about everything which was what prompted her to follow the white rabbit down the hole and into Wonderland.  As stated before, Alice here is more a tourist, taking in the peculiar sights and sounds of Wonderland and it shows whenever she would fumble and make mistakes for someone nave and innocent but in the end, one can see that despite her young age, Alice shows pluck and defiance when she stood up against the Queen of Hearts during the trial and did not compromise her beliefs.

In the film, Alice, the young adult, appearing confused and has not yet come to terms on what she wants in life.  This is something that could be said to be typical of people her age as they gradually shed off their childhood and adolescence and enter into a stranger world of adulthood and face challenges they never faced before and in one case, it is the prospect of being married.  What is surprising here is that when Alice returns to Wonderland, she does not remember everyone though they remember her and it was only at the end when everything came back to her.  But by the time Alice returned to the real world, she is completely transformed into a full-fledged adult with a take-charge attitude, a similar trait she exhibited in the latter part of the novel though an adult here, which is how the story ended in the film and it sees her pushing forward to newer horizons as opposed to the novel where she sat along the bank being dreamy.

The Queen of HeartsRed Queen.  In the film, the character is an amalgamation of both characters that appear separately in Carolls two novels with the Queen of Hearts in the first novel and the Red Queen in the second.  The mood and attitude is pretty much the same in both the novel and film as characterized by the familiar line of the Queen,  Off with his head   Another difference is in the film, the Queen is given a name   Iracebeth, a play on the word,  irascible  which is synonymous for quick-tempered.  Another thing to note is that in the two novels of Caroll, the Queen of Hearts and Red Queen are distinct characters.  One reason for the confusion is attributed to the Disney version of the story where it combined the two characters into the Queen of Hearts whereas Burton followed it though calling her the Red Queen.

Other characters.  There are several other characters that appear in the film that are not on the first novel such as the Jabberwocky, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the White Queen but are principal characters in the second novel.  Not even the Jabberwocky or the White Queen appeared in the Disney version. The others make a  return  in the film such as the Caterpillar which has a name (Absolem), the Cheshire Cat, March Hare and (Mad) Hatter who are firmly on Alices side in the rebellion against the Red Queen.

Conclusion
Tim Burtons film combines the characters of Carolls two novels and it is apparent he had taken a leaf from the Disney animated version and gave it his trademark  gothic touch.   Furthermore, Alice as depicted in both the novel and film somehow possess the same spunk despite the difference in age and this became apparent in the latter part of the story.  In the film however, it turns out that Alice is hardly a demure girl as one might expect of someone living in the Victorian era but showed that she is equal to any man after displaying grace and courage in her duel with the Jabberwocky.  Even though she is a child in the novel, Alice still displayed courage when she talked back to the Queen.  Nevertheless, this is what makes Alice in Wonderland, whether a book or film, very interesting and timeless.