Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory vs. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 11:40am

What did you guys like more(for whatever reason): The Original or the remake??????

For me, It's the original all the way(and it has nothing to do with the fact that it was a "musical"). I'm not saying that it couldn't be beat, but the remake didn't do it. I liked the Ompha-Lumpa songs from the original a lot more. I still liked the remake, but I think the original was better!

Posted: 7/25/05 at 11:44am

The original one is scary... the music just makes me cringe. Haven't seen the one with Johnny yet.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 11:49am

I dunno, it's not that I don't like the old one, but I think I'm gonna have to vote for the new one. I think the new one is MUCH funnier, and it didn't have my least favorite scene from the original movie (I assume because it wasn't in the book) AKA the weird fizzy burping almost getting killed by a fan scene that is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO boring. Plus, the whole "musical" aspect of the old one didn't really work for me.

However, the conflict was stronger in the old one, so I don't know...but I found the new one to be quite charming, I love the boy who played Charlie!

[lildogs]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 11:55am

The original all the way...

The main problem with the remake is that nothing is at stake for the characters: nobody takes an emotional journey. It's as if Burton knew that the audience comes into the picture already knowing and liking the characters and makes no effort to create an emotional connection between the new charlie and the new audience. I wasn't excited to see charlie open his chocolate, i wasn't EVER scared, and although the design is beautiful, the factory doesn't seem all that mysterious and wild.

I did enjoy Violet and her mother in the new version more, but that's about the only "improvement."

[ashley0139]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 12:23pm

Haven't seen the new one yet, but I think I will prefer the original. Johnny Depp just looks... creepy. Actually, I prefer the book to any of these but that's not what this discussion is.

[broadway86]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 12:29pm

lildogs-

I agree with everything you said.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 12:41pm

I think Burton's version begins very well -- his sense of childhoose awe and grand scale can't be beat -- but the backstory involving Willy Wonka and his father ruins the new film. I miss the poignant ending of the original; Burton's ending just feels contrived and tacked on. Gene Wilder's Wonka really felt that Charlie was special, while Johnnie Depp's Wonka just chose him because he was "the least annoying of the five."

However, the boy actor playing the new Charlie is MUCH better than the old one (frankly, I felt he gave a better performance than Depp). The old Charlie was just annoying.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 12:42pm

The original is far superior. I think one of the problems of the new film is that it seems to be set in a more fictional world, which alleciates the sense of "magic" that we associate with such fantastical adventures that occur in our known world. In other words, if the common world already looks weird and eccentric, then what is so strange about Wonka? Had the Burton touch only been applied to the confines of Wonka's factory, I think the contrast would have been more effective. There really was not much tension or suspense upon entering the factory. In the original, Wonka's entrance was akin to holding your breath, while in the remake, it was more like waiting in a queue. And the children really seemed to only be mean, with no signs of actually being people. I think this is something robbiej expressed in his review as well. The best example was Violet. She was just pushy and bitchy, so by being totally unlikeable from the get-go, there is less of an element of surprise in her departure. I really didn't care what happened to her as long as she was gone. While the original film's children were also unlikeable, they were more three-dimensional and there was a distinct absence once they were gone. In the new film, I was surprised when only two were left because it seemed so quick and I never missed the others. The biggest mistake, however, were the Oompa Loompa songs. The whole point of the songs is that they tell the tale and moral of each child and why they are gone. In this new version, the lyrics were completely unintelligible and the songs seemed pointless other than to add a pop update to the music to satisfy pre-teen pop fans. The original film had simpler songs that carried the same melody and provided the lyrics to reinforce the backbone of the story (which is really a fable) - THE MORAL. And I'm still wondering why they didn't get the glass elevator right. It is supposed to be HUGE. Big enough to hold his entire family and Wonka and the bed from Charlie's house (for the sequel). Both films got this wrong.

That said, I actually DID enjoy the new film for what it was and would watch it again. It's just that when you compare it to the original, well, the ingenuity simply wasn't there. It was distinctly Burton's vision of the story, which I think needed a bit more objectivity. Depp is not great, but he wasn't as creepy as the trailers made him seem.

[ken8631]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 12:43pm

Older one, but newer good too.

I miss the part at the end when he say - "you get NOTHING!"

[lildogs]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 12:55pm

I think Burton missed the point: the story is a morality tale, not a father-son struggle...Had he chosen to focus on Charlie rather than on Wonka, I think he would have stayed truer to both the book and the spirit in which it was written...

As for the new Oompa Loompa songs, they are not songs, but rather ringtones that I'm sure are available for download...

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 1:08pm

At the risk of being unpopular, I have to say that I really liked the remake and have never cared for the original. Of course, it doesn't help that the original scared the living hell out of me as a kid...
I did find the remake creepy, but in a different way. I found the time spent in the factory vaguely unsettling, like a waking nightmare. The original just terrified me, especially the footage of the chicken getting its head cut off. What the hell was that?
The presence of Johnny Depp doesn't hurt. I'm of the opinion that the man can do anything. In "Charlie" he made me laugh, he creeped me out, and he even managed to be touching in a very warped way. It's certainly not his best role, but he did a good job with it.
And I adore Freddie Highmore. Such an amazing little actor...

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 1:14pm

I do think Freddie Highmore was an IDEAL Charlie. And was I the only one who noticed the remarkable makeup on the children in the remake? Each was highlighted to look like living artwork from an old-fashioned picture story book. It was really stunning.

[wendy72]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 1:16pm

The original---they never should have remade it--Gene Wilder was perfect in the role.

[LilMiZBroADwaY23]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 1:29pm

Gene Wilder rocks my world... so I'm going with the original. Though I did enjoy Freddie Highmore. I agree with Mister Matt prety much about everything.

Once again Gene Wilder kicks ass. I love him...

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 1:37pm

Technically Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is not a remake of "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". Had it been a remake they would have gone to the original screenplay for inspiration, got the rights to use the songs etc. Instead they went back to the book and used that as the basis. The movies are two completely different movies based on the same book. The new one is not a remake of the first movie.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 1:45pm

CATSNY - If you want to get picky. :-P I used the work "remake" simply as the quickest and easiest way to distinguish which film I was referring. I simply assumed people knew what I meant. Yes, the Burton film is NOT a remake. It is the second film treatment of Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

[joeybiltmore1]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 1:53pm

The original.

Yes, the new version has many pluses: Charlie, Violet and her Mom, some cool designs, but after ten minutes in the factory the computer generated effects all started to look alike to me. The original design may not be as fancy, but at least it was real.

Most importantly though: Johnny Depp is a fine actor who has proven himself again and again in various films, but here he is just wrong wrong wrong. Who is he trying to be? He sounded like Carol Channing to me. And his performance had not a shred of the heart that Gene Wilder brought to the role. And did we really need that predictable Hollywood who-gives-a-crap "backstory"? There was no point to him having kids in the factory other than to be cruel to them and give the factory to the least offensive one.

I still think Depp is a great actor, but all I could think while watching him in C&TCF was that Gene Wilder is an even greater one.

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 1:58pm

"And was I the only one who noticed the remarkable makeup on the children in the remake? Each was highlighted to look like living artwork from an old-fashioned picture story book. It was really stunning."
You know, I *thought* the kids were heavily made-up. It was especially noticeable on Augustus Gloop.

[lildogs]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 2:07pm

I agree with the makeup: it was really great and you only saw it on the "bad" kids and their parents. It made them look very surreal to me, like those big-head steve madden ads...though I noticed charlie and his family were shot in a coarser, more realistic way...nice touch

I also like the idea that in the first version, I felt like Wonka had chosen Charlie from the beginning, not just as the least of the evils. Of course, I might just have pulled that out of my a**...

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 3:07pm

I saw the new one last week and then rented the original again, and although I hold a place in my heart for the original (And Gene Wilders nasty comb-over), I have to give my vote to the new one.

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 3:29pm

Glad to see I'm not alone.

I really didn't like Johnny Depp's Willie Wonka, not to say that I don't like him as an actor, but I guess I didn't like the character. I guess it wasn't written to be a likeable character, and maybe he wasn't that way in the book, but I didn't like it.

As for not being able to compare the two, well, I'd say that most of the story from the 1970's version is in the new one, so I think you can easily compare the two.

As a child, my favorite part was Violet getting blown up like the blueberry, but I really didn't like how they did it in the new one where she grew to be as big as a house.

My second favorite part was Veruca Salt's song, "I want it Now!" That aside, I think the Goose situation, rather than the squirrel.

However, I will say that she was the character that I thought looked and acted most like the original!

About the makeup, I liked it too! Violet looked like a child from Children of the Damned! I like all the rouge that Mrs. Gloop wore!

[magruder]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 3:34pm

I posted this on an earlier thread...


Saw CHARLIE last night, and enjoyed myself, but while some people here are calling the new film not a remake, I never found that it had enough of an artistic personality of its own to divorce itself from the memory of WILLY WONKA. It’s long on Tim Burton’s usual visual brilliance at the expense of writing, acting, storytelling and emotion.

There’s more tension to be found in WILLY WONKA, because of Gene Wilder’s quicksilver, unpredictable performance, and the Slugworth subplot, that gives the kids in the first film a motivation. Depp’s Wonka, while always interesting, never really seemed as complex a creation. He’s too mincing and giggly to be truly menancing.

Moreover, there’s an absence of wit in the new screenplay. Is there anything to compare with “Rachmaninoff!” “Make them work nights!” “Veruca went first” “Why? Are you having fun?” in the new film? And as Robbie smartly pointed out, the children in CHARLIE, apart from Charlie, are all so monstrous and interchangeably so, that you don’t really care what happens to them. The kids in WILLY WONKA give richer performances, although they have material that helps them create genuine characters. (I also must admit that I prefer the approach in WILLY WONKA, that you don’t see the outcome of what happens to the other kids at the end. Far more ambiguous and disturbing).

I also like the Fizzy Lifting Drinks scene in WILLY WONKA. It helps that the first film’s Charlie is not a candidate for sainthood, like he is in CHARLIE.

I’ve read the reviews for CHARLIE, bemoaning the Bricusse-Newley score for WILLY WONKA, and have been fairly stunned at some of the statements being made by critics. I like Danny Elfman, but his settings of those Dahl lyrics can’t really hold much of a candle to the professional craft of songs like “The Candy Man,” “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket,” “Pure Imagination,” “The Oompa Loompa Song” or “I Want It Now.” (And no, I’ve never had much use for “Cheer Up, Charlie”. Charlie’s mom really doesn’t need a song, and it slows down WILLY WONKA at a point where you just want to get on with it).

In fact, CHARLIE and WILLY WONKA have opposite problems. WILLY WONKA probably takes too long in its set up and getting the kids into the factory, while I found CHARLIE was taking way too long in its final reel on the psychological baggage with Willy Wonka’s father, none of which I thought was helpful or illuminating.

Now, I did like the squirrels (makes so much more sense, given that Veruca is a nut heiress), and the visual splendor of Burton’s film. But the CGI goes too far, and after a while, I was yearning for the low-tech fun house of the factory in the first film, which felt much more real and tangible.

So while I’m coming down on CHARLIE, I’m glad I saw it, I give it points for trying to provide an alternate version of the material, but WILLY WONKA is still the real deal for me. Dahl’s widow can come down on the first film all she wants (ironic, since her husband did write the screenplay for the original movie). Burton hasn’t supplanted it, at least in my opinion.

[MTVMANN]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 3:46pm

magruder, you bring a good point about Veruca being a nut heiress and the squirrels! I never thought about that, but I'll stick to the the Geese.

As, for the Original I watched it with the pop-ups that AMC or TCM show, and it said that "Cheer up,Charlie" was written just to give his mom an extra scene because they all liked her so much. I believe her husband was stationed in Germany and they just brought in and loved her. That is not her voice, BTW, I'm not sure who it is, but whoever it is, they were in the original cast of Bye, Bye Birdie.

I will admit that I usually skip all the scenes that give a sense about how sought after the Wonka bars are, like the scene with the Computer and the wife is deciding if she wants to give up her bars to save her husband. But once you get in the factory, that's when it starts rolling!

[Thenardier]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 4:02pm

Weren't the squirrels in the book?

I know I did a play of Willy Wonka, and the script called for squirrels...

[magruder]

Posted: 7/25/05 at 4:55pm

I think the squirrels were in the book. But it's been several decades since I've read the book, so... Anyway, the squirrels ROCK.

Updated On: 7/25/05 at 04:55 PM