Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

Post by **Neal** » September 27th, 2008, 5:07 pm

I didn't mean fetish as in he gets some sort of perverse pleasure from these types of girls. More or less what you said - it's his style. But a style he would never abandon. I don't really mind, but to me, it seems as if the actresses he has chosen for Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, Sweeney Todd and now Alice all seem interchangable in look/style. He could try to shake it up ever so much.

Post by **Ben** » September 27th, 2008, 5:10 pm

But then he wouldn't be an auteur.

Post by **Neal** » September 27th, 2008, 5:25 pm

You think he's an auteur?

Post by **Stego** » October 9th, 2008, 3:20 am

well i personally think he is an auteur.

on a slightly different note, i'm not so sure how i feel about this film not being stop-mo. Don't get me wrong, i love James, and i think mo-cap CAN be used well. I'm just not crazy about it and while i do enjoy new things, this was something i didn't want to be different...and by that i mean, i would have been completely satisfied with Alice looking like NBC and Corpse. So yeah, i'm a bit bummed, but i'm stoked for Frankenweenie and i will most assuredly give Alice a chance and i still look forward to doing so.

also, i'm gonna add that i really like how Corpse Bride turned out. To me it felt like just another corner of the Burton-verse.

Post by **Ben** » October 9th, 2008, 7:37 am

I think the intention with Frankenweenie is very much to capture the tone of Nightmare and Corpse Bride, Stego. Remember that both of those films - and Frankenweenie itself - are Burton creations, so they lend themselves better to coming to life in his own style.

James And The Giant Peach I often feel is a hybrid film, a cross-over of Dahl and Burton, so the two techniques (live-action and stop-motion) compliment each other as much as the collaboration does.

But with Alice, it could be that Tim just didn't want to totally hijack the Carroll story, so he's chosen to shoot it as another hybrid project. Remember that it does have a live-action cast that we assume will be really for real instead of being "made up" in mo-cap...Alice has been called a combination of live-action and motion capture, so I don't think Burton is going to go all Beowulf on us (thank goodness), and will keep his live-action performers just as such.

For the most part, and from what I understand from the production (I have a friend that did a few weeks storyboarding on it in the summer), the human characters will be, well, human, and the mo-cap is being saved for the incredible creatures and the creation of Wonderland itself.

Post by **Stego** » October 9th, 2008, 12:02 pm

Ben wrote:I think the intention with Frankenweenie is very much to capture the tone of Nightmare and Corpse Bride, Stego. Remember that both of those films - and Frankenweenie itself - are Burton creations, so they lend themselves better to coming to life in his own style..

That's true...hadn't thought of it that way, really. Thanks, Ben! Actually, i was thinking about it this morning and if it turns out to be more of a "Davy Jones" type situation, i think it will work. There seems to be some debate on imdb.com as to Alice's age, but i'm open to interp on this one. The story has been reimagined so many times. My original opposition to this style of filmmaking partially stemmed from the Hallmark rendition a few years back seeing as how that too was a combination effort (albeit a strange one). Not that the film was bad, mind you, but in my mind it is the most recent installment in "Alices" and it seems unfortunate to not switch things up a bit.

My fear was definitely Beowulf (and Polar Express, but we won't go there) and as long as this film doesn't carry on that tradition i'll be looking forward to it. I know there's this big debate as to the legitimacy of mo-cap and i get that there is work from the animators that goes into it but it will always feel like "cheating" for me. I grew up watching the Sinbad movies and Jason & the Argonauts, so i ultimately have a much greater appreciation for anything done by hand.

Post by **Ben** » October 10th, 2008, 7:50 am

Stego wrote:I grew up watching the Sinbad movies and Jason & the Argonauts, so i ultimately have a much greater appreciation for anything done by hand.

So did Tim Burton, and so does he.

I think we're in pretty good hands...Burton's never been an effects-driven director, it's always been based on the look, and he simply won't use what he doesn't feel is tangible.

Post by **Stego** » October 13th, 2008, 5:59 pm

true...true...

Post by **Neal** » October 13th, 2008, 9:53 pm

Yeah, I do sort of agree with Stego that for human characters... Mo-Cap is 'cheating'. For creatures and creations I can understand, but to just animated people it seems like a really worthless extra step...

...and new Alice pics: new pictures

Post by **Ben** » October 14th, 2008, 7:24 am

Not a lot to go on, but at least it shows a healthy amount of practical elements. The more I see/read/head about Burton's Alice, it really does sound like the mo-cap is only going to be used for effects characters.

Post by **Daniel** » October 19th, 2008, 2:04 pm

Comes as no surprise, but confirmation Danny Elfman is scoring the film:

Post by **Stego** » October 21st, 2008, 6:07 pm

...at the risk of sounding fanboyish: I NEED TO MEET THAT MAN SOMEDAY!!!

*cough cough* Excuse me. I appologize and will try not to let that happen again.

Thank you.

Post by **eddievalient** » October 21st, 2008, 9:51 pm

If I were Tim Burton, here's how I would end Alice: Have a climax similar to the Disney version, with her being chased, and just as it seems she's about to escape, the camera pulls back out of her eyes to reveal that she's in a mental hospital and the entire story has been a drug-induced hallucination. Cue "White Rabbit" (by Jefferson Airplane) and fade to credits.

Post by **Whippet Angel** » October 22nd, 2008, 12:25 am

The Soccer Moms would have a field day with that...

Post by **EricJ** » October 22nd, 2008, 12:28 am

eddievalient wrote:If I were Tim Burton, here's how I would end Alice: Have a climax similar to the Disney version, with her being chased, and just as it seems she's about to escape, the camera pulls back out of her eyes to reveal that she's in a mental hospital and the entire story has been a drug-induced hallucination. Cue "White Rabbit" (by Jefferson Airplane) and fade to credits.

Yep, that pretty much would be the lame, cheap-gag, McGoth-wannabe way Tim would handle it, and pat himself on the back for his cleverness...

(If there's one other Anti-Defamation League cause I champion, it's for the freedom for people to read Lewis Carroll as just a logic-geek university teacher trying to tell incredibly awful puns, who liked to lampoon silly Weird-Al parodies of sickening Victorian-poetry hits at the time, and who couldn't string his vignette sketches together into an A->B plot to save his life...)