Ok, so when I was a kid I loved Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, the colors, the oompa-loompas, the allure of a life time sugar high. Ah yes, those were the days.
Well when I watch that show again today and I am once again immersed in those wonderful colors and sounds I cant help thinking one thing...
Well, ok, two things, the first being how far off this movie is from the book, compared to the Johnny Depp film anyway, but the second and only less obvious thought would be this...
WHAT THE HECK I WRONG WITH THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am serious, I'm surprised I didn't pick up on this when I was a kid,( the scary tunnel not withstanding)
this movie is so messed up.
I guess the guy who made this just skimmed the book, considered it, then decided to film what was the equivalent of a drunken, drug induced, chocolate filled hallucination for the factory scenes, and be just plain cruel to Charlie the rest of the time. I mean, just look at the first real scene of the movie, where the friendly candy store owner is talking to his customers and singing "The Candy Man."
(0:38 did one of those kids just grab a Slugworth candy?)
Are any of those kids even paying for this stuff? NO! No, it's "give these lousy rich brats free candy" day, but when Charlie walks in with almost no money he's got to pay full price. Does he get to run behind the counter? Does he get free soda-pop? Does he get some vaguely creepy store owner singing to him about the guy who makes the chocolate? NO! No, he gets to go home and be scarred to death by some creepy tin peddler outside the Wonka factory.
Of course we all know about his bed ridden grand parents who couldn't possibly get out of bed for any reason. OH wait!
then the mom trys to cheer us up by singing THE MOST DEPRESSING SONG EVER!!!!!
THIS WAS MY CHILDHOOD!
And, AND we get this moron of a teacher...
Where did you even get those chemicals? Do you have a licence for those? My chemistry teacher would kill him.
SO that happened. Then we get to the fun part, you know the one where a old, obviously insane man proceeds to cleverly pick off the children one by one in an attempt to find a successor. Yeah.
I didn't appreciate it back then, but if today was the first time I ever watched this movie I could probably guess what was about to ensue just by looking at the guy who plays Wonka...
Ah, the best of Gene Wilder. =)
Now we all know how Wonka handles the removal of his rather irritating guests, allowing one to almost drown in chocolate, while dryly saying
And, even more memorably to Agustus' mother,
"Help. Police. Murder."
I am not even getting into that scary tunnel mess. That is possibly the second most terrifying performance in child film history. The most terrifying I will address at a later date.
He later "reprimands" Violet, "No. Stop. Don't. in complete monotone. love that.
Veruca and her father get sent to the incinerator.
and Mike T.V. gets shredded into itsey, bitsey Mikey bits before being reassembled at a fraction of his original size.
But we all remember that.
What we forget is that he shows them all these wonderful things to touch taste and smell. Like leaving out the exploding candy and blowing up Mike's mouth. What did you forget that? Yeah check it out. And let us not forget the Fizzy-lifting drinks incident.
So wonka shows off his lickable wallpaper and tells them to lick the shnoz berries, and in doing so not only says one of the coolest lines ever...
But he also seems to make it very clear that 'it's ok to try anything we may come across'. This is something Charlie and his grandfather indulge in in the Fizzy-lifting drink testing area. This launches them into the air, which is all fine and dandy... EXCEPT FOR THE SPINNING BLADES OF DEATH ON THE ROOF!
OMG WONKA! why the heck do you have those in a room where you are testing with anti gravity? How many Oompa-Loompas have you lost already to that thing?! What is with you and life & death situations?! Come on Man! AND, to top it off, you've trained your minions to sing happily about what ever tragedy just happened and essentially tell us exactly how they went wrong. Yikes.
