Latest / This Film is Lit / Alice in Wonderland (1999)

Transcript

Alice in Wonderland (1999) · This Film is Lit

• 0:04
  Speaker A: This film is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple question. Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
• 0:15
  Speaker B: And I'm Katie. I have an english degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
• 0:22
  Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers, because this film is lit. We're all mad here. I'm mad? You're mad. How do you know I'm mad? Said Alice. You must be, said the cat, or you wouldn't have come here. It's Alice in Wonderland, and this film is lit. Hello and welcome back to this film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. We almost had all of our segments, no guess who this week, but everything else. So we're gonna get right into it. If you have not read or watched Alice in Wonderland anytime recently, or specifically this 1999 version, which is what we are talking about this time, in case that's clear. In case you're tuning in and you saw Alice in Wonderland, we are going to be talking about the 1999 made for TV film Alice in Wonderland. That was determined by our listeners who voted during a March Madness bracket, and the 1999 version just narrowly edged out the 1951 Disney version. So we will be doing the 1951 Disney version as a bonus episode next month in April for our patrons. If you want to hear our discussion on that. Well, that doesn't follow our full kind of format, but we will discuss that episode and talk about it and break it down. Or that film and break it down, just not quite as in depth as we do for the main episodes. So if you have not read or watched, here is a brief summary in let me sum up, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This is a summary of just the film, sourced from Wikipedia. Alice is unwillingly preparing a presentation of the song cherry ripe for a garden party. Nagged by her governess and facing stage fright, an audience of strangers, and a song she dislikes. Alice runs out of the house and hides in the woods as clouds fill the sky. An apple falls from the tree and hovers in her face. She then sees the white rabbit and follows him down the rabbit hole, landing in wonderland in an attempt to enter a small door and hide in a beautiful garden. Alice shrinks and grows into a giant, floods a room with tears, and shrinks to the size of a mouse. She meets Mr. Mouse and his avian friends, who attend his boring history lecture and participate in a caucus race. Alice again encounters the white rabbit, who directs her to his house. Alice finds a bottle of liquid which makes her grow and traps her in the house. The white rabbit and his gardeners, pat and Bill, attempt to remove Alice, but she shrinks to a tiny size. Wandering in long grass, she meets Major Caterpillar, played by Bing Kingsley, who tells her not to be afraid when performing. After he transforms into mini butterflies, Alice returns to normal size by eating part of his mushroom. In a nearby manor house, she meets the musical duchess, her baby, and her pepper obsessed, plate throwing cook, and the Cheshire cat, played by Whoopi Goldberg. The baby is left in Alice's care, but turns into a pig and she lets him go. The Cheshire cat advises Alice to visit the mad Hatter and his friend the march hare. Meeting the two and their dormouse friend at a tea party. Alice is given advice on the fun of performing and how to get around stage fright. The mad Hatter, Martin short, leaps onto the table to perform as he previously had at a concert of the wicked queen of Hearts. Alice leaves when the mad Hatter and the march hare start to cause havoc and stuff the doormouse into a teapot. Alice once again finds the small door and this time manages to enter the garden, which unfortunately turns out to be a labyrinth maze belonging to the Queen of Hearts, played by Miranda Richardson. The queen invites her to a bizarre game of croquet, but her love for beheading people annoys Alice. The Cheshire cat's face appears in the sky and is ordered to be executed, but Alice's logic stays the order and everyone applauds her. Alice escapes the croquet game and meets the Griffin and mock turtle, played by Jean Wilder. The two sing with Alice, encouraging her and teaching her the lobster quadrille dance. Alice then wanders away and opens a colossal book, walking into an illustration of the woods making her. I copy and pasted this walks into an illustration of the woods making her in the woods. Taking her to the woods is maybe what that should say. She meets the white knight, Christopher Lloyd, who fights against a red knight and encourages her to be brave. When she goes home, Alice meets some talking flowers, a tiger Lily, who is the most sensible one, some roses, who are all very rude, and then daisies, who are rascals. Having the flowers help her, Alice walks off and meets Tweedledee and Tweedledum, played by Robbie Coltrane and George W. Have some antics with her, such as telling the story of the walrus and the carpenter before getting into a fight. Alice is then chased by clouds and taken by a pair of card soldiers to the royal court, where the knave of hearts is put on trial for apparently stealing the queen's tarts. Alice is then called to the stand, but she uses some mushrooms to grow to great heights. Upon seeing that the tarts have been untouched and the trial is pointless, she openly criticizes the queen and King Cedric. The White rabbit, who is president at the court, reveals he lured Alice into Wonderland to conquer her fears and ask her if she has self confidence. Upon answering yes, he states, then you don't need us anymore. She is then sent back home by the same hovering apple and clouds that brought her there. Awakening back home seconds after the apple fell, Alice courageously sings in front of her parents and guests, who are all resembled the Wonderland characters, but instead of singing cherry ripe, she sings to lobster Quadrille. The audience, Talis's delight, all enjoy her performance as she spots her cat Dinah in the audience, who is really the Cheshire cat grinning at her in congratulations. Freeze frame ending. So that is the 1999 film Alice in Wonderland. I have some questions, and we're going to ask them in was that in the book?
• 6:09
  Speaker B: Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of the Philosopher's stone. What? Honestly, don't you two read?
• 6:18
  Speaker A: So, as I mentioned in the summary there, this film opens up with something that I don't recall from other adaptations of Alice in Wonderland, but it's been a long time since I've seen any of them. I have seen the 2010 one, the Tim Burton one, and I have seen the Disney one, but it's been a long time since I've seen both of them. I think I saw the 2010 one, maybe in theaters, and then, yeah, the other one since I was whole kid. But it opens up with Alice being nervous about a performance that she has to give, which is the impetus that causes her to flee into the woods, where she then is able to head down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. And I wanted to know if that conceit came from the book, the performance, or anything even remotely like that, where know, nervous about something or trying to get away from something and escapes to Wonderland kind of accidentally because of that.
• 7:05
  Speaker B: No, none of the frame story is from the book. In the book, Alice is sitting outside with her sister and she's bored to tears while her sister is reading a book with no pictures or conversations in it. She chases after the white rabbit because she's bored. Now, I understand the movie's decision to add this device definitely gives the story a little bit more of a solid through line. Personally, I didn't care for it. I thought it ended up feeling a little overly saccharine and hallmark to me.
• 7:41
  Speaker A: I didn't feel that necessarily. I thought it was fine. The main thing, I didn't really feel one way or the other about it. We'll get to my feelings as a whole on this eventually. I don't want to spoil that right off the top, but one thing I did like about it, I will say, is that I thought it was an interesting and kind of unique, specific problem that they gave her, specifically being that she's nervous about performing in front of people and failing and not doing a good job and that sort of thing. Not that that's completely unique, but it is something that I feel like I haven't seen in a lot of kids stories as the journey she has to go on being okay with failure and specifically working up the courage to perform in front of people and kind of conquer her stage fright. I don't know. Again, not that there are no stories that do that, but it's not maybe as common as a lot of other kind of morals that these kind of stories tend to do.
• 8:42
  Speaker B: Yes, that's true.
• 8:43
  Speaker A: I don't know. I just thought it was kind of interesting, at least in that regard. At this party, though, we are introduced, we kind of get a camera kind of moves through the whole crowd of guests that are there. And I already knew just from the prequel and stuff, who the actors were playing because we see, like, Ben Kingsley, and I don't think we see Whoopi Goldberg. We definitely don't. But we see Ben Kingsley and we see. I don't think we see Jen Wilder either. They probably couldn't get him for that. They got him for that one scene. Yeah. But a lot of the characters that we will go on to see throughout Wonderland, like Miranda Richardson's there, the queen, the king are there.
• 9:19
  Speaker B: The Duchess is the Duchess.
• 9:20
  Speaker A: Is there a handful of other characters who we will go on to see are there as different versions of themselves, as, like, real world versions of themselves? And I wanted to know if anything like that was reflected in the book. Like, were the people in Wonderland that she sees later, different versions of the real world people? Allah, wizard of Oz, which is in the movie, famously, one of the first things, or at least one of the first things I'm aware of to do that kind of thing, where this alternative fantasy world has the same actors playing different characters, maybe like, heightened versions of their real world selves.
• 9:59
  Speaker B: So, no, there's never any indication of this in the book. Most of the creatures that Alice interacts with in Wonderland are either animals, anthropomorphic animals, or inanimate objects come to life, like playing cards and the chess pieces. Then this was actually another thing that I didn't really care for all that much. I guess it's neither here nor there. I just think the wizard of Oz did it first and did it best. So to me, it ended up feeling a little tired.
• 10:32
  Speaker A: I would not necessarily disagree. I think it's fine. I don't think it affects my feelings positively or negatively. It's definitely one of the things where it's just like, oh, yeah, all right.
• 10:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, okay. We're doing this. Sure.
• 10:46
  Speaker A: And it doesn't really do anything super interesting with it. That being said, I can understand why you would do it because you already have these actors.
• 10:55
  Speaker B: Right.
• 10:56
  Speaker A: So it's like, well, let's get kind of a dual purpose use out of them. That way we don't have to cast a whole bunch of other random extras to be at this dinner party. But, yeah, it doesn't really end up meaning anything interesting.
• 11:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't add anything interesting to the story overall, I don't think.
• 11:14
  Speaker A: And it's very much just like, I guess we will just do this because that's a thing. Because a Wizard of Oz did it. It's a thing you can do. Doesn't feel like a particularly inspired decision. So as Alice runs away, she goes down in the rabbit hole into Wonderland. And this is just a little detail that I was interested famously, in the Disney version, Alice wears a blue dress with, like, a white aprony kind of overlay thing on it. And in this one, she is wearing a yellow dress. The style of the dress looks fairly similar. Like, it's the same type. It has, like, a white aprony looking pinafore. There you go, over the top of it, but it's yellow as opposed to blue. And I was interested if either of those is more accurate to the book, if we know what color of the dress is or what's going on with the dress.
• 12:08
  Speaker B: Okay. I have so many fun facts about this.
• 12:10
  Speaker A: Can't wait.
• 12:11
  Speaker B: So the original book illustrations, which were done by John Teniel, were all in black and white. And there's actually nothing in the text indicating what color Alice is wearing.
• 12:25
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 12:27
  Speaker B: However, as far as the style of the dress and the pinafore. I would give it to this movie over the Disney version. Her dress in this movie is basically a carbon copy of what the illustrations show. And she's wearing a different dress in the illustrations and through the looking glass. But in through the looking glass, she's depicted wearing striped sockings, which we see in this movie, and a headband which she's also wearing in this movie. And also, fun fact, headband is called an Alice Band.
• 13:00
  Speaker A: Really?
• 13:00
  Speaker B: Outside of the US, specifically in the UK that I know of. I don't know if other places call.
• 13:05
  Speaker A: It an Alice band type of headband.
• 13:09
  Speaker B: What do you mean?
• 13:10
  Speaker A: Well, you said headband is called an Alice band. There are headbands that go around your forehead like a sweat headband. You would also call that a headband. But you're saying this type like a hair. Yes. I was just clarifying what type of headband?
• 13:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's called an Alice band because of the character. Got you a couple other notes on the color that I was able to find out. The first colored versions of Teniel's illustrations were created for the nursery Alice, which was a shortened version of the text that was published in 1899. And those illustrations actually did depict Alice's dress as yellow, albeit a darker yellow than what we see in this film. More like a mustard.
• 13:52
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 13:53
  Speaker B: But the 19 three Macmillan edition of the book also featured colored versions of Teniel's illustration and did depict the dress as blue. So many iterations moving forward, including the Disney one, took its cues from those illustrations.
• 14:10
  Speaker A: Okay, interesting. But it sounds like both of them have both yellow and blue, at least, and maybe others in some other versions. But those two, at least for sure, have roots in near when this story was published. Cool. All right. What perspective is the book written from? So in the film, as Alice Ventures into Wonderland, we start to get some voiceover from my memory. It kind of slows down.
• 14:39
  Speaker B: There's definitely more of it closer to the beginning of the film, which is fair because she's by herself. That's true for a good portion of the beginning of that.
• 14:48
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:48
  Speaker B: And then she starts interacting with more people.
• 14:50
  Speaker A: So we get a voiceover where we hear Alice kind know, trying to figure out what's going on and she's questioning what she's experiencing and all that sort of through, kind of puzzling through what's happening. And I wanted to know if the book was written from a perspective where some of that internal monologue would make sense coming from having come from the book. Because to me, at least in the film, it felt like, potentially something they added later? Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to tell, but it might have been something they added later to kind of like, help, especially in that first part, to kind of help things along. And so we didn't just have big stretches of no dialogue, no nothing. And Alice just kind of like, interacting with stuff, I think, mainly, again, for younger audiences, I would guess. So, again, does that feel like something that could have been inspired by the book, though?
• 15:43
  Speaker B: So the book is told in third person limited, and it is from Alice's perspective, but most of the voiceover that we hear in the movie where we hear her, like, puzzling through things is actually directly from the book.
• 15:59
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 16:00
  Speaker B: So it wasn't something that the movie just added in.
• 16:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:04
  Speaker B: Particularly in the scene where she's falling down the hole into Wonderland, I caught her wondering about what latitude and longitude she's at.
• 16:14
  Speaker A: Longitude. Longitude, as they say in Britain say longitude. They say longitude.
• 16:20
  Speaker B: And then imagining that maybe she fell straight to the other side of the earth. And she's in New Zealand or Australia. And all of that is from the book.
• 16:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. It's funny because it also cracked me up, which I think it's fairly good. Tina Madrino, who plays Alice in this, is american, but she's doing a british accent for this because everybody else is british or whatever. And then going off that, I actually was thinking back, and I have a vague memory in the Disney movie, doesn't she? And we'll confirm this when we do it for the bonus episode here next month. But I think in the last one, doesn't she just talk out loud to herself for a lot of the beginning part? Or am I imagining, like, so some of the stuff that we hear in Alice's head in this one, she kind.
• 17:02
  Speaker B: Of just like, yeah, it's been a minute since I've seen the Disney one as well. Probably more recently than you have. Yeah, probably. It is my recollection that she talks aloud to.
• 17:16
  Speaker A: Interesting. Okay, but speaking of one of those lines, one of the ones that she thinks to herself as she is, she gets into the room that has the little vial of potion or whatever that makes her grow. No shrink. And then the cookies or whatever in this, they look like cookies.
• 17:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, they call them cakes in the book, but I think they're supposed to be like tea.
• 17:38
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 17:39
  Speaker B: Which I think are maybe a little bit more like between a cake and a cookie.
• 17:43
  Speaker A: Yeah. Whereas in these, they kind of look like chocolate chip cookie.
• 17:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, they kind of did.
• 17:47
  Speaker A: Well, at least they have the piping of frosting that looks similar to a cookie cake in America. I don't know, anyways. But, yeah, she has, like. And those make you grow. And I wanted to know if, when she's kind of investigating this stuff. I think it's when she opens the case for the cookies specifically, she thinks to herself, curiouser and curiouser. And I wanted to know if that line came from the book, because I recognized it. If it didn't come from the book. It came from the Disney movie.
• 18:12
  Speaker B: Yes, that is directly from the book, and I think it probably appears in every single iteration of Alice that there is. And she does say it after she eats the little cake and starts to grow larger.
• 18:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. I thought in the movie, she said it when it opened, like, magically, but it doesn't. It's the same difference.
• 18:31
  Speaker B: Close enough.
• 18:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, close enough. So after she's able to escape from this, which I have a question about, we'll get to in a second, she escapes from this room, and she ends up in a library. Like a book. Say library. It's like a room made of books, basically. Yeah, because she's now very small, but too small to get the key that's on the table that would open the door to go to the garden, and she ends up in this other room. I think maybe the mouse tells her to. I can't remember.
• 18:59
  Speaker B: Well, she follows the mouse into the.
• 19:02
  Speaker A: Oh, that's right. She ends up in the water. At one point.
• 19:04
  Speaker B: She's in the water, which is the ocean of her tears that she was crying when she was giant, and she meets the mouse, and then she follows Mr. Mouse into the library lecture hall area.
• 19:18
  Speaker A: She gets in there, meets another band of characters that don't remember any of their names or anything, but one of the guy gives, like, a lecture, like a history lecture or a literature lecture or something like that, and they all find it very boring. So they decide what they need to do is have a race, specifically, a caucus race, is what they say and what a caucus race is. They all just kind of run around willy nilly, making noise and yelling and with no real goal, and I was like, okay, so we got some political commentary here, kind of commentating on the political process being corrupt and pointless and stupid. Basically the idea. And I wanted to know if that specifically the caucus race and that political commentary came from the book.
• 20:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. So there are a couple of specific lines in the movie that I kind of thought you were asking about in this question. Like, more specifically, there's a line about sheer stupidity. Yeah.
• 20:10
  Speaker A: I mean, that was why I characterized it as stupid and corrupt.
• 20:13
  Speaker B: Yeah. And there's a line about cheating, and those specific lines are not from the book, but it's definitely still the vibe of the caucus race.
• 20:23
  Speaker A: I was mainly asking generally about the scene.
• 20:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, that is from the book, and it's called a caucus race, which is obviously a political reference. And then the race itself, similar to what we see in the movie, is just, like, useless chaos where everybody's doing whatever they want, and there are no real rules or regulations to follow. There's no point to it.
• 20:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's Calvin Ball there.
• 20:44
  Speaker B: You.
• 20:47
  Speaker A: Move. And I don't remember when this line happens somewhere around when.
• 20:53
  Speaker B: So we move out of the roommate of books. She opens up a pop up book, and she moves into the white rabbits, like, outside the white rabbit's house. And she goes in.
• 21:05
  Speaker A: That's right. And then she goes in, and she gets trapped because she drinks the.
• 21:07
  Speaker B: She drinks the little potion and grows giant.
• 21:09
  Speaker A: Grows giant and gets stuck in the house. And while she's inside, we cut outside, and the rabbit is, like, coming home or getting there or whatever. And he's having a conversation with his gardener, and for some reason, he's concerned about. I don't remember.
• 21:23
  Speaker B: Well, it's because her arm is sticking out the window, and they don't know what it is.
• 21:27
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 21:28
  Speaker B: So they want to get her out of there.
• 21:29
  Speaker A: Yes. And so he's trying to convince the gardener to do it because he can't do it, because he's too rich. He can't afford to die, is what he says. He goes, I'm too rich. I can't afford to die. And I wanted to know if that line came to book, because, again, a little political commentary.
• 21:45
  Speaker B: It is not from the book, but I did like this line. I thought it was funny.
• 21:48
  Speaker A: Yes, it's a good little line. But speaking of that scene, Alice gets trapped inside the house. And I love that their plan to remedy this is to just burn the house down with her inside it initially, and I wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 22:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, all of that is from the book.
• 22:04
  Speaker A: Great. Fantastic. Then we move forward, and again, I don't remember the exact second where this line happens. I think she just thinks it to herself.
• 22:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's part of her. Like, she's talking to herself at this point.
• 22:17
  Speaker A: Place to another. Maybe she might even be on the point being she has this thought to herself because she's kind of thinking about all the ridiculous things that have just happened to her. And she says to herself, there ought to be a book written about me. Maybe when I grow up, I'll write one. And I was like, okay, so is there any sort of meta thing implying that Alice wrote Alice in Wonderland?
• 22:41
  Speaker B: There is not. And I hate this. This is the kind of awful meta winking that I truly cannot stand. It adds nothing to the story. It's literally just the movie being like, hey, guys. Hey, this is a book. Remember, everybody? Remember, this is a book.
• 23:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. It doesn't do anything. It never gets revisited. She doesn't.
• 23:06
  Speaker B: We don't see her start writing. It follows through.
• 23:09
  Speaker A: Or, like, the frame story has nothing to do with her wanting to be a writer. It's really irrelevant. It's just like a throwaway line to remind people that it's a book. I guess giving it the most charity possible, it was an attempt to get kids who are watching this to maybe go, wait, is this a book? To their parents so that they would read the book? You know what I mean? Maybe the most charitable thing is to try to encourage kids to read. Cue them into the fact that this is a book. I don't know. Again, I agree. It's silly. So after she talks to the caterpillar, which I didn't care, it wasn't that interesting. I assume that's in the book. I remember it from the Disney version. So she talks to the caterpillar, and she eats the mushroom so that she can grow back to normal size. And then she ends up at this manor, this, like, estate where some chaos happening inside. And she goes in, and we meet the duchess. Right? Or governess duchess. Whatever.
• 24:12
  Speaker B: Duchess. And the baby.
• 24:13
  Speaker A: And the cook. And the baby. And then there's the cook. And the cook is using lots of black pepper, and it's making everybody sneeze. And she's also very angry, and it's throwing. Hurling plates everywhere. And I wanted to know. And also the baby keeps sneezing and looks like a garbage pail kid. Remember the garbage? That baby looks like a weird garbage pail kid. And I wanted to know if any of this came from the book. I assume it must, because otherwise, like what?
• 24:42
  Speaker B: All of this comes from the book? Every single bit of it. Don't ask me what any of it is supposed to symbolize. So much of the story is like a satirical take on victorian society, and I do not know enough about that to really break it down.
• 25:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. I wonder if it's. I have a note about it later, but a lot of this. And obviously, it's very intentional, because I think spirited away is very much inspired by a story like Alice in Wonderland. But I had a note later about how a lot of this movie reminded me of spirited away. Again, I know the order of events there is reversed, but I wonder if it's a similar thing where some of the stuff in spirited away that I didn't felt like I didn't get was similarly like, japanese culture commentary on a.
• 25:35
  Speaker B: Culture that we're not aware enough of to be able to maybe parse what that commentary is.
• 25:41
  Speaker A: I had a thing and a similar feeling in this at times, where I was like, I don't know if this is supposed to mean anything or if it's just ridiculous for ridiculous sake, which is fine, if that's what it is. But I found myself often now, some of the stuff very clear, like the caucus race, other things like that. Some of the stuff with the king and the queen later, like the courtroom scene. Lots of stuff there where it's very clear what kind of the commentary and the satire is doing. But there are other things where I'm just like, I don't like this scene, where I'm just like, I don't know if I'm supposed to get something out of this or if it's just supposed to be silly.
• 26:17
  Speaker B: And the thing is that there is more than enough literature and critical analysis out there of this story that if you wanted to go and find out what the past two centuries of literary scholars think that every single minute detail in these books means.
• 26:38
  Speaker A: Right.
• 26:38
  Speaker B: You can totally do that.
• 26:40
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 26:41
  Speaker B: That's not really the point of what we do. And also, I don't have time to research an entire thesis on this, but.
• 26:50
  Speaker A: We try to do that, a critical analysis through the lens of. Through our own personal lens. We're not doing a research paper when we do these podcasts, we try to bring some level, like I said, of critical analysis to it. And specifically, we talk about the stuff that we find personally engaging in the media and try to dig into that a little bit more. But, yeah, it is not our goal to break down every single little detail.
• 27:20
  Speaker B: Explain well, and like you said, we're looking at it through a completely different lens, because if you wanted to know what it was thought that these details and things symbolize, and specifically as it relates to the time period, you would be looking through the story, at the story through a historical lens.
• 27:39
  Speaker A: Right.
• 27:39
  Speaker B: Whereas we're looking at it through a film as literature lens.
• 27:45
  Speaker A: Yes, generally, we do a film as literature lens, and then also kind of adjacent to that, we often look through it through sort of like our kind.
• 27:53
  Speaker B: Of like a reader response. Yeah.
• 27:58
  Speaker A: I think both of us can't help but bring kind of our political leadings into everything we analyze, at least to some extent and that kind of stuff. So anyways, Alice escapes from the wild sneezing pepper chef house and ends up somewhere. She ends up somewhere with a mirror.
• 28:22
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:22
  Speaker A: Well, because she goes on the path, and then she has the baby. She escapes the baby. Baby turns into a pig.
• 28:28
  Speaker B: Baby turns into a pig. And then she goes to the mad tea party, which you don't have any questions?
• 28:33
  Speaker A: I don't have any questions about, because I know that's from the book, and I know it's probably very similar because that's one of the scenes I remember the most from the Disney version and the Tim Burton version. It's in all the versions, so I just assumed it was from the book. I guess I could have put a question about it.
• 28:46
  Speaker B: Probably one of the most recognizable things from this story. But then she sees that a door in the tree, I think, and gets back into the hallway with all of the doors. And this time she's able to access the tiny door that leads into the garden.
• 29:09
  Speaker A: And then that's where she goes through the mirror.
• 29:11
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 29:12
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:12
  Speaker B: She opens that door, and it's like she's going through the mirror.
• 29:16
  Speaker A: Yes. So specifically, that was the little detail I wanted to know, and I assume it is because. But it's a cool shot in the movie where she walks through and it looks like the abyss. Like the movie the abyss. I think that's the one I'm thinking of. I don't remember who made that, but there's a movie where somebody. They're at, like, the bottom of the ocean, and there's, like, this thing, and they, like. Anyways, doesn't matter. It reminded me of that, and I wanted to know if that walking through the mirror came from the book. I would have to imagine it does. Based on the title of the second half being through the looking glass, or the second book being through the looking glass.
• 29:49
  Speaker B: Yes. The impetus of the main story in through the looking glass is Alice stepping through a big mirror that hangs above the mantle in her drawing.
• 29:58
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. So in that one, that's sort of the way she reenters wonderland.
• 30:04
  Speaker B: Essentially, she reenters a place that might be Wonderland, but it's never really confirmed that she's back in Wonderland.
• 30:14
  Speaker A: But that's how she reenters whatever magical place she ends up after coming back to the real world. Whereas in this one, she's doing she's still in.
• 30:22
  Speaker B: Still in the real world. She just. In the magical world, she just goes through the mirror to get into the garden.
• 30:28
  Speaker A: Right. So after she gets into the garden, it's kind of a labyrinth, and she makes her way around, and she stumbles into this big garden party that is going on that the queen is throwing, where it's the queen and all of her subjects or whatever, and they're playing a game. But before she gets that, she runs into some knights who are, and I remember this from the Disney version, who are painting roses because they planted a bunch of roses, but they're all white, and the queen only likes red roses, so they're painting all the roses red, gilding the lily, as it were. Right. That's the reference I think we're making in order to keep the queen happy. And I wanted to know if that detail came from the book.
• 31:04
  Speaker B: Yes, that is straight from the book.
• 31:06
  Speaker A: It's another one of those little things that very clear kind of commentary, satire on the preposterously rich and the kind of things that they tend to care about.
• 31:16
  Speaker B: And honestly, I don't know for sure how much of this is little jabs at Queen Victoria specifically. Specifically. But it's my understanding that there are some jabs at Queen Victoria specifically.
• 31:33
  Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. Well, speaking of the queen, we then meet the queen, and whose favorite thing to say is off with her head. She yells it constantly at everybody all the time because she's petulant and only wants things to go how she wants them to go, and if they don't, she will just chop its head off, whatever the problem is. And so she decides that. Sorry, that's my question. Is that her obsession with offing people's heads, does that come from the book?
• 32:04
  Speaker B: Yes, it does.
• 32:05
  Speaker A: I would have.
• 32:06
  Speaker B: Yeah. The Queen of hearts solution to each and every problem that comes her way is to chop someone's head off.
• 32:12
  Speaker A: Yes, again, very clear and obvious commentary there. So then, though, at this garden party, they're playing croquet, and she invites Alice to play croquet with them, where they use flamingos as mallets and hedgehogs as the croquet balls. And in the movie, it is the saddest looking little hedgehog croquet ball that I've ever seen. Again, reminder, if you didn't listen to the prequel, these are all Jim Henson studio or Jim Henson creature shop creatures for the. He didn't, probably.
• 32:44
  Speaker B: Well, the shop did.
• 32:46
  Speaker A: Yes, Jim Henson's creature shop did. And in particular, this little hedgehog is so sad looking so it looks so upset to be used as a croquet ball. And I wanted to know if the croquet with the flamingos and the hedgehogs came from the book.
• 33:04
  Speaker B: Yes, it does. They do play croquet using flamingos and hedgehogs who similarly do not seem to want to be utilized in that fashion. Yes, understandably so.
• 33:14
  Speaker A: And again, just showing kind of the casual cruelty of the ruling class, just using innocent little woodland furry creatures as their playthings. Basically during this, there's this great exchange that I really want to know if it comes from the book where I believe Alice is talking to the king. I know the king says this, but I don't remember what they're talking about specifically. But she's talking to the king. And Alice says something. Again, I don't recall exactly what it was, but she says something. And the king asks her where she heard that and she goes, I read it in a book somewhere. And the king responds, I haven't, but it sounds immoral. It has undertones. That book should be banned. And I loved that exchange a lot and I wanted to know if it came from the book.
• 34:05
  Speaker B: This specific exchange isn't from the book, but I did enjoy the edition. The book has a kind of similarish vibe to this exchange. So they're talking about the Cheshire cat who has appeared like in the sky.
• 34:22
  Speaker A: That's right.
• 34:25
  Speaker B: And Alice says a cat may look at a king, said Alice, something like that. I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where. Well, it must be removed, said the king very decidedly. And he called to the queen, who was passing at the moment. My dear, I wish you would have this cat removed. And removed is pulling double duty here.
• 34:46
  Speaker A: Book removed. And the cat removed.
• 34:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, book removed. Section removed from the book. Cat removed. Remove it all. We don't like it.
• 34:54
  Speaker A: Right.
• 34:55
  Speaker B: These books are really more wordplay than anything else.
• 34:59
  Speaker A: It's fair. Fair enough. But yeah, I thought that exchange was great. And it's evergreenly true or evergreenly accurate as a critique of the kind of people who like to censor books. I just love the. When she's like, I read it in a book somewhere. He's like, I haven't, but it sounds immoral. Just like I don't know what it's. And then it has undertones. Just the allusion to this vague something about it is I don't like. And we should ban it. Yeah, I just thought that was great. So she is able ultimately to get away from this garden party and wanders off into the woods again, where she then bumps into. Or she gets into this ruins. It's within the maze, I think. She gets into these kind of, like, stone ruin place where she meets a griffin and the mock turtle, which. I don't know what that means. I don't know what a mock turtle is.
• 35:55
  Speaker B: A mock turtle.
• 35:56
  Speaker A: Or is that just what this one's called, or is that a thing?
• 35:59
  Speaker B: It's a reference to mock turtle soup.
• 36:02
  Speaker A: Which that means nothing to me.
• 36:07
  Speaker B: It's a soup, I believe, made out of some part of a calf, which was invented as a substitute for actual turtle soup, which was very popular during this time period. So popular that the turtles it was made of started to go extinct. Hence, mock turtle soup.
• 36:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. It often uses brains and organ meats to replicate the texture and flavor of the original turtle meat. After the green turtles that were used to make the original dish were hunted nearly to extinction in the US, it eventually became more popular than the original dish and is apparently still popular in Cincinnati. Oh, is that what, skyline chili? Is that what that is? Anyways, so she meets the mock turtle and the Griffin. I don't have a lot to ask about this other than if this comes from the book and if the mock turtle sings a little turtle soup song.
• 37:11
  Speaker B: Yes, the mock turtle and his soup song are both from the book.
• 37:15
  Speaker A: I guess that's a good broader question. How many songs? Because I actually usually do ask that because this movie is somewhat of a musical.
• 37:23
  Speaker B: It's not.
• 37:24
  Speaker A: There are songs. They're not, like a ton, but there's, like.
• 37:27
  Speaker B: There are numbers.
• 37:28
  Speaker A: There's like a half dozen over the course of the movie or something like that. And I wanted to know. So, yeah. Does the music come from the book?
• 37:36
  Speaker B: There are so many songs and poems in these books I would not like. And it becomes a little bit, like, self aware later on, which I'll talk about in one of my other segments. But I did have a funny moment in my own reading notes during this scene with the soup song, because I had just finished reading the lobster quadrille, which I did not like.
• 38:04
  Speaker A: Right.
• 38:05
  Speaker B: And then I had, like, a couple of paragraphs, and then they were like, oh, mock turtle, sing your song. And I was like, no, not another song. And then his song started. Soup. Soup. Beautiful soup. And I was like, actually, this one.
• 38:23
  Speaker A: Laughs yeah, I don't think I would enjoy that. I'm notedly not a fan of reading songs books. My least favorite part of the poems. That's fine. I can read a poem. I've said before I'll just clarify here. I don't really have an issue with the reading them. The problem is that my brain wants to know how it goes. So I find it really annoying, like, how the melody and stuff goes. So when I know it's a song, I find it very annoying to read. If it's just a poem. Like, sure, fine, I can just. But, like. So she has her encounter with the turtle or the mock turtle and the griffin. She leaves there. And then I believe she probably bumps into the flowers next. I can't remember.
• 39:10
  Speaker B: I think she does bump into the flowers next. And then she goes kind of, like, deeper into the woods.
• 39:15
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 39:15
  Speaker B: And it's like, darker and kind of creepier.
• 39:17
  Speaker A: We changed the color grade, I think it's like real blue and dark. I didn't really care much about the flowers, to be honest.
• 39:24
  Speaker B: It wasn't a very interesting scene.
• 39:26
  Speaker A: I'm trying not to spoil my opinion about this in general, but most of the scenes didn't do much for me. But we get then to the night bet, which this is actually maybe my favorite scene in the movie, just because I thought Christopher Lloyd was great. But she bumps in. She sees these two knights who are having a battle. It also reminded me of Monty Python. Like, the beginning of. It reminded me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But we run into these two knights who are having a battle. A white knight and a red Knight. And I also really liked their armor. I thought their armor, like their costumes, were very cool. But then we meet Christopher Lloyd, who has this big, long battle and then spiel with her. And I wanted to know if the night battle came from the book.
• 40:10
  Speaker B: Yes, all of this is from the book. Specifically, it's from through the looking glass. It's one of two main things. The other thing being Tweedledee and Tweedledum in this movie that are actually from through the looking glass and not Alice's adventures in Wonderland. And Alice spends through the looking glass, essentially playing a massive cross country game of chess, like, as one of the chess pieces. And the Red Knight tries to capture her. So the white knights. And the white knight steps in and saves her playing piece, essentially.
• 40:47
  Speaker A: Well, during that scene, after the battle ends, we get a fun little metaphor where he keeps falling off of his horse. He keeps trying to get on his horse and he keeps falling off. And she's like, man, you're not very good at staying on your horse. And he gets to give her a little lesson in stick to itiveness and trying and trying again. And I wanted to know if that metaphor for falling off your horse but getting back on it came from the book.
• 41:14
  Speaker B: So he does always fall off of his horse in the book. And she does comment that he seems to not be very good at being on the horse, to which he tells her that he's had a lot of practice. I think you could read the metaphor the same way. It's not quite as like, I feel like it's obviously that metaphor in the.
• 41:41
  Speaker A: Movie, probably partially because of the frame story.
• 41:44
  Speaker B: Because of the frame story. Whereas in the book, I think you can read it that way. But I don't know if it's quite so obviously meant to be. Get back up on your horse.
• 41:55
  Speaker A: Right.
• 41:55
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 41:56
  Speaker A: After all this, she gets called back. Finally there's going to be a trial. She gets taken by the knights or the cart.
• 42:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, the night card.
• 42:04
  Speaker A: They're just knights in this movie. They're not really like cards, necessarily. I mean, they are like. They're cards, but they're not shaped like cards or anything. They're just like people.
• 42:14
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 42:15
  Speaker A: But they take her back to the queen and the king so that she can stand trial.
• 42:21
  Speaker B: Well, she's not standing.
• 42:21
  Speaker A: Sorry. She's not standing trial. Sorry.
• 42:23
  Speaker B: So she can attend.
• 42:24
  Speaker A: There is a trial, and she's attending this trial, and she ultimately will be called as a witness, but she's coming back to watch this trial. And who is on? I can't remember.
• 42:35
  Speaker B: The nave of hearts is on trial for stealing the queen's tart. Allegedly.
• 42:40
  Speaker A: Yes. The name of hearts, who we met earlier briefly during the dinner party or the golfing garden party scene.
• 42:47
  Speaker B: What, the croquet game?
• 42:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, the croquet, like the garden thing. He is on trial. And during this trial, Alice is sitting in the courtroom kind of watching and listening, and the king is going on and on about the nave or whatever. And I love there's this exchange where Alice kind of says out loud, but I think to whoever she's sitting with, the king seems very prejudiced. And I love the king. Hears her from all the way up in his seat and turns and goes, thank you, Alice. That's what makes me so imminently qualified to be a judge. Great line. Again, great commentary. I don't want to know if it came from the book.
• 43:30
  Speaker B: That line is not from the book, but I also thought it was a worthy addition to the text.
• 43:36
  Speaker A: Then we get had. I wasn't sure. I didn't know if it was in this version or not, but it's obviously from the Disney version. Our final verdict. Soundbite does happen in this one. And so I need to know if it comes from the book, I would assume, because I assume they're not stealing lines from the Disney version in this one. But the queen does say sentence first, verdict afterwards. And I wanted to know that's in the book.
• 44:02
  Speaker B: It is in the book.
• 44:04
  Speaker A: Fantastic. Like I said, I assumed as much. Unless they're stealing. Well, I assumed as much as soon as they said it in the movie. I was like, okay, that's definitely from the book, because they're not taking lines from the Disney version, I don't think. And then my final question for was that in the book is we already talked about how there's not, like a frame story, but does the story have any sort of character arc for Alice? Because in this one, the journey Alice goes on is that she runs away because she's scared to do this performance. And then at the end, she has the courage and the courage to. The confidence to do this performance in front of all of these people. And I wanted to know if, let alone that sort of story or that specific character arc. But if Alice has any sort of character arc or goes on any sort of journey over the course of the book similar to the movie, that specific.
• 44:58
  Speaker B: Character arc is not from the book. And I would not say that the book really has character arcs at all. So I said in the prequel that these novels are considered an example of the literary nonsense genre, and I mean that wholeheartedly. They aren't character driven. They aren't plot driven. If anything, they're metaphor driven. They're dripping in wordplay and symbolism, so much so that nobody can really agree on exactly what the text symbolizes. We got so many theories over the years. It's about drugs. It's about growing up and leaving childhood behind. It's a send up of victorian social rules. It's a jab at the abstract algebra, which Lewis Carroll hated. It's probably all of those things. Probably more of those. You know, I think that this edition could have worked for me, but I thought that the way it was incorporated into the actual Wonderland segments of the story was kind of clunky and ham fisted. It felt to me like there was a pause for every character to impart a lesson to Alice, which worked better in some places than it did. Like, for example, I thought it was fine with the White knight, right? But the caterpillar and then the white rabbit at the end, stopping everything to be like, then you don't need us. Felt so shoehorned into the story.
• 46:30
  Speaker A: To me, I would agree. I definitely think it could work, and I think it doesn't work terribly. I think it generally kind of works okay. But, yeah, it definitely doesn't. There are times, some of the scenes, it's kind of more naturally folded into their interaction, and other times it feels like the movie going, okay, now we got to do this because this is what we're doing. So we got to have this character be like, here's your lesson. Yeah, for sure. All right. Those are all my questions for. Was that in the book? But, I mean, it's Alice in Wonderland. How could I not have some questions for lost in adaptation? Just show me the way to get out of here, and I'll be on my way. Yes. And I want to get unlost as soon as possible. So my first big one was. And there's just this moment that I felt like an editing error or something in the movie, where when she's in the room where she drinks, first gets in the room where she drinks the potion that shrinks her and eats the cakes or cookies or whatever that make her grow, once she eats the cakes or cookies that make her grow, she grows so big that she ends up in the atrium. So this broom has, like, a big domed, atrium ceiling, kind of looks like the Parthenon or like a big cathedral or something. And I wanted to know. I said Parthenon. It's probably pantheon, whatever, one of them. I don't know. I was in it, and I saw this. It looks like that ceiling, the one that's still up in Rome. Whatever. She's stuck up there. But she specifically says that she's stuck. She doesn't look stuck at all, obviously, which is already kind of clunky. Problem. She's just, like, standing in the dome. But she keeps saying, I'm stuck. And I'm like, are you? It doesn't look like you're stuck, but it seems like her arms are stuck. Like somehow her elbows got caught in the dome. She can't move. Then at some point, the rabbit runs in, and we see him drop a fan and, like, some gloves, but then he leaves, and she's crying, and then all of a sudden, she has the fan in her hand. And that causes her to shrink?
• 48:31
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 48:31
  Speaker A: And I was like, wait, what just happened? How did she get that? Did I miss something? I felt like I was losing my mind. So what happened there?
• 48:44
  Speaker B: In both the book and the movie, we see the white rabbit drop his gloves and his fan at some point within. I don't think it's the exact same moment in the book. That it is in the movie, but we see that happen. And in the book, we specifically see Alice pick them up after he drops them. And then a couple minutes on down the road after she's grown huge, the gloves, for whatever reason, cause her to shrink again, which is not, um. And the movie doesn't show her picking them.
• 49:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:17
  Speaker B: She just kind of has them suddenly.
• 49:19
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, I don't remember that happening.
• 49:22
  Speaker B: I don't remember her getting them or what. Considering that the entire story kind of operates on, like, dream logic and will move from thing to thing without logical transitions, sometimes. It's not like a huge ask, but this is definitely a moment that didn't work for me either.
• 49:40
  Speaker A: It's possible I just missed something, like a detail of something happening. Because I don't mind the fact. Yes, we go from scene to vignette to vignette, kind of chaotically, randomly. Sometimes she's just, like, in a place, like, whatever. I don't need it to follow, like, a perfectly logical. Literally, to me, almost felt like a weird editing error because she's like, I'm stuck. And then all of a sudden, she's shrinking, and she has this fan, and I'm like, wait, where did you get. I don't remember her. Maybe again, maybe I was writing a note and I missed her pick that up at some point.
• 50:12
  Speaker B: I don't think so, because I had a note about that as well.
• 50:16
  Speaker A: Okay. That's all I'm saying. That was just the part, to me where it almost felt more like a production error as opposed to an intentional, like, it's just part of this kind of nonsensical dream logic where not everything connects perfectly. At least to me, that's how it felt. Okay, and then my other question for this section was, we keep seeing this big, dark, evil cloud. It shows up at the beginning. It shows up at the end. And I wanted to know if that they kind of allude to it, but they never really talk about what it is or what it does or what its whole deal is in the film or if it does anything or if it's just kind of like an effect, like, what's up with the cloud?
• 50:55
  Speaker B: So the cloud at the beginning and the end, I guess, is maybe supposed to be the same clouds that she sees when she leaves Tweedle D and Tweedledum. Or maybe it's just a device that the movie is using to symbolize that she's moving in and out between worlds. But there is a cloud kind of in the book.
• 51:21
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 51:25
  Speaker B: It could be a cloud, but they call it a crow, but it's probably a crow. I think it's supposed to actually be a crow. Okay, so there's a crow mentioned. Hang on.
• 51:39
  Speaker A: Okay, sorry.
• 51:40
  Speaker B: Hang on. So there's a crow mentioned in the poem about Tweedle D and Tweedledum, which goes, Tweedledum and Tweedledee agreed to have a battle for Tweedledum, said Tweedledee had spoiled his nice new rattle. Just then flew down a monstrous crow as black as a tar barrel, which frightened both the heroes, so they quite forgot their quarrel. Fun fact aside, real quick, this is actually a nursery rhyme that predates Wonderland. Carol used the characters in through the looking glass, and now they've just become completely associated with the Wonderland books and story that we have forgotten. They were actually characters in their own right. Before that, he actually also used Humpty dumpty in through the looking glass, though that character did not suffer the same fate. He got to stay humpty dumpty.
• 52:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, he definitely exists outside of.
• 52:32
  Speaker B: Yeah. In the book, when Tweedledee and Tweedledum go to have their battle, we see the nursery rhyme kind of like, playing out. Like, they find the broken rattle, and then they're like, gotta have a battle. And then this crow shows up, this giant crow, and Alice remarks that it makes the sky so dark that she thought it was a thunderstorm.
• 52:55
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 52:56
  Speaker B: Which is where some of my potential confusion comes in.
• 52:59
  Speaker A: Right, I see.
• 53:00
  Speaker B: And then following that, in the book, it does kind of seem like maybe it stormed. But then there's also discussion of, like, the crow has wings so large that it was blowing everything about. So maybe it was a crow, but maybe it was also a storm. I assume that the movie just decided to go with clouds and not have a giant crow at all.
• 53:24
  Speaker A: Fair enough. Those are all my questions. Yeah. I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book. That's all I got, though. Let's find out what Katie thought was better in the book.
• 53:35
  Speaker B: You like to read? Oh, yes, I love to read. What do you like to read? Everything. Oh. So both of these books start out with Alice playing with her cat. And then when she enters Wonderland, now and then she'll be like, I wish Dino was with me. I wish my cat was here. And I just thought that being away from home and missing your cat the entire time was very relatable to me personally.
• 54:08
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 54:09
  Speaker B: Well, we talked about the scene where Alice drinks the potion and grows and gets, like, trapped in the white rabbit's house and her arm is sticking out of the window and what the movie left out is how absurdly violent she is in that moment, she's got her arm out the window, her giant arm, and she starts grabbing everyone who's within her reach and dropping them.
• 54:37
  Speaker A: It could be fun.
• 54:38
  Speaker B: I thought it could have been. Really didn't. No shade to Ben Kingsley. I really didn't like the caterpillar scene in the movie. The first part of it was pretty spot on. Like, when they're just having their conversation and he's smoking his hookah. Particularly the exchange about, like, he asks, who are you? And she's like, well, I thought I knew, but I knew this morning. But I must have changed several times since then. All of that was pretty spot on. But I really didn't like how it ended when he starts emitting light from his body and turned into a bunch of butterflies and gave her a lesson. Like a moral. I forget what he said exactly. He just espoused a moral at her and then vanished. I really didn't like that. Which does tie back into my overall dislike of the frame story.
• 55:38
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 55:40
  Speaker B: There's a scene in the book where Alice, when she first tries to use the mushrooms to get bigger and larger, she doesn't know which one is which, so she's kind of, like, testing them, and she ends up growing, but her neck grows more than the rest of her body. And there's a whole scene where her neck shoots her head up through the trees, and then she meets a bird in a nest, and the bird is like, what are you? And assumes that she's a snake. Serpent is the language that the movie that the book uses. But then there's this horrifying description of how her neck actually does move like a snake when she's in this state and she's, like, weaving around through the branches.
• 56:32
  Speaker A: I like that.
• 56:33
  Speaker B: And in general, I would be totally fine with skipping over that scene, but I also thought that this movie could have done a really trippy rendition of Alice's snake neck.
• 56:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, could have been horrifying.
• 56:45
  Speaker B: I think it could have been horrifying. I feel like it's maybe a missed opportunity. We see a lot of Alice inadvertently grow and shrink in the movie, and we do see her do it a little bit on purpose, but in the book, she does it on purpose a lot. Like, anytime she wants to get into a place, she just grows or shrinks herself to size, which I thought was really interesting.
• 57:09
  Speaker A: It's fun. It reminds me of a thought I had in the movie, and it kind of trails off, like, immediately, or they don't follow through with it very much, but it is now that you mentioned that in the book, it made me think of that. The growing and shrinking thing is like her getting abilities in a video game that allow her to access different parts of the world. Like in a video game, at some point, you can't get to a certain point until you learn to triple jump or whatever, and now she can triple. And so the fact that she uses it more intentionally in the book kind of follows that framing of using it to get to places and stuff, which is interesting. Whereas in the movie, like you said, she does it a little bit at the beginning, and then after that, it doesn't really play into it much. And it's also not as intentional most of the time. It's just kind of accidentally happens.
• 58:00
  Speaker B: There were a lot of sick burns in this book, actually. But there is a funny moment after the baby turns into a pig and she lets it go where the text is like. She began thinking over other children she knew who might do very well as pigs got them. I didn't really like the auntie's wooden leg number from the mad tea party in the movie. It felt out of place to me. Like, stylistically, it felt like it didn't fit.
• 58:34
  Speaker A: It's fair. I didn't have strong feelings. I'm not going to defend, like, anything in this movie. I didn't even dislike this movie. Well, we'll get to it. We'll get to my feelings.
• 58:41
  Speaker B: There's an exchange that's kind of like one of the more famous lines from the book, I think, where Alice starts to say, I didn't think, and the mad Hatter interrupts her to say, then you shouldn't talk. And I'm frustrated at myself because I didn't write down what the movie changed it to. But I know the movie changed it because I wrote, I don't know why the movie changed this question mark, and I don't know why the movie would change that, because it's a great line. There's a little moment at the end of the croquet game in the book where we see the king go over to everyone that the queen has sentenced to death during the game. They're all, like, standing in a group, and he goes over and he's like, you guys are fine. Go home.
• 59:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, that would have been good.
• 59:32
  Speaker B: I mentioned that these books are upon a minute. One of my favorite ones was when the mock turtle is telling Alice about his schooling growing up. He's talking about his instructor, and he says, we called him tortoise because he taught us.
• 59:54
  Speaker A: Oh, sweet.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker B: Please imagine Brian's face right now. It's very upset.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker A: It's not upset.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker B: It's very resigned.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker A: Yes, resigned, I think would be the word. Look, I've liked some of the stuff you've read. I actually think I would like the book a little bit. I actually think the book would be enjoyable to me. I think. Get to it. I just think this type of story just doesn't work.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, this story doesn't jive with you at all.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker A: I'll have more thoughts on it, but just at all, it just does nothing for me.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker B: There's a line that Alice has close to the end of the trial scene in the book, when all of the guards come at her, and at this point, she's grown giant again. And she says, well, you're nothing but a pack of cards, and start picking them up. And I was a little surprised that the movie left that out, because I feel like that's one of the more famous lines as well. And then I have a couple notes from through the looking glass, which also opens with her playing with cats. This time it's Dinah and Dinah's two kittens. Delightful. So one of the kittens has been naughty and has unraveled her ball of yarn. And the text says that she picks up the kitten and scolds it and then gives it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace. And I was like, typical cat owner behavior.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker A: Yes, this is true.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker B: That was very wrong.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker A: Smooch. Yeah.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker B: Through the looking glass also has the poem Jabberwocky in it, which is one of my favorite poems. Fun fact, about me and what a big nerd I was in high school. I did competitive dramatic poetry reading.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker A: There you go.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker B: And I took Jabberwocky to state.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker B: I know.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker A: Look at you.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker B: I could probably still do Jabberwocky from memory if I thought about it enough. A really interesting little detail. Through the looking glass. So she meets the two queens from the chessboard in the book, and I think it's the Red Queen. It's red and white in this, and not black and white. I don't know if that's, like, a specific type of chess, or maybe it's a british thing, or maybe Louis Carroll just liked that better. I don't know.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker B: But she's talking to the Red Queen, and the Red Queen is explaining to her that in this universe, which it's basically kind of, like, opposite day in this universe, and she's explaining to her that actually, for her memory works both ways. So she can remember things that have happened, but she can also, quote unquote, remember things that are going to happen because they're talking about. And then they talk about this person who is in jail for a crime that the queen knows he will commit. And I was like, okay, so Precrime exists in this universe. Interesting. Very interesting. Through the looking glass also has a mention of the unbirthday in it, which I think was probably most popularized by the Disney version. They talk about unbirthday parties at the mad tea party, but it is actually humpty dumpty who informs Alice of the existence of an unbirthday. I mentioned that the books got a little bit self aware about all of the songs and poems. When Alice is talking to Humpty Dumpty, he says to her, I can repeat poetry as well as other folk if it comes to that. And Alice very quickly is like, oh, it needn't come to that.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker A: Me reading.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker B: And then another sick burn from this book. Humpty dumpty at one point says to Alice, you're so exactly like other people.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker A: Woof. You're basic. Said you basic. Oh, that's great. I looked it up. It sounds like there's not, at least on a very cursory glance, there's not really any meaning or history to the red versus black chess pieces. It's just that some are. Whoever makes the chess sets can make them whatever color they want.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker B: Fair enough.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker A: Some people make them red because they think it looks cool. It doesn't seem like there's a particularly storied history of Britain using red pieces or anything like. So my guess would be that it's just more visually striking for the story. And I doubt it was this, but it also. You maybe avoid some more on the nose racial. Yeah, but I doubt that would be the reason. Back when.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker B: You never know.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker A: You never know. Who knows? All right. That was everything Katie thought was better in the book. Let's find out what she thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker B: I really liked the mouse's song. It was like the first song in the movie. I thought it really communicated the idea of the mouse being like a stodgy old lecturer who never updates his material, which is an idea that is from the book and is a jab at professors. Please do not forget that Lewis Carroll taught at Oxford. And, boy, does it come up. But I liked his little song. I liked using the pop up book to shift scenes from the lecture hall into the white rabbit's house. I thought that was a lot of fun. I liked the teapot organ.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker A: It was a cool prop that the.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker B: March Hare played briefly. There was a fun reference to historical clothing in this. I don't know if you caught it, but at one point, Alice opens up her pinafore at the waist to reveal a hidden compartment that she lets the.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker A: Card guards jump in like a kangaroo pouch.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker B: And I believe that was an actual feature of aprons at the time. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm really thinking back to my american girl days because I was really into Samantha for a while, but I believe that was an actual feature of, like, pinafores and aprons at that time period. This next note here probably should have gone in ODs and ends, but I'm going to go ahead and roll with, uh, the king mentions offhand, or maybe somebody says to him when they're talking about executing the Cheshire cat, somebody references the great Cat master.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker A: I do remember that line. Yeah.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker B: And I was like, is that a plague reference? Because there's this whole story. So Pope Gregory the 9th, who was the pope from, like, 1227 to 1241, is remembered for issuing a papal bowl that declared cat that cats bore Satan's spirit, which subsequently led to huge numbers of cats being killed throughout Europe. And that is considered by some to be an indirect cause of the bubonic plague because it's spread by fleas on rats, which otherwise would have been murdered by cats. So there were no cats to keep the rats in check.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker A: This is a thing in history I've never heard.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker B: Obviously, there's no direct evidence saying that in terms of because there were no cats. That's why the bubonic plague was so bad. But it's an interesting little tidbit, and it probably didn't help.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'm just saying, specifically, regardless of how implicated in the plague the massacre of cats actually was, I hadn't even heard of the weird catholic decree from the pope to murder cats. That's wild.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker B: Well, witches have cats.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker A: I mean, yes, obviously.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker B: There was another banger line during the trial scene. Alice says, I can't let you condemn an innocent man. And then I think the king replies, why not? It happens all the time.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker A: Fair.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker B: I was also more than fine with the movie leaving out Humpty dumpty. He was kind of an annoying jerk, to be honest. There's. At one point he says to Alice, I can explain all the poems that were ever invented. And a good many that haven't been invented yet. And I was like, oh, he's an english professor. I see no shade to english professors. I love you. And my last note here is not anything about the movie. I just wanted to say that I was listening to an audiobook as I read this to help stay focused, which I often do, and I really strongly disliked the accent work and the audiobook that I listened to. I just got it through Libby. I don't know what edition it was. It still had the little cuts in it letting me know that I needed to change the CD. So I guess it was fairly old. But all of the voices that aren't Alice are kind of a mediocre Liverpool accent. It was very strange.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker A: Sounds like the Beatles.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, it sounded less like the Beatles and more like in the Jungle Book, when the vultures that are, like, a satire of the Beatles. That's what it sounded like, but it was like every character except for Alice.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker A: All right, fair enough. That is everything Katie had for better in the movie. Let's find out what the movie nailed.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker B: As I expected, practically perfect in every way. All right, we already talked about a bunch of stuff, but I have a bunch more stuff.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker A: Holy cow, you do.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker B: I am going to run through it really fast. Alice has a cat named Dinah. The person narrating the audiobook pronounced it Dina, which I also hated. The emphasis of the main story is the same. Sees the white rabbit, follows it down the rabbit hole, falls down a long hole filled with stuff, and ends up in a hallway full of doors. The food and the drink just appear as she needs them. The line, if you drink too much from a bottle marked poison, it is almost certain to disagree with you sooner or later. Very true words. She shrinks, but she leaves the key up on the table where she can't get it. She ends up in a swimming pool of her own tears and meets a mouse. The mouse says, in the movie, my lecture is the driest thing I've ever heard of. In the book, he says, this is the driest thing I know, which I'm counting as close enough. Alice drinks something in the white rabbit's house and grows again. Alice kicks Bill back up the chimney and sends him flying. They throw rocks at her, which turn into cakes, which make her shrink again. Alice encounters a dog in the woods while she's really tiny and then uses a stick to distract it. A couple of lines that the doorman says when she's at the duchess's house, it's useless to knock because I'm on the same side of the door as you, and also, they're making so much noise, they cannot hear you. Alice tries to save the baby, but it turns into a pig, and she sets it free. Basically her whole exchange with the Cheshire cat. That first exchange. How do you know I'm mad? Because you're here, and everyone here is mad. The entire mad tea party is pretty spot on. There's little changes here and there, but for the most part, it's pretty accurate, including that time uses he him pronouns. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat. And the little side story. That time and the mad hatter had a falling out. And that's why it's always tea time, because time will no longer move for him. Alice comes to a door in a tree and gets back into the room of doors, so she's finally able to get into the garden. The Cheshire cat appears in the sky during the croquet game.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker A: I remember that from the Disney one.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker B: Alice's line when she's talking to the Cheshire cat about the queen, she's so extremely likely to win that it's hardly worth finishing.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker A: Yeah. When she realizes the queen is right behind her.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker B: Very good save.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker B: They do have an argument about whether or not you can cut the head off of a cat that's just ahead. The queen says to the duchess, either you or your head must be off. Alice meets the griffin, who introduces to the mock turtle, who cries all the time. He says, once I was a real turtle. This is never explained. He talks to her about their schooling. They do the lobster quadrille. He says, no wise fish would go anywhere without a purpose. All of the junk that the white knight has, like on his horse, the box, the beehive, the mousetrap, even the anklets. We see briefly that the horse has spiked anklets. Those are actually to protect him from shark attacks.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker B: He says to her, I hope you've got your hair fastened on tight. And she responds only in the usual way. She does meet talking flowers, and the tiger Lily says, I can talk when there's anybody worth talking to. And also, in most gardens, they make the beds too soft, so the flowers are always asleep. Pretty much the entire scene with Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Woolworth and the carpenter. They tell Alice that she only exists in the Red King's dream, which I thought was a random inclusion in this movie. They have a battle over a rattle, the whole trial setup. King is the judge. The jury is a bunch of little animals who have to write down their names so that they don't forget them. The mad hatter is the first witness. The cook says this line in the movie, but it's Alice who says it in the book. They say, give your evidence. And she says, shant, shant. Alice gets called as a witness and makes herself a giant again when she does so. And the king says to her, all persons more than a mile high have to leave Wonderland.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker A: Yep. All right. Wow. You really did. You moved right through that. That was all the things that the movie nailed. We got a handful of ODs and ends before we get to the final verdict.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker B: At the opening garden party, there were references to chess cards and croquette. I thought that was fun.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker A: Teething. What is to come. Yeah. When she starts entering, when she first gets into Wonderland, and she gets before. As she's entering, she falls down the thing and she gets into the hallway with all the doors. And then she's walking to the end in the doorway that leads to the room where she grows and shrinks and stuff. As she walks to the end of it, the door gets smaller and smaller. And they did it the same way they did it in Willy Wonka, where it's literally just a set. That is, the perspective is messed up. And as she walks into it, it looks like it's shrinking, or it is shrinking, but it's like. Because it's literally shrinking.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker A: They did the same kind of perspective trick that they did from Willy Wonka and also down to the part where when she opens it, we cut inside and the door opens and it's full size, and she walks in like they do exactly the same as they do in Willy Wonka, which I thought was funny or fun considering Gene Wilder's in the movie. However briefly and speaking just in general. I really did love all the sets in this. The practical sets were all really cool. This movie has know CGI, some visual effects, but they did a lot of the heavy lifting with practical effects and practical sets, which I thought worked really well and I thought made it a lot more fun than it would have.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker B: Been if it were like, timber. It's so fun to see now that everything is mostly CG. It's really fun to watch something with a lot of practical sets and things.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker A: Yeah. I really liked the courtroom with all the cards.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was really cool.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker A: I really liked the library with all the books everywhere and stuff and lots of other stuff, too. But those in particular really stuck out to me.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker B: The frosty little bottles filled with the red liquid that she drinks looks so tasty and also not tasty at all at the same time. They just look tasty because it kind of reminded me, like, the red color kind of reminded me of cough syrup. But then the frosted bottle I thought made it look really good. I was like, I kind of want to drink that.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker A: To me, what I imagined every time she drank it. When I looked at the bottle, I imagined it tasted like. Now I can't remember what they're called. What were those drinks? Were they called, like, barrel something? The ones that were.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker B: We called those hugs.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker A: Hugs?
• 1:17:30
  Speaker B: Were they hugs?
• 1:17:31
  Speaker A: The ones that were, like, the little.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker B: They're in the little barrel? Yeah.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker A: Like a little barrel that you ripped.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker B: The aluminum and they just taste like straight sugar?
• 1:17:37
  Speaker A: Yes. For some reason, I imagined they basically tasted like that. That's like that super cheap, artificial sugary.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker B: We don't know that they didn't just pour a hug into those bottles.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker A: That. What was the other one? What were those drinks called where you twisted a plastic thing on top that looked like the bat?
• 1:18:05
  Speaker B: Oh, my God. What were those called?
• 1:18:07
  Speaker A: The bat Jet.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker B: I used to beg my mom for those.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker A: I loved those. I didn't get them very often.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker B: I know my mom almost never bought name brand stuff. Yeah, I think they were, like, squeezys or something like that.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker A: What were those called? There was a blue ones and red ones, I think. Yeah, maybe some other ones, but I remember blue and red ones. What were those called?
• 1:18:27
  Speaker B: There's like, I don't think those exist. A dozen millennials listening to. I know right now screaming the name of these drinks.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker A: We didn't get those, like, ever, but my friends would have them.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker B: Some of these drinks, 90s. Squeeze it.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker A: Squeeze it emeries. Yeah, that's it. Squeeze it. Yeah, I think there were some other ones, but I remember they were red, so I imagine it tasted either like the squeeze it or those hugs things, those barrel drink things. You mentioned earlier that in the book, Alice kind of eats and drinks things to shrink and grow with more intention. In this one, she really just gets into and out of every problem by just refusing to learn to not eat or drink random stuff lying around, like, so many times. She's like, what's this? Oh, I don't know. And then she changes sizes.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker B: She's like a toddler. She explores by tasting things.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker A: She really does. She's like, I guess I'll just die. I guess I'll just eat this. Whatever. We'll see what happens.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker B: I was really torn by what was more horrifying, Whoopi Goldberg's face on the Cheshire cat or the weird, rubbery baby face.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker A: It was Whoopi Goldberg's face on the Cheshire cat. That is horrifying. Which I think is fine, actually. I think it actually kind of works in a creepy.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker B: Kind of works in a really creepy way.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker A: Yes. It kind of falls into the perfect uncanny valley that works for this weird Wonderland that we're in and the particular character. But, yeah, it is.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker B: It's disturbing for anyone who did not watch along with us this time, and you're just listening. What the decision was, was to literally just superimpose Whoopi Goldberg's face onto a CGI cat.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker A: I don't think it's a CGI cat. I think it's a puppet cat.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker B: You think it's a puppet?
• 1:20:23
  Speaker A: I think it's a puppet cat.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker B: So there's no effort to make her face look like a cat face?
• 1:20:28
  Speaker A: Not really.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker B: It's just her face on a cat.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker A: I can't. You kind of just have to look it up. Just, like, google Whoopi Goldberg, Cheshire cat. It's truly terrifying.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker B: I will be putting a screen grab of that on social media at some point, so you may catch it. If you're following us on social media.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker A: I will say it feels like they went vaguely in the ballpark of just, like, cats. The musical is, like, kind of.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker B: It doesn't look wildly different giving cats the musical.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker A: It's not wildly off from that, but because of the scale and stuff and the way she grins the whole time.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker B: I was not prepared.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker A: The first time we see it, I was like, oh.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker B: We were both like, oh, yeah.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker A: Truly terrifying thing. But the scene where we're introduced, where we see the Cheshire cat for the first time, is at the Duchess's house. And I knew the duchess looked familiar, and I was like, why do I know her from something? And I looked it up because the actress's name did not ring a bell at all. And she wasn't, like, somebody where I obviously knew it, but I looked it up. And she is the actress who played the portrait of the fat lady in the first Harry Potter movie.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker A: Who lets them into and out, which she doesn't show up in any of the other movies from my memory.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker B: Isn't she in the third one?
• 1:21:46
  Speaker A: Briefly, maybe. It's possible, but, yeah, maybe she does show up in the third one. I mentioned it earlier, but the shot of the green. I keep wanting to call it the green brick road, but it's like patches of turf in, like, a checkered pattern that is, like, this path through the woods. And I thought it looked really cool again. I can just imagine the Tim Burton version of it, and. But this is like they just got a bunch of turf, cut it up into rectangles, and put it out on the woods. And it looks great.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. I thought it was a fun nod to the chess line. And through the looking glass as well.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. I also love the first time we see it, the framing of the shot. It's coming in from the sides, and it creates this x in the middle where Alice is standing, and it's just like a very visually dynamic shot that is just really cool. And the t scene you've mentioned, and I didn't really have any questions about it because I knew most of it came from the book. I thought Martin short's a pretty good choice for the madhouse.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. He seems like a pretty good choice. Yeah.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker A: And they also did a really interesting, kind of, like, compositing with him where he's like a large head on a tiny mean.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker B: He looks a lot like the illustrations in the book.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's a very interesting, but just his particular proportions feel, like, very unique.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker B: I want to talk about the costumes for a minute. The costumes overall were kind of hit or miss for me.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker B: The principal characters I thought looked great. I especially really liked the queen of hearts costumes and makeup. I really liked how they leaned into making her look like a playing card with the big black lines for hair drawn onto a bald cap. I thought that was really cool.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker A: No. Yeah, I agree.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker B: A lot of the side characters, though, I thought looked kind of chintzy, like.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker A: Some of the background characters and stuff.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker B: I felt like you could very clearly see where the costume budget went.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker A: Yes. They definitely put the money into the main people and then. Yeah, some of the background characters definitely not as good. Yeah, I had the same thought. There was somebody in particular who we see kind of close up who is only, like a background character. And I was like, oof, that doesn't.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker B: One in particular that got me was Bill. The gardener for the white rabbit is supposed to be a lizard. He's a lizard in the book. And then in the movie, he was just a dude. And he had on, like, his vest had, like, a vague scale pattern guy on it. Yeah.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker A: Yes. I think that might even be who I was thinking of.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker B: His costume. I was like, that it looked pretty cheap.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, that might have been the one I was thinking of, because I knew there was somebody kind of early that I was like, oh, that's a great looking costume. Apart from her costume being pretty good and her makeup being good, I thought Miranda Richardson was also great as queen in this. It definitely is in the same ballpark as every other queen I've seen in Wonderland.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker B: I mean, it's such an iconic character, you're not going to really be able to do that much of a unique thing with it. But I thought she made it her own. Like comparing it to the Disney version.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker A: Definitely compared to the Disney version. I will say it feels. Helen Aboutham Carter's feels a lot like Miranda Richardson's to me. Like a little bit.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker B: I saw it way back around when it came out and I barely remember.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker A: At least from my memory. I kept thinking like, boy, this reminds me of Helena bottom Carter's queen. Which obviously this came well before that. So I don't know. To me they felt very similar. But again, I couldn't remember earlier version, like the Disney version or other earlier versions to know. Maybe they're both doing somebody else more or something. You know what? Don't.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker B: Well, we'll have to revisit it after we watch the Disney version because I felt like obviously they're similar, but I felt like Miranda Richardson's was different enough from the Disney version that I thought it was really fun.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker A: I agree. From my memory it was pretty different from the Disney version. I just don't know for sure that. But I wasn't sure if maybe there's some other version that they're both pulling.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, it could.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker A: Because again, you talked about how there was like eleven other movies before. There's a million adaptations of this.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker B: There was enough for us to do a whole bracket. They could all be pulling from some earlier. And there's a million stage versions. Well, we talked about the little hedgehogs. I thought the hedgehogs, out of all of the creatures looked especially Hensony.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker A: I also thought the flamingos in that scene were pretty, I think, everything to me, I guess some stuff more than others. But I thought the rabbit was fairly Hensony in a way. They shot him at like half speed and sped him up, which was fun. So he looks like really jittery.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker B: I also really liked the look of the Griffin.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker B: Which was like kind of a bigger build than some of the other stuff.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker A: Well, it was funny because when she walks into that room, I was like, is that a skeksis?
• 1:27:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, in silhouette it looked like a Skeksis.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker A: It doesn't really look like a Skeks. You see them, but just. Yeah, the silhouette of them.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker B: The little scene where Gene Wilder is like coming out of the turtle shell, I thought was horrifying.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker A: The way he's doing it felt like an SNL sketch or something. He's like, it's so weird. And the way that it's framed and, yeah, you could tell. Again, it felt to me like they shot gene Wilder stuff in a green screen by himself in a day. And he does a fine job. He's Gene Wilder. It's delightful. But it very much felt like they filmed him by himself in a day because he doesn't really interact with anybody else. And it's clearly green screened because he's. Yeah, it was interesting.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker B: So I have yet to encounter any version, including the original of Tweedledy and Tweedledum, that I don't outright dislike. Creepy little brats. I hate them. I do not have truly, truly dislike Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker B: I also really would like to discuss whoever's decision it was to have the knave of hearts be sassy and dramatic. Yes.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker A: I had the same thought when he first showed up. I was like, that's a choice.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker B: Okay. He's kind of a drag king.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker A: Kind of.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker B: And I'm here for it.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker A: It is an interesting take that I was not expecting because I had the exact same thought. And you originally, we're not going to say it because we're keeping this one clean, but you had a different word originally in the script to describe him. And I had thought the exact same word when he first showed up. I was like.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker B: And I really struggled with finding what to replace that word with because I don't think there's any other word that describes him as accurately as that one. It starts with a C and ends with a.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker A: Thought. You know, like I said, I thought the same thing. I was like, this is incredible. Yeah. That actor, Jason Fleming, because I thought I recognized him, and I went back from something and I went back and looked at a lot, and I've seen him from some other stuff, but it was nothing jumped in his film lit filmography. Nothing jumped out at me as like, oh, that's what I know him from. There were some other things. I can't remember what they were now where I'm like, well, I know I've seen that, but he has a pretty interesting filmography. He's been in lots of random stuff and parts and stuff here and there. But, yeah, I thought he was delightful.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker B: He was great.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker A: Yeah. And then my final thing before we get to your final verdict, it's kind of my final verdict, and I've alluded to this the whole time, but like I said earlier, kind of similar. And I do want to give spirited away another try. I really do. But I'm kind of coming, maybe to the realization after watching this one this time that this kind of story maybe just isn't for me. And I'm not sure I can even explain why. But I did not enjoy this movie. And it's not even that I thought it wasn't good. I enjoyed elements of it. I thought the production design was great. I thought the performances were all really good. I thought the direction was fun. I thought a lot of the visuals were really cool. I even liked some of the little. Some of the musical numbers I thought were fun. I liked a lot of components of it. And I felt similarly about spirited away. But as a whole, it just doesn't. And I think it's the narrative. I think it's what you're talking about. Maybe it's the nonsense story. Maybe for some reason that my brain just doesn't like that. I want there to be more of a point. It's funny because I was thinking about it. I think I could read it, and I think I would enjoy it more. But watching it as a movie, I'm just like, why am I watching this? I don't know. I just could routinely find myself not caring. I think because there's a lack of characterization, there's a lack of, like, it's not character driven, really, like you said, it's not plot driven. It's just sort of vignettes that are. And they don't follow. Again, it's truly nonsensical vignettes that, for me, I just have a hard time getting anything out of. Again, little moments here and there. I'm like, oh, this is some fun social commentary. This is some fun political commentary. It's not that there's nothing there worth getting out of it. It's just, again, as a whole, it's kind of the inverse of some of the other movies we've done recent, or there was one we were talking about recently where some movies we watch where I feel like the sum is greater than the parts, where it's like, individual parts maybe aren't as good as. Well. No, actually, I think we're having the opposite conversation. We saw Lisa Frankenstein, and I had a similar feeling. I liked the movie a lot, actually. And I liked that more than this because it does have, like, a whole general story. This isn't a review of that movie. I enjoyed that movie, but I felt similarly in that I liked elements of it more than I liked the movie as a whole. Like, I liked parts of it more than I liked the whole thing. I didn't think it kind of came together wholly, and this is similar in a very different way, where I just kept going, like, whatever. I don't know. It doesn't draw me in. And I guess I either want it to be more plot driven or more character driven or have a more discernible. Be a more discernible metaphor throughout or something. I don't know. I just starting to realize maybe these kind of stories just aren't my thing. Again, I'd be interested to see. I think I might enjoy the book more. I think if I was reading it and imagining it, maybe I would enjoy it more. But just watching it as a film, as a more passive experience, I think.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker B: You should read, like, a chapter or two just to see.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, maybe it's the more passive experience of watching a movie where I find it kind of tedious and uninteresting, whereas if I'm the one imagining the world, maybe it would be more engaging. I don't know. Again, I feel like I would like the book more, but, yeah, the movie just. It didn't do it for me. Again, I don't think it's because it's a bad movie for whatever reason. I just think this type of story just doesn't work for. So before we find out what Katie thought, we wanted to remind you. You can head over to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or goodreads. Any of those know, follow us, interact with us. We'd like to hear what you have to say about Alice in Wonderland, the movie and the book, and what you like about it. Am I weird? Am I the only person that doesn't like these? Probably. I mean, based on the popularity, I'd.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker B: Be in the minority. I think it is probably fair to say that most people like the idea of Alice in Wonderland more than the actual thing. I don't have any evidence to back this up, but I feel like it's.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker A: Fair to say that does feel right to me. It's one of those things that people don't really watch or read very much. They just culturally know of it, and so they're like, yeah, that's fun. Oh, the mad Hatter.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker B: And the culture. Culture has kind of distilled the parts that are, like, the most interesting.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. That may be part of it. Yeah, that could be part of it. But, yeah, we would love to hear what you all had to say about Alice in Wonderland. So do that on social media. Also, if you want to help us out, you can head over to Apple podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. We have a whole show is up on YouTube now, and each episode goes up live when we put it out. Write us a night, drop us a little five star rating, write us a little review, whatever you could do. It's all very helpful. And you could over to patreon.com. Thisfilm is lit. Support us there for two, five, or $15 a month. Get access to different stuff at each level, including bonus episodes at the $5 level and priority recommendations at the $15 level. All of that is very helpful and very appreciated. Katie, time for the final verdict.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker B: Sentence. Fast verdict after that's stupid. I understand that, much like Brian, this story in general is probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea. It is my cup of tea. I like Alice in Wonderland a lot. I mentioned the Jabberwocky earlier. I used to dress up as Alice all the time when I was a kid. I had an Alice in Wonderland themed bridal shower two years ago. I like this story, but I understand that it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. And the book, I think, can be particularly challenging to dig into, especially if you prefer, or are even just very used to, digesting stories that are either plot or character driven. I think it's totally valid and understandable to prefer an adaptation that adds one or both of those elements to the story. I really enjoyed revisiting the 1999 adaptation. I thought the production value and performances were overall great. I liked how the script chose to incorporate elements from through the looking glass, and I liked that we got some elements that we often don't make it into adaptations, like the Griffin and the mock Turtle and the White Knight. Overall, it's actually a pretty faithful adaptation. Much of the dialogue is directly from the book, the separate wonderland vignettes are all from the book, and the look of the world and characters is very authentic to the book and even the illustrations. Oh, there's a lot that's left out, obviously, but the biggest change is the addition of the frame story and Alice's character arc, which again, I didn't particularly care for. I found that element to be a little unoriginal, a little saccharine, and a little clunky. But the other thing about it that got me thinking is that in trying to add a moral or a lesson to this story, I feel like you're kind of missing the point of Wonderland. I mentioned in the prequel that these books marked a departure from earlier children's literature, which was primarily didactic, I. E. Its ulterior motive was to impart a lesson or moral, and the Wonderland books threw that out, daring to ask the question, what if we just let kids enjoy themselves? To me, the fact that adaptations are still trying to add a moral to this story shows that it's at least still somewhat of a radical idea for children's media to just be for fun. And I think it's interesting that a nearly 200 year old story has managed to grasp that better than most modern adaptations. So for that reason, primarily, I'm going to give this one to the book.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker A: All right, real quick, I got to check, because this made me the end of your thing here. Really resonated something in my head, and I think I can maybe put towards a little bit why this story doesn't work for me as much. Because the books throughout, the didactic, the lesson, the moral, all that, and said, what if we just let kids enjoy themselves? I think part of what doesn't work for me, similar to spirited away maybe, is that it's kind of an aimless, fantastical, pointless story specifically about and for kids. And I think that for some reason, that doesn't jive with me anymore. I say for some reason, maybe because I'm an adult, I don't know. But I don't mean that. I just mean maybe that's the reason. Because I think I could watch a similar movie because it was tough, because I was thinking the whole time, I'm like, there are movies I've watched, and I can't think of a great example right off the top of my head that I think other people would find similarly kind of wandering and pointless as Alice in Wonderland and nonsensical as Alice in Wonderland, but that I would really enjoy. But I think all of those are usually doing it specifically for an adult audience, where the things that are random and pointless and wondering, I think, are touching on themes that are more mature, maybe. And maybe that's where some of that disconnect is. Maybe, I don't know. We'll expand more on it in the next prequel episode if I have any more thoughts on it since then. But, yeah, that's fantastic. I agree.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker B: I'm sure we will revisit this in our bonus episode about the Disney version, because the Disney version is a little closer to the book. In that sense, it's a little more like aimless.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, interesting. But yeah, no, I agree with your assessment entirely. I think that makes perfect sense, and it's very apt. So, Katie, what's next?
• 1:39:57
  Speaker B: Up next, we're doing the genre shuffle. We will be covering high rise novel by J. G. Ballard in 2015, film.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker A: I didn't know what this was. I looked up because I was like, I've never heard of this movie. And I thought maybe it's got people in it. Well, so I thought maybe it was. I was like, there was one with the rock where it's like a disaster movie. And I thought maybe that was it. It's not that. No, it's got Tom Hiddleston in it and Jeremy Irons and it's like a Sci-Fi or something.
• 1:40:26
  Speaker B: It's like a dystopia thriller.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker A: Yeah. Never heard of this. Had no idea what this is. Fascinated, fascinated to find out more. That'll be our next main episode in two weeks time. But in one week's time, we're previewing high rise and hearing what you all had to say about Alice in Wonderland. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals and everybody else keep reading books, watching movies and keep being awesome.