The 'bastardisation' of childhood favourites

still from alice through the looking glass

As a child, did you read Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass? I recall the vivid imagery both Alice books placed in my mind. In fact, if I had to pick one book that stuck with me throughout my childhood and is still a favourite in my adult years, I'd have to say, hands down, that Alice in Wonderland is it.

So, as you may imagine, in 2010, when Tim Burton released his take on Lewis Carroll's psychedelic masterpiece, I was initially disappointed by his re-interpretation. I must admit though, after a few viewings, I have learned to appreciate it more, but I prefer to have it on without the sound, because it's the visuals that do it for me more so than the dialogue, plot and acting.

Anyway, the next instalment is due in July. It's been a while since I've read Alice Through the Looking Glass, so I'll have to dig into that before this new version sullies my memory of a childhood favourite. Still, after watching the trailer, I'm eagerly anticipating its release. Why not check it out and tell me what you think?

Which of your childhood favourites has been 'bastardised' by big budget film versions of the original? Which ones do you think were done well?

7 comments

" The Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "The Little Shop of Horrors".

Noddy got a mauling too.  The do gooders with their social engineering strike again.  So who gave these 'people' the right to tell everybody what they should thibnk and do?

Exactly Mick - to me it makes the stories LESS wholesome and oftyen mre scary.  Hope they keep their mitts off my favourite chidhood books 'Black Beauty'  and 'The Secret Garden'

Still no movie of my favourite childhood books, "The Man in the Moon is Really Satan" or "Curious George and the High-Voltage Fence". A bit of a shame.

i loved the TIM BURTON take on ;ALICE,    and this next one looks good to,    will definatly watch it,    another of TIM BURTONwas .THE BARBER OF FLEET STREET,      not a childrens classic,    but a different twist on an old tale, 

 

 

 

Not even sure fairy tales were originally meant solely for children and think their original message was at times quite different to stories we heard as children....For example believe 'Hansel and Gretel' is more about the extreme poverty in parts of medieval Europe where parents simply abandoned their children because they couldn't feed them, with inferences of cannibalism thrown in re: The old woman who locked Hansel in a cage or some such with an intention of fattening him for eating....

Also heard something about the symbolism in the 'Red Riding Hood' story ....something about the colour of her red cloak representing things like menstruation or sexual maturity,  to the notion of 'wolves' as seductive and amorous creatures, to european forests being places of extreme danger in medieval times inhabited only by outlaws etc. with advice to Red Riding Hood to "Stay on the Path" having relevance.....Darned if I know....

But given most of the population were unable to read or write at the time most were written, not surprised the original meaning of Fairy Tales and probably even Nursery Rhymes has been lost, exaggerated, sanitised, politicised, changed - with the telling over all those years....

Think the 'Cinderella' story has come up time and again in Hollywood....the film 'Pretty Woman' being one such example of a type of variation on the Cinderella theme...

Agreed Shetso1 ... and on a similar kind of analogic track, we have Shakespeare in so many Disney features.

http://animatedfilmreviews.filminspector.com/2014/02/shakespeare-in-disney-animated-films.html

Reworked and revisited ... the story of mankind maybe.

Totally agree too Shetso, and pretty scary to imaginative children also Nursery games like Ring a Ring of Roses which we used to play and totally unaware it depicted the Bubonic Plague that wiped out a third of Europes population. Lots of history in those old children's stories.

I have just watched the film "Through the looking glass" the second part of Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp as the hatter,and to me it was really a story of his life from childhood.

The storyline was a bit sketchy but it was fascinating with respect to the individual charactors that kept the film flowing..

Nothing at all like the Alice book that I waited longingly to recieve at Christmas at the age of 5 years and still had at the age of 35...but never the less it was a marvelous spin off ,especially all the special effects.

But how did they get the Queen of hearts head so big????

Image result for through the looking glass

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