[EricaLubarsky]

That's one of my issues with the movie

1) Gene Wilder was sweet and you could tell that under all the quirkiness, his Willy Wonka was kind and wasnt capable of awful things. Johnny Depp's Wonka was creepy-- with his bleached skin, his seeming allergy to light, the rubber gloves on his hands at all times. I argued with my friend as to whether this remake was single-handedly ruined by Michael Jackson and Im not sure that it was completely, but there is something a little more eerie about a guy who acts like a child and who doesnt understand family.

2) Im thinking that when the kids commented on how the oompa-loompa song sounded rehearsed, it was supposed to be meta-humor relating to the nature of musicals, but the joke wasnt pulled off very well-- combine that with some other hints, and it really seemed to me like Wonka was playing G-d, and actively going after these kids-- like he had arranged that they all come to his factory and meet the doom that he had planned. In the books, Willy Wonka was the good-hearted guy who lived in a dangerous factory and it was the kids defying him that led to trouble. Willy Wonka never led the kids right up to the edge of a bad decision.

I know (after reading every Roald Dahl book he ever wrote for kids and a couple of them he wrote for adults) that Dahl's books are not kind to adults-- in his books the vast majority of adults are incompetent or evil, or plotting, self-centered, and/or consumed by their own power (Ms. Trunchbull, M/Ms. Wormwood, M/Ms Twit, The witches coven, The Greggs, Victor Hazell) . Dahl did have good characters in his books-- the eccentric adult who wasnt caught up in the ridiculous adult world. As a child I recognized those characters immediately-- the Friendly Giant, Reverend Lee, The Minpins, and in my opinion-- Willy Wonka. Each of these good adults lives in a silly and sometimes dangerous world, however, just as Willy Wonka lives in his dangerous and quirky factory.

Thats why Roald Dahl was so fun to read as a kid-- he was really talking about the two different worlds-- the world of the child and the world of the adult, and how as kids we had to protect the immature, but logical (to a child) world of childhood, while moving into this ridiculous and sometimes pointless and magicless world of adulthood. In addition to being fun stories, many of his best works were parables that shot from the waist, never talking down to kids, while at the same time really understanding what it was to be a kid growing up.

The new Willy Wonka didnt do any of those things. The world of Charlie Bucket was the adult world of traditional family connections and unemployment and poverty without the magic and unique, childish perspective. Even Willy Wonka, who was supposed to be a shining example of how an eccentric adult can keep the magic of childhood alive, was hopelessly lost in this adult world and was used for an alternative message-- that family is important. In doing so, the idea of Wonka as an adult that successfully preserved the magic of childhood was lost, and was made tragic.