it's not a remake!

Rating: 8/10 (15 February 2006)

Oh, how I wish people would stop calling Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a remake! Is Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings a remake of Baskshi's animated version? No. Is Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet an attempt to improve on Zefirelli's 1968 version? No. Why? Because the creators of each film used the original source material as inspiration. Why should 'Charlie' be any different?
I suppose there are two reasons. The first (sadly) seems to be that many are not aware that there was a book in the first place! It is apparent looking at some of the other comments that some believe Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (with Gene Wilder) was an original creation (it might as well have been, as we'll see later). I grew up with Roald Dahl's books so I find it incomprehensible that one could argue that Burton 'changed the original' by (for example) replacing the golden geese with squirrels (as they are in the book). I don't see the new version to be an adaptation of anything but the original story as written by Roald Dahl.
The second reason is more understandable but also more subjective. There are obviously many, many people that adore the 70s adaptation, and will naturally be biased against the new one. To be fair, I'm exactly the same but the reverse. As a fan of the original story I couldn't wait to see the 70s version. However when I did I was... sorta... disappointed. The bland pastel colours (both inside and outside the factory) can't really be criticised for they are of it's time. But I just felt the film lacks the imagination, the spark, that Roald Dahl had. It's well recorded that Dahl wasn't pleased with what the filmmakers did with his story and I'm inclined to agree. My two main problems with the 70s version is that Wonka's factory just seems too much like an everyday factory with some decoration. The book makes gives you the sense that Wonka's factory is the most wonderful and surreal place on earth, even before the children enter it. Here, the chocolate river room is just a room with a chocolate river in it. All the rooms just seem like the pudding factory I worked at but with oompa-loompas. Where's the fun in that?! My other problem with the 70s version is actually how it ignores a subtle (but essential) message of the story. In the 70s version Gene Wilder famously explodes when Charlie steals Fizzly Lifting Drink and almost gets killed. After shouting at Charlie and his grandpa he tells them leave. When I saw this all I could think was 'Yeah! Wonka's right!' You see, Dahl's Charlie is different from the other children because he is polite, compassionate and trusts Wonka implicitly. The other children get their comeuppance for snatching at what they want; taking what Wonka explicitly tells them not to. What confuses me is that in the 70s version Charlie and Grampa do just this! THEY STEAL FIZZY LIFTING DRINK! They join the ranks of Augustus Gloop who drank from the river, Violet who took the unfinished gum, Veruca who wanted a golden goose/squirrel and Mike Teevee, a victim of his own impatience. If there was any justice, Charlie WOULD have been liquidised at the top of the Fizzy room but no, he gets the factory and I'm left thinking 'why didn't the others?'
So, that's why I believe that for all it's faults, Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is at least an original and earnest attempt to bring the magic of Dahl's original story to the screen, morals (and the original songs) intact. While Depp's Wonka understandably divides audiences, I prefer it to Wilder's schizophrenic tired/angry psycho approach, as Depp made me really believe that this eccentric had been cut off from the real world for years. I think Dahl would have approved