Remember way, way back in July when I posted the first trailer to Tim Burton (and Disney’s) Alice in Wonderland? Well, more of the film has been revealed from promos on ABC Family. And I’m not sure if I’m liking it. Apparently, this Alice is not only older than the traditional character, but is getting a marriage proposal… from a very, very punctual man with buckteeth. Sound familiar? So, she goes off to think and finds herself falling down the rabbit hole, quite literally.
But here’s where it really bugs me. The creatures in Wonderland greet her immediately as Alice because another Alice was already down the rabbit hole (or she was there when she was younger, I couldn’t tell from the promo) and turned everything upside down. Now the Queen of Hearts has completely taken over and they’re turning to Alice to fix things. I don’t know if any of you saw it, but this sounds very similar to the SyFy miniseries Alice that came out a while back (it even had a proposal early in the first episode). The problem I have with this sort of take on Alice is that it suggests Wonderland needs Alice to make order out of chaos, but the whole point of the story is that Wonderland’s nature is chaos. When Alice tries to find reason in this world, it turns on her to protect itself. So, it might seem logical for the creatures of Wonderland to want to overthrow the Queen, but logic isn’t in their system… it’s not even in their vocabulary. From what I can tell, this plot goes against everything Carroll created in his books.
I’m still not thrilled with Alice being played by a young woman instead of a little girl, but there might be some potential in it. Almost engaged, perhaps she is wondering if she is too young or if she wants to go with the social norm. It’s interesting that they choose to make her suitor a doppleganger for the white rabbit (if you didn’t catch that yet), but she traditionally follows the rabbit to Wonderland. I’m also wondering if, like in the miniseries, they make Hatter the love interest.
Wrong way to do a "sequel."
I didn't have much interest in the beginning, but it's almost faded away now.