So at the end of the day, the ultimate question we should have is, how is Disney going to pull this pile of clever ditties and insanity into a coherent whole and still retain the magic of the original book? Exactly. Right?! So the books are just insanity laced with mercury, shrouded in laudanum. `Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!’ the Queen exclaimed triumphantly.Īlice said, as gravely as she could, `They might go different ways.’ But she couldn’t help thinking to herself, `What dreadful nonsense we are talking!’ `Perhaps it would,’ Alice replied cautiously. `The dog would lose its temper, wouldn’t it?’ `Wrong, as usual,’ said the Red Queen: `the dog’s temper would remain.’ `Then you think nothing would remain?’ said the Red Queen. `The bone wouldn’t remain, of course, if I took it - and the dog wouldn’t remain it would come to bite me - and I’m sure I shouldn’t remain!’ Take a bone from a dog: what remains?’Īlice considered. `I suppose - ‘ Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. `Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife - what’s the answer to that?’ `She can’t do Subtraction,’ said the White Queen. `Nine from eight I can’t, you know,’ Alice replied very readily: `but - ‘ `Can you do Subtraction? Take nine from eight.’ `She can’t do Addition,’ the Red Queen interrupted. `What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?’ `And you do Addition?’ the White Queen asked. `Lessons teach you to do sums, and things of that sort.’ `Manners are not taught in lessons,’ said Alice. ‘I daresay you’ve not had many lessons in manners yet?’ Take for example this snippet from chapter 9, wherein Alice finds herself chatting with the Red Queen and the White Queen: (Alice goes through a mirro, Alice comes out a mirror – duh) But otherwise the stories hardly hold together at all. You see, Looking Glass is less about narrative than it is about little vignettes of insanity. He would tell her stories about incomprehensible Jabberwocky poems as well as philosophical mind job ditties about how the Red King believes everything he perceives to be a dream… including Alice. This time, instead of logical beginning and endings, he’d tell her stories about time and the insanity of it breaking. I can totally see good ‘ol Lewis Carroll taking the fun he had telling the original stories to Alice Liddell, and the laughter at the illogic of it, and cranking it up to a whole ‘nother level for her. This book is more about logic puzzles and word play than it is about any sort of coherent narrative. If Alice in Wonderland is a 6 on the 10 point trippy scale… Looking Glass is a fullon 27. By walking through the book a bit to refresh your “memory”. Just trying to help you out if you haven’t. I know that a lot of you have said you’ve read Through the Looking Glass… but most of you have not. But Through the Looking Glass? Not as much. Pretty good for adapting into cartoons, movies, picture books, apps… you name it… it’s been done. It culminates in her clash with the Red Queen and it’s an all around exciting book. As she goes she meets the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and a parade of fun characters. Alice falls into Wonderland and spends her time trying to make sense of it, and find her way. There is at least, a semblance of a thread to it. Alice in Wonderland as a book – and source material for a movie – is actually pretty good. We have Alice in some sort of sanitarium? Brilliant. Pink is belting out the White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. See? That could quite possibly be the greatest movie trailer of all time. It was shaping up to be a remake marvel… or was it? There was Alice’s father’s study, there she was in miniature, running across the chess set. This would be a very dark, and very realistic remake, at least at the surface of things. This was not going to be a movie I would be taking my kids to. When the initial trailer came out, I basically peed my pants in excitement. So, whenever anyone (Disney or otherwise) decides to take a stab at redoing (redeuxing?) the books, I really want to take a close look at them. You see, I’m a bit of an Alice fan (read snob) and personally believe that Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass are two of the best books ever written. Mainly my point in reviewing Disney’s latest foray into the Alice in Wonderland universe is solely to look at it through the lens of the original book. I should probably pause a moment, and sort of set expectations here for you a bit.
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