That's what I read into what your said before at first, that it was a sing-along that led to Smurfs, Alvin, etc. I see it more of a Wizard of Oz type, mixing brilliant original music with a kid's drama/fantasy that outside of some Disney and PIXAR films rarely exist and almost never exist except in animated form such as The Lion King.silversurfer19 wrote:When did I ever declare that WW was similar to Alvin due to its music? I said it was a watered down piece of garbage which pandered to an audience, much like the recent animations I listed. It didn't aspire to be anything Dahl had intended, it sucked out all the invention and real wonder (not the visual wonder, the sense of wonder in Dahl's words and imagination) instead just reducing it to a horrible, sacharine and sentimental movie which included music. As I said, Wilder is the best part of the movie, but the script is a mess.
Sure, I've never read the book (actually I think I did, but it was too long ago to remember), but saying it's too sweet when it's got so much negativity in it (bribing, theft, poorness, kids making fun of Charlie, all the "defective" kids, etc.)... Sure, Charlie's mostly good save one moment, always thinks of others, and does what he's told, but that mixed with all the other kids "getting what's coming to them" balances it out and makes it more of a karmic morality tale. I think the sour balances out the sweet very well.
