Has Tim Burton ever FAILED to fuck up a classic movie?

Being a Thursday night, for the very first time, I forced myself to sit through the entire "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," since it was free on cable, and we tend to like Johnny Depp movies.


But for fock's sake! Does Tim Burton have ANY comprehension of the movies he tries to remake? His 'Planet of the Apes' travesty was the first movie that ever drove me to immediately post a negative review of it on the net when I got home from the movie theater. His Charlie and the Chocolate Factory shows a similar lack of comprehension of the whole point of the original movie. Why does he feel the need to change the endings of these classic scripts so as to be incomprehensible?!?!

He's a set designer masquerading as a director!

Bah!

it was pretty bad. I thought it started well, and the boy playing Charlie was great. But as soon as we got to the factory, it went straight to hell.

I can't understand why so many in Hollywood have never learned the first rule of the arts: never touch something that is already perfect!

That's like saying he compromised the Mayflower Madam's virtue. The source material (novel, original film and agonizing sequels) are trash. The follow-on TV show was lobotomized trash. At least Burton's version was visually interesting.

Myself, I like maybe one out of three Tim Burton movies, but not because he does damage to the original. The first Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder "Willie Wonka" one) was unwatcheable. The Burton one was deranged but watchable. Burton's Batman was absolutely groundbreaking for its time and his other Depp works (Edward Scissorhands, Sweeney Todd) have been very tasty indeed.

:rofl:

His 'Batman' was pretty good, as was Scissorhands. However, in both those cases, the main attraction was the sets and the costumes.

Didn't see his Sweeney Todd yet...

that has ever worked (even if it *does* have Jim Carrey in it).

TlalocW

Johnny Depp was the main attraction. wonderful performance. The other actors came in a close second--Alan Arkin, Diane Weiss (sp?) and just about everyone else in that movie. Sets and costumes were great, but it was the actors that made that movie.

This personal diatribe has not changed my mind ....

Who was the idiot who fucked-up Asimov's "I, Robot"?

"I'm soooo much smarter than the author of this stuff." (cf, David Lynch).

director of The Crow and Dark City (great film!). I was very disappointed in him for the silly "I, Robot"

It's been a while since I've read the book but here are my two cents worth.

Unlike in Willy Wonka, there was no Slugworth trying to bribe kids to bring him Everlasting Gobstoppers and no, "YOU STOLE FIZZY LIFTING DRINKS!" speech at the end. Charlie just got the chocolate factory on the account that he was the last kid, and there was no ham-fisted explanation that he was the good, pure kid who didn't misbehave.

And unlike in Charlie, there was no dentist father (or father issues).

But it was a children's story being adapted to movies, and they both needed some sort of conflict, otherwise, it would just be a movie about a chocolate maker, seemingly, bumping off kids.

I liked both movies myself. They're different interpretations of a story so they shouldn't be the same.

Roald Dahl, the author, hated the Willy Wonka movie by the way.

TlalocW

Even if they suck they are visually fun most of the time. Sweeney Todd was wonderful. Planet of the Apes sucked as bad as the first Ape movies. I loved Pee Wee's Big Adventure as well as most of the others.

Charlie was creepy. I was not crazy about it. Willie Wonka was also creepy (I think it was supposed to be, have not read the book) but at least it gave us "Pure Imagination".