History Headscratchers / AliceInWonderland

** Most likely Alice just went to sleep right after getting down from the tree, and dreamed of the field, with her mind filling in the gap so she thought she must have walked there from the tree. The dream probably starts at the point where it's obvious that Alice's sister isn't there anymore when she should be right there talking. Another possibility is that she was dreaming from the start- she never got up into the tree in the first place, just fell asleep listening to her sister's lesson, [[FridgeBrilliance Which would explain why Dinah acts a bit more intelligently than one would expect of an animal.]]

** Most likely Alice just went to sleep right after getting down from the tree, and dreamed of the field, with her mind filling in the gap so she thought she must have walked there from the tree. The dream probably starts at the point where it's obvious that Alice's sister isn't there anymore when she should be right there talking. Another possibility is that she was dreaming from the start- she never got up into the tree in the first place, just fell asleep listening to her sister's lesson. [[(FridgeBrilliance Which would explain why Dinah acts a bit more intelligently than one would expect of an animal.)]]

** Most likely Alice just went to sleep right after getting down from the tree, and dreamed of the field, with her mind filling in the gap so she thought she must have walked there from the tree. The dream probably starts at the point where it's obvious that Alice's sister isn't there anymore when she should be right there talking. Another possibility is that she was dreaming from the start- she never got up into the tree in the first place, just fell asleep listening to her sister's lesson. (Which would explain why Dinah acts a bit more intelligently than one would expect of an animal.)

** He was late for the Mad Hatter's tea party. The film didn't make that clear but that's how it was in the original story.

* During "Painting the Roses Red." How isn't any of the paint going on Alice's dress or the cards? Actually, how is it now staying on?

!!The Tim Burton film
* What's with the names? I really have no problem with them, but why are they there? Why can't we just call a hatter the Hatter?
** In the movie the characters have dialogue between each other and calling each other "Cheshire Cat", "White Queen", "Hatter", etc. would be excruciatingly annoying after a while.
*** Why? That's what they called eachother in every other version of the story.
*** A mark of added realism and character depth--in the real world even people known by titles (like the Dalai Lama) have given names, and those who assume a name along with a title (like the popes) also have birth names. Giving names to the characters suggests a past, a history, and that they are real people. Of course whether that was an appropriate thing to do, particularly with a product like Alice in Wonderland where things don't make sense as a rule and the characters are in many ways archetypes, is another matter--but even if you think that was a bad or wrong reason to do it, that is still likely the reason.
*** The names don't feel realistic either though, because most of them are just interjected into the dialogue once or twice.
* The White Queen is an evil bitch. I won't muck up the main entry with this, since she seems to have quite the following there, but I can't help but think that Alice will be going back in a few years to support yet another rebellion against a power-mad queen ("I have sworn to never harm a living thing, but my torturers have taken no such vows! Oh, such dreadful violence, I can hardly stomach it! Now pull their nails out. Oh, how gruesome!")
** [[SugarWiki/FavoriteTrope That's what I like]] [[LightIsNotGood about the White Queen]]; her moral ambiguity just makes things more appealing (or depressing, if you consider the rebellion was for nothing...)
** I like the ambiguity about the White Queen too. I got the vibe that she ''knows'' she's crazy, realized she can't help it, but decided to be crazy in a way that won't cut off heads. She's the kind of crazy that inspires people to willingly follow her. She does at least ''seem'' to care for others, and even if it's all a cover to [[ManipulativeBastard manipulate everyone to do her bidding with a flutter of her eyelashes]], she ''is'' still an improvement over the Red Queen.
*** Creator/AnneHathaway agrees. Quote: "She comes from the same gene pool as the Red Queen. She really likes the dark side, but she's so scared of going too far into it that she's made everything appear very light and happy. But she's living in that place out of fear that she won't be able to control herself."
** I don't know about 'an evil bitch,' but she's not sane. Nobody in Underland is (as the Cat observes in the book), so it's really a matter of choosing somebody whose particular insanity involves acting regal and benevolent, as opposed to hurling teacups or whatnot.
* I never really understood why the Hatter and Alice were supposed to be romantically involved. Their relationship to me seemed more paternal than romantic.
** "Why must you always be the wrong size?" Said wistfully, to boot. That alone does it for the shipp- ew. You just gave me a horrible, ''horrible'' AlternateCharacterInterpretation involving your description of the Hatter's relationship with Alice, GettingCrapPastTheRadar regarding Lewis Carroll's... infatuation, and the WifeHusbandry trope. ''Thanks, above troper''. But I digress. Their relationship to me mostly seemed like nostalgic friendship with occasional hints of a little-kid style crush on the part of the Hatter (when she was nineteen, at least, the brief flashback wasn't very informative), vague sympathy/sense of purpose on the part of Alice until later on when she decided it wasn't necessarily a dream, and fire-forged [[PlatonicLifePartners something]] (still with the sympathy) towards the end.
*** This troper is officially experiencing FridgeHorror
** Yeah, I agree. And kind of more paternal from Alice's direction than the Hatter's. Well, it sort of went both ways, a little, which I guess makes it more of a LikeBrotherAndSister thing. So I didn't see the whole StrangledByTheRedString problem, because it seemed sort of as though she saw him as TheWoobie. So it wasn't that she suddenly had deep feelings for a bizarre man who's twice her age under all that makeup, she just saw him as a friend and on top of that felt bad for him because he's the tragic, organic disorder version of [[TheMadHatter his namesake trope]].
** Squicky as it may be, I interpreted him as being a fill-in for Lewis Carroll and most people these days interpret him as having been romantically interested in the real Alice, so yeah.
*** ...Why would the Hatter be his fill-in? There is very, very little similarity. Now, the White Knight from Looking Glass is REALLY blatantly so, but the Hatter does very little.
*** Because Hatter is an iconic character played by a very famous actor who can rake in the money, while The White Knight is from a sequel a lot of people don't know exists?
** Ever since this troper left the theatre after first seeing the film, she has been convinced that the Hatter and Alice were meant to hook up. Then the troper read the original script, saw the written-out-of TWO "passionate, fiery kisses" and promptly had a Fridge Horror moment regarding Alice's earlier trips to Underland. There must have been a reason she forgot about them?
* In the Creator/TimBurton film, the futterwaken. Not only that it was a BigLippedAlligatorMoment that makes anyone who preforms it properly look like the [[WidgetSeries Japanese]] [[UsefulNotes/McDonalds Ronald McDonald]], but Alice's use of it at the end was... utterly pointless, even if you consider it to be a generic victory dance, unless you interpret it as her attempt to convince those present that she's mad, a sort of RefugeInAudacity (I thought at first that she was merely flaunting her lack of stockings).
** I saw it as a TakeThat to everyone who expected her to do the "proper" thing at all times.
*** What bothered me was that there's already a 'mad dance' in the books, the Lobster Quadrille! It even has a song that goes along with it! Why, when inventing the dance BrickJoke, did they not just use the Lobster Quadrille? Why create a nonsense word where there's already one ready-made?
*** Because she would need at ''least'' one other person and two lobsters, [[ComicallyMissingThePoint of course]].
*** Film!Alice hates the Quadrille with a passion. Of course they couldn't have danced the Lobster Quadrille.
*** That's actually ''more'' of a reason for Alice to do the Lobster Quadrille. Alice hates normal Quadrille for being boring and tedious, so she'd find the idea of showing off how Underland livened it up amusing. Plus referencing the Lobster Quadrille is totally pointless if they're not going to go through with the whole thing.
* The ChosenOne plot. Bloody hell. I know the original book was just sort of a bunch of random events and encounters, but of all the plots they had to bolt on to this thing, why [[ClicheStorm that?]] ... Though the Jabberwocky was pretty badass.
** Agreed. I enjoyed the setting and the characters; but I couldn't help but feel that there could be a better ultimate challenge for Alice than a standard kill-the-monster plot.
** They missed a rare opportunity to exploit the surreal and insane nature of the setting by having her defeat the Queen in a surreal and insane way. Oh, well, ''Film/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' established that filmwriters can't imagine a 'fantasy' movie that doesn't involve the heroes waving swords around.
* How the hell did a movie that's basically a love letter to macrophilia and the giantess fetish ever get past the Disney censors?
** Considering that Lewis Carroll's repressed paedophilia is more or less a given these days, I imagine they thought it was an improvement.
** A grand misconception more than a given: having a history of entertaining children does not make one a repressed paedophile.
*** Quite. Moreover, Carroll first became acquainted with Alice's older brother, rather than Alice herself. Yet ''he'' doesn't get a book, because ''he'' wasn't a ten-year-old child who asked Charles Dodgson to write down the clever stories.
** Disney executives don't lurk in the dark corners of the internet?
*** Disney is known to get many a crap past the radar themselves.
** Um...you act as if the growth and size change were only in this adaptation. It's in every adaptation, and in the original book as well. Yet I've never seen anyone accuse Lewis Carroll of have a macrophilia/giantess fetish (as opposed to [[PaedoHunt the usual one]] someone above me [[CommonKnowledge just brought up]])...
** The whole growing larger and smaller thing has nothing to do with any sort of fetish and everything to do with math. Carroll was a mathematical and at the time when he wrote the book "new" math was coming about with things like imaginary numbers and such. The whole of ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' was to show a world that existed entirely on the basis of those new maths. Things grow larger and smaller, it's chaotic, you don't know whether you're coming or going, and all because the math is wonky.
* Trying to turn Alice into a proto-feminist role model.
** I concur! That ruined the whole ending for me. Mind you, I'm a bit of a feminist myself, but I was like..."Uhm, no. Just no." It's absurd, at that point in history. Broke my WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief in half.
*** So now you have twice as much! That's logic!
** I'm a feminist, and while I liked Alice becoming a warrior (well, apart from the ClicheStorm involved), the epilogue was less credible than Wonderland. Sure, even in the 19th century, there were some possibilities for a woman (particularly a wealthy one) to get to do something else than get married, but becoming a merchant's apprentice and going to China? Yeah, right.
** I'm a feminist also, but what Just Bugs Me is that Alice isn't warrior enough. She isn't supposed to be a proto-feminist role model, she's a girl who's trying to make sense of nonsense! In the books (and the original Disney film) she was more of a feminist because she challenged beliefs that didn't make sense. In Burton's version she's just going along with everything and insisting they've got the wrong girl even as she proves them right. The wrap-up at the end was pretty pathetic too - I mean, her character didn't change that much. She didn't fight the Jabberwock for herself, so why on earth would she have been altered by the experience? She fought because others wanted her to - not a very feminist idea. And then because of that, she suddenly has strength?
*** The White Queen makes a point of saying that it is her choice to fight it. Her following decision isn't really just because it's expected, it's also to protect the friends she has re-made since returning to this world. So, true, she's not fighting for herself specifically, but which is more worthy? That or fighting to defend those you care about (who, if we're getting philosophical, could also translate to one's ideals in this instance)?
** I saw it as more of Alice getting in touch with her inner child. As a kid, she was imaginative and different, and then she grew up and felt pressure to be more "normal" and ladylike. Her trip to Wonderland, and her friendship with the Mad Hatter, inspires her to embrace her own quirkiness instead of trying to go along with other people's expectations.
** There’s nothing wrong with wanting to turn Alice into a feminist role-model. The problem is from a feminist perspective her character arc is really weak...which stems from the fact it’s a muddled character arc with UnfortunateImplications to begin with.
* Opening up trade with China. Were we ''supposed'' to think that Alice would be the cause (even if indirectly) of the ugliness of the Opium War, or was the writer really that naive?
** It's a HistoricalInJoke [[{{FridgeLogic}} gone sour.]] Though whoever said Alice would be trading opium?
*** Opening a direct trade-route to China would result in the British Empire's attempts to open the country to further trade, eventually choosing a merchandise that they would ''have'' to buy. Alice herself doesn't need to do the opium-trading in order to bring about the circumstances where the opium trade became a viable political strategy.
** "Alice" humiliates the Duke's son in public and the Duke ies her a job???
*** Maybe the Duke [[TheUnFavorite doesn't like his son very much]].
* Does anyone else think the way Alice confronted her aunt about her imaginary prince was... something a bitch would do? There are better, less soul shattering and publicly humiliating ways to go about it.
** It seems that the writers were trying to wrap up loose ends (''very'' half-assed attempt, though).
*** Why did they need anything to wrap up, though? That entire character was pointless except for Alice's fear of becoming like her, and that doesn't require her to talk. I understand the rest of the confrontations-everyone else had been putting pressure on Alice (to marry Hamish, to not to her sister about her husband's philandering, and so on) and she was telling them to back off. But all the Aunt did was tell her to go away and leave her alone.
* Granted, Creator/JohnnyDepp is the biggest star in the world. But why is he the only name mentioned in the commercials, and given top billing?
** You just answered your own question there.
* Why did the Knave of Hearts beg the White Queen to kill him after he failed to kill the Red Queen? Sure, he had failed that attempt, but he's much bigger, stronger, and more well trained than she is. Plus, it's not like she's going anywhere.
** Maybe because he doesn't like her and it's RuleOfFunny
** Maybe he didn't try to kill her, but himself?
*** Exactly.
** I thought it was because he was going to be stuck with her for eternity and she would be the only one who wouldn't be ignoring him. Death was preferable than being trapped to the Red Queen forever.
* If the Red Queen knew that Alice was destined to kill the Jabberwock on a certain day, why in the blasted infernal hells would she have the Jabberwock fight Alice on said day? Why not just stay home and wait until tomorrow? It's not like the White Queen was going anywhere.
** Why do ANYTHING on ANY day, seeing as how according to that paper we already know what's going to happen every day for the rest of eternity? Honestly, an item like that which completely and utterly removes any kind of intensity is.. a bad move. If YouCantFightFate, what is the point of even trying?
** Alternatively, it might be that the Queen was trying to assert her own power via a ScrewDestiny. If the Jabberwock destroyed Alice on the very same day she was supposed to kill him (and that didn't seem a long stretch, prophecy or not, given that on one side we have a pyroelectric spitting dragon and on the other a young girl) surely the denizens of Underland would have lost all hope and will to fight back against the Queen. Alternatively, maybe the Red Queen was as much a skeptic as the Dormouse and also thought this was the wrong Alice.
** Self-fulfilling prophecies are like that.
** Because, as was pointed out above, the White Queen had said whether Alice would fight or not was [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill her own choice]]. Despite the fact the Oraculum showed her fighting the Jabberwock that day, if Alice had continued to believe it was AllJustADream or had otherwise chosen not to fight, the Red Queen would have won. By coming there she was simply counting on Alice continuing to remain oblivious and clueless, or at least neutral. The fact that Alice remembered her past visit, then decided to protect her old friends and be strong to embrace her destiny, fulfilled the prophecy--but not only did the Red Queen think that wouldn't happen, fate was not as ironclad as it appeared. Until the last moment, Alice still could have chosen not to fight. And as has been pointed out farther down, the Oraculum just shows her fighting, not winning. If she hadn't hung on to the Vorpal Blade as she'd been told...
* When Alice first shrinks, we never actually see her arms get out of the puffy sleeves. She never raised her arms, so it's like they just magically passed through the torso of her dress, which is ridiculous, even for Wonderland.
** She just shrank that much. She gets small enough that her whole body could fit in that sleeve, you're expecting her arms to stretch far enough to fit through both of them? She gets skinnier, therefore farther from the sleeves. Her arms gets proportionally shorter. You do the math.
* Why the crap are ALL the members of the tea party Scottish? In a world kind of based off England, there's a little bubble of Scotland just hanging out? Why? I mean, it kind of explains why the Hatter pulls out a fucking claymore during the final battle... but only in a roundabout way...
** My Dad thought that the Hatter's Scottish split personality was Scottish because it was a reference to Scottish separatism and anti-monarchist sentiment of the time. I didn't know the March Hare was supposed to be Scottish, though.
*** [[FridgeBrilliance Your Dad is a genius.]]
* Chessur says, rather bluntly, "You'll need someone with evaporating skills to tend that wound (from The Bandersnatch)" so, then, is The Bandersnatch a master of evaporation?
** No, it's just got poisonous claws (either magically or naturally), or the wound had started festering to the point that Alice's own immune system or some medicinal skills wouldn't heal it. You don't need to grow penicillin in your nasal passages to sneeze on someone and give them a cold.
*** No, but the Bandersnatch DOES heal Alice's wound by licking it. HOW?
*** Ah. No, it's presumably a master at evaporation the same way termites are master architects, or [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons sorcerors are different from wizards]]. It could be a master at evaporation magic, though, [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman if it really is a being rather than just an intelligent beast]].
*** That and a creature who spreads poison by scratching would presumably need to evolve either a resistance to or way to combat his poison, lest fleas would become a very deadly problem indeed. It's possible that bandersnatch saliva had evolved to the point of being able to chemically nullify any accidental scratches. He's not a master of evaporation, it's just that he's got the only antidote and it's not exactly easy to harvest so it wasn't a viable option.
*** Chessur wasn't saying evaporating skills was the ''only'' way to heal her wounds, just that that was what she would need. Why would she need it? Because he knew (or at least strongly believed) that the Bandersnatch could never be convinced to heal her itself with its antidote saliva, so his evaporation was the only method available to heal her. The unstated part of his sentence is "You'll need someone with evaporating skills to tend that wound [because the Bandersnatch certainly won't help you]." He didn't say that part because there was no point getting her hopes up with something he thought impossible. (He didn't count on the AndroclesLion gambit.)
*** I got the impression that Chessur was just puffing up the importance of his own abilities. Didn't he also say that the White Queen's champion should have evaporating skills? He probably says that all the time, about all sorts of unlikely tasks.
* Just what the HELL happened to the Dodo?!?! After the Queen's croquet game, he just practically disappears of the face of Underland!!!! I was so happy that they included an under appreciated character in the film, and what do they do with him? Ignore him. He doesn't even show up in the final battle!!! Not to mention in the original script, he was supposed to be at the White Queen's castle. WHAT. THE. '''HELL?!?!'''
** What would be the point in a minor character being in the final scene. Honestly what is the big loss, there was a lot of other characters who got less screen time than he did, who were more important in the books. Don't go crying over a dodo now.
*** I understand that. However, Tim Burton ''chose'' to include the Dodo, so he ''should'' have done a good job with what he had ... But he didn't ...
** If you look closely in the scene where the Red Queen releases the Jub-Jub bird, you can see that the bird kills him. He's not at the White Queen's castle because he's dead!
*** Shoutout? The Dodo is considered the AuthorAvatar for Lewis Carrol. Maybe Time Burton felt he HAD to include him, but didn't really know what to do with him?
* The Oraculum. With it there are no shortage of plot holes we could probably think up. Why were the characters having some sort of celebration when that scroll probably had a nice shiny picture showing the Jabberwock attack them?
** Given that Absolem is the guardian of the Oraculum, and he doesn't seem prone to over-sharing information, perhaps it's on a need-to-know basis? It had to happen, so it did.
* Why would it take the death of the Jabberwocky for everyone to turn against the Red Queen? It obviously wasn't at the castle and it looks like it would take a bit of time for it to wake up or move anywhere. The Red Queen is surrounded by people that hate her and can easily find weapons, can they honestly say that no one was capable of poisoning her or killing her in her sleep?
** That would probably result in the Jabberwock going on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge. Bad idea.
*** The Red Queen probably gave the Jabberwock specific orders of that nature. Assuming she's the one who gives orders.
** Just my interpretation, but I was under the impression that the Red Queen's authority and power derived magically from the Jabberwock. Because the minute it was destroyed, we didn't see everyone run away, or immediately rise up against her--instead the cards lost their will to fight, the Knave lost what had seemed to be fanatical loyalty in favor of contempt and hatred, and even the Hatter stopped threatening the Knave, as if he no longer saw him or the Queen as threats anymore. Why this would be or how, I don't know, but it seemed that it wasn't just fear which compelled people to follow and obey her, but an actual magical compulsion. Perhaps the Power of Fear made literal?
* "Underland". What's the deal with that? Why not just, y'know, call it what it actually is?
** "Alice's Adventures Underground" was the original name.
* Jabberwocky was the name of the POEM. The creature was called the JABBERWOCK. Come on fellas, you're losing your heads!
** Also, why did the Jabberwock have to die? Why must the cool things always die?....
*** BecauseDestinySaysSo. Deal with it.
*** "The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with his head he went galumphing back." Does this sound any familiar?
* When talking to Absolum before going to slay the Jabberwocky, Alice expresses concern that he is going to die. Absolum is quite clearly forming a cocoon. Alice knows DAMN WELL that he's a caterpillar. Which raises the question: Why does a 19-year-old girl have no idea what a butterfly is?
** You're applying logic to Wonderland. For all Alice knows, the absence of logic in Wonderland means that caterpillars don't turn into butterflies.
* The fact that Tim Burton had admitted to never reading the books before he decided to make the movie, and then said he didn't like any other adaptations of the book. The reason he gave boiled down too, 'it's too nonsensical. there's no thorough-plot. Alice is just an observer' (I can't find the exact quote) So basically, a man who never read the books and disliked the previous movies for being too nonsensical made a movie about it by imposing order on the chaos we all know and love. Why? He tried to 'improve' something that thousands and thousands of people love BECAUSE it's just nonsense!
** [[Wiki/TheOtherWiki Citation Needed.]] Can you show the article that has Burton admitting to never reading the books? Otherwise, there is no backup to support your complaint.
*** There isn't. The above quote is from him explaining why he didn't ''enjoy'' the book (he felt no emotional investment due to the lack of a running story), which kind of requires him having read them.
*** That's... even ''worse''. So, you adapted a book you don't like into a movie and made it "better" by imposing a plot where there was none and missing the whole point of said book (being, there is no point)? It's like asking [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] to make a J-RPG for you.
*** He didn't WRITE the movie, he just directed it. He was working with it from a script as a film.
* So they get Creator/ChristopherLee to voice the Jabberwock(y). He gets two lines (which were thoroughly epic and something out of a fantasy masterpiece)...and then he is promptly struck dumb via tongue removal. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
** They came up with two lines, and nothing more. So they decided to be cheap rather than doing an effort.
** They got Christopher Lee because he was willing to work cheap for two lines...and because they needed someone who could completely OWN two lines. Standard StuntCasting. He also likely assisted with motion capture.
* Why do people keep calling this a Disney movie/sequel to the Disney version? It was released by Disney, but I honestly don't think they had much to do with it. They're just taking advantage of the gold mine that is Tim Burton. And how is it possible that it's a sequel to the 50's version? They look nothing alike! I know canon can change slightly, but come on. They had flashbacks of Alice's first visit to Wonderland, and those memories looked nothing like the first movie.
** Because Disney released it, and the flashbacks, despite showing a different looking world, clearly implied by their content that the events of the Disney movie were canon. A more accurate way to put it is that the movie is intended to be a sequel to the ''book'' (but which was adapted faithfully for the most part by Disney) which is set in the same world, gone [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack]].
* How did it get nominated for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy for the Golden Globes? I'm not saying it that it shouldn't win an award Best Motion Picture, it's just the category makes no sense.
** [[ComicallyMissingThePoint They did sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat at the Tea Party.]]
** Low standards for what makes a movie a comedy? Or perhaps normal standards [[DoubleStandard except for Disney]]? It did have... a... no, a ''few'' jokes. Well, situational humor. Well, moments that were meant to soften the seriousness of- Okay, yeah, [[DoubleStandard no]] [[PraisingShowsYouDontWatch good]] [[HollywoodHypeMachine reason]].
* Why does Tim Burton choose to ignore practically everything from the books? I swear, it seems a lot of Alice adaptations (apart from ones such as ''Manga/PandoraHearts'') just skim through the first book and the watch the Disney film. I was expecting Burton to make a film that would turn around all the misconceptions people have about the characters. Instead, he enforced them. Why did he even bother making it?
** ''Of course,'' there's no such thing as ExecutiveMeddling, [[ScapegoatCreator no, not at all]].
*** I don't think ExecutiveMeddling is the problem. I think Burton's just one of those mainstream twats who pretend to be alternative. I still blame it all on him. There was too much blatant stupidity in his film for him to remain innocent.
*** Except he didn't adapt it. He just directed it, he didn't write it.
* Why does everyone keep trash-talking this version of Alice in Wonderland? I honestly thought the Jim Henson version was way cornier. I'm not just saying that because the Tim Burton one had [[SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome better special effects]] either.
** It's not that the visuals are bad, it's that the plot is a mess.
*** My point remains though. To anyone who thinks Tim Burton's Alice is garbage, I kindly point you in the direction of the Jim Henson version. That right there is the truly inferior adaptation.
*** There being a worse version does not mean this version is not terrible. Most people don't complain about the Henson version because they aren't aware it exists.
** It's because a number of people prefer to nitpick, read too much into,and/or otherwise gripe about something as opposed to just sitting back and enjoying it. Especially when it's something that has been adapted a number of times already, which sets a standard such people will put it against. But it clearly is a sequel to the base story, since she actually already knows almost everyone.
*** Because it's not a very enjoyable film. The plot is a cliché on top of a cliché, it doesn't stay true to the spirit of the original (hell, the [[DarkerAndEdgier grimdark]] ''VideoGame/AmericanMcGeesAlice'' manages this better) and the visual style is remarkably unimpressive considering the subject matter. There's a handful of cool characters, but they have nothing of interest surrounding them, people or scenery, and that is a crime in a movie about the friggin' Wonderland.
*** To add, I found the Mad Hatter's makeup very unnerving, they add a pop song at the end instead of Danny Elfman's music, the script writer wanted to make this a feminist film, and most of all, I'm getting tired of Burton redoing films instead of working on adaptations of things that haven't been filmed like his defunct Robert Ripley film or original stories like ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas''. He feels the need to "improve" where it doesn't need to be in the first place. Though, I might be wrong in the future, and hope that one of my early inspirations gets back to doing original films in the future.
* Just a really small one. Upon looking at the picture in the orraculem, why does everyone idmeadiatly assume that Alice will defeat the Jabberwock when it just shows her with the Jabberwock flying towards her? I mean in the flashback we saw another knight who took the same stance and he got flamed.
** They've been ruled by a tyrant for the last several years, and the first hint of their salvation has just arrived - of course they're going to assume the best possible outcome.
* I know, I know, this is Wonderland, but you still gotta wonder. Apparently the Vorpal Sword is the only means to slay the Jabberwock(y) - "if it ain't Vorpal, it ain't dead". But ironically, to know this for sure, the only way would be to actually slay him. And ''de facto'' the dragon appears to have had at least an encounter with the blade, possibly more, but there he was standing in front of Alice, very much alive. So how would the denizens of Dreamland know the Vorpal Blade can kill him?
** Unless that is no other weapon can even pierce his skin anyways.
** Or unless he has in fact been killed but has regenerated through his own power or the Red Queen's - if he has that possibility, this would mean Alice's efforts were moot anyways.
** Or that it had been foretold, apparently quite precisely.
** The Jabberwock ''specifically'' calls the Vorpal Blade his "ancient enemy", with Alice a mere bearer. So yeah, either he's been killed and regenerated/resurrected before, or simply wounded by the only thing that COULD hurt him.
** OP makes it sound like there's only ''one'' Jabberwock. How do we know it's not part of an entire species?
** Considering that everyone is not worrying about the Jabberwock coming back to life after Alice killed him, it can be presumed that if he is capable of regenerating/resurrecting, it will take a very long time (probably a couple of centuries or decades). Or that it was originally killed but someone somehow brought it back to life; or more likely that someone else tried to kill him with the vorpal blade before, but hadn't managed to kill him yet.
* How did Alice's flashback include the Rabbit's "She's the right one, I'm certain of it!" and the Dodo's "You'd think she would remember all this from the first time..." lines when she never heard them say that herself?
* Does anyone else get the impression that this was Disney trying to make a [[Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia Narnia]] film with the SerialNumbersFiledOff after losing the rights? Because I gotta be honest; art direction aside, it doesn't really ''feel'' like a Tim Burton film, what with the fairly generic "epic fantasy" plot thrown in about a chosen one and a big epic battle at the end. Plus, the Dormouse has basically been made into a DistaffCounterpart for Reepicheep.
* Ok, am I the only person in this world who liked this movie? I mean, 90% of this page is people bitching about cliches, pedophilia and shipping. Seriously, I can't be the only one who though this movie was great.
** One problem is that this movie is pretending to be an adaptation of the book, when it's ''not.'' Scenes from the book are staged by the characters in order to jog Alice's memory. I can't help but feel that a different title like ''Alice and the Wonderland War'' would go over a lot better, since all expectations of a faithful adaptation would be dispelled before the movie even started.
** I liked it, as well. I don't think it's great, and there's a lot of parts that are kind of weird and not that good, in my opinion, but I think it's probably the thing I like most out of everything ''Alice In Wonderland''-related.

* Why does everyone keep trash-talking this version of Alice in Wonderland? I honestly thought the Jim Henson version was way cornier. I'm not just saying that because the Tim Burton one had [[VisualEffectsOfAwesome better special effects]] either.

* More of a problem with the FanDumb than anything, but Johnny Depp's performance seemed to be pretty over hyped. His character seemed to be just a mish mash of Jack Sparrow and Sweeney Todd with not much feeling put into it. The fact that years before the movie released their only advertisement was JUST a picture of Johnny Depp sort of says it all.
** Jack Sparrow and Sweeney Todd by ''themselves'', is the same-old-same-old . . . but putting those two different types of crazy ''together'' was [[{{CrazyAwesome}} pretty awesome]]. Plus, [[{{OpinionMyopia}} different people have different tastes]].

** [[FavouriteTrope That's what I like]] [[LightIsNotGood about the White Queen]]; her moral ambiguity just makes things more appealing (or depressing, if you consider the rebellion was for nothing...)

** They got Christopher Lee because he was willing to work cheap for two lines...and because they needed someone who could completely OWN two lines. Standard ClasicallyTrainedExtra.

* Does anyone else get the impression that this was Disney trying to make a [[Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia Narnia]] film with the SerialNumbersFiledOff after losing the rights? Because I gotta be honest; art direction aside, it doesn't really ''feel'' like a Tim Burton film, what with the fairly generic "epic fantasy" plot thrown in about a chosen one and a big epic battle at the end. Plus, the Dormouse has basically been made into a DistiffCounterpart for Reepicheep.

** Edgar Allen Poe once wrote stories on both.
** Technically, there's no real answer. It's just a mad, illogical question in a story full of them,

** "Why must you always be the wrong size?" Said wistfully, to boot. That alone does it for the shipp- ew. You just gave me a horrible, ''horrible'' AlternateCharacterInterpretation involving your description of the Hatter's relationship with Alice, GettingCrapPastTheRadar regarding Lewis Carrol's... infatuation, and the WifeHusbandry trope. ''Thanks, above troper''. But I digress. Their relationship to me mostly seemed like nostalgic friendship with occasional hints of a little-kid style crush on the part of the Hatter (when she was nineteen, at least, the brief flashback wasn't very informative), vague sympathy/sense of purpose on the part of Alice until later on when she decided it wasn't necessarily a dream, and fire-forged [[PlatonicLifePartners something]] (still with the sympathy) towards the end.

** There’s nothing wrong with wanting to turn Alice into a feminist role-model. The problem is from a feminist perspective her character arch is really weak...which stems from the fact it’s a muddled character arch with Unfortunate Implications to begin with.

** Why do ANYTHING on ANY day, seeing as how according to that paper we already know what's going to happen every day for the rest of eternity. Honestly, an item like that which completely and utterly removes any kind of intensity is.. a bad move. If YouCantFightFate, what is the point of even trying?

* Why would it take the death of the Jabberwocky for everyone to turn against the Red Queen. It obviously wasn't at the castle and it looks like it would take a bit of time for it to wake up or move anywhere. The Red Queen is surrounded by people that hate her and can easily find weapons, can they honestly say that no one was capable of poisoning her or killing her in her sleep?

* The fact that Tim Burton had admitted to never reading the books before he decided to make the movie, and then said he didn't like any other adaptations of the book. The reason he gave boiled down too, 'it's too nonsensical. there's no through-plot. alice is just an observer' (i can't find the exact quote) So basically, a man who never read the books and disliked the previous movies for being too nonsensical made a movie about it by imposing order on the chaos we all know and love. Why? He tried to 'improve' something that thousands and thousands of people love BECAUSE it's just nonsense!

*** To add, I found the mad hatter's makeup very unnerving, they add a pop song at the end instead of Danny Elfman's music, the script writer wanted to make this a feminist film, and most of all, I'm getting tired of Burton redoing films instead of working on adaptations of things that haven't been filmed like his defunct Robert Ripley film or original stories like ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas''. He feels the need to "improve" where it doesn't need to be in the first place. Though, I might be wrong in the future, and hope that one of my early inspirations gets back to doing original films in the future.

** Considering that everyone is not worrying about the Jabberwock coming back to life after Alice killed him. It can be presume that if he is capable of regenerating/ressurecting, it will take a very long time(probably a couple of centuries or decades), or that it was originally killed but the someone somehow brought it back to life, or more likely that someone else try to kill him with the vorpal blade before, but hadn't manage to kill him yet.

** One problem is that this movie is pretending to be an adaptation of the book, when it's ''not.'' Scenes from the book are staged by the characters in order to jog Alice's memory. I can't help but feel that a different title like ''Alice and the Wonderland War'' would go over a lot better, since all expectation of a faithful adaptation would be dispelled before the movie even started.

** [[TheOtherWiki Citation Needed.]] Can you show the article that has Burton admitting to never reading the books? Otherwise, there is no backup to support your complaint.