Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Adaptions and InterpretationsBy Kyle A. McDonald

Original Story and IllustrationsThe original Story titled “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll included illustrations by John Tenniel whilst only being black and white drawings which narrate the scene, they did provide the reader the first ever glimpses of Carroll’s bizarre and wonderful world of nonsense. Which involved many strange ways of speaking from many of the book’s characters as though they are beating around the bush and trying to divert the conversation as much as possible turning into something barely plausible, these include: “You used to be much more..."muchier." You've lost your muchness.” and “Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly."I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I can't take more.""You mean you can't take less," said the Hatter: "it's very easy to take more than nothing.""Nobody asked your opinion," said Alice.” Many confuse “Alice’s adventures in Wonderland” with “Through the Looking Glass” often using both names to describe the same story however “Through the Looking Glass” is a sequel story in with Alice Returns to Wonderland a few years after she returned from the first time this can be noted by the themes in the books as the first story centres around a playing card theme where as the second centres around a game of chess with Alice being the white queen.

List of AdaptionsMoviesAlice in Wonderland (1903 film)  directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy StowAlice's Adventures in Wonderland (1910 film) directed by Edwin Stanton PorterAlice in Wonderland (1915 film) directed by W. W. YoungAlice in Wonderland (1931 film) directed by Bud PollardAlice in Wonderland (1933 film) directed by Norman Z. McLeod, USAlice in Wonderland (1949 film)  directed by Dallas BowerAlice in Wonderland (1951 film) by Walt DisneyAlice in Wonderland (1966 TV play) directed by Jonathan MillerAlice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972 film) a musical film version starring Fiona Fullerton as AliceAlice in Wonderland (1983 film)  a PBS Great Performances presentation of a 1982 stage play which was in turn a revival of the 1932 LeGallienne productionAlice in Wonderland (1985 film)  produced by Irwin Allen and featuring a large all-star castAlice (1988 film) by Jan SvankmajerAlice in Wonderland (1999 film) a 1999 television movie first shown on NBC and then shown on British television on Channel 4Alice in Wonderland (2010 film) By Tim Burton, Walt Disney StudiosGamesAmerican McGee’s AliceAmerican McGes’s Alice: Madness Returns

While the first few movies where all silent, black and white adaptions with the first full sound adaption coming in 1931’s version with the invention of Colour television and the positive reaction from audiences towards “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939 (which many could argue bares an uncanny resemblance to Wonderland or Vice verse) came the possibilities of Colour and to create worlds in with audiences could get lost in.Many adaptions of the story are musicals with the songs and poems often being parodies of well known children's stories and rhymes one such reference of this comes from the Mock Turtle, a turtle’s body with a calf’s head. In the Victorian era Green Turtle soup was a delicacy however a cheaper knock off version called Mock Turtle soup was made to be more readily available to the lower classes which didn’t actually contain any turtle usually made from Calf Brain’s and organs. Ironically when Alice meets this character in the story, he is making soup which prompts the song “Beautiful Soup”. Baring this in mind A lot of the Characters in Wonderland are based on Real Life Victorian events, objects and people.

Walt Disney’s AdaptionsIn 1951, Due to Walt Disney’s long history with the stories of Alice and him loving them as a boy. The studio brought out an adaption of the first book as their 13th Disney feature film after many years of dropping and reviving the project, this adaption includes some characters that are usually over looked such as Bill the Lizard, the Jabberwocky and the Bandersnatch and objects such as the Vorpal Sword and the Oraculum.These however were present in Tim Burton’s 2010 “Alice in Wonderland” which was actually a sequel to Disney's animated Version which revamps the story as a much more Dark and mature Wonderland and a Grown Up Alice who has forgotten her childhood naivety at the insistence of important things such as marriage and obedience .being a sequel to the animation (which focuses its story on the first book) it focuses mainly on themes from “Through the Looking Glass” and Stars Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter.

Jan SvankmajerIt is somewhat ironic to think that Svankmajer had done a version of Alice in 1988 and 22 years later Burton who was a big fan of both Svankmajer and the Quay Brothers brings his adaption of the story to the big screen. Unlike Burton’s Version however Svankmajer’s features a very heavy use of his signature stop frame animation techniques ,using mostly house hold objects to create bizarre and un-nerving animations, and his very invasive close up shots, his version features a very dark, unsettling wonderland, wildly different from any other adaption of the story.The core story however remains unchanged, a girl named Alice follows a white rabbit down a hole into a bizarre world from which she just wants to go home but constantly becomes side tracked and distracted by the characters that she meets.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q16zTUv7jfo

Lewis Carroll and MeaningsAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland has been interpreted in many ways, all very differently but it has also effect Art especially in the 60’s when LSD and other mind-Altering hallucinogens where all the rage, many thinking that a “Trip” was to see wonderland and all of the bizarre things that came along with that.Another aspect focuses mainly on being a child and child-like naivety and how Wonderland is very much how a child sees the world when very young as full of wondrous things, some however see Wonderland as an escape to a happy place from an adult point of view, when life gets to stressful they want to go back to a time when they had no worries and could simply be children. A funny fact is that in almost every version, instead of being frightened or intimidated by wonderland, Alice seems to just blindly accept it with a very childlike curiousity.A lesser known way to adapt the story is Mentality and that Wonderland exists only in the mind of a mentally unwell individual, but this is very dark and isn't touched on very much when adapting the story. However it has been explored which I will touch on later.Here's an interesting fact that not many people know, Lewis Carroll had what some called “ an unhealthy interest” in the 3 Liddell sisters: Lorina, Edith and Alice, the daughters of Henry Liddell the new dean of the Christ Church, he was particularly interested in the youngest Daughter Alice whom he frequently photographed, many believe she was the inspiration for the Books but this also sparked rumours of paedophilia around him.

Alice in Wonderland 1999Another adaption of Alice came out in 1999 featuring Tina Majorino as Alice and the first to feature an Ensemble cast including Gene Wilder, Whoopi Goldberg , Ben Kingsley, Ken Dodd and Martin Short as The Mock Turtle, Cheshire Cat, Caterpillar, Mr Mouse and The Mad Hatter respectively.The movie itself was the generic tale of Alice updated and modernised and The film even won four Emmy Awards  in the categories of costume design, makeup, music composition, and visual effects however, like many previous versions, it begins with Alice having to do something that she does not want to, in this version its singing a song to her Family and Friends, which her trip to wonderland helps her to accomplish particularly her time with the Mock Turtle.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66miUV7Whk

American McGee’s Alice + Alice: Madness Returns.This is my personal favourite Version of the story as it’s the most dark (very similar to Svankmajer’s Alice) and like the books this games follows the initial story which then follows it up with a sequel titled Madness Returns in this instance, however unlike previous versions these 2 games are sequels to the books, taking place after the 2nd book “Through the Looking Glass” in order to deal with mature themes as an adult Alice.The story deals with Alice suffering from Post-Traumatic stress disorder after her parents and sister are killed in a house Fire leaving her the only survivor, she is committed to a Mental Asylum where she undergoes treatment but finds wonderland as a manifestation of her mental wellbeing, as her deteriorates, so does Wonderland become more and more twisted and demented.The game deals with very mature themes and references to past adaptations such smoking marijuana with Caterpillar (LSD in the 60’s), Underage Prostitution in Victorian London, Murder, Mental Illness, Torture, Sex and Sadism.The game also features a very unique cut-out style animation which references Victorian style drawings and the original illustrations very well whilst adding an extra element to the game. I would also like to Comment that the Voice Acting in this game is excellent and really draws you into the world.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1X1C333nN8