made by Yappichick

 

I’ve loved the story “Alice in Wonderland” since I was little. Since the new Disney movie by Tim Burton came out there’s been a large surge of interest in the various incarnations. Earlier this week I got into a brief conversation on Twitter about some of the different movies and I decided to list a few of my favorites.

Disney’s animated “Alice in Wonderland”
How many folks remember watching this as a kid and wishing you could have un-birthdays? I have a nostalgic love for this film and the music in it. Even now I can still hear the Cheshire Cat singing those lines from the Jabberwock poem. While I’m not as big of a fan of it now, it still goes on my list of favorites simply because it was one of the first that I remember.

“Alice in Wonderland” & “Through the Looking Glass” (1985)
This TV movie was memorable for many reasons. It had an incredible cast and followed the plot of the books rather well. I’ll never be able to forget the first stanza of the poem “Father William” thanks to Sammy Davis Jr. dancing and singing it as the Caterpillar. Then there were the things that gave me nightmares such as Carol Channing as the White Queen turning into a sheep (which did happen in the book) and the very scary (at the time) Jabberwock. While I admit the effects look somewhat cheesy today, I recently rewatched this one and was happy to find that I enjoyed it just as much now as I did then.

American McGee’s Alice
I happened across this one while visiting a friend over the summer years ago. I watched him play it all the way through and realized that I loved the storyline. And older Alice who survived a fire that killed her parents (after her first trip down the rabbit hole) is locked in a mental hospital and has to fight her own insanity which is also warping the very real Wonderland that she’s still tied to. Who wouldn’t love that? Plus a Cheshire Cat with piercings and tattoos? And now they’re making a sequel? One of my favorites without question.

Syfy’s “Alice”
I wasn’t sure what I would think of this version of Alice in Wonderland. The storyline is quite different and many of the characters adjusted to fit in the new story. Even the Hatter wasn’t quite as mad as he normally is though the White Knight cracked me up to no end. Still, I have to admit, but the end of this one I decided that I could accept this as one I would recommend and enjoy later. It’s different, the ending is one that made me jump for joy and I admit that Andrew Lee Potts as the Hatter is cute enough to make me watch it again.

Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”
To give them credit, they didn’t make a true sequel or reboot it even though this was done through Disney and could have easily been either. Instead they took the original story and decided to set this one years after that. The first time I watched this one I thought it was good, nothing exciting and decided that I preferred the character of Chessur (the Cheshire Cat) to the others in the film. Less than a day later the movie had grown on me like a fungus and I found my love of the Mad Hatter renewed. It’s easy to get distracted by the visuals and score but the storyline is an excellent one and I highly recommend this incarnation.

And that’s my rundown of my favorite Alice in Wonderland incarnations! Do you have others that I didn’t mention or a different opinion on the ones I did? Hit me up with a comment!