Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)



Twice have film versions been made of Roald Dahl's most popular book, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). This page covers the second version by Tim Burton.

The film features Johnny Depp as Wonka, and a supporting cast that includes James FOX, Missi Pyle, Helena Bonham Carter, Christopher Lee, and Deep Roy (many many times) and is intended to be slightly closer to the book.

Fans are divided on which is the superior film.


 * The Wonka: The eccentric boss and owner of the factory.

"Everyone: (talking about Chocolate Factory) Georgina: I love grapes."
 * Acting for Two: All the Oompa-Loompas, even the female ones, are played by Deep Roy. Some (jackhammer, boat-rowers) are completely animatronic.
 * Adaptation Expansion: Wonka's backstory and his dentist father who hated chocolate. Practically the same reasons as the '71 version to try and give the story a more complex ending.
 * Anachronism Stew: Burton likes making his settings more symbolic than realistic.
 * To see Charlie Bucket's family living in near Charles Dickens-style poverty in one scene and Mike Teevee's Playstation in the next is a tad jarring for some, despite the Buckets having their own TV.
 * Actually, Mike Teevee plays a modern FPS videogame with an Atari 2600!!!
 * Charlie's grandpa gives him a Peace dollar--An American, silver, 1920s/30s dollar.
 * Art Shift: Music shift to be more precise. Each of the Oompa-Loompa's songs has a different theme.
 * Ascended Extra: Mike Teevee is more prominent here than in the 70's film, and more antagonistic.
 * Asexuality: Willy Wonka, possibly. His devotion to a field of work most would consider only a hobby and the fact he didn't get married and chose to find an heir rather than have children suggests this.
 * Big Door: Again, in the Chocolate Room. Inverted Trope, with the door being incredibly small so Oompa Loompas can get in.
 * Bowdlerise: After explaining how he got his ticket, Mike says that "a retard could do it." The term "retard" is considered to be a slur, and the line doesn't air on TV.
 * Braces of Orthodontic Overkill: Willy Wonka as a child.
 * Broken Aesop: Yes, children's movie, tell us all about how you shouldn't let your children watch TV at all.
 * Busby Berkeley Number: The Oompa Loompas do one during the "Augustus Gloop" song.
 * Character Exaggeration: Not only does Depp exaggerate the oddness and enthusiasm of the original, he also picks up on the not-quite-hidden apathy for the other children and turns it into outright dislike. He's also much more obvious in his Magnificent Bastardry, like not opening the gate in the nut sorting room: if you watch closely, he 'finds' the right key before Veruca goes down the chute, but the gate doesn't open until she's already gone.
 * Cloning Blues: Not the Oompa-Loompas, but rather the actor playing them.
 * Cloudcuckoolander:
 * Grandma Georgina.

"Mike: I don't know. I hate chocolate."
 * Willy Wonka.
 * Comically Missing the Point: Mike, while explaining how he got his ticket. He apparently deduced it from so many facts, then found out what store the ticket would be in. When asked about how the chocolate bar he bought tasted, he says...

"Violet: Look, mother, I'm much more flexible now! Violet's Mother: Yes, but you're blue."
 * The Comically Serious: Mike Teevee, who can't appreciate the amazing World of Chaos that is Wonka's factory and would rather point out how everything shouldn't be able to work/exist, even when zapped by the shrink ray.
 * The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Mike doesn't really do anything but snark, and the questions he asks and things he points out are usually justified, yet (at least, in the TV room) everyone acts like he's completely wrong and that he deserved his fate. Then again, maybe he did.
 * Creative Sterility: What seems to be Mike's problem, in addition to a video-game-induced violent streak: he's so jaded by TV and video games and so focused on facts that he's completely unimpressed by Wonka's factory.
 * Cultural Translation: Both Mike Teevee and Violet Beauregarde are American in this version (and Augustus Gloop is German) -- although since the characters' nationalities were left deliberately ambiguous in the book and the tickets were explicitly said to be available all over the world, this is a relatively realistic touch. On a less thought-out level, though, several of the English characters use Americanisms (like "candy" when referring to sweets), and their currency is, for some reason, dollars.
 * Cursed with Awesome: Violet at the end, who is now permanently blue, but with a body that can stretch like rubber. Note that Wonka and Violet's mother are the ones who view it negatively; Violet herself reckons (and rightfully so) that this "punishment" is made of win.

"Violet's Mother: I can't have a blueberry for a daughter! How is she supposed to compete? Veruca Salt: You could put her in a county fair."
 * The Cynic: Grandpa George. Ultimately subverted when he's the one who gives an idealistic speech to persuade Charlie to use the Golden Ticket, rather than sell it for cash.
 * Daddy Issues: These are basically inserted wholesale into Wonka's character and aren't present in the slightest in Dahl's original book. Part of what leads to Wonka's presentation as a psychotic man-child, to some degree.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Willy Wonka and Mike Teevee.
 * Veruca gets her moments, too.

"Wonka: (in a dazed way) I'm sorry, I was having a flashback. Mike Teavee's Dad: (disturbed) These flashbacks happen often? Wonka: Increasingly...today."
 * Depraved Dentist: Wonka's father.
 * Dissonant Serenity: Willy Wonka keeps on smiling even as the kids are going through horrifying things right in front of him, with the sole exception of the scene where he runs for cover as Violet turns into a blueberry.
 * Enfant Terrible: Veruca and Mike.
 * Fat Bastard: Augustus, especially in this version. He offers his chocolate bar to Charlie and then yanks it away, saying, "You want some chocolate? Then you should have brought some," before giving the child-equivalent of an Evil Laugh. Presumably he knows that Charlie is quite literally starving.
 * Fat Slob: Augustus again. Oh, boy, Augustus. Whereas the previous version had decent table manners, the scene in the Chocolate Room is made genuinely unpleasant as Augustus stomps around eating everything, the area around his mouth becoming quite colorful in the process.
 * Family-Unfriendly Violence: The melting of the singing puppets by pyrotechnics.
 * Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Willy Wonka is given one of these as part of the Adaptation Expansion. Mr. Wonka, Sr., is a dentist who doesn't allow his son to eat candy, driving Willy to rebel against him to achieve his dream of being a chocolatier.
 * First Gray Hair: This film provides the page quote for this trope. Willy Wonka reveals to Charlie that this made him realize he was getting old and drove him to start the Golden Ticket contest so as to find an heir to take under his wing and train up before he died.
 * Flash Back: Lampshaded.

"Charlie: "I met him. I thought he was great at first. Then he didn't turn out that nice. And he has a funny haircut." Wonka: (throws down the newspaper he's reading) "I do not!""
 * The Film of the Book
 * For Want of a Nail: Because of the increase of demand for chocolate due to the contest Mr. Bucket's job (toothpaste factory) makes extra money and decide to modernize, this results in Mr. Bucket losing his job and later
 * Foreshadowing: When everyone is entering the factory, Wonka seems to have trouble saying the word "Parents," which at first one might just assume is part of his eccentricity, however, it turns out to be a big plot point,
 * Freudian Couch
 * Fur and Loathing: Veruca's coat is fake, despite the fact that the character could easily have a real one.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar
 * "Don't touch that squirrel's nuts! It'll make him crazy!"
 * The Psycho Parody during the Mike Teavee musical number. Though we the audience never see the girl in the shower save her legs and feet, looks like poor Mikey saw a little too much.
 * Hollow-Sounding Head: Veruca.
 * Humiliation Conga: All of the bad kids go through this, more so than the previous versions, especially since Augustus, Violet, and Mike have their personal songs sung in front of them (though they mostly don't seem to be paying attention). One by one: Augustus falls into a chocolate river in front of everyone, gets sucked up a glass tube and sticks, goes through who-knows-what in the Fudge Room, then exits the factory covered in chocolate. Violet swells up and is rolled around, and ends up permanently blue. Veruca gets covered in trash. Mike is shrunk, then stretched to ridiculous proportions. All of them exit, in some demeaning fashion, filmed and being watched by presumably the whole world.
 * Unlike the first adaption, which doesn't even hint to the children getting out at all.
 * "I Am" Song: "Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! The amazing chocolatier!" Also a serious Ear Worm. Sung by the puppets, before their accidental immolation.
 * I Can See My House From Here
 * I Take Offense to That Last One: As Charlie is shining Wonka's shoes after refusing to move to the factory:

"Wonka: That's what you get from chewing gum all day. It's just disgusting. Mike Teevee: If you hate gum so much, why do you make it?"
 * Insufferable Genius: Mike Teevee.
 * Insurmountable Waist High Fence: Literally.
 * Jerkass Has a Point:

"Oompas: Veruca Salt, the little brute, has just gone down the garbage chute! And she will meet, as she descends, a rather different set of friends! Oompa: A fish head, for example, cut this morning from a halibut..."
 * Mike Teevee delivers another good one, just before he throws himself out of the contest: Wonka has invented a teleporter, but doesn't seem to see any use for it at all, beyond delivering candy bars.
 * Kids Are Cruel
 * The other kids in the group pick on Charlie for really no reason, whereas Augustus didn't say anything to Charlie in the original book.
 * There's also Violet and Veruca's unexplained dislike for each other, and Veruca's schadenfreude at Violet turning into a blueberry.
 * The explanation is most likely that both girls (Veruca due to being spoiled and Violet due to being a perfectionist) feel a need to be the center of attention, and don't like sharing the limelight with one another.
 * Lady Drunk: How Mrs. Salt is portrayed, complete with the obligatory martini glass.
 * Large Ham: Johnny Depp not only chews the scenery, he gulps it down with vodka and asks for seconds.
 * Lampshade Hanging:
 * Charlie asks how the Oompa-Loompas knew Augustus' name (and personality) in their Crowd Song, a Plot Hole that the book doesn't address with regards to any of the kids. Wonka claims it's skilled improvisation, but...
 * Mr. Salt remarks on how choreographed the Augustus number looks -- implying that Wonka researched his victims, planned traps for them, and trained the Oompa-Loompas to celebrate their downfalls in a masterpiece of pre-planning.
 * Loners Are Freaks: Willy Wonka.
 * Lyrical Dissonance: (to a Beatles-y tune)


 * Man Child: Willy Wonka seems to gain this attribute in addition to some severe Daddy Issues, neither of which are present in the original book or film.
 * The Monolith: Featured in a demonstration of Wonka's matter transmutation device...as part of a clip straight out of 2001: A Space Odyessy, no less.
 * Mouthy Kid: Mike.
 * Musical World Hypothesis: Diegetic. The Oompas' "improvisation" is lampshaded, as it was in the first film.
 * Narrator All Along: It turns out it's
 * Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, who clearly doesn't have his father Wilbur's British accent.
 * However, Mrs Wonka never appears and she could have been American.
 * Not His Sled: Wonka initially, contrasting to the endings of the book and the 70s movie.
 * Object Tracking Shot: The making of a Wonka Bar.
 * One of the Kids: One of the many ingredients Depp named for his Wonka was a "bratty child", which comes through in his performance loud and clear. He's a stubborn, moody, frighteningly careless, easily delighted, self-absorbed braggart, who argues with the rotten kids just below their level, doesn't seem to understand adult behavior and harbors some very silly ideas about science and geography. He presumably ends up best friends with Charlie, who becomes a sort of spiritual mentor to him.
 * Oktoberfest: Augustus is from *ahem* Düsseldorf, which The Other Wiki calls the center of one of Europe's most populated metropolitan areas.
 * Original Cast Precedent: The 2005 film kept the same nationalities for the children as depicted in the 1971 film, while also giving most of them hometowns -- Augustus is from Düsseldorf (which suffers from a bad case of Hollywood Geography), Veruca is from Buckinghamshire, Violet is from Atlanta, Mike is from Denver, and Charlie is still ambiguously British/American. In the book, all the character's nationalities were ambiguous.
 * Perpetual Smiler: Willy Wonka always seems to be cheery and perky, but this is hinted to be a front to cope with his daddy issues.
 * Production Posse: Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.
 * Helena Bonham Carter turns up, too.
 * Revised Ending: There's some pretty crazy Adaptation Expansion here.
 * Rich Bitch: Veruca Salt, and Violet's mother.
 * Shout-Out:
 * The toothpaste factory Mr. Bucket works for is called Smilex; Wonka's throne is the same one used by The Joker during the parade scene. There's also a ribbon cutting with Johnny Depp holding a very large pair of scissors.
 * "The Earth says... Hello!"
 * Signature Style: Tim Burton likes to create a contrast between places of wonder, which are bright and colorful, and mundane places, which are dark and dreary. In the context of a Roald Dahl adaptation, it works.
 * Smug Snake: While Depp's Wonka has his Magnificent Bastard side to him, he's played more like this with his fake smiles and mannerisms. He has his own introduction song sing about what a great and brilliant guy he is, and he's so certain that Charlie will abandon his own family to own the chocolate factory that he goes into a depression when Charlie refuses, being unable to comprehend the family's importance to him.
 * Stepford Smiler: Violet's mom.
 * Willy Wonka also seems to be one
 * Tastes Like Friendship: Willy Wonka in the Oompa-Loompa village.
 * Technology Porn: The opening sequence showing the creation of the chocolate bars.
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Violet and Veruca.
 * Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000: It's hard not to wonder whether Tim Burton read this. Having Mike be from suburban Denver, Colorado was most likely just the icing on the cake.
 * Watch Out for That Tree: Wonka and glass doors. *thud*
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy: Dr. Wonka, DDS.
 * Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Due to the book never being clear on whether Charlie Bucket and the Factory are located in England or America, Burton purposely made it ambiguous in the film; English and American accents are thrown around indiscriminately, people drive on the right in some scenes and the left in others, and paper money consists of bluish-pink "guinea" notes.