Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Was the kid who played Mike Teevee chosen simply because he was repulsive-looking and it added to his character? Not to mention he's a know-it-all dipshit who Jack Thompson would use as his Exhibit #1 if he could still be a lawyer.
    • In the books, Dahl made the other children have flaws that he considered not good for children. Some of them were good (Veruca being spoiled, Augustus being so greedy, etc), but then some of them were flaws that were annoying at the most (Violet's gum chewing, Mike's tv obsession, etc). If they tried to have a child punished for chewing gum or watching tv today, audiences would probably think it was unfair or unbelieveable, so they made those children more intolerable than their book counterparts. In Violet's case, she was ruthlessly competetitive to the point of being outright nasty. In Mike's case, his obsessive tv watching made him violent, edgy, and out-of-touch with his father.
    • If you look at the red carpet pictures, the kid was actually pretty cute when he wasn't making the Mr. Grumpypants face.
  • This is sort of specific to the Tim Burton version, but...Mike Teevee's "exit song" chides him for becoming mindless due to watching television, with lyrics such as "He does not think, he only sees!" However, Teevee's flaw in the Burton film is that he seems a bit too smart for his own good. What gives?
    • The exit song was transferred word-for-word from the original book. Mike Teavee's character was not.
    • It could be seen as Mike 'saw' that he could use the thing as a teleporter but didn't 'think' further than that.
    • Playing video games (on a console, and hence on a television) has given him a false sense of invulnerability, so he doesn't appreciate the consequences of turning himself three inches tall through a one-way teleporter.
    • It doesn't make sense to portray Tv-obsession as being a hideous flaw when your target market is children who have been raised on 24-hour TV and movies. They changed the character of Mike to be more relevant to today, and either forgot to change the song or decided people would interpret it in relation to the character. Considering the ending, they seem to be working on the assumption people haven't read the book, so might either not notice.
    • The idea seems to be not that TV is bad or he's too smart but rather that his limited knowledge and lack of experience is a bad thing to have combined with arrogance. Yes, TV can teach you a lot of things... but it's not good to rely solely on it to teach you everything or assume that it's the one true holder of all useful knowledge. Similarly, his flaw was that his smarmy knowledge did not actually allow him to learn. He'd lost a sense of wonder and curiousity - he wanted to be told, not taught.
      • Like was mentioned earlier, if you consider how Mike calculated the "code" to only purchase one wonka bar which contained the ticket (instead of buying as much as he could like the others) it would have been more in character if he at least tried to figure out how the "teleporter" worked in more depth than Wonka's demostration. Not only that but I would assume with all the Nightmare Fuel-filled videogames and television he's implied to see, he'd be more wiser than to jump into a teleporter that hasn't been tested.
  • Is the Tim Burton version set in Britain or America? Charlie's family is British, but they all use American grammar and slang. Willy Wonka is American, but his origin story is British, and everyone eats candy... I can't remember what currency they use.
    • Artistic combination of both, I think, so it can appeal to either side of the pond.
      • Carried over from the book, which used British idioms and yet Charlie found a dollar...
        • This troper never noticed this until he read this. (Facepalm)
          • It's not actually wrong -- "dollar" was slang for the British coin called a crown, or five-shilling piece, worth one quarter of a pound. The slang expression originated in the 19th century, fell into disuse, and was then revived during WWII by the presence of US troops in the UK and the fact that a US dollar was worth about five shillings at the time. The book was written in 1964 and the UK didn't move to decimal currency until 1971, so Charlie probably found a crown/five-shilling piece.
        • In my version, Grandpa Joe gives him sixpence, and then later he finds a fifty pence piece. This places the book at a post-1971 date. Although sixpences are pre-decimal, and 50p is decimal, people still used sixpences for a time as 2 1/2 new pence.
        • In the second book when one of the grandmothers regresses backwards through her life the historical events she remembers - the major one is the death of Abraham Lincoln - seem to imply they're in America. It confused this (British) troper no end as a kid.
          • To be fair, I'm sure that even in Victorian Britain the news of the assassination of the President of the United States would make it across the ocean eventually.
          • Nope: I've checked the book and the events described are definitely from an American perspective, starting from crossing on the Mayflower, the War of Independence (with reference to "the dirty British"), the Civil War and then the death of Lincoln.
          • I'm pretty sure the 2005 film was set in America. My reasoning for this is because when Charlie finds the last golden ticket, two people approach him and offer him 50 dollars and 500 dollars, respectively. I would guess that there are just a lot of British immigrants in the town they live in.
    • The older film also is vague in this regard, which is addressed by Neil Patrick Harris in the Rifftrax. "Maybe this takes place before the American Revolution."
      • Maybe it makes sense in context, but it's about a chocolate factory and features television news prominently. Did pre-revolutionary Britain, or America use...? no. I'm completely stumped.
        • That's the point. It's Riff Trax. Neil was making a joke.
          • This troper always saw the characters (all of them) as being intentionally vague as to where they came from, to let the reader feel like they could possibly be one of the characters.
      • Perhaps Charlie grew up in a community of recent American immigrants to Great Britain, or vice versa. Ethnic neighborhoods are common on both sides of the Pond.
      • He'd still speak American English or a mid-Atlantic sound.
      • This troper assumes that Charlie (in the book and movies) was from an imaginary country in North America that had some British influence.
      • ...Canada?
  • When Violet becomes a blueberry, how come her clothes didn't split from the strain?
    • Probably because people would complain if the movie showed an expanding naked girl. Or maybe the gum makes your clothes expand too, since it's supposed to be magical.
    • Her clothes are made from the same stuff The Incredible Hulk buys.
    • You can see the juice soaking into her clothes, so presumably that's how the transformation also affected the clothes.
    • Probably the same reason her skin didn't rip open.
  • A lot of people complain that Depp's interpretation of Willy Wonka seemed to just be a Michael Jackson charicature, which really bugs me because Michael Jackson loved children and Willy Wonka, in every incarnation of the story, very obviously hates children.
    • I think one reason for that was the general appearance of Depp's Wonka (IIRC he had quite pale skin, like Jackson's) and the idea that that man is interacting with children. And people will never let facts get in the way of making fun of something.
    • Depp's Wonka also has a completely different hair color/haircut.
    • Since when did Wonka hate children? He specificly wants a child to take over the factory because of their enthusiasm and innocence. He loves children, but I love cake and will still throw out a stale, fungus covered cake. I will hate it all the more because I know what a wonderful cake it might have been. Wonka is the same with kids, spoiled, greedy, idiotic kids are all the worse because he knows what well raised and well cared for children can be so good.
      • Err, no. He's cold toward all five children (apart from Charlie later on). Remember his line describing what a veruca was in the book and the 2005 movie? Or his sarcastic deadpan plea for the police in the 1971 movie? He wanted an heir to carry on his legacy, and he decided on a child who still has innocence. Nothing implied, at least in the 2005 movie, that he adored children.
      • The reason he's cold to the other four from the start is because he's most likely already seen their worst sides in their TV interviews. The closest he gets with Charlie, in the Depp version, is his first line to Grandpa Joe when he briefly suspects him of being one a former spy.
  • So, uh, why the hell didn't either Charlie or Mike, who both were small enough to fit though the gate as Veruca did, do a damn thing to save her? Sure, she was a huge ass, but still.
    • Maybe because they spent a few seconds in shock first. Then when they got out of it, she was already down the chute.
    • Would you run down into the midst of a bunch of apparently intelligent, acting-rabid squirrels to save some witchy girl who stupidly put herself into that position whom you didn't even like? No thanks, I like my knees very much where they are.
    • This is because both Mike and Charlie as psychologically ready for a zombie apocalypse. Think about it.
      • Why didn't her father just climb over the gate? Oh, no, Mister Wonka has to open the gate first...
      • Maybe they were to initially shocked by the sheer what the fuckery of what was going on before their eyes; because hey wouldn't you be.
    • I honestly think they were being Genre Savvy. Think about it. If they ran down to save this witchy girl, she might have just pulled them into the mess while she escaped and not bothered going back to save them.
    • Also, while Charlie is a good kid and might've tried it if it wasn't so dangerous, Mike was never gonna risk his neck for her.
  • Marilyn Manson reportedly said, "If anyone were ever to remake Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I would audition for Willy in a heartbeat," which makes me think he thinks Willy Wonka's meant to be evil... demonic even, in reference to the boat ride in the Gene Wilder version, but, if you dig just a tiny bit, you might realize that the whole factory is a metaphor for heaven (particularly for children). So, Marilyn would've been woefully miscast...
    • So Willy Wonka is God... you know that could explain so much about both the story and reality.
    • Marilyn Manson said in an interview, "I see Willy Wonka as Satan because he presents people with the temptation of picking good and evil, and they all pick evil."
      • In the Gene Wilder version, sure, they all let temptation take them. However, Mister Dahl reputedly hated the Gene Wilder version, thus why it's called "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" instead of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". In part, I presume this is because, in the book, Charlie never gave in to temptation. He was a pure soul, and thus, allowed to enter 'heaven', ruling alongside 'God'... so, mister Manson there got it wrong anyway.
        • Not true. Dahl did hate the movie (reportedly he refused to ever see it in it's entirety, and would immediately change the channel if he ever caught sight of it on tv) because the initial screenplay he wrote was massively re-written by David Seltzer. But that isn't the reason for the name change. The movie was renamed "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" because the Vietnam War was still in full swing at the time, so the name "Charlie" would have had...UnfortunateImplications.
          • Actually, the interview in the "Willy Wonka" special features said that they changed the name because they wanted the movie to better promote the Wonka Bars that were being produced at the time. The candy had a flawed recipe and had to be pulled pretty quick, though...
    • I don't know why people automatically assume Manson (or Satan, for that matter) is "evil". Has he ever actually done anything wrong? I think he wanted to play Wonka, because he wanted to have fun.
      • Very true; despite appearances, he is a very well spoken, very intelligent, very kind and empathetic individual. This is a guy who managed to get Bill Maher to shut up with his eloquence and in the wake of the Columbine shootings where people blamed his music, stated to someone who tried to ask him about it that he did not want to talk about it because he did not want to make the shooters any more famous than they already were and that people should be focusing on the tragedy of the victims not the glamorization of the shooters. He likely would have been a different but appropriate sort of Wonka.
      • I think being a High Priest in the Orthodoxy of Satan would kinda get some raised eyebrows. As well as the burning and shredding of Bibles onstage...and allowing your drummer to stick a puppy in his bass drum, pull it out halfway through dead from the concussions, and then throw it into the crowd... Sure, Manson's articulate and charismatic, but then so was Ted Bundy...
        • He also likes to dress up like a Nazi and sit around in a room decorated with Nazi memorabilia, cheated on his wife with a nineteen-year-old and then mocked his now ex-wife by making a music video where he makes out with said nineteen-year-old in a recreation of his and the ex's marriage bed, has cheated, ripped off, and stolen from practically everyone he's ever worked with, and is in general a piece of scum who is worshiped by idiots who are incapable of looking any deeper than "Oh look he's weird but he's articulate that's so meaningful! #thisissoimportant"
    • You have to admit, Wonka does have a very mysterious tone to his personality, which is a quality usually reserved for villains. So even if you're correct in assuming Manson thinks Wonka is evil, why would that be a miscast? It's not like, in the end, the story would be any different.
  • Wonka's line in the TV Room:

Well why would I want to teleport a person? They don't taste very good at all!

Am I honestly the only one who is deeply disturbed by the implication of actual cannibalism in that line?

    • Because Wonka admits earlier that everything in the room (including the buttons, though they are not digestible) was "eatable", including himself. However, as he says it is frowned upon in most societies, that likely suggests to viewers that Wonka himself does not promote cannibalism, and they interpret the later comment as a joke rather than yet another clue towards the outright stated fact that Wonka is a horribly deranged man.
      • Oh. Why would he know people don't taste very good at all. Eek. An Oompa-Loompa funereal ritual, maybe? They're pygmy humans in the book and Burton film, and thus would taste pretty much like "normal" people. Except when they taste like blueberry.
        • You can taste something without eating it, you know.
    • He ate Mrs. Lovitt's pies in a alternate universe?
    • For the line you're referring to, Wonka was only thinking about chocolate and couldn't see any non-candy-related applications for the Wonkavision (or probably anything he makes, really). When Mike suggested using it on people, his line of thought was more like, "Why do to people what I do to chocolate?" As for the line in the chocolate room.... I think might've been more bemoaning how you couldn't eat people in most societies, not informing the children of it. That's what it sounded like to me.
  • What was up with that part with the sheep?
    • The implication seems to be that they're the source of Wonka's cotton candy, but if you knew that cotton candy came from sheep, would you ever eat it again?
      • Considering that lamb chops are a fairly popular food...not to mention the whole role of wool in clothing production...
      • But I've never eaten a jumper before.
    • I'm to understand it was a reference to Johnny Depp's previous role a Ed Wood in the film of the same name.
    • To me, it's a reference to an obvious (though typically British) joke about shepherds using their sheep for...um...certain purposes. So basically Wonka keeps them around to...yeah...
    • I thought it was a very sneaky little joke. Cotton candy is also called candy floss. Floss is a type of yarn, and yarn is made form wool.
      • Sneaky? I thought it was a pretty obvious one. Sheep wool looks like cotton candy, his cotton candy is actually the wool from weird sheeps. Simple.
  • The chocolate river is explicitly stated to be "hot melted chocolate of the finest quality." Think about how hot chocolate has to get just to melt, let alone keep such a gooey-but-thin liquid consistency. Surely Augustus should be covered in at least second-degree burns under all that fudge-coating, shouldn't he?
    • What, 45 degrees celsius?
    • Thinking too hard again!
      • What?
  • Why didn't Tim Burton do the 'Tunnel of Hell' scene? He's well known for the freaky shit he puts in his films, and that would've been a perfect time to do it.
    • Because it wasn't in the book.
      • Neither was the dentist subplot, so that argument is invalid.
      • Actually, if anyone paid attention to Burton's repeated explanations that his movie is NOT a remake of the 1971 movie, but "redo" of the book, you would realize that the argument is valid. Why take a scene out of a movie you've already stated is not what you are trying to make? No, the dentist subplot wasn't in the book, but some sort of padding needed to be added. Let's be honest, Dahl's book doesn't have much of a plot after Charlie gets his chocolate. They needed to a conflict and made one. Burton is generally capable of making his own "freaky shit". He doesn't need to copy a non-sequitor like that (damn you TV Tropes, you've made me defend a director I don't even enjoy).
    • I haven't seen the film in a while, but I thought he did (and it was in the book). Not to the deranged lengths the of 1971 film (just... WHY), but the scary tunnel was in the movie.
      • I think Wonka's deranged poetry was in the book too, though.
    • While there is no hell tunnel sequence, Burton's chocolate river boat shoots itself straight the hell down to get to the lower levels of the factory. Still pretty scary, if you ask me...
  • If Tim Burton wanted to do a film adaption that was more like the book, then why did he make Willy Wonka so different? Neither film adaption has Wonka like he is in the book, but at least the 1971 film has Wonka vaguely like the book (he is rather more serene than the excitable book Wonka). 2005 film Wonka, on the other hand, has almost no similarities to the book character.
    • Except that he has several lines and exchanges copied wholesale from the book (admittedly Wilder may have had as well, but I haven't seen his film for a long time). While I'd probably agree that neither are exact to the book, I think Depp is the more faithful.
      • Except Depp's version adds the excessive Man Child aspects to the character, plus the unnecessary boatload of Daddy Issues. I think the Nostalgia Critic said it best when he suggested that the 1971 movie is closer to Wonka's characterisation in the book (but the film becomes more about Charlie), whilst the 2005 film had a closer characterisation for Charlie (and yet became more about Willy Wonka as part of the standard Tim Burton/Johnny Depp thing).
  • What was Mike playing in the 2005 film? Or at least what was it based on? It looked similar to an Atari 7200 however the graphics was more PlayStation 2 or Xbox like.
    • The SchiZtation 9100, which was made by an obscure Ameritish company back in 19exty2. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it.
  • Why did the other kids hate Charlie? Why did Violet and Veruca hate each other? Why did Violet and Veruca pretend to be friends?
    • Violet was shown to be very competetive, Veruca was a spoiled brat who probably didn't like the idea that other people were sharing the prize with her. They didn't like each other in the first movie either. As for the rest of it... I don't really know either.
    • The other kids are mean to Charlie because they're the kind of nasty little children who will pick on anyone they see as weaker. None of the kids liked each other, but Violet and Veruca especially disliked each other because they knew who the real competition was for the "special prize." And they pretended to be friends because, like many popular and entitled girls, they understood the concept of keeping one's enemies close.
  • Just gonna come right out and say it: Mike Teevee is more likeable than Charlie. A modern-day audience (especially children in it) are far more likely to identify with him than they are with the relentlessly perfect, naive, and saintly Charlie who seems to be from another time entirely. And the points Mike makes are perfectly valid (beyond the level of lampshade hanging to things that would make the audience go, 'hey, yeah, I want an explanation for this Fridge Logic!); Wonka just comes off as an ass for brushing them off. Is there...some way to JUSTIFY this? Did Burton just fuck up, or what?
    • He's an unsympathetic asshole with borderline Arbitrary Skepticism. Who mumbles. What is likable about him?
      • This troper would have to agree. Even if the more contemporary Mike is a little more relatable to audiences, he's still impatient, snotty, and condescending. He's a little smarter than everyone else, but he's still over-reliant on technology to the point of laziness. This is the underlying flaw the character represents, not just simply an obsession with television or video games.
      • Exactly. Since when did "I relate with this character" automatically mean "I like this character"?
      • Since Mike acts like a real person. Sure, he's a snotty, condescending arse, but frankly the same could be said about Willy Wonka. He's pretty much just a Flanderization of an average stereotypical child. He also happens to have several realistic idiosyncrasies , such as his intelligence and and deadpan snarkery. Charlie, though? Charlie is a Marty Stu. Unlike in the Gene Wilder movie, he has no character flaws. He's optimistic, kind, good to his family, unfailingly cheerful, and he never screws up or gets angry. Everyone heralds him as the only decent child in the story, not for doing something brave or clever or heroic, but for doing literally nothing the entire movie. He is rewarded for not questioning anything and staying in his proper place. And that is far more obnoxious than some smarmy kid who plays video games a lot.
  • Why was the father of the spoiled brat the only parent that got a punishment? He sure was making her to the person she is, but every other parent was that to their kids too and the punishments for them were running after their kids. Also, he didn´t even mean to make her obnoxious and dominant, he just wanted to make her happy, although he did it with the wrong, material way. The competetive girl mother was far worse, probably forcing her daughter to that hobby.
    • Mr. Salt is also shown to be an asshole to his employees, forcing them to spend hours opening chocolate bars just so his daughter can get the golden ticket. While the other parents were unlikeable, none of them did anything like that. Personally, I think the audience would have felt cheated if Veruca's dad didn't get punished.
      • I don't see what's so bad about this. They are paid to spend hours a day shelling nuts. That's their job and having them do their job doesn't make him an asshole. He puts the nut-shelling on hold and has them unwrap chocolate instead for a few days because of the contest. Surely unwrapping chocolate isn't harder than shelling nuts all day. You could say that it's unfair that he has his employees open the chocolate and then takes the ticket but he's the one who bought it.
    • While the other parents might have been able to straighten their kids out but didn't feel like it or were just as bad, Mr. Salt was the only one the book directly linked to his kid bring a brat. In the movie they did the storyline with Veruca's mom being a Sports-Mom, but in the original book, I think it was only Salt who could be blamed the most directly for what she did. While we're on the subject, look at the difference in reaction to Violet turning blue between her mom and Violet herself. Mrs. Boulregard got her own, subtle, punishment.
      • It must be a book / film disparity then, because Mrs. Beauregarde, Mrs. Gloop and Mr. Salt were all almost certainly directly responsible for the way their kids turned out in the 2005 film. Violet's mother was a parody of a Stage Mom-like personality, pushing her daughter to succeed so she could live vicariously through her. Augustus's mother (and father probably) encouraged him to eat and eat out of some kind of misguided idea that it was good for him. Mr. Salt.. well you all know what his problem was.. To me the oddest thing was that Burton didn't make the Teavees more culpable for Mike's problem. His father seems like the only one who is kind of disappointed / embarrassed about his kid's behavior from the beginning. It would have made more sense to make Mike's parents aloof or lazy to make a point about how it's bad to be a "hands-off"-style parent who lets pop culture do all the heavy child-rearing.
  • Why did Wonka use the TV machine to shrink giant-ass candy bars to normal size when he could've, ya know, made normal sized bars in the first place? Seems wasteful.
    • The shrinkage was a side-effect of transmitting things via TV. He wasn't transmitting them to shrink them, he was shrinking them to transmit them.
      • I still don't see the problem with using regular bars. Hershey's Minis are big business - if he did the regular-bar to mini-size then he'd use less chocolate for a bite-size chunk to simply whet people's appetites..
        • Probably because two-metre-long chocolate bar/boy + transmission = Six-inch-long bar/boy. Six-inch-long chocolate bar + transmission = 1.1 centimetre long chocolate bar. You probably wouldn't even see it on the screen, let alone be able to take it or get the wrapper off.
          • This above. The book explains that a giant size chocolate bar is necessary to become the correct size of an average chocolate bar on someone's television screen. These days, you'd probably need a much bigger bar.
    • Due to resolution problems with the camera/transmitter. If you sent a normal bar, important molecules may be lost due to resolution and fail to make the right taste and structure. What this says of Mike, however...
    • For (confectionery) SCIENCE!!!
  • Am I the only one who doesn't get why the Veruca Salt song ends more abruptly than the others?
  • Am I the only one who wonders how exactly Willy's dad moved the COMPLETE house?
  • Why did they insert the bits about Grandpa Joe being one of the Wonka employees laid off to make way for the Oompa-Loompas and the link between Mr. Bucket being fired from the toothpaste factory and the Wonka chocolate craze? They set it up so that Willy Wonka is either directly or indirectly responsible for all of the Bucket family's misery and then didn't do anything with it.
    • The former so that Grandpa Joe could narrate what working under Wonka used to be like and the latter so that Mr. Bucket could get his job back later because of the same craze. Narrative reasons.
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