Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory/Headscratchers

Wonka tells Charlie and Grandpa Joe that Slugworth in fact works for him. So why did Wonka make Slugworth one of his rivals to the point his business ended up in jeopardy?
- Fake Slugworth. The real one is presumably busy.
- His name is Mr. Wilkinson! Slugworth is a completely different person whose identity Wonka has usurped for the purposes of this test. Did nobody get that?
  - I was under the impression Slugworth was just an identity Wonka invented for Mr. Wilkinson, not an usurped one, hence my confusion.
  - No no no. Slugworth is another candy maker. Where do you think Slugworth Sizzlers come from?
Grandpa Joe can walk, right? As evident in his climbing out of the bed and standing up and finally dancing merrily about the room in minutes. So why did this man let himself be a burden on Charlie and his mother who are already living well below poverty level. I can understand the other elders as they're probably sick/crippled. But this guy? I thought he was being an ass when I first watch him slowly get up.
- There's also the issue that if he did spend so many years in bed pretending to be ill, his muscles would have atrophied to the point that he really couldn't walk anymore.
- He just wasn't inspired emough to walk. He was old and sickly and frail, and had to really get up the gumption to get over being eighty-six (or was it ninety-six?) years old with twenty years of atrophy under his belt, and posibly a history of The Polio.
  - Actually, I'm going to posit parkinsonism. Oliver Sacks talks about it some in Awakenings and also in Musicophilia: strong emotions can sometimes shake patients out of it temporarily. For reals.
- As a side note, everywhere else he merrily jumped out of bed right away. I can chalk that off as being hilarious but...
- Actually... he didn't magically hop out of bed, it took him a while (and falling on top of Charle) before he really got his second-wind.
  - In the book, he did.
The mother's song: "Be grateful for what you have." in her Cheer Up Charlie song. I didn't get that. Just what does Charlie have? Oh sure, a home and a mother and three elders that do absolutely nothing worth dick but lay there on the bed. Other than that, he's almost to Oliver Twist poverty level. >____>
- The song was more about being grateful for being himself (i.e. an great kid), and that things will get better for him (even though they're shit now) because of his merits.
- Wasn't it about being grateful for a loving family and [pauses] Erm...
There's no closure as to what happens to Agustus, Violet, Veruca and Mike. Where did they go? Were they okay? Did they get to go home? I'm pretty sure the book explains that they got sent home with huge supplies of chocolate, but nothing is said about them in the movie after their big misdeeds. When I was a child I was completely sure they'd all been killed, which terrified me no end.
- In one of the final scenes (either in Wonka's office or the glass elevator) Wonka explains to Charlie and Grandpa Joe that all the other children will be restored to their original selves (I believe "old, terrible selves" is how he words it), but that they are hopefully now a little wiser. It's a little bit throwaway, but it's in there.
- If anything, the book is even * more* Nightmare Fuelish than the Gene Wilder movie. The book explicitly shows the other kids survived, but with "reminders" of their misbehavior. Augustus is thin as a rail from being squeezed through the pipes, Violet is purple, Veruca is covered in garbage, and Mike is a 10-foot giant (the end result of being put through a taffy puller to de-shrink him). Personally I thought the movie's ending was a lot better.
Why the hell did they add the scene where Charlie and Grandpa Joe drink the fizzy-lifting soda? Surely the whole point is that Charlie's the only well behaved kid? It also makes Joe out to be a complete jerk.
- Because otherwise Charlie comes off as a Marty Stu. He learns from his mistake.
  - Exactly. The real test wasn't whether the kids could keep their hands to themselves, it was whether they would do the right thing and keep Wonka's secret, or betray his confidence? Which makes much more sense than the premise of the book.
  - That, incidentally, was one of the biggest problems with the Depp remake.
  - Plus, they needed something for Wonka to yell at them about at the end for the final test. If Charlie didn't do anything, Wonka couldn't pretend to get angry with him and deny him the prize.
    - It also adds a more realistic moral to the story. It's impossible to never make any mistakes, but the real test in the film version is whether Charlie can get himself out of the mess he made, and then whether he's honest and humble enough to admit he was wrong, even when he seems to have an opportunity for revenge. The other kids could have done that too, but they not only couldn't resist their temptations, they also couldn't figure out how to save themselves, and then they kept blaming Wonka, their parents and everyone else even as they were getting carted off for treatment.
    - Also, many people are being too hard on Grandpa Joe. Remember this man has been confined to a bed for a long time. In many ways he's as child-like as Wonka. Can you imagine what kind of mischief Wonka would get into if he'd been bedridden for so long and now had the strenght to walk again? He'd get into all kinds of trouble, and when he got caught he'd naturally throw a tantrum.
Incidentally, why did they change Veruca's test from squirrels to golden geese? Not only do the geese not make sense, they've displaced the squirrels to the extent that I overheard at least four people watching cry, 'Where are the geese?' Grr- hate people who don't read!
- Possibly an allusion to "The Goose that laid the golden egg?"
- I heard it was an animal training problem. They couldn't get squirrels to act as directed, whereas geese, who lay eggs and are associated with the Golden Egg myth as mentioned, can easily be trained to just sit there.
  - I'm not so sure about that, since the film didn't use real geese anyway. They were puppets.
  - Maybe geese were easier to fake convincingly, then?
  - It was almost certainly because of how difficult it would be to use squirrels. If they stayed with squirrels they would have had to make dozens of fake animals that could run across the floor and tap on Veruca's head and then carry her off. Geese require a few large puppets that shift from side to side with some sound effects dubbed in. A lot easier to accomplish especially since CGI wasn't around.
What would have happened if Charlie and Grandpa Joe hadn't burped in time? Presumably, they would have been killed by the fan, which of course would have eliminated Charlie from the running, leaving Veruca and Mike. Veruca would then do her "I want it now" bit and fall down the chute, leaving just Mike. We see at the end of the film that (unlike in the book) Charlie didn't win the factory by default just by being the last one standing, so presumably Mike wouldn't either. So what would happen then? I can think of two possible scenarios:
- Wonka would continue the tour onto the Television Chocolate Room with just Mike and his mother left. Mike would then pull his television stunt and be eliminated, meaning no one would be left. Wonka would either have to choose an heir another way, or hold the Golden Ticket contest all over again.
- Wonka would end the tour when there was just one child left, just like in the version we're shown. Being one of the "bad kids," Mike in all likelihood wouldn't get his lifetime supply of chocolate. (Wonka would probably use his theft of the Exploding Candy in the inventing room as the justification for denying him the prize.) Mike doesn't seem to have a conscience like Charlie, so he probably wouldn't return the Everlasting Gobstopper. He would probably go and give to to "Slugworth." But since "Slugworth" actually worked for Wonka, he wouldn't give Mike money for it—maybe he'd just pretend he didn't want it anymore, I don't know. Just like in the above scenario, Wonka would have to find an heir another way, or repeat the contest.

So it seems that Wonka would have been doomed to repeat history if it hadn't been for those fortunate belches. Unless there's a scenario I missed...

- The belching was an homage to the book. An old Oompa Loompa refuses to belch, drinks it outside, and never comes back.
- Are you sure that Charlie doesn't win by default? Because my interpretation had always been that he did. At first, Wonka kicks him out and says he doesn't get any chocolate because of the soda incident. Then, when Grandpa Joe comes back to yell at Wonka for raising and then dashing Charlie's hopes, Wonka is reading something and muttering to himself. It's only after that that he tells Charlie he "won." I assumed that Wonka was re-reading the contract and noticed that it said something about how if none of the kids truly passed his test, the factory would go to the one who came the closest.
  - You obviously missed the part where Charlie goes in and gives Wonka the Everlasting Gobstopper back to Wonka, proving that he was a good kid at heart, even though he had made a mistake by drinking the Fizzy Lifting Drink.
  - Add to that Wonka was reciting poetry. I believe the words were about how bright one act of kindness can be in a world of darkness, meaning giving back the gobstopper, not trying to sell for profit despite his family's need for money is a selfless act beyond compare.
It's been explained that the Slugworth plot was put in to give a more realistic moral to the story, about learning from your mistakes. But from what I can see, it only makes things more unfair on the other kids. Yes, it was made pretty clear that Violet, Veruca and Mike intended to give him the gobstopper... but they never got a chance to give it back to Wonka. The only reason Charlie could was because his mistake hadn't got him killed, or at least taken away by the Oompa Loompas. Surely they all should have been given a chance to speak to Wonka before they left? And Augustus never even got a gobstopper! It just seems unfair that only Charlie actually got a chance to redeem himself.
- To be fair, the only reason they 'never got a chance' to return the gobstopper was because their own greed and character flaws (and refusal to acknowledge them) got them into trouble before they could. Of course, off-camera they could have been discovered with or refused to own up to stealing the gobstoppers, but in essence, they denied themselves their own chance at redemption. No one else is to blame but them.
Little Charlie had to buy his Wonka Bar, but during The Candy Man song the start of the movie the shop owner was seemingly throwing away free candy to the kids, even letting them behind the counter to grab whatever they want? I doubt he could keep track of what they all owed him afterwards.
- Yeah, I didn't get that. Might be in the clause of "Musical Numbers Don't Really Happen." It was common joke among this troper's family why he wouldn't just go in and grab a couple of candybars. The assumption being that the Candyman who owns the shop is in cahoots with the local dentist who gives him a share of his cavity profits. More money then 2-dollar chocolate bars.
- Although that was before the Wonka Bar promotion kicked in. Presumably he clamped down on the free chocolate musical numbers after that point.
- He knew each of those children personally by name ("A Triple Cream Cup for Christopher. A Sizzler for June Marie..."). Even as a child I presumed that he had some sort of periodic fee set up. Every day you get one candy bar of your choice. All that other candy given out was during the musical number, and really didn't happen. Charlie was not known to Bill the Candy Shop Owner, so he had to pay up front for his candy.
- I assumed that the song was symbolic: the candy man wasn't actually giving sweets away, we were just seeing the scene through Charlie, for whom being able to afford a bar of chocolate after school every day is practically the same luxury as being able to eat all the candy in the store for free.
- I always thought it was because candy was a lot cheeper back then. Charlie gives him a coin and gets two candy bars from it. It's not too hard to believe the kids just hand him a dollar or two at some point.
Love the movie, but where is it set? It was filmed in Germany, the book was set in Britain, and the actors mostly seem American. Is it just some amalgamation of the three, because that's what it feels like to me most of the time.
- The movie seems to be set in America, based on the news reports we see. The news reports clearly come out of the U.S., based on the fact that the first golden ticket was found "while we in America slept" and the second was found "right here in America." So unless we assume that Charlie and his family live in England but watch American news, it seems likely that it is set in some American town with a serious English/German influence. Perhaps in Pennsylvania somewhere.
- A bit of trivia is that the film-makers deliberately kept the country where the factory is located vague. "Slugworth" presents the money as "of these." Not stating if they are pounds or dollars.
How did Grandpa Joe manage to smuggle in chocolate bars for Charlie if none of the grandparents have been out of bed in 20 years?
- Maybe he usually has some friend of his buy him tobacco and bring it by, and he just asked the friend to bring him chocolate instead.

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