The Modern Alice: Adaptations in Novel, Film and Video Games from 2000-2012
The main points of the paper include:
The paper deals with The Looking Glass Wars series of books, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie, Nick Willing's Alice and the videogame American McGee's Alice an Madness Returns.
When someone does an adaptation they need to keep it familiar enough to the original but at the same time add new things that will interest the reader/observer/listener.
This can be done by omission, addition, marginalization, expansion and alteration.
Most audience members want to be entertained. (What are the other ones doing there, then?)
Novels can add more detail and explore inner thoughts than other forms of adaptation.
Films and videogames focus on external factors.
Audial and visual clues can be used to indicate what the character is thinking about.
In a videogame the player can become an actual character in the story and what they do will dtermine what happens to that character.
The paper deals with the novel series The Looking Glass Wars, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie, American McGee's Alice Returns videogame and Alice, a television mini-series.
The Victorian audience was fond of nursery rhymes and folk literature.
Alice in Wonderland was actually the second form of the story. Alice's Adventures Underground was the first form had a lot of differences.
Carroll's love of children does not translate into modern adaptations.
The Looking Glass Wars is marketed as a young adult novel. It concerns what happens to Princess Alyss. There's a great deal of violence right from the beginning.
(My reviews of the books can be found in these places:
Tim Burton's film deals with an older Alice. She has a specific task in that she needs to save the creatures of Wonderland from the evil Queen.
My review of the film can be found here.
The Alice mini-series has Alice as a karate instructor. Wonderland is a dark place where humans are kidnapped, their emotions drained and those emotions sold.
My review of the mini-series can be found here.
The videogame Alice is in an insane asylum.
My review of the videogame can be found here.
Narrative is a key element that has evolved in the various adaptations.
Adaptations often have Alice changing the fate of Wonderland.
Adapters usually use a major conflict of some kind that Alice has to resolve.
Adapters generally shy away from the Who Am I? question of the original works.
Films are a passive experience while videogames are an active experience.
Alice in the original story follows the White Rabbit because she is a curious child.
The narrative in the video game leads to problem solving experiences.
Most adaptations change Alice from a curious seven-year-old child to an older person (usually a teenager to a young woman in her twenties.)
The original Alice character is difficult to identify with became she embodies Victorian traits.
The paper then goes into the archtypical characters in the adapter's book/film/videogame. These include (with an example or two of each):
Explorer (The original Alice.)
Hero (Alyss in The Looking Glass Wars)
Ruler (The Red Queen in various works)
Lover (Dodge Anderson in The Looking Glass Wars)
Caregiver (Alice's sister; the Cheshire Cat in American McGee's Alice Returns)
Everyman/everywoman (The cook, Bill the Lizard, the Fish Footmen.)
Innocent (The original Alice, the oysters, the Duchess's baby.)
Jester (The Tweedle brothers, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare)
Magician (The carpenter in the mini-series Alice; the White Queen in Tim Burton's film)
Outlaw (Mad Hatter, March Hare)
Sage (The caterpillar.)
Shadow (In Madness Returns this would be the Mad Hatter or the Mad Doctor.)
The casting of characters in films can greatly affect the movie.
In films and videogames the characters 'true thoughts' can be revealed in subtle ways.
Carroll's novels have many parodies (although these might not be easy to figure out since they relate to things going on and said in Victorian times.)
Carroll use dialogue to convey wit or logic, to play with words and to mock Victorian culture.
In videogames dialogue is used to tell the story, convey information to the player and to give the player goals to achieve.
In Carroll's stories the characters are generally rude to Alice. (In other adaptations they tend to try to kill her or have sex with her.)
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