FAQ

The story is based on an extension of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1872), the two Alice books by English author Lewis Carroll (real name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (1832-1898).

Although this film was released by Disney, it is separate from Disney's 1951 animated version. On November 17th, 2007, when this project was originally announced, Tim Burton said that he will be trying to stay true to the original stories' essence. Burton later went on to say that he had always felt that the other cinematic versions of Alice In Wonderland were incomplete. In 2008, he commented on the areas of this classic he would like to improve on-where other versions have failed:

It's a funny project. The story is obviously a classic with iconic images and ideas and thoughts," he said. "But with all the movie versions, well, I've just never seen one that really had any impact to me. It's always just a series of weird events. Every character is strange and she's just kind of wandering through all of the encounters as just a sort of observer... The goal is to try to make it an engaging movie where you get some of the psychology and kind of bring a freshness but also keep the classic nature of "Alice." And, you know, getting to do it in 3-D fits the material quite well. So I'm excited about making it a new version but also have the elements that people expect when they think of the material."

This movie uses live actors, CGI, and motion capture technology. While Burton is original with his adaptation of this film, an example of live actors composited with animation can be seen in Jan Svankmajer's 1988 film Alice (1988), a Czechoslovakian version of Alice in Wonderland. Since the film is being produced by Disney, Burton hopes to have Alice in Wonderland released as a 3D movie, similar to his annual Halloween release of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which is in Disney Digital 3D.

Motion capture technology is a network of clothing-embedded or sticky sensors used to read/record a performer's physical movements, which can then be used to create a fluid, life-like, computer-generated wireframe and eventually a textured character, or alternately the performance can be recreated with an animatronic anthropomorphic robot (an android), akin to motion control; but the latter was not perfected back when this movie was made (and wouldn't have been a staple of the creation anyway), and the technology predominantly is used in such a way as to has CGI as the final product. The most famous example of motion capture in cinema is probably pioneer Andy Serkis' performance of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies (2002-2003).

The Ascots are rich, upper-class characters that were created especially for the film. They are the characters holding the garden party that Alice attends at the beginning of the film, before she falls into Underland. The garden party, to Alice's shock, is being held because Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill), the son of Lord (Tim Pigott-Smith) and Lady (Geraldine James) Ascot, is going to propose to her. Lord Ascot is Alice's late father's business partner.

The Chataway sisters, Fiona (Eleanor Tomlinson) and Faith (Eleanor Gecks), are characters created especially for the film. They are Alice's spiteful peers who appear at the beginning of the film before Alice falls down the rabbit hole. They are portrayed as the real-life counterparts to Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

"Glossary of Underland Terms"

Bandersnatch: a creature under the control of the Red Queen

Brillig: 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the time that broiling things for dinner begins

Crims: the central land of Underland

Downal wyth Bluddy Behg Hid: "Down with the Red Queen" (lit. "down with bloody big head" in Scots), the slogan of the Resistance

ezel: high, go up

fairfarren: farewell, "May you travel far under fair skies"

Frabjous day: the day Alice slays the Jabberwocky and frees Underland from the oppression of the Red Queen

frumious: filthy with a very bad smell

Futterwacken: a dance of unbridled joy

gallymoggers: crazy

Gribling: the day Alice will return to Underland

guddler's scut: thief's ass

Gummer Slough: a dangerous swamp of thick viscous mud

Horunvendush Day: the day the Red Queen took control of Underland

Jabberwocky: a deadly creature, the Red Queen's ultimate weapon

Jubjub Bird: a flying creature under the control of the Red Queen

kiotchyn: heads up, pay attention

naught for usal: it's no use trying

noge: go low down

nunz: don't go - not now

Oraculum: a Calendar of all the days of Underland, each day having its own title and illustration.

orgal: to the left

Outlands: an untamed land to the west of Witzend

Outlandish: an old language spoken only in the Outlands adopted by the Underland underground resistance as a secret code in the revolution against the Red Queen

Pishsalver: potion that makes one shrink

Queast: a land to the east, but not in the least

Quillian: the following day after Alice returns

saganistute: a wise person of poetry and vision

Salazen Grum: a port city where the Red Queen lives

shukrn: excrement

sloth: slowly

stang: right

slurvish: selfish, self-centered

Snud: southern Underland

Tulgey Wood: a thick wood where Alice meets the Jabberwocky

Underland: the real name for the place Alice calls Wonderland

Upelkuchen: cake that makes one grow

slurking urpal slackush scrum: dirty words of the most foul meaning

Witzend: a western land where the Mad Hatter and March Hare were born

yadder: far away - way yadder the Crossling in Snud.

zounder: behind you

When Alice is tiny, she is three inches high (8 centimeters). When Alice is small, she is two feet high (0.61 meter). When Alice is big, she is seven feet high (2.13 meters).

Alice — Alice Kingsleigh

The Mad Hatter — Tarrant Hightopp

The Red Queen — Iracebeth of Crims

The White Queen — Mirana of Marmoreal

The Knave of Hearts — Ilosovic Stayne

Tweedledee/Tweedledum — (the same names)

The White Rabbit — Nivens McTwisp

The Cheshire Cat — Chessur

The Caterpillar — Absolem

The March Hare — Thackery Earwicket

The Dormouse — Mallymkun

The Dodo — Uilleam

The Bloodhound — Bayard Hamar

The Jabberwock — The Jabberwocky

Alice's Mother — Helen Kingsleigh

Alice's Father — Charles Kingsleigh

Alice's Sister — Margaret Manchester

Her character is a composite of the Queen of Hearts (a human playing card featured in the first Alice book) and the Red Queen (a human chess piece featured in the second Alice book).

Frabjous Day finally arrives. The White and Red Queens and their armies meet each other on a battlefield that looks like a large chessboard. The White Queen (Anne Hathaway) extends her hand in peace, but the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) turns her down and calls for the Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee). While the armies wage war on each other, Alice (alone but armed with the Vorpal sword and fortifying herself by thinking of six impossible things) faces the Jabberwocky. They chase each other up a tower, where Alice climbs on the Jabberwocky's back, but he tosses her into the air. On the way down, Alice yells, "Off with your head!" and beheads him with the Vorpal sword. Suddenly, both armies cease fighting and put down their weapons. The Red Queen's crown flies off her head and lands on the head of the White Queen, thanks to a little help from the Cheshire cat. The White Queen banishes the Red Queen to the Outlands and handcuffs her to Stave, the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover). Horrified that he is to be bound to the Red Queen forever, Stave attempts to kill her, but the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) stops him, so Stave asks to be killed, but the White Queen refuses. To celebrate their victory, the Mad Hatter dances the futterwacken. The White Queen gives Alice a vial of purple Jabberwocky blood with which to go home. Mad Hatter asks Alice to stay in Underland, but she drinks the blood and passes back through the rabbit hole, returning to the garden party and explains that she fell down a hole and hit her head. She goes on to tell Hamish that she can't marry him, warn Lowell (John Hopkins) that she'll be watching him closely, and suggest that Aunt Imogene (Frances de la Tour) get help for her delusions. She then meets Lord Ascot in the study where they discuss expanding the trade route to go all the way to China. Lord Ascot, charmed with her idea, takes her on as an apprentice. In the final scene, Alice boards a trading ship, and Absolem (now a blue butterfly) comes to sit on her shoulder before fluttering away.

No. Just before Alice returns home, she asks the Mad Hatter for the answer, but he merely replies, "I haven't the slightest idea." Lewis Caroll (Christmas, 1896): Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer: "Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!" This, however, is merely an afterthought; the riddle as originally invented had no answer at all.