The Mad Hatter to me is such an interesting character in both the movie and the book. His relationship with Alice in the book is VERY different then the movie, this is because of character development. In the book I feel that he is just there to add interest and humor at not a lot of points. When the mad Hatter is seen in the book though, he is always with the hare. To me (the book) they are a package deal, and tend to relay on each other. BUT in the movie the Mad Hatter is the main character! In most scenes he over shadows Alice. His character is a lot more in-depth and his relationship on hare is basically non-existent.. I feel that the directors interpretation of him had to do with the actor who was playing the Mad Hatter. In my honest opinion, I think that the role was actually a lot smaller but if he wanted Johnny Depp I feel that the character needed to be the main focus. Although I thought that it was a very interesting twist from book to movie, I still thought that they did a great job in portraying him! Although I would have liked to see both the hare and the mad hatter get the same kind of attention. Because of the character depth of the mad hatter I think that we got to see a relationship with Alice and her being in wonderland even more. It allowed as to feel that she got close to this place. In the book although Alice runs into many characters, the relationships arnt that strong. But because of the way that the mad hatter is portrayed in the movie we get to see Alice grow a bond with him allowing the bond with Wonderland grow in such a new way! Which for me I thought was really cool.
I agree with your opinion on how the Mad Hatter had changed roles from the book to the movie. In the book it appears as though the Mad Hatter was not anymore exceptional than the Mad Hare. However, once Johnny Depp was casted as the Mad Hatter, the audience would expect to see more of Johnny Depp on the screen due to his reputation as an actor. Depp is not known to play minor roles in movies. However, with this in mind perhaps Tim Burton had wanted the Mad Hatter to be more of a role because he interpreted Lewis Carroll's story to have more depth to him, which could lead to his decision to cast Johnny Depp to create a bigger role for the Hatter. It was delightful to see Alice start to create bonds with other characters in the movie because this was something we did not get to see in the book as a reader. The movie allowed the audience to take the knowledge that they already knew of the characters and put more back story to them, especially the Mad Hatter.
ReplyDelete