Do Film Adaptations Add More To The Story?

The following movie is...for the music makers and the dreamers of dreams.

Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination. Take a look, and you’ll see, into your imagination. We'll begin with a spin. Traveling in the world of my creation, what we'll see will defy explanation.

These lyrics instantly bring imagery of a world filled with colors, candy, and Gene Wilder in a purple coat. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a childhood staple for many and is a personal favorite film of mine. However, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory doesn’t have the same aspects that the book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, does.

Film adaptations of books are a hot topic. Familiar names in literature (IT, King Arthur, and Murder on the Orient Express) are being made into films but, due to the nature of film, they don’t follow the plot closely. Film adaptations add in, leave out, or change aspects of a story to fit time constraints and visual composition the filmmakers have been given. Changes can mean that the way we see characters or view the chain of events is skewed and can change the story itself.

Do these changes add anything to the original story? There are some cases in which changes lead to the audience better understanding a character’s motivations or personality; it could also be argued that this takes away from the mystery a character holds when we don’t know these aspects. This can also be said for the plot. Plot changes can lead to a deeper development of character temperaments and chances for world building. They can also misrepresent the original characters and cause confusion in the audience.

In Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, the reader sees only that Charlie is a good boy in a group of awful children. Charlie watches in amazement at all the inventions and specialty treats Mr. Wonka puts together, while the other children act out in disrespectful ways. This ultimately leads to the bad children leaving the factory in various ways (being shot out of a pipe from the Chocolate Room or being dropped down a garbage chute in the Nut Room, just to name a few). Charlie is not depicted as being a multi-dimensional character, instead he is shown merely as the single “good” child in a sea of bad ones.

The film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, takes a turn from this one-dimensional depiction of Charlie Bucket. Charlie is shown multiple times acting out in his own self-interest, buying candy bars with the money he finds in the street gutter and taking Fizzy Lifting Drinks when no one is watching. These actions stray from the idea that Charlie is the only good child of the group brought to Wonka’s factory, and shows the audience that Charlie isn’t perfect and he is still, in fact, a child. Children think in their own self-interest and this doesn’t negate their good qualities. While Charlie may have taken the Fizzy Lifting Drink and used the money he found to purchase candy for himself, he also selflessly returns the Everlasting Gobstopper when he lost the contest and refused to tell Wonka’s secrets to Mr. Slugworth to get his family the money they desperately need.

These changes deviated from Roald Dahl’s initial story, but the impact they make is significant in our modern world. Having the change in Charlie Bucket’s character traits leads the audience to connect with him on a more human level. Viewers of the film decades later can appreciate and relate to acting on one’s childish desires and showing grace and regret for the actions they took.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free. If you truly wish to be.

Grab the Everlasting Gobstoppers and snozzberries, the show is about to start.