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Willy Wonka Prequal Movie Extravaganza

I didn't know about this when it popped up earlier. Quickly realised it was an origin / prequel thing. Origin stories no one asked for to beloved characters are TIGHT.

Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa was amusing.

Odds seem fairly high I'll never watch this.
 
The Nth Doctor said:
Here's a crazy idea:

How about they finally adapt Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator?!

I know, crazy idea.

Actually, now that I think about it, that might one of the many Dahl adaptations Netflix is working on.

But if not...

Either way, I have zero interest in this.
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I hope that's Charlie running the factory. I've always wondered how Charlie would do running the factory and that would have been a sequel I would see.
 
Tosk said:
Except instead of hiring a huge number of dwarves, he just hired one. ;)
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I still marvel at Deep Roy's career, from The New Avengers/Dr Who/Blakes 7 in the 70s to Star Wars in the 80s to the X-Files in the 90s and Star Trek in the 21st Century, and he's still only 65!
 
Starkers said:
I still marvel at Deep Roy's career, from The New Avengers/Dr Who/Blakes 7 in the 70s to Star Wars in the 80s to the X-Files in the 90s and Star Trek in the 21st Century, and he's still only 65!
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And the first thing I ever saw him in, as Teeny Weeny in The Neverending Story. :)

BTW, Deep is actually 74.
 
Starkers said:
Oh I was going by Wikipedia which says he was born in 1957
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I was going by IMDb, so my source is as ropey as yours. :D
Edit: I think the wiki one is incorrect. His bio says, "Roy was born on 1 December 1957[2] in Nairobi[3] to Indian parents in a Sikh family. He studied accounting in London before dropping out at 18. He later enrolled in The Slim Wood School of Comedy and got his start in the entertainment arena in England in 1970 as a stand-up comic in local cabaret clubs."

But by that math, it was already 1975 when he turned 18, so he can't have "later enrolled and got his start" in 1970.
 
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The Nth Doctor said:
I've been pretty skeptical about this film, as evidenced by my cynical first post here, but...I have to say I'm actually genuinely curious now. The trailer does feel like the film has properly captured the whimsical feeling of classic Roald Dahl while also paying tribute to the Gene Wilder film.

In other words, I've gone from zero interest to cautiously optimistic.
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I'd say at this point, I'm in the cautiously optimistic camp myself. :) This version seems like a nice blend between elements of the original novels and the Gene Wilder adaptation. It also looks like having an evil chocolate monopoly is a much more interesting origin than Depp Wonka not being allowed desserts. :lol:
 
valkyrie013 said:
Looks fun.. Don't know about Chalmet.. To hard trying to be funny? Wel see..

On another note..
=/#%÷!%÷/&__/... Another movie that could have had dwarfs cast but went =:÷/÷ing cgi..:brickwall::thumbdown::thumbdown:
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Is it really that bad of a thing though? I was under the impression most little people actors hated doing those kind of roles.
 
Depends on who you talk to. Dinklage may hate it, but Warwick earns his bread and butter that way.

As for Wonka, he died badly…knifed to death on the Orient Express by all the kids he tortured. Bloody detective let them go…there’s your next Wes Anderson film.
 
Trailer was better than I expected, but my expectations were very low so that's not saying much. Mostly seems like redundant nostalgia bait, like way too many movies nowadays...

The appeal of Dahl is very much the fairytale-ish whimsy, I don't think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the kind of story to benefit from elaborate worldbuilding or lore lol. Willy Wonka doesn't need an inspiring backstory, he's there to be eccentric and enigmatic :shrug:

valkyrie013 said:
=/#%÷!%÷/&__/... Another movie that could have had dwarfs cast but went =:÷/÷ing cgi..:brickwall::thumbdown::thumbdown:
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Yep, I was for sure surprised to see this in the trailer. I thought this kind of thing was a no-go in 2023. Maybe they thought casting a dwarf would be offensive stereotyping, but isn't it more offensive to make an able-bodied person look like a dwarf and then mine their appearance for laughs?
 
Tosk said:
He's not playing a dwarf, he's playing an Oompa Loompa.
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Sure, but considering the lack of roles available for dwarves, surely it would make sense to cast a dwarf rather than an able-bodied actor who can play almost any role? Plus you save money on CGI....
 
tonk'peh said:
Sure, but considering the lack of roles available for dwarves, surely it would make sense to cast a dwarf rather than an able-bodied actor who can play almost any role? Plus you save money on CGI....
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Plus the CGI Almost Always looks HORRIBLE.. Case in point.. this trailer..
 
tonk'peh said:
Sure, but considering the lack of roles available for dwarves, surely it would make sense to cast a dwarf rather than an able-bodied actor who can play almost any role? Plus you save money on CGI....
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Like I said in my post, at least some little person actors (is that still the preferred term or have they gone back to dwarf?), find these kind of roles offensive and don't like to do them. So this could be kind of a lose/lose scenario for the people making the movies. Cast little people in the roles and some people will say it's offensive stereotyping, but cast tall actors in the roles and some people will be upset because they say you're taking roles away from little people.
This a case where I could kind of see both sides of the argument, the oompa-loompas are not necessarily the most dignified roles, but at least it could still get little person actors some work.
 
JD said:
Like I said in my post, at least some little person actors (is that still the preferred term or have they gone back to dwarf?), find these kind of roles offensive and don't like to do them. So this could be kind of a lose/lose scenario for the people making the movies. Cast little people in the roles and some people will say it's offensive stereotyping, but cast tall actors in the roles and some people will be upset because they say you're taking roles away from little people.
This a case where I could kind of see both sides of the argument, the oompa-loompas are not necessarily the most dignified roles, but at least it could still get little person actors some work.
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You're right that it's a lose-lose scenario, unfortunately. Disney is facing a similar issue I think with how to handle the seven dwarfs in the Snow White remake. No matter what you do, you won't please everyone.

I guess you could make the oompa loompas regular-sized magical orange people? But then they'd inevitably face backlash for changing the design, not to mention get blasted by every right-wing media outlet out there for 'wokeness'. And that wouldn't solve the problem of potentially taking roles away from actors with dwarfism.

Aaaand then there's the whole weird colonialist undertones of the whole thing (weirdly emphasised in the 2005 Tim Burton version). Oh well, at least the oompa-loompas aren't just African pygmies like they were in the original editions of the book....
 
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