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Disney's Alice in Wonderland
Walt Disney considered this film to be one of the
most difficult he had ever worked on. Since 1933 Disney had toyed
with the idea of making a live action version of the book.
However, he dropped the idea since he felt no matter how closely
they approximated a living Alice, the thought the result would be
disappointing.
Then Walt planned to put Ginger Rogers in a cartoon Wonderland.
Aldous Huxley had even written a script. However, Walt abandoned
the project again and again. Finally, he scheduled the animated
film to follow Cinderella.
Finally they began work on the film with a budget of $3 million.
They decided to base the movie on both Lewis Carroll's "Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass
and What Alice Found There".
Due to the fact Sir John Tenniel's illustrations for the Alice books
were so well known, Walt acquired the rights to them as the basis
for the style of Alice in Wonderland. However, when the illustrative
style became a hindrance to the animation of the film, the character
designers were allowed more freedom in their creations while only
using the Tenniel drawings for reference. It took the animators
an unusually long amount of time to come up with the character designs.
Months of rough sketches preceded the final guides of the characters
for the animators.
The animated feature got terrible reviews when it
premiered in England. Released on July 28, 1951 it was received
poorly by the public. Neither Carroll purists nor the general audiences
liked the film upon its release. Only in recent years has its bold
graphic style become appreciated. Disappointed with the film Walt
Disney blamed its failure on the heroine's "lack of heart".
Would he have been happy with Square and Disney's decision to then
make Alice a princess of heart?
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