A Filmmaker's Guide to: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

March 3rd marks the anniversary of one of Tim Burton's strangest creations. "Alice in Wonderland" (2010) was released on this day ten years ago (as of the writing of this article - 2020). If you're like me and remember watching this in the cinema then let's feel sorry for ourselves once again as we travel back to a simpler time when the radio stations were blasting all the pop music from 2000-2009 in hope of ending the decade on a good note for the sake of nostalgia. Let us go back to a time when everyone born in the 90s was now beginning to really grow up and when we all realised that we wouldn't stay young forever. Let's go back to the year 2010 and take a look at why this film is actually quite culturally important. Yes, I said that. I said it was culturally important.

I went to watch this in a 3-D cinema. At that time, these things were still novelty and teenage me loved it (now, I'm not really bothered and actually, 3-D tends to give me a headache but ok). I still remember going to watch the movie because I had tuna and sweetcorn with me to eat, I was at that point in my life where I put on a lot of weight and I had some examinations at roughly the same time that this film came out. I really can't believe it was ten years ago already because I seriously remember it like it was only yesterday. I thought it had come out much later, but in fact when I really look at it, I'm forced to face reality. Let us get on with the article.

Why Is It Culturally Significant?

Cultural Significance depends on what the film adds to the culture of cinema and I really think that this movie started something and whether you like it or not, it was a shoddy attempt at saving a slowly dying industry from collapsing - the movie industry.

It is only just coming to the surface that Hollywood is filled with degenerates, even though Corey Feldman has practically been screaming his head off ever since he was molested and nobody listened to him for some reason. But, the movie industry was already dying by the late 2000s. This was because some movies had just become boring - everything was overly serious and so, Nolan tried his hand at some comic-book movies. Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy then went on to become one of the most beloved comic book movie franchises of all time with Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker being a shining light that filled the movie with pure entertainment. I remember seeing that in the cinema as well and it was perfection. After this, the whole three dimensional cinema concept was still coming into play. Yes, they had 3D cinema but nobody really got into it and especially around my areas, because it was so expensive, it wasn't doing so well. There weren't really any great films you could watch in 3D.

Along came Marvel. In 2008, in the same year Nolan released The Dark Knight, Marvel stuck the comeback kid, Robert Downey Jr. (now far more employable) into the movie Iron Man and made him the superhero, Tony Stark. This was not filmed in 3D but it should have been. It was however, put on the larger screens to watch and this was a good way to salvage the cinema goers money by promoting they watch this on a larger scale.

Then, "Alice in Wonderland" (2010) did something else entirely. It came out with the whole kid's movie, 3D and very colourful idea. I feel like The Dark Knight was too dark for children and when I talk about children, I'm talking about under 10s and so they wouldn't have been able to watch Nolan's movie anyway because it was a 12A when it came out I believe. However, Iron Man was still treading a fine line. Kid's didn't really know Iron Man because as of yet, Marvel hadn't established a universe and so the people watching it were the middle aged men who acted like children because they'd read the comic books and claimed the film as their own - stating that everyone else was a 'fake fan' (I absolutely remember this, it was hilarious).

When it came to Under 10s, it was that demographic that would appreciate the 3D concept more because of the novelty and I know this because I was 14 when "Alice" came out so the novelty was wearing off on me. Slightly before "Alice" came out though, James Cameron released Avatar and it kind of broke everything, the ceiling, the floor, everything. It was released in IMAX 3D and became one of the biggest selling movies of all time. I went to see it when it first came out and the cinemas were packed to the brim with people. Not just because it was also teen friendly (it was a 12A as well, I believe) but it was also novelty. It was all novelty and story and CGI. I feel like "Alice" copied this to cash in on the same hype. Avatar had a lot of hype.

By the time "Alice" was released, Avatar had already filmed entirely in IMAX 3D and so, it wouldn't be difficult for "Alice" to do so. In order to cash in on that hype, they had to create their own around the concept that it was:

a) A Tim Burton Film

b) Filmed in IMAX 3D

c) Kid-Friendly

d) A continuation of the old Alice in Wonderland film (the cartoon version) previously made by Disney

"Alice in Wonderland" was therefore culturally significant because it found the market for 3D films. The main market is small children who would appreciate the novelty. Yes, with Avatar, people appreciated the 3D but mostly people were either there because of the CGI worlds or because other people told them to be there because the movie was good and they didn't want to be left out. "Alice" was marketed to little children and so, through the intense amount of CGI, the blinding colour scheme and the fact that it was playing on both novelty and on the fact it was a family friendly film - it is culturally significant as being the marker at which everyone realised that they needed to market 3D films to little children. Even if the picture was a Hollywood Blockbuster.

This, in turn, lifts the percentages of people spending money in the cinema because families with small children will watch it, teens will watch it because they are nostalgic for something from their childhood and it looks kind of steampunk and edgy. Adults will watch it because they normally have the small children and finally, the elderly will even watch it because they remember the first one. They profit off the fact that they made it 3D and sold the tickets for a higher price as a result.