Hasta La Motion!

[NEWS=”http://www.cgnews.com/wp-content/uploads/aiw_alice_thumb.jpg”]21339[/NEWS]There is a place, like no place on earth. A land full of wonder, mystery and danger. Some say to survive it you need to be as mad as a hatter …..Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is the highly anticipated fantasy adventure due for release in March 2010. The film is an adaptation of the much loved Lewis Carroll novels ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There’. This new movie adaptation begins with Alice, now a beautiful young woman, in the middle of a grand Victorian party, where she unexpectedly discovers she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of people.

Alice runs away from the party in pursuit of a white rabbit that suddenly disappears into a hole at the bottom of a tree trunk. Following the rabbit Alice finds herself in Wonderland, a land she visited 10 years before but of which she has no memory.

Wonderland, once a peaceful kingdom, is in turmoil since the Red Queen overthrew her sister, the White Queen. The inhabitants of Wonderland, that include Alice’s childhood friends the Cheshire Cat, Tweedledee and Tweedledum and the March Hare, are ready to revolt and await Alice to help them. Alice finds herself embarking on a fantastical journey to find her true destiny and end the Red Queen’s reign of terror.

Tim Burton brings his renowned Burton-esque ghoulishness to the films style and character creations; and has cast some of his favourite actors within the leading roles. Burton’s wife, Helena Bonham Carter, plays the Red Queen, apparently based on a combination of Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen (Looking-Glass) and Queen of Hearts (Wonderland). Carter’s character is quick to decree the death sentence for the slightest offense, and is notorious for her condemning cry “Off with his head”.

A slightly disturbing Mad Hatter is portrayed by Johnny Depp, in his seventh film collaboration with Burton. Tim Burton has stated that Depp brought a new depth to the role “I think he tried to bring something, an underlying human quality to the craziness”.

The film uses a technique combining live action and motion capture technology and is set to be released in Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3-D, as well as 2-D. Burton and producer Richard D. Zanuck chose to film with conventional cameras, converting footage into 3D afterwards feeling that 3D cameras were too expensive and “clumsy” to use.

Cast
Mia Wasikowska – Alice
Johnny Depp – Mad Hatter
Helena Bonham Carter – Red Queen
Anne Hathaway – White Queen
Michael Sheen – White Rabbit
Alan Rickman – Caterpillar
Stephen Fry – Cheshire Cat
Matt Lucas – Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Christopher Lee – Jabberwock
Noah Taylor – March Hare
Barbara Windsor – Dormouse
Timothy Spall – Bloodhound
Crispin Glover – Knave of Hearts
Paul Whitehouse – Dodo
Eleanor Tomlinson – Fiona Chataway
Jemma Powell – Margaret Manchester
John Hopkins – Lowell Manchester
Lindsay Duncan – Helen Kingsley
Marton Csokas – Charles Kingsley
Frances de la Tour – Aunt Imogene
Leo Bill – Hamish Ascot
Tim Piggott-Smith – Lord Ascot
Geraldine James – Lady Ascot

Credits
Directed by: Tim Burton
Production Companies: Team Todd, Tim Burton Animation Co, The Zanuck Company
Written by: Lewis Carroll
Screenplay: Linda Woolverton
Original Music by: Danny Elfman
Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski
Film Editing by: Chris Lebenzon
Casting by: Susie Figgis
Production Design by: Robert Stromberg
Set Decoration by: Karen O’Hara, Peter Young

Related Links
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/aliceinwonderland/