Roald Dahl
What did the author think of the movie?
shareHe didn't like it and wanted Spike Milligan to be Wonka
shareHe probably would have disliked the Burton one even more.
shareWell in a way the Burton one followed the story more (with songs), but not at that incredibly stupid ending where he goes to find his father the dentist.
shareI honestly didn't see that much difference in story. The original just told it better and also there was always that nagging feeling that the kids didn't come out of the factory alive(even though they probably did). Depp's performance was way too odd to even relate to also.
shareI like both films and also didn't mind Burton adding backstory for Wonka. But I haven't read the book in several years.
shareVeruca, Mike, Augustus, Violet didnt do anything worse than Charlie with fizzy lifting.
shareTechnically it wasn't even that ALL the children disobeyed. The whole slugworth plot was the driving force of the film. When Wonka gives each child the Gobstopper, you see Veruca crossing her fingers behind her back when Wonka makes them promise that they won't tell the secret ingredients of the gobstopper to anyone. Wonka knew that given the chance each of those children(besides Charlie) would sell him out. The whole tour was the test! Him yelling at Charlie was the test! Charlie having a pure heart and giving the gobstopper back even though he wouldn't win the life supply of chocolate is why he won! Can you imagine Augustus, Veruca, Violet and Mike giving back the gobstopper after being told they won't get their prize of a life supply of chocolate?
shareAugustus was such a hog that he probably devoured that everlasting gobstopper in 15 minutes.
shareHe hated it. It took some time to figure out what it was that made him so angry, because I thought it was a great reinterpretation from the book, and kept up the spirit of the story. He didn't like the fact that Charlie and his grandpa did something bad, though I think the guy who edited the script put that in to show that even those two weren't immune to the temptations of breaking the rules once in a while.
In the book, Charlie was unrealistically good to a degree that he didn't do anything wrong during the tour of the factory. Dahl also didn't like having Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, because he wasn't the same as Spike Milligan, and Dahl apparently didn't like the actor's interpretation of the character. I'm not even sure he would have approved of the changed boat ride, the squirrels turned into geese, or that weird, pointless car ride with the foam. The scene at the end when Wonka yelled at Charlie would have been the icing on the cake for the poor author.
It was said that one time, when he was flipping through channels on tv, he didn't even recognize the movie and tuned into it by accident. It took him a few minutes to figure out it was the movie version of his book.