Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2005 musical fantasy comedy film directed by Tim Burton and written by John August, based on the 1964 British novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. It is second film adaptation of the book, following the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

The film stars Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket and Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. The storyline follows Charlie, who wins a contest and, along with four other contest winners, is led by Wonka on a tour of his chocolate factory, the most magnificent in the world.

Plot

The Buckets are an impoverished family consisting of a kind and loving boy named Charlie Bucket, his parents and four bedridden grandparents. Charlie's father is employed at a toothpaste factory, responsible for putting the caps on the tubes. The family lives not far from Willy Wonka's giant chocolate factory, which reopened after industrial espionage forced him into seclusion and to sack his employees. Charlie's grandpa Joe worked for Wonka before the termination.

Wonka announces a contest whereby five children that find five Golden Tickets hidden in Wonka Bars will be given a tour of the factory with a lifetime supply of chocolate and a chance to be presented with an unknown grand prize. The skyrocket in Wonka's chocolate sales led to an increase in cavities which also increased toothpaste sales, causing Mr. Bucket to be laid off when the toothpaste factory replaces him with a machine that places the caps on the tubes.

Four tickets are quickly found: the greedy and gluttonous Augustus Gloop from Düsseldorf, Germany, who found a ticket while eating a Wonka Bar; the spoiled and rotten Veruca Salt from Buckinghamshire, England, who made her father buy as many Wonka Bars as possible to find a Golden Ticket for her; the gum chewing and boastful Violet Beauregarde from Atlanta, Georgia, who gave up gum and started buying bars after hearing of the tickets; and the arrogant and aggressive Mike Teavee from Denver, Colorado, who retracked the manufacturing dates and hacked the system.

Charlie hopes to find a Golden Ticket but chances are small as money is tight so the best that has to be made of is his annual birthday present of one Wonka Bar and another one bought by Grandpa Joe's money, both of which yield no tickets. All hope is crushed when the last Golden Ticket is claimed in Russia. Charlie, after finding some money in the street, just intends to enjoy one Wonka Bar when news breaks out that the last ticket was fake. To Charlie's surprise, the bar he purchased has the real last Golden Ticket. Bystanders attempt to separate him from it, offering him a lot of money, only for the shopkeeper to see that he keeps the ticket and gets back home with it.

When Grandpa Joe sees the ticket, he jumps out of bed and dances with joy. He offers to accompany Charlie on the tour, but Charlie explains how he was offered money for the ticket, and intends to sell it. Grandpa George reminds Charlie that money is far more common than the tickets, and convinces Charlie to keep it. The visitors find Wonka to be peculiar, lonely and acting odd at the mention of "parents". The tour shows how fantastical the factory operates under the efforts of the short humans called Oompa-Loompas.

Willy Wonka leads the tour

As Charlie seems to enjoy the tour, the other four children succumb to temptation, end up being caught in the factory workings and have to be safely recovered by the Oompa-Loompas, albeit in worse shape than at the start of the tour: Augustus falls into a river of chocolate and has been sucked up by a pipe before being rescued from the fudge processing center; Violet expands into an oversized blueberry when she tries an experimental piece of chewing gum despite Wonka's warnings, Veruca is thrown away as a "bad nut" by trained squirrels; and Mike is shrunk down after being the first person to be transported by Wonka's new television advertising invention. The four leave the factory revealing their deformities; a chocolate-covered Augustus, a much more flexible but still blue Violet, a garbage-covered Veruca and her father, and a taller and paper-thin Mike who was overstretched with the "taffy puller".

During the tour, flashbacks reveal Wonka's troubled childhood; his strict father Wilbur, a prominent dentist, forbade Wonka from candy consumption of any type or quantity and fitted him torture device-like braces affixed to his teeth. But once Willy managed to sneak a taste, he became hooked to his wish to become a confectioner against his father's wishes, and eventually left home to follow and live his dream. He then returned several days later to find his father and home completely gone.

Charlie is congratulated as the only remaining child and Wonka takes him and Grandpa Joe home via the Great Glass Elevator. As soon as they arrive, Wonka is introduced to the Buckets and reveals the grand prize: Charlie is Wonka's heir to the factory and his company. After Wonka reveals on how he created the "Golden Ticket Contest" and that the least rotten child would be the winner, he stipulates that Charlie's family has to stay behind, seeing them as hindrance to progress. To Wonka's dismay, Charlie rejects the offer. Wonka then sadly flies back to the factory in his Great Glass Elevator, leaving a hole in the roof of the Buckets' house. After Charlie and his father repair the roof, the latter is later given a new job at the toothpaste factory as a technician.

Some days later, Wonka's candies are selling poorly and he comes to associate his unhappiness with the financial state of his company, so he makes an effort to find Charlie, whom he stumbles upon when the latter is doing a shoe-shining job. After Charlie discovers Wonka's troubled past, he helps Wonka locate Wilbur. During the visit to Wonka's old household, Charlie discovers Wilbur's display of news articles and other things showing Wonka's achievements and successes as a confectionery businessman, which reveals that the dentist followed his son's success despite his strict prohibition of candy, eventually witnessing the reconciliation between father and son.

Wonka then allows Charlie's family to move into the factory while he and Charlie plan new product lines to produce. He joins the Buckets in a dinner at their home, which has been relocated into the Chocolate Room.

Cast

• Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka
• Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket
• David Kelly as Grandpa Joe
• AnnaSophia Robb as Violet Beauregarde
• Philip Wiegratz as Augustus Gloop
• Julia Winter as Veruca Salt
• Jordan Fry as Mike Teavee
• Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Bucket
• Noah Taylor as Mr. Bucket
• Missi Pyle as Mrs. Beauregarde
• James Fox as Mr. Salt
• Adam Godley as Mr. Teavee
• Franziska Troegner as Mrs. Gloop
• Blair Dunlop as Young Willy Wonka
• Deep Roy as Oompa Loompas (with vocal work by Danny Elfman)
• Christopher Lee as Dr. Wonka
• Liz Smith as Grandma Georgina
• Eileen Essell as Grandma Josephine
• David Morris as Grandpa George
• Oscar James as The Shopkeeper
• Geoffrey Holder as the Narrator

Trivia

• Nestlé provided 1,850 bars of real chocolate.
• Forty squirrels were trained for the scene where they pounce upon Veruca Salt.
• To his surprise, Deep Roy played every Oompa-Loompa himself, repeating the same movements several hundred times. While these were then put together digitally, each Oompa-Loompa represents a separate performance by Roy. In recognition of this, Roy's salary was raised to one million dollars.
• The lollipops on the trees, the giant pink sugar canes, and the giant humbugs were real candy.
• Johnny Depp was so impressed with Freddie Highmore's performance in Finding Neverland (2004) that he recommended Tim Burton observe him for the role of Charlie Bucket.
• Willy Wonka's colorful cane is actually filled with Nerds candy, which are sold under the Willy Wonka brand.
• Charlie's father works at a toothpaste factory which produces Smilex toothpaste. "Smylex" is also the name of the poisonous gas concocted by The Joker in Batman (1989), also directed by Tim Burton.
• Roald Dahl was well-known, when he was alive, for hating greedy children, spoiled children, ignorant children, and televisions. This provided him with a basis for Augustus, Veruca, Violet, and Mike.
• The singing voice of the Oompa-Loompas belongs to that of Danny Elfman, who overdubbed himself dozens of times.
• Screenwriter John August had never even seen Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), when asked by Tim Burton to write the script. After finishing the screenplay, he finally watched the 1971 version, only to be surprised at how much darker the "family" film was compared to his own.
• Each Oompa Loompa song is in the style of a different musical era. Additionally, Willy Wonka's comment for each song is a phrase from the corresponding era: Augustus Gloop, Broadway Musical ("Bravo! Well done. Aren't they delightful? Aren't they charming?" clapping and praises like what people say after a show); Violet Beauregarde, Disco ("Come on, let's boogie!"); Veruca Salt - Psychadelic ("Well, let's keep on truckin'."); Mike Teevee, Rock ("On with the tour!" in reference to the plethora of rock concert tours).
• Dr. Wonka tells young Willy that some people are allergic to chocolate to discourage him from eating any candy. As a child, Johnny Depp (older Willy) was allergic to chocolate.
• Some of the buttons in the Glass elevator include: Incompetent Fools, T-Bone Steak Jell-O, Secretarial Poodles, Cocoa Cats, Mechanical Clouds, Stars in their Pies, Nice Plums, Up And Out, Fragile Eggs, Black Box of Frogs, Weird Lollipops, Mighty Jam Monitor, Creative Dog Flip, Elastic Forest, Leaky Canes, Dessert Island, Pie Cream, Spewed Vegetables, Naffy Taffy, Lickety Split Peas, Honeycombs and Brushes, Old Sneezes and Smells Department, Television Room, Whizzdoodles, Chocolate Lip Rookies, Blackberry Sausages, Yankee Doodles, Orange Egg Flip, Root Beer Goggles, Pastry Room, Heart Shaped Lungs, and Projection Room.
• Quite a lot of the chocolate things such as trees, flowers, et cetera, featured in the movie, were created by chocolate shop Choccywoccydoodah in Brighton, England. The shop displayed and sold some of the creations in the shop after the release of the film.
• In the same room as the machine that makes the "three-course meal" gum, there are large rotating drums that look like bowls filled with colored balls. These are real machines that make large jawbreakers, or Gobstoppers, which are sold under the Willy Wonka brand.
• In Charlie's bedroom, there are wrappers of every Wonka bar he has ever eaten on the wall.

Goofs

• During one of Willy's flashbacks as a child, he has braces which keep his lips from meeting, however his voice properly makes a "p" sound when he says words such as "pieces."
• Mike Teavee says: "First off, there's a difference between waves and particles!". Actually there is not. All energy and matter express the so called wave-particle duality, where they can be regarded both as particles and as waves. Someone as science-oriented as Mike Teavee should be aware that this has been known since 1924. He most likely meant "There is a difference between energy and matter" which is much more relevant in this situation in that energy can easily be transmitted while matter cannot, which is what makes Willy Wonka's television camera so amazing.
• When Veruca looks up at Willy Wonka and the Buckets in the flying glass elevator, she asks her father for a "flying glass elevator." Being from England, Veruca should have used the word "lift" rather than elevator.
• The "Golden Ticket" is placed on the back side (smooth side) of the chocolate bar before the wrapping, however, when opened, the Golden Ticket appears on the top side (the "printed side") of the bar.
• In the nut sorting room, the tubes are filled with hazel nuts but when they come out of the tubes they are walnuts.
• The adult Willy Wonka has blue eyes and the young Willy Wonka has dark brown eyes.
• When they are showing the winners of the 3rd and 4th golden ticket winners, there are 4 shots of Charlie watching the TV. In the first and third shot, grandma Georgina's head is upward off the pillow. In the second and fourth shots, her head is resting on the pillow laying down.
• In the Nut Sorting Room, Veruca stands with her hands on the railing in front of her. There are a matched pair of shots over her shoulders where her hands are clearly visible. (The shots approximate to Willy Wonka's and Mr Salt's Points of View.) In the shot over Veruca's right shoulder the gap at the side of the gate is clearly seen between her resting hands. In the reverse angle over her left shoulder the handrail is unbroken.
• When the kids and their guardians are walking from the main gate to the front door, the shadow cast by the factory on the courtyard changes many times.
• When Willy Wonka dips the pink ladle into the chocolate river, the chocolate is spilling over the edge of the ladle. But when he hands it to Charlie, the outside of the ladle is completely free of chocolate residue.
• While in the chocolate room, Mike is smashing a candy pumpkin. You see it break into three pieces before his dad comes over, however, when Mike is speaking to his dad, the pumpkin is in smithereens, and Mike is no longer standing in the pumpkin goo.
• When the chocolate castle liquefies, you can see the melted chocolate hit the princess on the face in a certain pattern and a small dab on the nose. The next time we see the princess the chocolate pattern has changed.
• When Mr. Salt walks in front of Wonka to go down to fetch Veruca it would not be possible because as the gate swings open it would be in Mr. Salt's way. As Wonka unlocks the gate you can see Wonka's hand opening the gate slowly and in the next scene you can hear the gate still opening, so Wonka would still have his hand on the gate which totally blocks Mr. Salt's path.
• When Charlie receives the toothpaste cap from his father that is to become "the head for Willy Wonka", there is a shot of just his hand holding it up with the "hat" pointed upward. In the next shot, the toothpaste cap has turned completely upside down.
• When the Oompa-Loompas roll Violet away, she constantly changes positions, going from rolling forward to rolling on her side, yet there is no sign that the Oompa-Loompas have turned her.
• While the Japanese children are waiting to enter the Tokyo candy store, all of the text on the Wonka bars is written in traditional Hirgana. However, when the children enter the store, some Wonka bars are seen with the logo now written in English. These bars still retain the flavor and Golden Ticket contest announcement written in Hirgana, though.
• The glass collapsible tube that picks up Augustus has five separated sections but before it picks up Augustus it has three sections together on the top and two on the bottom.
• When Charlie is handing bits of his Wonka bar to his family members, it can be seen that he hands his father two separate segments of the chocolate bar, however in the next scene when his father goes to take a bite of the chocolate he's been given, the two segments are still attached to one another.
• When Willy Wonka is having his shoes polished by Charlie, the crew is reflected in his black sunglasses.
• As the sun comes up the morning after the flyers have been passed around the city, you can see an extra start to step out (then duck back in) of the doorway just beyond the flyered pole that is in the foreground.
• After Willy Wonka walks into the glass elevator a second time, you can see the reflection of a crew member walking to the left.
• When Mike Teavee is about to be transported through the air across to the television, the harness around his waist is visible just below his shirt as he is lifting up off the ground.
• When Willy Wonka walks into the elevator after congratulating Charlie, he falls to the floor. In the reflection of the wobbling elevator door, you can see a crew member moving. The reflection is not of Charlie's grandpa.
• Augustus' home town of Düsseldorf is shown to have old-fashioned houses with wooden frames, like in a Bavarian, Austrian or Swiss town. Düsseldorf is in Nordrhein-Westfalen, where there is no such architecture. Even more so, Düsseldorf is shown to be near a huge mountain range, of which there are none even remotely to the Ruhrgebiet, which is a rather flat landscape. The town depicted as Augustus’ home is actually Gengenbach, which is located in Baden-Württemberg at the edge of the Black Forest.
• The photo in the 'Russian Ticket a Fake' article shows a group of people beside St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. However, the article text states that the boy who has "found" the Golden Ticket lives in St. Petersburg.
• At the Tokyo candy store, several Wonka candy bars appear with Katakana print on the label. The title for the candy, "Nutty Crunch Surprise" is written out as "NATTI KURANCHI SA!RAIZU". The word "Surprise" is written out incorrectly as "SA!RAIZU" while it might be more properly written out as "SAPPARAIZU!".
• When Augustus is trapped by a vacuum near the top of the pipe, the seals below him begin to blow out. A vacuum doesn't work that way, if he were blocking the pipe all the pressure would've been on the parts of the pipe between him and whatever was creating the vacuum.
• The cocoa bean pods in the jungle appear to be growing on twigs. In nature, they grow from thicker branches or trunks.
• At the beginning of the movie when it's lights out, Charlie sees the factory through a big hole on the house roof. He can easily get hypothermia from the cold wintry night with a hole that big.
• When the news vans are outside the golden ticket winners homes, the truck outside of Mike Teavee in Colorado has the wrong call letters. They start with the letter "W". They should start with "K" for a TV station west of the Mississippi. Also, the live truck in front of Violet's home in Atlanta has call letters beginning with a "K" instead of "W". While this is most often true, there are a few cases of call letters starting with "K" in the eastern US. Examples: Philadelphia's CBS station, KYW and in Pittsburgh, KDKA. One example of a station west of the Mississippi River that starts with a W is CBS affiliate WCCO in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (The river winds through both Minneapolis and St. Paul; the station is west and south of the river.)
• In the "flag room", many of the flags appear to be mirrored or upside-down, but that's because they are flying in the opposite direction of the staff than we are used to.
• Willy Wonka says he must keep his factory warm because the Oompa-Loompas hate the cold, but he later passes several of them on Fudge Mountain where it appears to be snowing and looks too cold. However, since fudge is produced using confectionery sugar (also commonly called powdered sugar) the snow is actually sugar, which is appropriate since soft snow ideal for skiing is called powder.
• When Willy Wonka is eating a caterpillar for the first time ever, his tongue is already green.
• When Mike Teavee pushes the "Television Room" button in the elevator, the elevator continues downward and then takes a sharp turn to the right. However, the actors lean toward the right (toward the direction the elevator moves), rather than moving to the left as one would as a reaction to the movement.
• When Willy goes back to see his father and the dentist examines Willy's teeth, the fingers holding the mirror completely change position between the shots from inside Willy's mouth to outside, both times. The size of the handle also changes between shots.
• When Willy is having his teeth examined near the end of the film, the view from inside his mouth shows his lower teeth being examined, but the next shot, looking into his mouth shows his father just turning the mirror over, having just looked at his upper teeth.
• At Dr. Wonka's house, Charlie picks up a picture of a boy, presumably Willy. However, from Willy's flashbacks, we know he wore a head brace while he was a child and ran away from home at an early age. The boy in the picture is clearly much older than the Willy in the flashbacks and he wears no head gear.
• After Mike Teavee gets shrunk by the TV ray, Willy Wonka orders him and his father to the taffy puller room. Immediately afterward, Wonka has a very short conversation with Charlie and Grandpa Joe, they get into the elevator, and blast through the roof. They then fly down over the factory entrance, where Mike Teavee is already stretched and leaving the building, just 2-3 minutes after Wonka had given the taffy-pulling order.

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