The Similarities and Differences between Willy Wonka and Charlie

A fantasy film uses magic and lots of other supernatural elements as the main setting. Fantasy films also include imaginative and creative themes. The two films that I will talk about impacts both fantasy fiction films and teach many valuable lessons. This paper will explain the similarities and also the differences of the 2 films chosen for comparison which include Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). These films explain how Charlie became one out of five lucky children to seek out the Golden Ticket during the Wonka contest. The Golden Ticket ensures that the lucky winner gets a grand prize and these films analyze how people use different ways to win that prize.

Charlie becomes the main character. He seems poor and he lives in an exceedingly small village together with his four grandparents and his mother. Charlie grew up in poverty. He had no food to eat and lived in a small house without some basic necessities. His father died, so only his mother continued to work and take care of four elderly grandparents. Charlie enjoys spending time with the old relatives. In spite of all his hardship, he seems very honest and kind. He doesn’t compare himself with other kids. This background appeared similar for both films.

A large number of comparisons exists in both films. They both appeared like fantasy films. Both of the films tell us about how five lucky children received a golden ticket and how four of the children died inside the factory through extraordinary ways and how one lucky child received a prize which incorporates the lifetime supply of chocolate. In his article exploring the consequences of children who becomes unwise, Wan Syakira Meor Hissan states “Children who are disobedient, greedy and aggressive toward their parents are depicted as immature and are punished to correct their misbehaviour” (90). In the Willy Wonka film, Wonka’s assistant tells Charlie to find an everlasting gobstopper to bring to him in order for him to find a secret formula, and he promised that Charlie would get a reward of $10,000 in order to buy a new house for his family, and take care of them, which did happen in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film. In the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film, Wonka tells Charlie to abandon his family and come and live in his factory as his heir, but Charlie says “no” because he loves his family and cannot give them up. Charlie’s action shows that love triumphs over money. In his article exploring the history of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, David Rudd states, “Wonka seems to think that he can simply import a successor to run his factory, just as he once obtained a biddable workforce for it” (385).

The 1971 film sounded more musical than the 2005 film. The music for the 1971 film included the same song called “Oompa Loompa” for every child who died inside the factory, but some lyrics appear somewhat different for each child. In this musical, the participants had to sign a contract before entering the factory and promise to follow the rules. Willy Wonka and the children start singing with the Oompa Loompas, who exists as real people. The songs that they sang came directly from the novel by Roald Dahl. The music for the 2005 film included songs mentioning the name of each child who died inside the factory but unlike the 1971 film, the lyrics read differently, and the film appears like a regular film but with musical numbers. The Oompa Loompa sang the songs in the form of puzzles. In the 2005 film, the children didn’t need to worry about signing the contract to follow all rules. In his video essay about the evolution of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Smurfs Nerd says, “Come and live with me in peace and safety, away from all the Wangdoodles and Hornswogglers and Snozzwangers and rotten Vermicious Knids” (“The Evolution of Willy Wonka”). This quote explains how Willy Wonka transferred the entire population to Oompa Loompas. One actor (Deep Roy) acted in multiple motions and this became stitched together. In the 2005 film, the Oompa Loompas seemed to appear with a height of 2 ½ feet tall, so images seemed very small and also made shooting the film more difficult because they acted with other people on the set. Squirrels also appeared in digital images so it became easier to get shots that couldn’t exist in real life in the 2005 film. The 1971 film did not include the squirrel scene. This made the 2005 film more animated and appealed to more people because of its clarity and the rainbow colors used which seems more modern

The 1971 film appeared more in character with the actual book “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl, a British author.

The audience in both films want to know who wins the golden tickets and ultimately what characteristics each child needs to win in life. 

These two films highlight greed, disobedience to parents or elders, dishonesty, and lack of self-control. The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film highlights that love and honesty ultimately wins. The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) serves as a better film because of its stand on moral issues that continues with the importance in today’s society. 

In the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film, I can see that I have many choices in life, and how they can affect anyone. The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film shows that love feels more important than hate, to feel poor and happy seems more important than feeling rich and unhappy.

Comparing and contrasting those 2 films analytically show me that the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film remains a better choice of a movie to watch. The revenues generated by the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film included a total of $4.5 million worldwide whereas the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory films included a total of $475 million which shows which movie appears more popular to everyone.

In conclusion, while many of the similarities and differences that occurred within the two movies continue to exist, fantasy films have changed the way people think about life and what they value most. Based on some of the evidence above, I concluded the 2005 film as a better movie and that film taught a lot of valuable lessons like love triumphs everything and Charlie showed his love for his family when he refused to give them up for the Chocolate Factory.

Works Cited

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Directed by Tim Burton, performances by Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, and David Kelly. Warner Bros., 2005

Hissan, Wan Syakira Meor. “An Analysis of the Children’s Characters in Roald Dahl’s Novel: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, vol. 2, no. 1, July 2012, pp. 82–92. EBSCOhost, doi:10.17509/ijal.v2i1.107.

Rudd, David. “Adaptable, Edible, Oedipal? The His-Story of Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Its Adaptations.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 51, no. 3, Sept. 2020, pp. 374–391. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10583-019-09386-5.

The Smurfs Nerd. “The Evolution of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” Youtube, The Smurfs Nerd, 7 Nov. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmeAf9JxGRA&t=87s

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Directed by Mel Stuart, performances by Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson and Peter Ostrum. Paramount Pictures., 1971