Alice In Wonderland Sequel: ‘Looking Glass’ Trailer References Daylight Saving Time [Video]
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, released in 2010, will soon have a sequel, and a new trailer for Alice Through the Looking Glass was released today, March 13. The trailer contains a cute reference to Daylight Saving Time, which began today in the United States. Collider reminds us that the correct term, Daylight Saving Time, is neither plural nor possessive (this is actually incorrect in the trailer), and reports that Alice Through the Looking Glass will be directed by James Bobin of The Muppets fame, instead of Tim Burton. However, Burton has signed on to the Alice in Wonderland sequel as a producer. Johnny Depp will reprise his role as the Mad Hatter, and Mia Wasikowska will reprise her role as Alice. Original cast members Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter will also return for the sequel.
The Alice in Wonderland sequel’s March 13 trailer was able to make a fun reference to Daylight Saving Time due to a new cast member. Sacha Baron Cohen turns in what looks like a fascinating and very memorable performance as Time in Alice Through the Looking Glass.Sacha Baron Cohen plays a version of Father Time who is part human and part clock. Variety reports that Baron Cohen’s character is actually the father of Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter. The new trailer suggests that Baron Cohen’s Time may have stolen the hour that Americans lost when they set their clocks forward one hour for Daylight Saving Time.
Sacha Baron Cohen is an obvious choice of talent for director James Bobin, who has worked with Baron Cohen for years. Bobin was a writer and director on Da Ali G Show, the show that made Baron Cohen famous, and also helped create the iconic characters of Ali G, Borat, and Brüno.
'Alice Through the Looking Glass' wants you to know it hates Daylight Savings Time, too: https://t.co/cySciSX70F pic.twitter.com/DZV9XFc0B1
— Collider (@Collider) March 13, 2016
The Alice in Wonderland sequel is a creative twist on Lewis Carroll’s novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, which was an 1871 publication intended to be a sequel to the book that was the inspiration for the first film, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland(commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland), which was published in 1865. It may surprise fans of Lewis Carroll that the very famous Carroll poems “Jabberwocky” and “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” as well as the famed characters Tweedledee and Tweedledum, appear in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There rather than the original Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Many fans of the various film versions of Alice in Wonderland are not even aware of the existence of a second book.
Did someone steal an hour from you? See the fun new "Alice" TV spot here https://t.co/33Eg4NfV7a #DisneyAlice pic.twitter.com/mKlY5jpOIy
— Dawn ?? Santa Clara 7/28 ? (@DawnWinston24) March 14, 2016
The Alice in Wonderland that was delivered to film audiences in 2010 by Tim Burton brought some controversial changes from the source material to the silver screen. Burton’s version aged Alice up to 19, when conventional wisdom dictates that the original Alice character is only 7-years-old. Interestingly, Lewis Carroll’s original choice to have a child in all her childlike wonder exploring the land down the rabbit hole was replaced with a rather serene young adult. Burton brought in his stalwarts Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, who both turned in memorable performances, but critics were not particularly kind to Alice in Wonderland upon its release, according to Rotten Tomatoes, primarily because of the plot changes.
Alice in Wonderland is known for delightful, colorful absurdity. Tim Burton’s attempt to iron out and remove some of the absurdity of the source material backfired with film critics because they felt that the identity of Alice in Wonderland, and everything that makes the franchise unique, was watered down. It will be interesting for movie-goers to see whether James Bobin took this criticism into consideration for the creation of Alice Through the Looking Glass, and perhaps attempted to be more faithful to the source material and to the qualities that fans of the Alice in Wonderland franchise expect to see.
Alice Through the Looking Glass will be in theaters in the United States on Friday, May 27, in time for Memorial Day weekend.
[Image courtesy of The British Library/Wikimedia Commons {{PD-US}}]
