The June 2009 issue of Total Film has a short feature on Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, called “On Set and Through the Looking Glass with Burton and Depp.” (Yes, that’s Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter in the photo at left.) The director admits that he’s not fond of previous film adaptations of the Lewis Carroll classic because “it’s always been about a passive little girl wandering around a series of adventures with weird characters,” Burton says. “There’s never any gravity to them. What we’ve tried to do is make her a real person [. . .] going through this.”

While Burton’s Alice “incorporates characters and situations from both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its literary sequel, Through the Looking Glass, the plot is essentially a new one,” notes Total Film. Burton’s Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is no longer a child, but an older teen nearly ready to enter the adult world. Ms. Wasikowska is joined by a stellar cast including Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Matt Lucas, Crispin Glover, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, and Michael Sheen.

The Zone thanks Gilbert’s Girl for the Total Film article; you can read more about Alice in Wonderland on the Zone’s News & Views forum.–Part-Time Poet