Waiting for Alice: Madness Returns

I am so incredibly excited!!!! I just saw a huge, beautiful spread in Game Pro magazine about Alice: Madness Returns. It's been almost 10 years after the first game, American McGee's Alice, came out. That game is one of my favorite games of all time. This next one looks like it's going to be even better. The plot of the sequel involves Alice going back to Wonderland to find out the cause of the fire that killed her parents. Here is the fabulously creepy teaser trailer for the new game.

Here are some of the screenshots from the Game Pro article.

I really like the improved graphics, the noticeably older Alice, and the zombie card soldiers! The game is set to release in 2011. I really can't wait to get my hands on this game!!

American McGee's Alice

I would like to introduce you to a dark and twisted version of Wonderland, full of danger, darkness, and death. American McGee's Alice is one of the most enjoyable games I have ever played. It's a really awesome third person action game exclusively for the PC. The story is like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, but much more sinister. After the events of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Alice's parents die in a fire. She tries to kill herself out of survivor's guilt and becomes incarcerated in an insane asylum for 10 years. The White Rabbit calls Alice to return to the macabre form of Wonderland, twisted by her own insanity, to defeat the Queen of Hearts to become sane again. Here is the opening of the game.

The characters in this reimagining of Wonderland are delightfully creepy. The Cheshire Cat is emaciated and tattooed with a wicked grin. He can be summoned to give you cryptic messages to guide you through the game. Besides Alice, he is my favorite character. The actor that provides the cat's voice is perfect. He, the White Rabbit, and a few others are Alice's only allies in her twisted fantasy world. The Duchess is a crazed cannibal, driven mad by pepper. The Mad Hatter is obsessed with time, clockworks, and his own genius. He turns people into machines or experiments on them in his asylum with help from his minions, the Tweedles. The clockwork aspects give parts of the game a steampunk look. As revealed in the accompanying casebook, all the people in Wonderland resemble people in Alice's real life in the asylum. For a complete list of characters and their new personalities can be found here.

The game is pretty hard, even on easy mode. However, it's so fun to playThe game isn't just an action adventure game, but has many puzzles that need to be solved as you progress into Wonderland. I personally love puzzles and this made the game all the more enjoyable for me.

One of my favorite aspects of the game is the music. It's haunting and makes Wonderland so much more scary to go through. The composer responsible for this is Chris Vrenna, who founded the punk band Tweaker and played drums in Nine Inch Nails. "Most of the sounds he used were created using toy instruments and percussion, music boxes (in a short documentary about the making of the game that appeared on TechTV, the music box used appears to be an antique Fisher-Price music box pocket radio), clocks, doors, and sampled female voices were manipulated into nightmarish soundscapes, including instances of them laughing maniacly, screaming, crying, and singing in an eerie, child-like way." * The music is obviously going to be repetitive for each stage, but I never, ever got tired of it. Sometimes I would want to stay in one area just to hear the music, so I bought the game soundtrack. It's available on Amazon if anyone is interested. This video features the track called Dementia and the poster's funny comments about the soundtrack. Please enjoy.

The graphics for this game aren't all that great. It was made in 2000 and the story and gameplay totally make up for the graphic's shortcomings. The game seems to be pretty rare to find, since it's out of print, and is being sold at pretty high prices. If you can find it, please play it. It's awesome. AND American McGee's Alice 2 is supposed to be coming out at some undetermined date. I can't wait!!

I will leave you with the trailer:

* from the American McGee's Alice Wikipedia Article.

* Inspired by Velvet's Alice in Whatsitland week at vvb32 reads.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

I have read many a scathing review of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in the few days the film has been in theaters. I am shocked. I saw it at a midnight showing in LA with my best friend and my sister. We all thoroughly enjoyed the film. While I understand some people's grievances with the film, I still thought it was a delightful adventure that I could watch again and again. I just want to warn you that this review is going to be pretty long to address the many things people complained about that I disagreed with.

Alice is now 19 years old and faces many pressures put upon her by society and her family. When an undesirable, but rich man/boy proposes to her, she follows a white rabbit down the hole once again into Wonderland. Its inhabitants are in constant fear of the Bloody Red Queen Iracebeth and need Alice to be their champion to overthrow her in favor of her sister, the White Queen Mirana. Alice rejects the idea altogether and continues to journey through Wonderland. The Red Queen hears of her arrival and sends orders to capture her. Will Alice find the courage to defeat save Wonderland before it's too late?

I seriously love this movie. I haven't had so much fun in a movie theater in a while (except The Crazies, but I will save it for a different post.) I emphasize that this film is not a remake of Alice in Wonderland, but a sequel of the Disney cartoon and a reimagining at the same time. I think people are so emotionally invested in the book and different versions that they have seen before that when someone comes out with something different, they don't like it. I liked seeing an older Alice as a strong female character. The Joseph Campbell hero journey format tied together disparate and random incidents in the Wonderland novels so that they were linear and easy to follow. This is needed in a Disney movie that kids need to understand and like in order to make money. It would probably be just another complaint of the naysayers if it didn't have a linear story.

The look of the film is absolutely beautiful. Tim Burton pulls away from his typical black and white palate to the vibrant and beautiful colors that saturate Wonderland. It's a stark contrast to the muted grey and blue hues of Victorian England, present in the start and finish of the film. Within Wonderland, there are also contrasting color palates: the brilliant white of the White Queen's domain and the gothic red and black of the Red Queen's domain.

I know that lots of people have issue with the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen represented in one person. I have no problem with this whatsoever. I really don't know why so many people complain about this, except that they're hardcore book purists. The original Disney cartoon did exactly the same thing. This film is a continuation of the cartoon, so it really wouldn't have made sense to change it at this point. She was a wonderfully portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter. Unlike the Disney film (where the King secretly pardons people behind the Queen's back), the fear inspired by her is real. Her moat is full of the severed heads of her victims (which Alice uses as stepping stones at one point to get to the castle). Beheadings are obviously not a rare occurance. The Red Queen is foul tempered, arrogant, and pretty hilarious. One of her many flaws is that she is easily manipulated by flattery, but may turn on the flatterer in a second.


Anne Hathaway had a small, but effective role as the White Queen. I have never really seen the character in any Alice in Wonderland movie, but I loved her. She had a facade of sweetness and light with an undertone of madness. Even though she is the lesser of the two evils and Wonderland flourished under her rule, it's obvious that she's related to the Red Queen. I liked that the two sisters still argued over petty things like head size in the midst of their battle for control of Wonderland. That's what sisters do. I should know. Their conflict culminates when they bring their armies together and have their champions battle it out. I loved that the White Queen's army was compiled of chess pieces while the Red Queen's army was compiled of playing cards. The card soldiers looked really cool and did not in any way resemble Frank Beddor's Looking Glass Wars soldiers. These soldiers do not look like these or this one.

Johnny Depp is just awesome as the Mad Hatter. I was afraid that Johnny Depp would outshine Alice and take over the movie because of his prominence in the trailers. I guess it was just a marketing choice to sell the movie with a big name. Although the Hatter does look a little weird (and what character played by him doesn't?), he was one of my favorite characters. He is actually crazy. He literally had dissociative identity disorder (also known as multiple personality disorder). In all the other versions of Alice, the Mad Hatter has merely been goofy. Johnny Depp's take on the character is alternately characterized by wide-eyed innocence and scary, cynical anger. In his scarier alternate personality, there is definitely the possibility that he might really hurt someone if left unchecked. Johnny Depp acted very well and gave the Mad Hatter dimensions deeper than a goofy fool.

Overall, the entire cast worked very well together. They all contributed to making Wonderland more than a mishmash of shallow characters. Mia Wasikowska blended in seamlessly with the more famous and experienced actors.

Danny Elfman's score fit perfectly with the movie. There are some moments of reminiscence of other scores, such as Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas. However, the score succeeds in being a unique work. The music is diverse, ranging from driving, fast rhythms to beautiful, haunting melodies. You can listen to clips of the score here. I didn't really like the Avril Lavigne song that played during the end credits. It was obviously there to try to get people to buy the Almost Alice CD that has other pop Alice-inspired songs on it, but I have literally no interest in it.

I had been waiting for Alice in Wonderland for almost a year and I wasn't disappointed. I am also happy that it made about $116 million in its first weekend, outselling Avatar. I highly recommend this movie to children and adults alike.

My rating: 9/10 fishmuffins

Alice I Have Been Review

Have you ever wondered about the little girl who was the inspiration behind Alice in Wonderland? Her name is Alice Liddell and she grew up in Victorian England. Melanie Benjamin takes the facts and figures from Alice’s life and intertwines them with fiction, creating a unique story. The narrative follows Alice throughout her life, including her childhood relationship with Charles Dodgson (also known as Lewis Carroll) and the mysterious end of their friendship.

I really enjoyed this book. One of the most interesting aspects was the transformation of Alice at each stage of her life. Victorian England is an extremely hard era for any child to grow up in. The society is very restrictive and bound by expectations, which isn’t conducive to a precocious and imaginative young girl. She’s kind of a wild child that her parents constantly have to rein in. Her friendship with Dodgson is organic because he’s the only adult who really takes her seriously and listens to what she has to say. The breach happens at this point in her life, which goes unexplained until the very end of the novel. Throughout Alice’s young adult life, this is hinted at and danced around, but never definitely answered, which creates mystery and compels me to read on.

As a child, Alice wants Charles Dodgson to write down the story that will become Alice in Wonderland because it makes her feel special. Throughout the rest of her life, the novel holds her in the past, with the memories associated with it and the expectations and vision of her that other people have because of it. As an adult, she matures and learns to come to grips with the literary version of herself. Throughout the entire narrative, from childhood to late adulthood, Alice’s narrative as it transforms is completely genuine and believable.

The mixture of fact and fiction also makes this novel special. The photos Charles Dodgson took that are talked about in the book actually exist. All the people in Alice’s life are real people. This gives the novel an extra layer that piques my interest and makes me so curious that I look up the figures, photos, or facts on the internet. After the story, there is an afterword by the author that reveals the motivation behind writing the novel and which things are facts and which are speculation.

Alice I Have Been is very beautifully written and plunges the reader into the world of the real Alice. The story is genuine and had me so emotionally invested that it brought tears to my eyes at points. I would definitely encourage anyone to read it.

5/5