hi!! I want to draw attention to screenwriter Caroline Thompson as one of the keys to Burtons successes. I don’t mention her in the video, but she wrote the screenplays for Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare before Christmas (dir. H. Selick) and The Corpse Bride. Suspiciously… Burtons best films, imo. She also wrote The Addams Family, The Secret Garden and Black Beauty!! Props to Caroline for her incredible work and sorry I didn’t highlight her in the video. I think it’s pretty clear that she is a huge part of the Burton-credited magic of yesteryear.
Caroline Thompson afforded Burton's characters the heart that they couldn't express simply through visual means. Viewing Burton's films as a child, she allowed me to squint through the initial fear that I experienced observing Burton's character designs, delving deeper into more complex emotions and their essential goodness, further enhanced by Danny Elfman's scores. Caroline is truly such a master-weaver of fantasy, and her female counterparts yielded some of my favourite childhood characters in film. As an added bonus, my Dad would play Oingo Boingo records for me as a child and exclaim "That's Jack Skellington!". Confusing code-switching.
Burton's outlook on the industry is the embodiment of that one scene in Meet The Robinsons where Bowler Hat Guy is recounting his classmates "hating him" while they are all excitingly greeting him 😂🤣
@@reneedailey1696 people around him coddled him and his delusions. . I really wouldn't be surprised if those around him just smile and nod while he's talking like the modern day Joker lol 🤣😂
As a Black fan of Tim Burton, I have always known that my participation in his worlds is one-sided: I see myself possibly existing in them, but he does not. I hadn’t been aware that people have been talking about him ‘losing the magic’, but the longer his career has gone on the harder it has become for me to engage with his work. He seems stuck in an American past where POC were relegated to subservient or unobtrusive positions on the sidelines. I liked his aesthetic, but I prefer to be (at minimum) acknowledged to exist. His failure to grow or change in this area is pretty damning, imo.
But there's millions of artists who don't include black people in their works because they draw based on their lives and no one cares that they do that. Tim Burton grew up in white suburbia and watched German expressionist movies, which on account of being made in Germany, lack black people. No one is stopping you from making art inspired by Burton that includes black people. You need to get over yourself, it's his art and movies, he can make what he likes, I suggest you do the same as him.
It’s really frustrating too because his whole argument is that POC don’t “fit his aesthetic” but I feel like in the same way he emphasizes whiteness by making his characters very pale and ghost-like, it would be equally beautiful to emphasize blackness. Like if he had someone like Anok Yai in his films I feel like it would add the perfect foil and depth to the vibes.
He always makes me think of that "I'm weird. I'm a weirdo" monologue from Riverdale. Tim Burton is a normie even compared to other mainstream horror directors like Clive Barker. As a society, we have moved past Tim Burton films. Put black people in your movie or perish, casuals.
Except in that Riverdale monologue, the character delivering it was just forced into a situation he had explicitly told his girlfriend gave him social anxiety and it was his girlfriend who forced him into it. So there's actually a *reason* for him to be annoyed. Tim Burton doesn't. No one is making him do anything. He's a rich dude.
Nah he can be cool again, i don't think people who still have it in them can expire like this, it's extreme to think so. Even more when he has Indeed learned from his mistakes and has at least 3 of his produccions have black, and latino people in them. Even if they are not black focused BC they are not black and won't tell those stories with the respecto and details needed (like Sofia Coppola, she writers for the white, rich girls and if anyone colores appears it won't be upfront and it's fine bc she can Give that space but not as a Spotlight bc she isnt coloured, same as Burton!) We need inclusion not forced perspective, and Tim has already changed that. We don't forgive people on the internet apparently, rapists sure, but someone admitting and changeing yey still being Haunted shows we can't move on. If people are forever chased no one will ever change. Efforts must be appreciated or at least i think so. (I'm from Latinoamérica we do have different conceptions of racismo and usually think that américa is too sensitive with it when things have obviously changed for the better at least a little lately, do correct me bc i don't live there.) PS: i don't know if he changed how he talks about POC, but the steriotype question with the soul train just makes me think he is doing what he always does Charicatures, and those require steriotypes. I hope i'm right bc if i'm just blind or hopeful or defending him with no context it's gonna be sad (i'm a normal person not a politician or a celebrity and i educate myself as it comes to me, so don't come for my neck, i'm not someone in Power and i do want to learn)
19:04 I’m relieved to hear someone critique the show Wednesday. It seems to have just eclipsed a lot of other Addams family media for people and it makes me kind of sad. There were some great moments in the show, some iconic pieces, and Jenna Ortega was born to play her but the whole is basically just content instead of something actually amazing. I think people got caught up on the surface level of the show when the live action movies many are familiar with managed to go so much deeper. Part of what I loved about the Addams was that they were weird and quirky (which I love) but more importantly they obviously adored each other deeply even the siblings. They might do kooky crud to each other but there’s definitely still a deep bond between them. Any time we see her interact with her family in the show Wednesday it sits wrong with me, there seems to be underhandedness, mistrust and almost contempt for each other, especially between her and Morticia, and I don’t want that to be the new legacy of the Addams. There was no need for it. I don’t know whose choice that was, whether that’s a reflection of Burtons hand, but parts of the other character dynamics and storyline do line up with some of his other works.
YES that rubbed me the wrong way from the first episode. The whole reason the Addams’ work is the whole dichotomy of their black humor absurdity and legitimately wholesome love they have for one another. It’s endearing. Making Wednesday an edgy teen who’s annoyed with her family for the sake of highlighting her as a troubled outcast doesn’t work within the themes of what the Addams Family stands for, to the point where she may as well be a different character. Honestly remove any and all imagery/reference to the Addams franchise and nothing changes; could have easily been an original story
I refuse to watch Wednesday, it doesn't feel like the Addams family in the least, it feels like some run of the mill YA novel and I really don't like that. I also take umbridge with Wednesday changing her clothes outside of the dance, her whole thing is that dress and twin braids.
The show only exists because Netflix wanted some kind of teen show with a supernatural twist to compete with other shows out there. Shows based off a property get more views hence The Addams Family. Though the show really has no understanding what makes The Addams Family works. They work when they are critiquing quote on quote "normal society" with their wholesome macabre antics. Putting Wednesday in a magical school defeats that. Jenna Ortega is great and she shines with what she is given. That show I'd nothing without her. There's a reason the show's most iconic scene is a result of her work and not Burton's.
As a poc that grew up watching and loving Tim Burton films, his comments truly hurt me at the time. I was always seen as one of the weird kids at school, so his films and main characters really resonated with me, and I could envision myself in his world. Hearing that he didn’t really want me to part of it, just made me feel like an outcast again. But hey, that’s his loss I suppose.
Corpse Bride is originally a jewish folktale set during the pogrom time of tsarist russia. I was so angry when I found out that Burton knew this and chose to actively christianise the story and now I can't enjoy the movie anymore😠
Dont feel too bad. Oogie Boogie Man is a racist slur, and associated with gambling (the way Black men used to be) and that makes watching one of my all-time favorite movies kinda hard to watch knowing that. He was told it was a racist caricature and decided he would make that character anyway! "The Oogie Boogie character looks like a Klansman [from the Ku Klux Klan]. Oogie Boogie is a derogatory term for African Americans in the American south. I begged the powers that be to change something about that character, because of that. I said: this is so ugly and dangerous and antithetical to everything inside me. I did not win that fight... It was a troubling part of the film for me, to be frank. Plus, his song is sang by a black man. So it's like a trifecta of wrongness. And as I said, I really did beg Tim to reconsider. Particularly the name... it's a really evil derogatory term. That's not a fight I won. I think it's a fun segment of the story as it was executed but it's a troubling one." Read More: www.slashfilm.com/577533/the-nightmare-before-christmas-the-nightmare-before-christmas-is-oogie-boogie-racist/
The main character in "Miss Peregrine's" is also Jewish in the book but not in the film. In the book, he assumes that when his grandfather would go away on "hunting trips" that he was out killing escaped fascists and not monsters or super power people or whoever the actual villains were. It's also why the kid accepted why his Grandpa didn't want to talk about his youth. I have heard that the movie leaves all of that out.
From my personal experience it seems like a lot of white cis men who identify as outcasts or “weirdos” feel like if they acknowledge POC and their struggles it shows just how privileged they really are and negates their outsider status
I'm going to be honest, as someone who was only introduced to Burton as a cynical sjw teen, I could never get past the pedestalling of what is essentially the gothic version of a manic pixie dream girl. Once you notice his romantic inclinations, it feels like every main (lovable) woman in his stories is written the same way, and it gets boring so easily. I've never really been able to watch his stuff as a result, so I'm glad someone else is analysing them for me
another hit, as expected! i watched a different video essay on burton recently that focused on his outcast-ness, but i appreciate your take on this much more. he makes me think of the scene from meet the robinsons where the villain is like "they all hated me" but everyone is saying hi and trying to engage with him
Tim Burton is a great visual director. His movies are made or broken by who is writing/producing behind them. Side Note: I am also glad to hear that you thought "Wednesday" was boring. I also thought the writing was so bad, the show, cast and audience deserved better.
I used to like some Tim Burton things because as an Uzbek American, I'm an outsider. There's only fifty thousand of us in the US so there's never, ever anyone quite like me present unless they're family. I'm always the weirdo and always subject to interrogation. My brother was ruthlessly bullied as a kid for having dark skin and red hair, which is part of our heritage (red hair pops up in Uzbekistan in people with much darker skin than you see in white people). Edward Scissorhands meant a lot to us. But in Tim Burton's Alice, everyone who looks physically different, with an odd body or a big head or any other difference, is antagonistic. Goodness is personified in the most conventionally attractive and normal looking person present. That killed my interest in his work. It feels like that movie ripped away the illusion of rooting for the outsider and became more about leaning into the old, tired trope of Beauty Equals Goodness. And that's not a world I want to spend any time in.
I try to find myself in the feeling of the characters, not on what they look like. I never saw a movie made by outsiders who represent my county faithfully or my people beyond some stereotypes. He's movies still has his style, he is just not appealing to modern sensibilities. Which I think it's the real criticism. People try to push him to make movies about what they want, not what he wants.
@eduardmanecuta5350 in visual mediums, you get a feel of a character through how they look, and their styling or bodies etc are part of that, so to say that you're able to distance yourself from that and "find yourself in the feeling of the character" is just incorrect.
@@RaeD-u8y Pardon me if I didn't made myself understood. English is not my primary language. I said that I find myself in how they feel, in the idea of being an outsider. I don't try to search for characters that look like me or speak like me in order to apreciate the character or the movie. Directors shouldn't be constricted just because people feel the need that they need to be represented in their work. It's their work. Also, I said that my country and my people were never properly represented by foreigners.
As someone who loves Sweeney Todd, and the penny dreadful it is adapted from, a string of pearls. I fucking hated Tim Burton's movie. Trash garbage honestly Every time someone is like "I love Burton's Sweeney Todd!" I'm kind of like "clarifying question: is that the only version of the story that you know? Have you considered watching a bootleg of the original Broadway musical? Or just listening to a soundtrack from the stage play?"
@arbyswitch5580 sounds like quite an angry and gatekeeper attitude. I actually have to deal with this most of the time I talk about Sweeney Todd. As a francophone in a town where there was no access to such plays (and even knowledge of them), Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd changed my life. It made me want to become an actor, it put me on the path of training, and opened me up to the world of theatre. The movie was a gateway, as I then proceeded to watch every version of the play I could find online and obsessed over them. I had the chance now to see the revival on Broadway in person and am still thankful to Burton's version. It may not be comedic, but I have a feeling it just would not translate well on screen. Sondheim said in an interview that he liked the movie, unlike other movie adaptations of his work. I can understand the criticism of the movie, but there is a place to enjoy both.
@@arbyswitch5580 yes, I have seen the play, multiple versions of it in fact, yes, I have read the penny dreadful that was written in 1846, and yes, I enjoyed the film. It's an enjoyable adaptation. It's really not that deep
With Scissorhands, you gotta member: this was before Tim Burton was a style, he was just an unknown, unproven (sorta). It was a time where the 90s were on the horizon and people were hungry for something new and different. Thats how this quirky little film ended up attracting so much attemtion.
To me, the fact that many people, including me, feel like Tim Burton's films don't work like they used to is because we aged. I was a pasty white loner in my youth, and Tim Burton's films resonated with me. I saw myself in these lonely strange and unusual characters, in Burton's art style. He's the director who made me love cinema. Thanks to him, I discovered Hammer films and even wrote a thesis on them. But I grew older. I realized what monster could be, and what they always were in films and litterature. They are the Other, queer people, marginalized people, and as I learned that, I wanted Burton to learn this too. I wanted to see him evolve, I wanted to see him tackle things like Guillermo Del Toro, Bram Stoker, Clive Barker and many other authors and filmakers understood. I wanted Tim Burton's films to hit me like they did when I was a 10 years old lonely white kid. But I'm not that kid anymore, I know how society works, I know what the monsters are, and I would love for Tim Burton's film to grow and evolve too. Tropes evolve, we need films to evolve too.
I think that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice almost got there, but there were simply too many plotlines to give any of them depth. I actually think he's actually hit on an alternative kind of monster - not society against the protagonist, but the abuses of power entitled (nearly always Caucasian) men will do when they don't get their way. As someone who has been deeply harmed by men who told me they loved me, I think one of his scariest monsters is that guy from Big Eyes. The dude in BB who tried to steal Astrid's soul is also way up there on my list. Also that kid from Wednesday (I'm still not totally 100% on the metaphors or actual plot there tho. he was monster bc he was grieving? Was it just hereditary? I honestly don't remember)
Maybe that's the thing. He keep making the movies he wanted, not what others want. If you are familiar with the orignal works that he adapted, and you like them, you most likely wouldn't like his versions. I like the aesthetics and atmosphere of his movies.
@eduardmanecuta5350 I honestly don't believe he has much pride in most of his more recent output considering when asked about his experience working on things like Dumbo he just bitched and moaned about how much it sucked to work for Disney again. Also from what I've heard (haven't seen Dumbo, don't really intend to) the movie is devoid of soul or aesthetic.
As a fan of the broadway musical version of Sweeney Todd, I actually really like the film, precisely because of the direction it went in. The film focuses more on Sweeney's face, and tone of the colors (vibrant and golden when Lucy was still "alive", and then gray and sallow in the present, representing Sweeney's perception of London, and by extension, the world) greatly implies that the movie focuses on the tale of Sweeney Todd... through the lense of Sweeney himself. The stageplay is a comedic, almost satirical take on the tale of Sweeney Todd, and the lyrics of the ballad (which was left out in the film for an instrumental, only leaving in the crucial melody portion featuring the dies irae), which implies that we, the audience, are seeing a reenactment, poking fun at how insane it all sounds. I love both, simply because they're so vastly different from each other, and also because it's a great movie musical in it of itself, despite the different interpretation and cuts to the music. Although I was never a fan of them cutting out Joanna and Anthony's songs and the scene in the asylum.
THANKYOU I feel like Burton is just so...meh lately. He's always been a sort of safe horror, but the safe creative choices now are sad Especially Wednesday- it didn't have any Addams Family flavour to me, it could have been any mediocre teen drama. Honestly felt like it was just there to snag viewers who had just grown out of Monster High. It's all just the aesthetics without any of the spirit of the previous work. He had a chance to do something interesting with the story, characters and art design, and flubbed it in both cases. The cynical part of me thinks Netflix may have reigned it in a lot with Wednesday but still, it didn't have to look so fucking boring and she didn't have to just be a stereotypical grumpy teen in a black dress.
I've never been a big fan of Tim Burton, though now I'd like to go back and watch a few of his earlier films. But when you showed his early art for Disney, I was quite startled to realize that his style is very familiar to me - variations on his approach were common among cartoonists and graphic novelists in the 90s. For example, Sam Kieth's work from that period could often be mistaken for Burton's, the style is so similar. But there were many others who were working in similar ways to combine horror, humor, surrealism, hyperbole, and pop culture references. Examples: Jhonen Vasquez, Dave McKean, Mike Mignola, Dave Sim, Hideshi Hino, Jim Woodring, and Peter Bagge. All had and have different emphases, but if you compare them to Tim Burton, it's obvious their style derives from the same or very similar impulses and influences. You can also see similar approaches in artists who started later - such as Ben Templesmith, James Stokoe, Skottie Young, and Daniel Warren Johnson. It makes me wonder what we might have gotten if Burton had ever chosen to work in comics. He would not be as rich, but he would have had much more creative freedom, given the relatively low stakes in creating a comic, as opposed to a film.
I was so unbelievably disappointed with Burton’s Dumbo, the original is a surprisingly creepy movie on rewatching it as an adult and I was expecting him to lean into that (minus the racist crows obviously). I mean, Tim Burton and the pink elephant scene should go hand in hand, it should look like the skeleton song from Corpse Bride dialled up to 10. But instead I don’t remember a single thing that happened, I only remember feeling bored and sad that it wasn’t what it should be.
I don't think using that much CGI was Burton's choice. See, set builders and creature designers are unionized; CGI artists aren't. So CGI is just cheaper, and the artists making it can be pressured into just about anything, which is something Disney has always done.
Something that bothers me so much now about Frankenweenie 2012 is how he could have used the character of Nassor the call out how racist the portrayal of Asian were in classic horror. The character was meant to make fun of Asian were portrayed in that era but really was just so gross.
Honestly I don’t think Alice In Wonderland and weren’t the right choice for Tim Burton. To me Haunted Mansion would’ve been a much better fit for Tim Burton. If you’ve been on the ride you know the ride just screams Tim Burton, especially with a PG-13 rating. I don’t mind Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow but I kinda wished Johnny Depp had played Master Edward Gracey instead. In Sleepy Hollow Johnny Depp looks exactly like the Edward Gracey portrait from the ride. Also it would be a more dramatic role for Depp. Which would have been great because I do want to see Johnny Depp do more dramatic roles like Edward Scissorhands, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and Finding Neverland. Granted I don’t think 2003, 2014 or 2023 would’ve been the right time. The 1990s would’ve been the best timing for a movie based on The Haunted Mansion directed by Tim Burton with a PG-13 rating.
I really loved Mars Attacks for years, but I haven’t gone back to watch it in a long time and now I’m a little scared to lose the magic of it by rewatching. 😭
Im old , so Ive been following him since the beginning and for me, he WAS a young artist with a fresh yet well referenced style-- but like any human outsider put on a pedestal, he’s ( predictably) become everything he once hated simply because he must have wanted ( ambition) to gain the privilege of selling out. I hope ( though it seems unlikely) that he does some original animated passion projects NOT starring Depp letting someone new and hungry write for him.
@@rachellydiab I think you also refer to Johnny Depp as "Burton" at one point when talking about the Mad Hatter but the syntax is just about ambiguous enough for you to get away with it. (shhh)
I think he took risks early on, but yeah I think he solidified as a person and so did his films. Big Fish certainly challenged him. If only he chose to challenge himself.
I clicked for the armless lady in the thumbnail. Stayed for the Tim Burton Essay. Good stuff! I recently watched ed wood for the first time, and absolutely loved it! Was very nice to have a peak Tim Burton film I’ve never seen.
I used to think that I like Burton's movies, since like 15 years ago when I had a "gothic phase", but this video proves that I actually don't, except for maybe two or three works
To be fair all “his” movies that where actually good and not just stylistically good to look at where created and written by other people he just directed them.
I don't like Tim Burton and most of his films but I'm also a punk who gets asked all the time what my favourite Burton film is. I always say it's Coraline (I'm more of a fan of Henry Selick and i know Burton had nothing to do with it).
As a first-time viewer, i am disappointed that i was not subscribed months ago. That being said, and now rectified, i really enjoyed this video essay. Now, I must binge through the rest of your library.
Loved the entire video, especially your critique of his Sweeney Todd adaptation. I watched the George Hearn and Angela Lansbury stage musical on VHS when I was in high school and it was the first musical to actually frighten me. Still thinking about some of the lyrics and that shrieking factory whistle gives me chills. I was excited to see the movie, and then so bored to apathy by it.
I just gotta say, i so fully agree about sweeney todd. I hadn’t seen the play before i saw the movie and i thought it was so lifeless and boring. Then i saw the play and it blew me away. The voices are so distinct and the delivery was so bright! I too hate the candy red blood in the desaturated world, it fully took me out of the world. I am still an mcr stan but a film shouldn’t look like a filter i used in my emo pictures at 15.
I think it's also important to mention about Tim Burton's art style, it would be nothing without Edward Gorey's illustrations. He has cited him as an influence himself. Great video!! 😊
I think one of the problems is also we forget ‘hit makers’ are just humans as well. We tend to god-i-fy them and really any and every artist who has ever made good art is proably destined to make some bad art along the way. A lot of Burton’s bad films aren’t terrible (I’ve seen terrible) but what they are is mid and forgettable. But because it is “Tim Burton” we tend to go ‘Burton flopped’. That being said, ever since he made his comments on forced diversity I’ve been turned off by him.
@@amethystimagination3332 definitely...the tiny snippets of the experience other directors have given us, even between nda's and wanting to keep getting work, still paint a bleak and suffocating picture...and they're not even the VFX team.
21:17 *cough* Bellucci *cough cough* But seriously, this is warranted criticism of the Burton. I forgot he was even attached to Wednesday and it kinda just makes me more disappointed that it turned out the way it did.
As a former Ed Wood/Edward Scissorhands teen stan, I feel extremely validated in my opinion that CGI killed Tim Burton (although I do enjoy the albeit terrible CGI campiness of Mars Attacks). I remember seeing Alice and wanting to cry, like he had betrayed an essential part of himself and his audience. I admittedly still haven't seen Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but I have hope for a return to form (preferably sans Johnny Depp).
I think it could’ve been bumped up to a B or a B+ if they trimmed the fat. Cut out Beetlejuice’s ex wife, cut out Willem Defoe, cut out Lydia’s fiancé, stop cutting back to Charles Deetz and just let him be dead. Keep it focused on Lydia and her daughter grieving Charles and the dead husband, with the ghost boy acting as a more obvious villain and Beetlejuice as the same old trickster Faustian character we know and love. There’s a good story in there it’s just been drowned out in a bunch of unnecessary subplots
@ it’s very clear that the script went through over 30 years of drafts and they wanted to keep a lot of ideas that didn’t quite go together. I just also found Lydia really out of character and didn’t like how meek she is in the sequel.
Re: Sweeney Todd: After having watched Burton's version a few times, I caught a televised version of the play with George Hearns and Angela Lansbury. At one point, I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is supposed to be a *comedy*, huh?"
genuinely can't get over Burton complaining about political correctness in *checks notes* the 1970s with the Brady Bunch?? LMAO god, that's so pathetic.
I've never been a fan of Burton. I really like Batman Returns and Corpse Bride, but I find his films themes to be very emotionally unsatisfying and/or surface level.
Can we talk about the rumor that Tim Burton was supposed to direct an American McGee's Alice film and how that live action Alice felt like he was trying to do just that, but within the confines of Disney?
For me I think it’s just a matter of how counter culture iconography of yesteryear has been adopted into more contemporary “normie” pop culture. The visuals and themes of Tim Burton isn’t subversive anymore, at least not like it was during the 80s and 90s, rather now you’ve got everyone adopting it’s imagery not so much because it speaks to them as social outcasts but because it’s trendy. His movies don’t feel unique anymore, they’ve kind of taken on the Disney affect where the style is so recognizable it almost feels disingenuine to itself. I think of other auteur directors like Wes Anderson who has a very distinct style but constantly innovates with each film, rather than finding something that works and just sticking to it like Tim has done. It comes across as complacent and removed from the audience
I think it's ironic that TB gets associated so much with stop motion, when he actually does none of it himself. Even with 'Vincent', he didn't do any of the actual animation work and yet gets associated with doing it. Like he would years later with TNBC, even though Henry Selick absolutely directed that movie (and is an actual animator himself). Yes, Burton began as an animator, but in the hand drawn tradition. I think he started going downhill with Alice in Wonderland (a weird title as that mess is clearly a sequel to the book), and when he began lazily casting Depp/Bonham in a string of films, one after the other. As much as I actually like Sweeney Todd, it's bizarre to mostly have actors who clearly can't sing...in what's meant to be a musical?? For me, Burton's greatest movie is 'Ed Wood' and has yet to be bettered. It's quirky, yet deals with real issues...hilarious at points, yet also moving...childlish, yet very adult. Big Fish is the nearest he's come back to that.
I saw Alice in Wonderland once, in the theater, in 3D, with the idea I'd probably find it boring and muddled looking without the 3D. The funny thing is that one of the pieces preceding it was far trippier and more 3D than the movie: an CG-animated Friskies commercial. Admittedly it was much shorter than a movie, but it was amazing and didn't do Alice any favors. I was watching a Stargate hovering in space and a cat leaning over toward me to grab fish out of the water with its paws thinking Alice in Wonderland would be that mindblowing too, but the movie looked flatter and grayer. I heard it was filmed regular-style first, then turned into 3D, and if so it shows.
Honestly, I think the first Alice (2010) is the best iteration of the story, likewise and story wise. Alice isn't a story meant to be on screen, it hasn't the structure to be a movie. About the settings, I can understand your point
Absolutely captivating. No matter the subject matter, you are a joy to watch and listen too. Everything you do is obviously purposeful and enchants your audience in the process. This of course isn't in regards to the specific subject pertained to this video. However I just had mention how much excitement I feel for the journey I am about to go one every time you post a new video.
I feel Burton lost his edge since Sleepy Hollow. That's my honest opinion. I was very disappointed by Beetlejuice Beetlejuice despite all the hype, the practical effects and quick shooting time. I also dislike the amount of CGI that he has depended on in his recent works.
The best scenes in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice where when the three Deetz women were together. Burton has show very poor ability to direct actors who aren't already on board with his vision.
Some filmmakers really do have a wheelhouse, and it’s obvious when they step outside of it. Burton’s wheelhouse is very specific, and there are many things he’s just not good at. For instance he seems to do much better when he’s directing his own material, ( or more specifically personal stories )rather than adapting someone else’s. Likewise he does much better using practical effects in his films than CGI. ( the same could be said for George Lucas as well ), in the hands of a master any tool can give incredible results, but Burton is not a master of digital effects work.
you're my favorite channel, and the fact that we got an almost 1 hour video AAAAAA I'm so excited to hear your analysis. also I feel dumb trying to promote myself lol but just in case anyone's interested, I make lil' video essays on girly movies and media in general, so, anyways gonna watch this video now hehe
Tim Burton is ultimately an artist who was a pioneering outsider weirdo auteur like 2 decades ago, but he has not really evolved beyond the mindset of the "weirdo shaking things up," even now that he is one of the most celebrated and mainstream directors in the West-a household name with a visual language that is immediately recognizable in film canon. IMO his work has grown stale for lack of a better word because he still believes that his attachment to a project alone is enough to make it exciting and subversive but this far into his career, it really really is not. It seems that he is unaware of the fact that freaky little Jughead-Riverdale-type white men are like thee archetype for 'auteur' directors and that the aforementioned "weirdo" jugheads practically run the industry, and that has given him a blindspot for what is actually subversive and what points of view are actually seen as strange and marginalized. He's no longer _shaking_ the boat, he is steering it, and his ass is not taking it somewhere exciting
By the by, something i learned recently: a large amount of freshly shed blood does not look how you think it does. It looks too pink, too bright, and kinda burtonesque. If anything id say his over saturation is accurate, just the shades too red. I know how that sounds, but, yeah. Probably because most of us only see that much blood if its old blood or in a movie anyway
As someone who only watched a weak college adaptation of Sweeney Todd as a musical, I really love that movie and always will, but I can see where you're coming from. I definitely don't see how it would be his weakest film though.
I didn’t watch beetlejuice beetlejuice because a friend told me it had a similar storyline to the musical but the musical executed it better. I was quite disappointed with Wednesday, especially with the monster, it lacks a lot to be memorable and it just looks silly.
Watching Wednesday, I was so confused why Morticia and Gomez would hide the fact that that dude died. Like thats something they'd reminisce about over dinner one episode and in the next morticia's pregnant
Sweeney Todd is just a dumpster fire in so many directions. A lot of the score was left out. That was mistake #1, but besides that, Helena Bonham Carter said in an interview that they had Stephen Sondheim work with her (and I'm assuming the other main actors too) and she was told by him to keep everything toned down from the stage play. Like, the whole production was just in some weird emo phase or something where everything has to be dark and deadpan
I'm both a big Burton fan and a big Addams family fan so it's insane how bored I was watching Wednesday. It's inferior to the two live action movies and also to the old black and white serie (it's still better than the animated movies tho)
I think Peregrine's would make a better anime series. Animation is a medium which helps you suspend disbelief and would not "pull you out of the story" with distracting CGI. But also, with a cast that large, it needed A LOT more time to make us care about the kids. Needs to be at least a mini-series to do any justice
Am I the only was that was irked out of my mind by the Soul Train scene in the recent Beetlejuice movie? To imply that all dead Black people instantaneously sprout a 60-inch afro and shimmy their way to the Train of Death with a smile on their face and not a care in the world really bothered me. I don’t know who came up with the idea for that segment in the film, but count your days LMAO
I’ve said this on nearly all Tim Burton related films but I feel strongly that his “down” period came from the fact he became a parent. Cause those early films have a perversion to them. Not that they lack heart or are overly horny, but there is a dirty sense of humour that underlines their anarchic edge. Then again, Planet of the Apes hints at funky monkey business and it’s shit. Plus I’ve not seen all his films post Alice so I may very well be talking out my arse 🤔 Aye probably that
I don't know. I mean I loved your essay! But I think part of what makes Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland so amazing is that cgi kind-of barroque (as in overflowing with stuff), bizarre aesthetic. It really cements the idea that this is a fantasy world, a "dream", eerie and fabricated.
7:51 - this scene is from one of my favorite alice in wonderland adaptations and hallmark entertainment's best movie. it was made back in 1999 and whole cast is the best one 'til this day. 💗👍 eveything about this movie is absolutely the best of the best for a tv movie and it is one of the best movies of my tween years.
For all the PoC folks let down by Burton, you should watch Henry Selick's film Wendell and Wild! The protagonist is a black goth teen, it has his signature amazing stop motion animation and it's a great time!
omg thank you saying what needed to be said about Sweeney Todd! i had watched the movie once when i was a teenager and remembered enjoying it, but then tried to rewatch it recently and couldn't get through the part when Helena Bonham-Carter sings for the first time and it's like nearly ear-grating for me. I wish other actors had been chosen who could sing cause I think I would've enjoyed the movie a lot more, but Burton is dead set on Depp and Helena being in every movie he makes sooo *shrug*
Right!! HBC was probably the worst part of the film (and les mis) - I think she's wonderful but she just wasn't right. I don't think Depp actually brought anything particularly unique to Todd once you know what the stage musical is like to start with!
@rachellydiab fully agree! I will have to check out an actual stage performance to get my Sweeney fix I guess, because I do love the story, setting, vibe, and all that, buuuutttttt not their singing lol
love everything youre doing with your channel and your vids are banger after banger. just watched martyrs based on your rec and i think it has hurt me in a way i cant put into words; what an experience! i am always so envious of your ability to digest movies in such a profound way and i think im trying to learn how to do so somewhat vicariously through your channel. anyways, love your channel and im super excited to see anything you put out!
Well it was the scripts for both Beetlejuice 2 and Wednesday. I'm not even sure how much involvement he had in Wednesday as it doesn't even resemble anything of his and I just realized that he didn't write the scripts for a lot of his movies.
The Beetlejuice sequel was absolutely terrible. It wasn’t quirky. It was heavy. It wasn’t funny. It was just dark. It was crowded with useless villains and storylines that seem illogical to the original film’s established underworld lore. It was not performed well. The main cast seemed to have forgotten who their characters were and they just repeated their “Schitt’s Creek” or “Stranger Things” characters. The music was senseless and lacked the whimsical humor of the original. I think everyone who said they liked the sequel either had their judgement clouded with nostalgia or they don’t want to be honest about the awkwardly bad sequel at the risk of sounding negative. The first film had a fun ending that balanced the living with the dead. The sequel had a sad, dark and gory ending where Lydia seems traumatized forever. The first film made everyone want to buy it or rent it and watch it multiple times. I couldn’t wait for the lousy sequel to end and don’t intend to ever watch it again.
He has delivered two good films imo. 1. Nightmare Before Christmas, which he actually had barely anything to do with in the end but has ridden its success ever since... (Poor Selick) 2. Batman Forever. That's it.
hi!!
I want to draw attention to screenwriter Caroline Thompson as one of the keys to Burtons successes. I don’t mention her in the video, but she wrote the screenplays for Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare before Christmas (dir. H. Selick) and The Corpse Bride. Suspiciously… Burtons best films, imo.
She also wrote The Addams Family, The Secret Garden and Black Beauty!!
Props to Caroline for her incredible work and sorry I didn’t highlight her in the video. I think it’s pretty clear that she is a huge part of the Burton-credited magic of yesteryear.
Caroline Thompson's Henry Selick's Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
@jvgreendarmok literally hahahaha
Caroline Thompson afforded Burton's characters the heart that they couldn't express simply through visual means. Viewing Burton's films as a child, she allowed me to squint through the initial fear that I experienced observing Burton's character designs, delving deeper into more complex emotions and their essential goodness, further enhanced by Danny Elfman's scores. Caroline is truly such a master-weaver of fantasy, and her female counterparts yielded some of my favourite childhood characters in film.
As an added bonus, my Dad would play Oingo Boingo records for me as a child and exclaim "That's Jack Skellington!". Confusing code-switching.
Omg there are NO video essays on her that I can find :O I was going to look her up... a batch of interviews but no biography.
Go back and edit her into the video.
Burton's outlook on the industry is the embodiment of that one scene in Meet The Robinsons where Bowler Hat Guy is recounting his classmates "hating him" while they are all excitingly greeting him 😂🤣
"They all hated me..." 😂
Literally.
You'd think after all these years he'd have grown up.
@@reneedailey1696 people around him coddled him and his delusions. . I really wouldn't be surprised if those around him just smile and nod while he's talking like the modern day Joker lol 🤣😂
As a Black fan of Tim Burton, I have always known that my participation in his worlds is one-sided: I see myself possibly existing in them, but he does not. I hadn’t been aware that people have been talking about him ‘losing the magic’, but the longer his career has gone on the harder it has become for me to engage with his work. He seems stuck in an American past where POC were relegated to subservient or unobtrusive positions on the sidelines. I liked his aesthetic, but I prefer to be (at minimum) acknowledged to exist. His failure to grow or change in this area is pretty damning, imo.
Black people can be in his films...as...skeletons 💀
So he is bad now because he is not politically correct?
But there's millions of artists who don't include black people in their works because they draw based on their lives and no one cares that they do that. Tim Burton grew up in white suburbia and watched German expressionist movies, which on account of being made in Germany, lack black people. No one is stopping you from making art inspired by Burton that includes black people. You need to get over yourself, it's his art and movies, he can make what he likes, I suggest you do the same as him.
@@lainiwakura1776 "Tim Burton doesn't know any black people" isn't the defense you think it is omg
It’s really frustrating too because his whole argument is that POC don’t “fit his aesthetic” but I feel like in the same way he emphasizes whiteness by making his characters very pale and ghost-like, it would be equally beautiful to emphasize blackness. Like if he had someone like Anok Yai in his films I feel like it would add the perfect foil and depth to the vibes.
He always makes me think of that "I'm weird. I'm a weirdo" monologue from Riverdale. Tim Burton is a normie even compared to other mainstream horror directors like Clive Barker. As a society, we have moved past Tim Burton films. Put black people in your movie or perish, casuals.
yesss hahaha i almost used this clip!
Except in that Riverdale monologue, the character delivering it was just forced into a situation he had explicitly told his girlfriend gave him social anxiety and it was his girlfriend who forced him into it. So there's actually a *reason* for him to be annoyed. Tim Burton doesn't. No one is making him do anything. He's a rich dude.
Burton is pretty much goth.
I'm pretty sure Tim is autistic so just that makes him not a normie.
Nah he can be cool again, i don't think people who still have it in them can expire like this, it's extreme to think so. Even more when he has Indeed learned from his mistakes and has at least 3 of his produccions have black, and latino people in them. Even if they are not black focused BC they are not black and won't tell those stories with the respecto and details needed (like Sofia Coppola, she writers for the white, rich girls and if anyone colores appears it won't be upfront and it's fine bc she can Give that space but not as a Spotlight bc she isnt coloured, same as Burton!) We need inclusion not forced perspective, and Tim has already changed that. We don't forgive people on the internet apparently, rapists sure, but someone admitting and changeing yey still being Haunted shows we can't move on. If people are forever chased no one will ever change. Efforts must be appreciated or at least i think so. (I'm from Latinoamérica we do have different conceptions of racismo and usually think that américa is too sensitive with it when things have obviously changed for the better at least a little lately, do correct me bc i don't live there.)
PS: i don't know if he changed how he talks about POC, but the steriotype question with the soul train just makes me think he is doing what he always does Charicatures, and those require steriotypes. I hope i'm right bc if i'm just blind or hopeful or defending him with no context it's gonna be sad (i'm a normal person not a politician or a celebrity and i educate myself as it comes to me, so don't come for my neck, i'm not someone in Power and i do want to learn)
19:04 I’m relieved to hear someone critique the show Wednesday. It seems to have just eclipsed a lot of other Addams family media for people and it makes me kind of sad. There were some great moments in the show, some iconic pieces, and Jenna Ortega was born to play her but the whole is basically just content instead of something actually amazing. I think people got caught up on the surface level of the show when the live action movies many are familiar with managed to go so much deeper. Part of what I loved about the Addams was that they were weird and quirky (which I love) but more importantly they obviously adored each other deeply even the siblings. They might do kooky crud to each other but there’s definitely still a deep bond between them. Any time we see her interact with her family in the show Wednesday it sits wrong with me, there seems to be underhandedness, mistrust and almost contempt for each other, especially between her and Morticia, and I don’t want that to be the new legacy of the Addams. There was no need for it. I don’t know whose choice that was, whether that’s a reflection of Burtons hand, but parts of the other character dynamics and storyline do line up with some of his other works.
YES that rubbed me the wrong way from the first episode. The whole reason the Addams’ work is the whole dichotomy of their black humor absurdity and legitimately wholesome love they have for one another. It’s endearing. Making Wednesday an edgy teen who’s annoyed with her family for the sake of highlighting her as a troubled outcast doesn’t work within the themes of what the Addams Family stands for, to the point where she may as well be a different character. Honestly remove any and all imagery/reference to the Addams franchise and nothing changes; could have easily been an original story
I refuse to watch Wednesday, it doesn't feel like the Addams family in the least, it feels like some run of the mill YA novel and I really don't like that. I also take umbridge with Wednesday changing her clothes outside of the dance, her whole thing is that dress and twin braids.
@@oliviab4079 Yes, in the previous versions her mother championed her for being a troubled outcast and even encouraged it!
The show only exists because Netflix wanted some kind of teen show with a supernatural twist to compete with other shows out there. Shows based off a property get more views hence The Addams Family. Though the show really has no understanding what makes The Addams Family works. They work when they are critiquing quote on quote "normal society" with their wholesome macabre antics. Putting Wednesday in a magical school defeats that. Jenna Ortega is great and she shines with what she is given. That show I'd nothing without her. There's a reason the show's most iconic scene is a result of her work and not Burton's.
@@lisahoshowsky4251 gkad to see other people find the whole thing meh beyond some lucky casting choices
As a poc that grew up watching and loving Tim Burton films, his comments truly hurt me at the time. I was always seen as one of the weird kids at school, so his films and main characters really resonated with me, and I could envision myself in his world. Hearing that he didn’t really want me to part of it, just made me feel like an outcast again. But hey, that’s his loss I suppose.
Corpse Bride is originally a jewish folktale set during the pogrom time of tsarist russia. I was so angry when I found out that Burton knew this and chose to actively christianise the story and now I can't enjoy the movie anymore😠
Dont feel too bad. Oogie Boogie Man is a racist slur, and associated with gambling (the way Black men used to be) and that makes watching one of my all-time favorite movies kinda hard to watch knowing that. He was told it was a racist caricature and decided he would make that character anyway!
"The Oogie Boogie character looks like a Klansman [from the Ku Klux Klan]. Oogie Boogie is a derogatory term for African Americans in the American south. I begged the powers that be to change something about that character, because of that. I said: this is so ugly and dangerous and antithetical to everything inside me. I did not win that fight... It was a troubling part of the film for me, to be frank. Plus, his song is sang by a black man. So it's like a trifecta of wrongness. And as I said, I really did beg Tim to reconsider. Particularly the name... it's a really evil derogatory term. That's not a fight I won. I think it's a fun segment of the story as it was executed but it's a troubling one."
Read More: www.slashfilm.com/577533/the-nightmare-before-christmas-the-nightmare-before-christmas-is-oogie-boogie-racist/
The main character in "Miss Peregrine's" is also Jewish in the book but not in the film. In the book, he assumes that when his grandfather would go away on "hunting trips" that he was out killing escaped fascists and not monsters or super power people or whoever the actual villains were. It's also why the kid accepted why his Grandpa didn't want to talk about his youth. I have heard that the movie leaves all of that out.
In the book Ms Peregrine’s tackles a lot of themes connected to the holocaust including the mc’s grandfather being a holocaust survivor too
From my personal experience it seems like a lot of white cis men who identify as outcasts or “weirdos” feel like if they acknowledge POC and their struggles it shows just how privileged they really are and negates their outsider status
What does it even mean? 😂
YUP.
It smashes the illusion that they're marginalized.
Tea
it quite literally is this. white women have their own version. also able-bodied people as it relates to disabled folks, etc
You can't say your fighting the establishment and refuse to conform then do two live action disney remakes.
4! 😂 He's a sell out 🤷🏻♀️
In Alice's defense, Tim only agreed to do that film just so that Disney will give him the funds to do Frankinwheenie
We were robbed from Allan Rickman's sexual torment?! Unacceptable
I'm going to be honest, as someone who was only introduced to Burton as a cynical sjw teen, I could never get past the pedestalling of what is essentially the gothic version of a manic pixie dream girl. Once you notice his romantic inclinations, it feels like every main (lovable) woman in his stories is written the same way, and it gets boring so easily. I've never really been able to watch his stuff as a result, so I'm glad someone else is analysing them for me
It's ok you can say Hellen Bonham Carter
another hit, as expected! i watched a different video essay on burton recently that focused on his outcast-ness, but i appreciate your take on this much more. he makes me think of the scene from meet the robinsons where the villain is like "they all hated me" but everyone is saying hi and trying to engage with him
Meet the Robinsons is one of my favorite movies and it's underappreciated imo
Tim Burton is a great visual director. His movies are made or broken by who is writing/producing behind them. Side Note: I am also glad to hear that you thought "Wednesday" was boring. I also thought the writing was so bad, the show, cast and audience deserved better.
cool girls have fan fiction writing pasts!!
The coolest ones have fanfiction presents
Some cool girlies have both!
Agreed
No thanks, being an outcast and a nerd was fine by me.
@@saltoftheegg No, the coolest ones get them published with names changed so as not to infringe on copyright.
I used to like some Tim Burton things because as an Uzbek American, I'm an outsider. There's only fifty thousand of us in the US so there's never, ever anyone quite like me present unless they're family. I'm always the weirdo and always subject to interrogation. My brother was ruthlessly bullied as a kid for having dark skin and red hair, which is part of our heritage (red hair pops up in Uzbekistan in people with much darker skin than you see in white people). Edward Scissorhands meant a lot to us. But in Tim Burton's Alice, everyone who looks physically different, with an odd body or a big head or any other difference, is antagonistic. Goodness is personified in the most conventionally attractive and normal looking person present. That killed my interest in his work. It feels like that movie ripped away the illusion of rooting for the outsider and became more about leaning into the old, tired trope of Beauty Equals Goodness. And that's not a world I want to spend any time in.
I try to find myself in the feeling of the characters, not on what they look like.
I never saw a movie made by outsiders who represent my county faithfully or my people beyond some stereotypes.
He's movies still has his style, he is just not appealing to modern sensibilities. Which I think it's the real criticism. People try to push him to make movies about what they want, not what he wants.
@eduardmanecuta5350 in visual mediums, you get a feel of a character through how they look, and their styling or bodies etc are part of that, so to say that you're able to distance yourself from that and "find yourself in the feeling of the character" is just incorrect.
@@RaeD-u8y Pardon me if I didn't made myself understood. English is not my primary language.
I said that I find myself in how they feel, in the idea of being an outsider. I don't try to search for characters that look like me or speak like me in order to apreciate the character or the movie.
Directors shouldn't be constricted just because people feel the need that they need to be represented in their work. It's their work.
Also, I said that my country and my people were never properly represented by foreigners.
The thing about Sweeny Todd is that it doesn’t know who it’s audience is, and inadvertently feels like a parody of a Burton film in itself 😭
It feels like it was made for hot topic merch
As someone who loves Sweeney Todd, and the penny dreadful it is adapted from, a string of pearls.
I fucking hated Tim Burton's movie. Trash garbage honestly
Every time someone is like "I love Burton's Sweeney Todd!" I'm kind of like "clarifying question: is that the only version of the story that you know? Have you considered watching a bootleg of the original Broadway musical? Or just listening to a soundtrack from the stage play?"
@arbyswitch5580 sounds like quite an angry and gatekeeper attitude. I actually have to deal with this most of the time I talk about Sweeney Todd. As a francophone in a town where there was no access to such plays (and even knowledge of them), Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd changed my life. It made me want to become an actor, it put me on the path of training, and opened me up to the world of theatre. The movie was a gateway, as I then proceeded to watch every version of the play I could find online and obsessed over them. I had the chance now to see the revival on Broadway in person and am still thankful to Burton's version. It may not be comedic, but I have a feeling it just would not translate well on screen. Sondheim said in an interview that he liked the movie, unlike other movie adaptations of his work.
I can understand the criticism of the movie, but there is a place to enjoy both.
@@arbyswitch5580 yes, I have seen the play, multiple versions of it in fact, yes, I have read the penny dreadful that was written in 1846, and yes, I enjoyed the film. It's an enjoyable adaptation. It's really not that deep
With Scissorhands, you gotta member: this was before Tim Burton was a style, he was just an unknown, unproven (sorta). It was a time where the 90s were on the horizon and people were hungry for something new and different. Thats how this quirky little film ended up attracting so much attemtion.
To me, the fact that many people, including me, feel like Tim Burton's films don't work like they used to is because we aged. I was a pasty white loner in my youth, and Tim Burton's films resonated with me. I saw myself in these lonely strange and unusual characters, in Burton's art style. He's the director who made me love cinema. Thanks to him, I discovered Hammer films and even wrote a thesis on them. But I grew older. I realized what monster could be, and what they always were in films and litterature. They are the Other, queer people, marginalized people, and as I learned that, I wanted Burton to learn this too. I wanted to see him evolve, I wanted to see him tackle things like Guillermo Del Toro, Bram Stoker, Clive Barker and many other authors and filmakers understood. I wanted Tim Burton's films to hit me like they did when I was a 10 years old lonely white kid. But I'm not that kid anymore, I know how society works, I know what the monsters are, and I would love for Tim Burton's film to grow and evolve too. Tropes evolve, we need films to evolve too.
I think that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice almost got there, but there were simply too many plotlines to give any of them depth. I actually think he's actually hit on an alternative kind of monster - not society against the protagonist, but the abuses of power entitled (nearly always Caucasian) men will do when they don't get their way. As someone who has been deeply harmed by men who told me they loved me, I think one of his scariest monsters is that guy from Big Eyes. The dude in BB who tried to steal Astrid's soul is also way up there on my list. Also that kid from Wednesday (I'm still not totally 100% on the metaphors or actual plot there tho. he was monster bc he was grieving? Was it just hereditary? I honestly don't remember)
@@arbyswitch5580I think it was hereditary but he was able to be “controlled” because of the grieving? It was convoluted…
@@heatherhaven1268 thank you 💕 thought I was the only one who had a hard time
Maybe that's the thing. He keep making the movies he wanted, not what others want.
If you are familiar with the orignal works that he adapted, and you like them, you most likely wouldn't like his versions.
I like the aesthetics and atmosphere of his movies.
@eduardmanecuta5350 I honestly don't believe he has much pride in most of his more recent output considering when asked about his experience working on things like Dumbo he just bitched and moaned about how much it sucked to work for Disney again. Also from what I've heard (haven't seen Dumbo, don't really intend to) the movie is devoid of soul or aesthetic.
As a fan of the broadway musical version of Sweeney Todd, I actually really like the film, precisely because of the direction it went in. The film focuses more on Sweeney's face, and tone of the colors (vibrant and golden when Lucy was still "alive", and then gray and sallow in the present, representing Sweeney's perception of London, and by extension, the world) greatly implies that the movie focuses on the tale of Sweeney Todd... through the lense of Sweeney himself. The stageplay is a comedic, almost satirical take on the tale of Sweeney Todd, and the lyrics of the ballad (which was left out in the film for an instrumental, only leaving in the crucial melody portion featuring the dies irae), which implies that we, the audience, are seeing a reenactment, poking fun at how insane it all sounds. I love both, simply because they're so vastly different from each other, and also because it's a great movie musical in it of itself, despite the different interpretation and cuts to the music. Although I was never a fan of them cutting out Joanna and Anthony's songs and the scene in the asylum.
THANKYOU I feel like Burton is just so...meh lately. He's always been a sort of safe horror, but the safe creative choices now are sad Especially Wednesday- it didn't have any Addams Family flavour to me, it could have been any mediocre teen drama. Honestly felt like it was just there to snag viewers who had just grown out of Monster High. It's all just the aesthetics without any of the spirit of the previous work. He had a chance to do something interesting with the story, characters and art design, and flubbed it in both cases.
The cynical part of me thinks Netflix may have reigned it in a lot with Wednesday but still, it didn't have to look so fucking boring and she didn't have to just be a stereotypical grumpy teen in a black dress.
In his defense... He barely directed on Wednesday, most episodes weren't directed by him
I've never been a big fan of Tim Burton, though now I'd like to go back and watch a few of his earlier films. But when you showed his early art for Disney, I was quite startled to realize that his style is very familiar to me - variations on his approach were common among cartoonists and graphic novelists in the 90s. For example, Sam Kieth's work from that period could often be mistaken for Burton's, the style is so similar. But there were many others who were working in similar ways to combine horror, humor, surrealism, hyperbole, and pop culture references. Examples: Jhonen Vasquez, Dave McKean, Mike Mignola, Dave Sim, Hideshi Hino, Jim Woodring, and Peter Bagge. All had and have different emphases, but if you compare them to Tim Burton, it's obvious their style derives from the same or very similar impulses and influences. You can also see similar approaches in artists who started later - such as Ben Templesmith, James Stokoe, Skottie Young, and Daniel Warren Johnson. It makes me wonder what we might have gotten if Burton had ever chosen to work in comics. He would not be as rich, but he would have had much more creative freedom, given the relatively low stakes in creating a comic, as opposed to a film.
I was so unbelievably disappointed with Burton’s Dumbo, the original is a surprisingly creepy movie on rewatching it as an adult and I was expecting him to lean into that (minus the racist crows obviously). I mean, Tim Burton and the pink elephant scene should go hand in hand, it should look like the skeleton song from Corpse Bride dialled up to 10. But instead I don’t remember a single thing that happened, I only remember feeling bored and sad that it wasn’t what it should be.
ALSO Batman featuring score by Danny Elfman and original songs by Prince. Movies were crazy,
I don't think using that much CGI was Burton's choice. See, set builders and creature designers are unionized; CGI artists aren't. So CGI is just cheaper, and the artists making it can be pressured into just about anything, which is something Disney has always done.
Something that bothers me so much now about Frankenweenie 2012 is how he could have used the character of Nassor the call out how racist the portrayal of Asian were in classic horror. The character was meant to make fun of Asian were portrayed in that era but really was just so gross.
Honestly I don’t think Alice In Wonderland and weren’t the right choice for Tim Burton. To me Haunted Mansion would’ve been a much better fit for Tim Burton. If you’ve been on the ride you know the ride just screams Tim Burton, especially with a PG-13 rating.
I don’t mind Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow but I kinda wished Johnny Depp had played Master Edward Gracey instead. In Sleepy Hollow Johnny Depp looks exactly like the Edward Gracey portrait from the ride. Also it would be a more dramatic role for Depp. Which would have been great because I do want to see Johnny Depp do more dramatic roles like Edward Scissorhands, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and Finding Neverland.
Granted I don’t think 2003, 2014 or 2023 would’ve been the right time. The 1990s would’ve been the best timing for a movie based on The Haunted Mansion directed by Tim Burton with a PG-13 rating.
hot take on mars attacks and you're right, the puppets would've been sick
I really loved Mars Attacks for years, but I haven’t gone back to watch it in a long time and now I’m a little scared to lose the magic of it by rewatching. 😭
Could they do a reverse George Lucas and replace the CGI with stop motion?
You have no idea how HAPPY makes me that you talked about Hansel and Gretel 💖
Im old , so Ive been following him since the beginning and for me, he WAS a young artist with a fresh yet well referenced style-- but like any human outsider put on a pedestal, he’s ( predictably) become everything he once hated simply because he must have wanted ( ambition) to gain the privilege of selling out. I hope ( though it seems unlikely) that he does some original animated passion projects NOT starring Depp letting someone new and hungry write for him.
So what I’m hearing is..more films by henry selick! (as long as he doesn’t also suck, I didn’t do research before commenting)
I believe he does not suck haha - his last film had an all POC cast!
22:15 lmao monica bellucci not lewinsky
@@keithsteinman3796 omfg
came here to say the same lmfaoooo
@@rachellydiab I think you also refer to Johnny Depp as "Burton" at one point when talking about the Mad Hatter but the syntax is just about ambiguous enough for you to get away with it. (shhh)
@@jvgreendarmokI clocked that, too, but we knew who she meant, so it isn’t a huge deal.
@@kallandar13 He's practically a Burton by now anyway.
did he ever had the 'magic'? I mean, i think he's just a one-trick pony. enough to tickle the fancy of edgy adolescence but not beyond that.
@@phangkuanhoong7967 youre so brave for saying this
I think he took risks early on, but yeah I think he solidified as a person and so did his films. Big Fish certainly challenged him. If only he chose to challenge himself.
@arbyswitch5580 what's 'Brave' about saying that exactly? I must have missed something
I clicked for the armless lady in the thumbnail. Stayed for the Tim Burton Essay. Good stuff! I recently watched ed wood for the first time, and absolutely loved it! Was very nice to have a peak Tim Burton film I’ve never seen.
I used to think that I like Burton's movies, since like 15 years ago when I had a "gothic phase", but this video proves that I actually don't, except for maybe two or three works
To be fair all “his” movies that where actually good and not just stylistically good to look at where created and written by other people he just directed them.
I don't like Tim Burton and most of his films but I'm also a punk who gets asked all the time what my favourite Burton film is. I always say it's Coraline (I'm more of a fan of Henry Selick and i know Burton had nothing to do with it).
I love Coraline but hate that Neil Gaiman wrote it. Have always disliked him and now with all the allegations against him I dislike him even more
As a first-time viewer, i am disappointed that i was not subscribed months ago. That being said, and now rectified, i really enjoyed this video essay. Now, I must binge through the rest of your library.
@@Cwibacca Aaah thank u sm haha - I hope u enjoy 🌹
Loved the entire video, especially your critique of his Sweeney Todd adaptation. I watched the George Hearn and Angela Lansbury stage musical on VHS when I was in high school and it was the first musical to actually frighten me. Still thinking about some of the lyrics and that shrieking factory whistle gives me chills. I was excited to see the movie, and then so bored to apathy by it.
I love Sweeney Todd (the musical) so much and honestly the movie kind of felt like an insult to people who legitimately like Sweeney Todd
@@arbyswitch5580 Indeed, it was massively disappointing. I wanted so badly for it to be awesome. 😕
I loved this so much, and for anyone else looking for more like it, Lola Sebastian and Broey Deschanel both did equally fantastic essays!
I just gotta say, i so fully agree about sweeney todd. I hadn’t seen the play before i saw the movie and i thought it was so lifeless and boring. Then i saw the play and it blew me away. The voices are so distinct and the delivery was so bright! I too hate the candy red blood in the desaturated world, it fully took me out of the world. I am still an mcr stan but a film shouldn’t look like a filter i used in my emo pictures at 15.
I think it's also important to mention about Tim Burton's art style, it would be nothing without Edward Gorey's illustrations. He has cited him as an influence himself.
Great video!! 😊
I think one of the problems is also we forget ‘hit makers’ are just humans as well. We tend to god-i-fy them and really any and every artist who has ever made good art is proably destined to make some bad art along the way.
A lot of Burton’s bad films aren’t terrible (I’ve seen terrible) but what they are is mid and forgettable. But because it is “Tim Burton” we tend to go ‘Burton flopped’.
That being said, ever since he made his comments on forced diversity I’ve been turned off by him.
it was the disney collabs where the cynicism really jumped out
To be fair I think working for Disney would suck the life out of me too
@@amethystimagination3332 definitely...the tiny snippets of the experience other directors have given us, even between nda's and wanting to keep getting work, still paint a bleak and suffocating picture...and they're not even the VFX team.
You put into words what I've always felt about his movies and why for the past few years I've felt more annoyed by him than inspired
the quote from Katya? u killed me. keep going! love your content
21:17 *cough* Bellucci *cough cough* But seriously, this is warranted criticism of the Burton. I forgot he was even attached to Wednesday and it kinda just makes me more disappointed that it turned out the way it did.
As a former Ed Wood/Edward Scissorhands teen stan, I feel extremely validated in my opinion that CGI killed Tim Burton (although I do enjoy the albeit terrible CGI campiness of Mars Attacks). I remember seeing Alice and wanting to cry, like he had betrayed an essential part of himself and his audience. I admittedly still haven't seen Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but I have hope for a return to form (preferably sans Johnny Depp).
Also the blatant racism in failing to extend his stories to POC experiences was a pretty immediate nail in the coffin (lol see what I did?) for me.
BB is like C Tier Burton, we've just been getting F Tier for so long that we're seeing C as amazing
Tbh it's like God tier for Burton...he's just not this God figure y'all act like he is
I think it could’ve been bumped up to a B or a B+ if they trimmed the fat. Cut out Beetlejuice’s ex wife, cut out Willem Defoe, cut out Lydia’s fiancé, stop cutting back to Charles Deetz and just let him be dead. Keep it focused on Lydia and her daughter grieving Charles and the dead husband, with the ghost boy acting as a more obvious villain and Beetlejuice as the same old trickster Faustian character we know and love. There’s a good story in there it’s just been drowned out in a bunch of unnecessary subplots
@ it’s very clear that the script went through over 30 years of drafts and they wanted to keep a lot of ideas that didn’t quite go together. I just also found Lydia really out of character and didn’t like how meek she is in the sequel.
Absolutely adore your video essays, so eloquent and insightful. I also LOVE your Trixie & Katya references as I’m OBSESSED with them ❤️
I enjoy all his movies (yes, all of them, but for different reasons), but I do wish he would take more risks.
Re: Sweeney Todd: After having watched Burton's version a few times, I caught a televised version of the play with George Hearns and Angela Lansbury. At one point, I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is supposed to be a *comedy*, huh?"
genuinely can't get over Burton complaining about political correctness in *checks notes* the 1970s with the Brady Bunch?? LMAO god, that's so pathetic.
I've never been a fan of Burton. I really like Batman Returns and Corpse Bride, but I find his films themes to be very emotionally unsatisfying and/or surface level.
I'm so glad I'm not the only person who did a massive eye roll when the Soul Train Scene showed up
Can we talk about the rumor that Tim Burton was supposed to direct an American McGee's Alice film and how that live action Alice felt like he was trying to do just that, but within the confines of Disney?
was NOT expecting a katya mention right off the bat
For me I think it’s just a matter of how counter culture iconography of yesteryear has been adopted into more contemporary “normie” pop culture. The visuals and themes of Tim Burton isn’t subversive anymore, at least not like it was during the 80s and 90s, rather now you’ve got everyone adopting it’s imagery not so much because it speaks to them as social outcasts but because it’s trendy. His movies don’t feel unique anymore, they’ve kind of taken on the Disney affect where the style is so recognizable it almost feels disingenuine to itself. I think of other auteur directors like Wes Anderson who has a very distinct style but constantly innovates with each film, rather than finding something that works and just sticking to it like Tim has done. It comes across as complacent and removed from the audience
I was sooo happy to see you released a new video. I just looove you content thank you for always putting so much work in it ❤
@@annalenaseiboth5657 Thank you so much!!
I think it's ironic that TB gets associated so much with stop motion, when he actually does none of it himself. Even with 'Vincent', he didn't do any of the actual animation work and yet gets associated with doing it. Like he would years later with TNBC, even though Henry Selick absolutely directed that movie (and is an actual animator himself). Yes, Burton began as an animator, but in the hand drawn tradition. I think he started going downhill with Alice in Wonderland (a weird title as that mess is clearly a sequel to the book), and when he began lazily casting Depp/Bonham in a string of films, one after the other. As much as I actually like Sweeney Todd, it's bizarre to mostly have actors who clearly can't sing...in what's meant to be a musical?? For me, Burton's greatest movie is 'Ed Wood' and has yet to be bettered. It's quirky, yet deals with real issues...hilarious at points, yet also moving...childlish, yet very adult. Big Fish is the nearest he's come back to that.
I saw Alice in Wonderland once, in the theater, in 3D, with the idea I'd probably find it boring and muddled looking without the 3D. The funny thing is that one of the pieces preceding it was far trippier and more 3D than the movie: an CG-animated Friskies commercial. Admittedly it was much shorter than a movie, but it was amazing and didn't do Alice any favors. I was watching a Stargate hovering in space and a cat leaning over toward me to grab fish out of the water with its paws thinking Alice in Wonderland would be that mindblowing too, but the movie looked flatter and grayer. I heard it was filmed regular-style first, then turned into 3D, and if so it shows.
Honestly, I think the first Alice (2010) is the best iteration of the story, likewise and story wise. Alice isn't a story meant to be on screen, it hasn't the structure to be a movie. About the settings, I can understand your point
Absolutely captivating. No matter the subject matter, you are a joy to watch and listen too. Everything you do is obviously purposeful and enchants your audience in the process. This of course isn't in regards to the specific subject pertained to this video. However I just had mention how much excitement I feel for the journey I am about to go one every time you post a new video.
This comment made my year!!! What an absolutely lovely thing to say, thank you x
1:34 not floptina aguilera catching strays
I feel Burton lost his edge since Sleepy Hollow. That's my honest opinion. I was very disappointed by Beetlejuice Beetlejuice despite all the hype, the practical effects and quick shooting time. I also dislike the amount of CGI that he has depended on in his recent works.
The best scenes in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice where when the three Deetz women were together. Burton has show very poor ability to direct actors who aren't already on board with his vision.
The Katya referance caught me off guard lol
Some filmmakers really do have a wheelhouse, and it’s obvious when they step outside of it. Burton’s wheelhouse is very specific, and there are many things he’s just not good at. For instance he seems to do much better when he’s directing his own material, ( or more specifically personal stories )rather than adapting someone else’s. Likewise he does much better using practical effects in his films than CGI. ( the same could be said for George Lucas as well ), in the hands of a master any tool can give incredible results, but Burton is not a master of digital effects work.
you're my favorite channel, and the fact that we got an almost 1 hour video AAAAAA I'm so excited to hear your analysis.
also I feel dumb trying to promote myself lol but just in case anyone's interested, I make lil' video essays on girly movies and media in general, so, anyways gonna watch this video now hehe
Tysm! Will have a look at ur vids hehe x
@@rachellydiab aw thank you!!!! :')
your content is really good, love from Brazil
@@gabrielvasconcelos5242 thank you 🌹🌹
Tim Burton is ultimately an artist who was a pioneering outsider weirdo auteur like 2 decades ago, but he has not really evolved beyond the mindset of the "weirdo shaking things up," even now that he is one of the most celebrated and mainstream directors in the West-a household name with a visual language that is immediately recognizable in film canon.
IMO his work has grown stale for lack of a better word because he still believes that his attachment to a project alone is enough to make it exciting and subversive but this far into his career, it really really is not. It seems that he is unaware of the fact that freaky little Jughead-Riverdale-type white men are like thee archetype for 'auteur' directors and that the aforementioned "weirdo" jugheads practically run the industry, and that has given him a blindspot for what is actually subversive and what points of view are actually seen as strange and marginalized.
He's no longer _shaking_ the boat, he is steering it, and his ass is not taking it somewhere exciting
Can you please do a video on Lisa Frankenstein??? It's fantastic
Omggg yess I loved it!! So campy!! It was a bit like what Burton cold have been if he was a woman..
But it didn’t got enough recognition
It was mentioned in the Coming of Rage video, I think.
By the by, something i learned recently: a large amount of freshly shed blood does not look how you think it does. It looks too pink, too bright, and kinda burtonesque. If anything id say his over saturation is accurate, just the shades too red. I know how that sounds, but, yeah. Probably because most of us only see that much blood if its old blood or in a movie anyway
please do a video on the substance I’m begging
no there's enough......
This was so interesting and well put together, thank you for your hard work
Thank uuu x
As someone who only watched a weak college adaptation of Sweeney Todd as a musical, I really love that movie and always will, but I can see where you're coming from. I definitely don't see how it would be his weakest film though.
Devils advocate for Mars Attacks (it's bad), at least it was aesthetically cohesive and I do appreciate how colorful and how vibrant it was
I didn’t watch beetlejuice beetlejuice because a friend told me it had a similar storyline to the musical but the musical executed it better. I was quite disappointed with Wednesday, especially with the monster, it lacks a lot to be memorable and it just looks silly.
Watching Wednesday, I was so confused why Morticia and Gomez would hide the fact that that dude died. Like thats something they'd reminisce about over dinner one episode and in the next morticia's pregnant
"The bane of my life, the fridge, has started humming."
Fridge: 😭
Sweeney Todd is just a dumpster fire in so many directions. A lot of the score was left out. That was mistake #1, but besides that, Helena Bonham Carter said in an interview that they had Stephen Sondheim work with her (and I'm assuming the other main actors too) and she was told by him to keep everything toned down from the stage play. Like, the whole production was just in some weird emo phase or something where everything has to be dark and deadpan
I'm both a big Burton fan and a big Addams family fan so it's insane how bored I was watching Wednesday. It's inferior to the two live action movies and also to the old black and white serie (it's still better than the animated movies tho)
I think Peregrine's would make a better anime series. Animation is a medium which helps you suspend disbelief and would not "pull you out of the story" with distracting CGI.
But also, with a cast that large, it needed A LOT more time to make us care about the kids. Needs to be at least a mini-series to do any justice
Am I the only was that was irked out of my mind by the Soul Train scene in the recent Beetlejuice movie? To imply that all dead Black people instantaneously sprout a 60-inch afro and shimmy their way to the Train of Death with a smile on their face and not a care in the world really bothered me. I don’t know who came up with the idea for that segment in the film, but count your days LMAO
Ding Dong! by Katya AND a bird noises joke. The taste and culture jumped out 🤌
I’ve said this on nearly all Tim Burton related films but I feel strongly that his “down” period came from the fact he became a parent.
Cause those early films have a perversion to them. Not that they lack heart or are overly horny, but there is a dirty sense of humour that underlines their anarchic edge.
Then again, Planet of the Apes hints at funky monkey business and it’s shit.
Plus I’ve not seen all his films post Alice so I may very well be talking out my arse
🤔
Aye probably that
I don't know. I mean I loved your essay! But I think part of what makes Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland so amazing is that cgi kind-of barroque (as in overflowing with stuff), bizarre aesthetic. It really cements the idea that this is a fantasy world, a "dream", eerie and fabricated.
@@mlemmleppy thats a cool take!! its nice to hear is worked for some people ✨
Monica Belucci! Monica Lewinsky lmaooo
Beetlejuice 2 was a massive flop for me
It had no actual story
Michael Keaton carried the entire film
Everything else was completely lacklustre
7:51 - this scene is from one of my favorite alice in wonderland adaptations and hallmark entertainment's best movie. it was made back in 1999 and whole cast is the best one 'til this day. 💗👍
eveything about this movie is absolutely the best of the best for a tv movie and it is one of the best movies of my tween years.
sweeney todd was my favorite movie for years but maybe it was because i first watched it when i was 7 and have had and emotional attachment to it
For all the PoC folks let down by Burton, you should watch Henry Selick's film Wendell and Wild! The protagonist is a black goth teen, it has his signature amazing stop motion animation and it's a great time!
one of her cuffs was undone for a while at the beginning, i wounder if she'll notice it
Grrrrrr
omg thank you saying what needed to be said about Sweeney Todd! i had watched the movie once when i was a teenager and remembered enjoying it, but then tried to rewatch it recently and couldn't get through the part when Helena Bonham-Carter sings for the first time and it's like nearly ear-grating for me. I wish other actors had been chosen who could sing cause I think I would've enjoyed the movie a lot more, but Burton is dead set on Depp and Helena being in every movie he makes sooo *shrug*
Right!! HBC was probably the worst part of the film (and les mis) - I think she's wonderful but she just wasn't right. I don't think Depp actually brought anything particularly unique to Todd once you know what the stage musical is like to start with!
@rachellydiab fully agree! I will have to check out an actual stage performance to get my Sweeney fix I guess, because I do love the story, setting, vibe, and all that, buuuutttttt not their singing lol
I thought your elegant sore was a fun little spiral at the end of your eyebrow
i will never forgive Tim Burton for his Willy Wonka.
love everything youre doing with your channel and your vids are banger after banger. just watched martyrs based on your rec and i think it has hurt me in a way i cant put into words; what an experience! i am always so envious of your ability to digest movies in such a profound way and i think im trying to learn how to do so somewhat vicariously through your channel. anyways, love your channel and im super excited to see anything you put out!
This is so lovely, thank you for your comment! Hope you enjoyed martyrs despite the horrors haha x
21:18 MONICA LEWINSKY TOOK ME OUT😭
Well it was the scripts for both Beetlejuice 2 and Wednesday. I'm not even sure how much involvement he had in Wednesday as it doesn't even resemble anything of his and I just realized that he didn't write the scripts for a lot of his movies.
The Beetlejuice sequel was absolutely terrible. It wasn’t quirky. It was heavy. It wasn’t funny. It was just dark. It was crowded with useless villains and storylines that seem illogical to the original film’s established underworld lore. It was not performed well. The main cast seemed to have forgotten who their characters were and they just repeated their “Schitt’s Creek” or “Stranger Things” characters. The music was senseless and lacked the whimsical humor of the original. I think everyone who said they liked the sequel either had their judgement clouded with nostalgia or they don’t want to be honest about the awkwardly bad sequel at the risk of sounding negative.
The first film had a fun ending that balanced the living with the dead. The sequel had a sad, dark and gory ending where Lydia seems traumatized forever.
The first film made everyone want to buy it or rent it and watch it multiple times. I couldn’t wait for the lousy sequel to end and don’t intend to ever watch it again.
He has delivered two good films imo.
1. Nightmare Before Christmas, which he actually had barely anything to do with in the end but has ridden its success ever since... (Poor Selick)
2. Batman Forever.
That's it.
Any ok films he's done have JD staring in them, so unwatchable these days