12/21/2025
Released in 1971, W***y Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was a staple of the Generation X childhood, a film to be both adored and ironically homaged forever after. At the time, author Roald Dahl received a much publicized screenwriting credit, albeit that more reflected marketing concerns more than it ddid the actual work done (David Seltzer penned most of the finished screenplay). Still, the film managed to retain the cynicism of the original book while director Mel Stuart mixed the tone surrealistic ’60s imagery and contemporary family movie friendliness, making for the ultimate movie in ironic appreciation.
Let’s now contrast that with the world that greeted the film’s most famous (and in some circles sacrilegious) remake. In 2005, the children who would compose Gen Z were already facing a different sort of malaise. Four years after 9/11 and four years before the Great Recession, two “one-in-a-lifetime” calamities, Generation Z got their own version of the Dahl classic. In place of the previous movie’s psychedelia is media overload. In addition to the focus on Charlie and Grandpa Joe is a daddy issue origin story that is effective precisely because it’s so dissatisfying. And the prickly but lovable W***y Wonka played by Gene Wilder gets transformed into an off-putting charlatan that better resembles a seedy talk show host.
Even more strangely, it would be brought to them by two Gen-X icons: Tim Burton and Johnny Depp remade Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a story about awkwardness and media saturation… and as a better movie to boot.
