Dear Tim Burton,
Please stop making movies. Just stop.
This has been a long time coming. You've had a......I don't think I can say great, but certainly a good run. You've made some movies that will likely become classics. You're voice was an original one, with a style that the majority of people weren't familiar with. You even continued making movies after Planet of the Apes, which is when most people would've given up. Or shot themselves. That was certainly when I thought you should've given up.
Then you had to go and make Big Fish. Couldn't have asked for a better apology movie than that. Honestly I wouldn't have known it was one of your films if it weren't for your name in the credits and Helena Bonham Carter. It was gorgeous, with stunning visuals, a heartfelt story, and adequate lighting which is a rarity for you. It not only erased my memory of Planet of the Apes entirely (which I'd previously tried and failed to do with repeated head trauma), it made me believe in you as a filmmaker again. I thought you'd grown. That you'd broadened as a filmmaker and storyteller.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a bit of a misstep, but you really were trying to recreate magic there. You stuck to the story more closely than the first movie did. That was nice. Yeah Johnny Depp's more fey performance of Willie Wonka never came close to the unpredictability and menace of Gene Wilder, but following Gene Wilder would've been impossible for anyone really. I really thought you did the best you could.
Then came Corpse Bride, with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Bit of a casting rut there.
Then came Sweeney Todd, with Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and a total lack of humor and what must have been a complete lack of lighting budget. The first part of that movie was so dim it made me worry for my vision. That movie was to the 1982 television version (with the ever amazing Angela Lansbury. I mean that sincerely by the way. If you don't believe me, go watch the original Manchurian Candidate) what Mrs. Lovett was to meat pies. It was as if you were aware of the basic concept, but lacked any grasp of the important parts. The original was so (and I hate to use this word. Makes me sound pretentious) subversive because it took the concept of a happy musical and made it about murder, revenge, and cannibalism. Depp and Carter both looked and acted like they were half asleep and grouchy. The musical numbers lacked any trace of anything close to emotion. It was crap. Pure crap.
After the disappointment that was Sweeney Todd, I went back to Willy Wonka. I started to wonder if maybe the problems with it weren't due to it falling short of the original. I started to wonder if, like Sweeney Todd, you simply didn't get it. Things started to make more and more sense.
Then comes Alice in Wonderland. Ouch. An emphasis on visuals and on Depp as the Mad Hatter at the expense of Alice, who was nothing more than a pair of legs to lead the audience from visual sequence to visual sequence. Oh yeah. Helena Bonham Carter was in this one too. Shocking bit of casting there.
Now we finally come to the reason for this intervention. Dark Shadows. My expectations were low for this one and somehow you managed to zip right under them. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Again. Johnny Depp in pale makeup. Again. A complete lack of any grasp of the source material. Again. The only difference seems to be the reliance on jokes about how lame the seventies were. I'd say again, but I thought you were above this sort of hack material. Dark Shadows looks to be a Tim Burton version of a Happy Madigan script, with Johnny Depp in the Adam Sandler role. It's painful. Just painful.
So yeah. We've come to the end. It's time for you to stop Mr. Burton. You've crossed the line from being kind of a one note/one cast director with an inability to get the point of the work you're desperate to remake to a hack director who's become the goth version of Happy Madigan. While I appreciate how much energy you've likely saved by not lighting your movies, it's time to give Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and the truckload of clown white makeup to other directors. Maybe at least a break will help you rediscover why you got into cinema in the first place. If nothing else, it'll make everything a little less Burton-y.
Please stop making movies. Just stop.
This has been a long time coming. You've had a......I don't think I can say great, but certainly a good run. You've made some movies that will likely become classics. You're voice was an original one, with a style that the majority of people weren't familiar with. You even continued making movies after Planet of the Apes, which is when most people would've given up. Or shot themselves. That was certainly when I thought you should've given up.
Then you had to go and make Big Fish. Couldn't have asked for a better apology movie than that. Honestly I wouldn't have known it was one of your films if it weren't for your name in the credits and Helena Bonham Carter. It was gorgeous, with stunning visuals, a heartfelt story, and adequate lighting which is a rarity for you. It not only erased my memory of Planet of the Apes entirely (which I'd previously tried and failed to do with repeated head trauma), it made me believe in you as a filmmaker again. I thought you'd grown. That you'd broadened as a filmmaker and storyteller.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a bit of a misstep, but you really were trying to recreate magic there. You stuck to the story more closely than the first movie did. That was nice. Yeah Johnny Depp's more fey performance of Willie Wonka never came close to the unpredictability and menace of Gene Wilder, but following Gene Wilder would've been impossible for anyone really. I really thought you did the best you could.
Then came Corpse Bride, with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Bit of a casting rut there.
Then came Sweeney Todd, with Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and a total lack of humor and what must have been a complete lack of lighting budget. The first part of that movie was so dim it made me worry for my vision. That movie was to the 1982 television version (with the ever amazing Angela Lansbury. I mean that sincerely by the way. If you don't believe me, go watch the original Manchurian Candidate) what Mrs. Lovett was to meat pies. It was as if you were aware of the basic concept, but lacked any grasp of the important parts. The original was so (and I hate to use this word. Makes me sound pretentious) subversive because it took the concept of a happy musical and made it about murder, revenge, and cannibalism. Depp and Carter both looked and acted like they were half asleep and grouchy. The musical numbers lacked any trace of anything close to emotion. It was crap. Pure crap.
After the disappointment that was Sweeney Todd, I went back to Willy Wonka. I started to wonder if maybe the problems with it weren't due to it falling short of the original. I started to wonder if, like Sweeney Todd, you simply didn't get it. Things started to make more and more sense.
Then comes Alice in Wonderland. Ouch. An emphasis on visuals and on Depp as the Mad Hatter at the expense of Alice, who was nothing more than a pair of legs to lead the audience from visual sequence to visual sequence. Oh yeah. Helena Bonham Carter was in this one too. Shocking bit of casting there.
Now we finally come to the reason for this intervention. Dark Shadows. My expectations were low for this one and somehow you managed to zip right under them. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Again. Johnny Depp in pale makeup. Again. A complete lack of any grasp of the source material. Again. The only difference seems to be the reliance on jokes about how lame the seventies were. I'd say again, but I thought you were above this sort of hack material. Dark Shadows looks to be a Tim Burton version of a Happy Madigan script, with Johnny Depp in the Adam Sandler role. It's painful. Just painful.
So yeah. We've come to the end. It's time for you to stop Mr. Burton. You've crossed the line from being kind of a one note/one cast director with an inability to get the point of the work you're desperate to remake to a hack director who's become the goth version of Happy Madigan. While I appreciate how much energy you've likely saved by not lighting your movies, it's time to give Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and the truckload of clown white makeup to other directors. Maybe at least a break will help you rediscover why you got into cinema in the first place. If nothing else, it'll make everything a little less Burton-y.