Walt Disney first read Lewis Carroll's
Alice books as a child. In 1933, Disney considered making a full-length live-action/animation
Alice film but canceled it in favor of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In 1938, after
Snow White’s success, he bought the rights to
Alice in Wonderland and officially registered the title. David Hall finished a story reel by 1939, but Disney was displeased. He realized the extreme complexity of
Alice so he scrapped the project. In 1957, with
Atlantis deep into production, Disney looked for more works to adapt and chose to revive
Alice in Wonderland. He was pleased with the story draft assigned to Bill Peet. With
Atlantis disappointing critics and the box office, Disney was discussing shutting down the studio’s animation department. Meanwhile, Ub Iwerks experimented with a Xerox camera to aid in animation and modified one to directly transfer drawings to cels, saving both time and money. What it could not do was deviate from a black, scratchy outline nor recreate the lavishness of hand-inking. Ken Anderson proposed to use the Xerox for
Alice to a disenchanted Walt. He approved but would grow to dislike the art style of
Alice in Wonderland because he felt that the fantasy element of his previous works was lost.
Alice in Wonderland begins in Victorian England where a young girl named Alice finds a white rabbit yelling out loud that he is late. She follows him down a rabbit hole and freefalls into a corridor lined with doors. After messing with size-changing food and drinks, she creates an ocean out of her tears and uses it to escape through a mirror behind the smallest door. Once outside, she finds herself among talking plants, animals, and other strange creatures, some original and others from well-known nursery rhymes. While few are rational and mostly rude, she comes across the bizarre but well-meaning Mad Hatter and March Hare she comes across at the Mad Hatter’s grand Tea Party. They guide Alice to the Red Queen of Hearts' castle, the home of the infamous Wonderland tyrant who uses her Cheshire Cat to trick everyone, except the already insane Mad Hatter and March Hare, into deep madness so that they can't revolt against her reign. Unafraid of the Queen’s rule and the Cheshire Cat, and because only the Red Queen of Hearts knows how Alice can return home, Alice challenges the Queen to a croquet match and a life-sized game of Wonderland chess. If she loses both games, Alice will never be able to return home.
Alice in Wonderland premiered on July 26, 1961. Costing nearly $3.5 million, it doubled that at the box office. Despite positive reception among audiences at the time, critical reception was largely negative. Critics called
Alice too episodic and the Xerox technique was panned for producing “low” animation quality. Worst of all, the world was thought of as overly sweet yet most of the characters seemed to lack any likeability or charm. When it was re-released in 1969, after Walt’s death,
Alice in Wonderland saw its critical reception vastly improve. It also broke records when released on home video in the 1980s. But the damage was done and Walt Disney was crushed by the early critical pans of the film. It only validated Walt’s hatred of the movie, not only the animation but the characters, plot, pacing, and virtually everything else. It had been one of his favorite childhood stories and this was the result? He never forgave Ken Anderson for his suggestion and quit animation once and for all to focus on theme parks and television programming. Finally,
Alice’s perceived failure led Walt to turn to alcohol in addition to cigarettes, enabling his notorious paparazzi meltdown in late 1961.
Author's Note: This film is essentially where the Silver Age meets the Dark Age. Hopefully, the plot for this movie is acceptable to you guys since I found this one of the hardest to create. Beginning with the 1963 film, Walt Disney himself will no longer be involved with the production of any films released in this universe's Walt Disney Animated Canon.