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monstermaster13 — Favorite Male Burton Characters.

Published: 2021-11-13 08:19:29 +0000 UTC; Views: 746; Favourites: 3; Downloads: 0
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Description - Jack Napier/Joker (Batman 1989). Jack Nicholson is one of my all-time favorite actors and he is who I definitely picture when I think Joker...with Mark Hamill being tied with him of course. Ol Jack naturally does have a real life Joker smile already so it didn't take much to make us belief that he truly is the character.
- Sweeney Todd (Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street). Tim Burton doing a musical? Yes. A horror musical? Even better. I love horror musicals like for example Phantom Of The Opera, Tanz Der Vampire, Little Shop Of Horrors, and the Evil Dead musical and Sweeney is perfection. I'm surprised that it took until 2007 for Tim to make a full blown musical movie, yeah there is the Nightmare Before Christmas but he only produced it. This is the third project Tim has done which is based on a myth or urban legend, with Sleepy Hollow being the first and Corpse Bride being the second (Corpse Bride is based on a Russian folktale), and of course we know Burton did a version of Hansel and Gretel and also directed an episode of 'Faerie Tale Theater'.  You can bet that I love Sweeney.
- Edward (Edward Scissorhands). I like that Edward Scissorhands is a nod to Frankenstein type stories with a gentle man-made monster, and I like that Edward uses his bladed hands for creating things like sculptures and also for hair-styling.
- Hessian Horseman (Sleepy Hollow). How can I not have him on here? Those eyes and the vampiric vibe he gives off with his fangs and the fact he is played by Chris Walken...yes, yes, yes...my favorite Burton Villain and my favorite Walken character and it's the exact same character. Also death to Lady Van Tassell!
- Pee Wee Herman (Pee Wee's Big Adventure). Pee Wee's house and not to mention his quirky inventions are fabulous. I like movies that have characters who are quirky inventors who have all sorts of contraptions in their home for even the most mundane tasks, and of course Pee Wee's adventure is a spectacular one, you cannot forget the encounter with the clowns or the ghostly truck driver Large Marge (normally in ghostly-hitchhiker stories the ghost turns out to be the passenger/hitchhiker,  which by the way there are many different stories/urban legends about ghostly hitchhikers, but in ths the hitchhiker is alive and the driver is the ghost).
- Betelgeuse (Beetlejuice). He may be a crass loud-mouth ghost who eats bugs, but he's definitely a fun and chaotic character to witness in action.
- The Mayor of Halloweentown (Nightmare Before Christmas). Halloweentown is full of kooky and unusual monster characters including the devil himself among others, but the most interesting to me is the Mayor...while the Mayor's look definitely would have think 'oh he's a doll or puppet-like creature', he's actually sort of a Jekyll and Hyde type with a political twist, you see..he's a politician who is literally two-faced, whenever he's worried or sad his head spins around and there's a sad/worried/depressed face that has a pale complexion, and also Glenn Shadix's description of the voices for both faces...and how he's essentially half-southern good ol boy politician- and-half-panicky stewardess (the inspiration for the upset/angry/depressed voice of the Mayor came from Karen Black's performance as a stewardess in Airport 75).  The Mayor went through many different designs including an insect-like design and a spider-like design too, I can actually see the Mayor as a spider-creature if there was an animal version of Nightmare to be honest but also a Beetle would work too.
- Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin (Batman Returns). Danny Devito was born to play this character, he's who I imagine when I picture the Penguin in my head.
- Willy Wonka (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory). I never understood the issues some people have with Burton's take on the story to be honest, Dahl himself hated the 1970's one with Gene Wilder (and he was notoriously picky when it came to adaptations of his work in general as while he did like how some of them turned out, I recall he did like The Witches but didn't like the ending so the ending was altered a bit, although not as picky as Stephen King is when it comes to adaptations. King likes Cujo, Carrie, Shawshank, Stand By Me, and Misery but dislikes  Graveyard Shift,  Dark Tower, Tommyknockers,  Maximum Overdrive, and The Shining). I think Depp's take on Wonka is interesting and while he does come across as bit on the bizarre side and yes he does sound like Michael Jackson, but then again Michael Jackson desperately wanted to play that role and Michael really connected with Edward Scissorhands too (pity we never got to see MJ and Tim Burton do a collab when MJ was alive. I mean MJ worked with John Landis with the Thriller video and Stan Wnston AND Stephen King with the short film 'Ghost', and i'm surprised that 'Threatened' didn't get its own music video and I could have easily seen Tim directing the video for that song, Threatened has the whole 'monster' vibe that makes sense to have on the compilation 'Scream' as opposed to say Dirty Diana, Unbreakable, Scream, Dangerous, or Leave Me Alone, don't get me wrong those are good songs, not just good but fantastic, but not exactly halloweeny at all, which the album's whole theme is supposed to be), plus both MJ and Tim have dad issues (Joseph Jackson was a notorious tightwad and control freak),. Nonetheless I don't get the hate towards this version of Wonka.
- Cheshire Cat (Alice In Wonderland). The Cheshire Cat has always been my favorite Wonderland character, the smile...and the whole turning invisible thing help.
- Otho Fenlock (Beetlejuice). Oh you know I had to include Otho as my second favorite male character from Beetlejuice who isn't Betelgeuse himself or Adam Maitland. Otho may be a smug, sarcastic and extremely sassy interior designer who has had many different jobs in the past prior to becoming a designer including as a paranormal researcher, but there's something about him that is iconic, like with Delia and her tendency to wear outfits that are re-purposed clothing from earlier in the movie (e.g Charles's sweater), Otho has his own iconic flare, from his sardonic quips ('Don't mind her, she's just upset because someone dropped a house on her sister'), to his iconic choices in outfits (black suit and red tie and a red pair of shoes), also he's definitely the first gay character to be featured in a Tim Burton movie since it's implied that he's gay much like his actor Glenn Shadix (It was Glenn's idea to give Otho a comeback line) and also proof that wearing a kimono isn't cultural appropriation (and no he doesn't look like a couch) either. Okay, he wears a robe that resembles a kimono but it counts.  Yes he made a mistake when he took the handbook of the recently deceased from the attic (which to be fair, should have been locked up in the first place) and didn't know what he was getting into when he performed the seance that essentially made the Maitlands almost die...for the second time, but he did realize it was a mistake and did dump Delia or attempt to before Betelgeuse decided to play with him.
- Vincent Malloy (Vincent). Tim Burton, much like many horror fans out there...is/was a monster kid (I can relate), and Vincent is such a beautiful and sad little piece of art...and for a boy who likes horror movies and Vincent Price to be named after Price himself (Price himself even narrates the story), is a nice extra touch.
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Comments: 2

QueenOfBurtonia1999 [2021-11-30 18:20:21 +0000 UTC]

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monstermaster13 In reply to QueenOfBurtonia1999 [2021-11-30 20:16:32 +0000 UTC]

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