Captain Defenestrator

Question: Whats the purpose to the Willy Wonka boat ride tunnel? I would say its a metaphor that what appears to be good has a dark side, which would explain how children appear missing or killed during the whole show. But it just seems like there's more to that in general. Mainly because of the faces of spiders and lizards, centipedes walking on dead faces, chicken heads getting cut off, Slugworth appearing on screen and Wonka singing a creepy ass poem. If this scene has some kind of moral lesson within "Don't judge a book by its cover" then please explain. I just think there's something more and I'm not seeing it.

Answer: It's another test of Wonka's. His factory (and real life) will definitely throw some unexpected curve balls at his future heir, so he set the whole thing up to see who would handle it best. If you watch, you'll notice Wonka flicking his eyes rapidly from one ticket winner to another, observing and filing away the fact that out of all of his guests, Charlie and Grandpa Joe are the only ones who seem to accept that they can't change anything about their situation and instead decide to just enjoy the ride...at least until Wonka starts singing. Honestly, though, who WOULDN'T look at least a little worried at that point?

Answer: It's to associate Slugworth with creepiness and bad things. If the kid still wants to sell the Gobstopper to him after that, Wonka knows they're not worthy of the big prize.

Captain Defenestrator

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.