Movies

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's book by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of the eccentric chocolatier, Willy Wonka.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1964 and in the United Kingdom by George Allen & Unwin in 1967. The book was adapted into two major motion pictures: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005. The book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, was written by Roald Dahl in 1972.

Dahl had also planned to write a third book in the series, Charlie and the White House but never finished it.
The story was originally inspired by Roald Dahl's experience of chocolate companies during his schooldays. Cadbury would often send test packages to the schoolchildren in exchange for their opinions on the new products. At that time (around the 1920s), Cadbury and Rowntree's were England's two largest chocolate makers and they each often tried to steal trade secrets by sending spies, posing as employees, into the other's factory. Because of this, both companies became highly protective of their chocolate making processes. (Both have since been acquired by larger food companies; Cadbury by Kraft Foods and Rowntree's by Nestlé.) It was a combination of this secrecy and the elaborate, often gigantic, machines in the factory that inspired Dahl to write the story.

Main rooms

There are four main rooms the tour goes through, losing one child, and their parents, at a time. They pass many other rooms but don't go in.

The Chocolate Room

The Chocolate Room is the first room the group enters. Everything in this room is edible: the pavements, the bushes, even the grass. The focal point of the room is the Chocolate River, where Oompa-Loompas drive Willy Wonka's boat. The chocolate is mixed and churned by the waterfall, but must never be touched by human hands, while it is still in liquid form. Willy Wonka proclaims that "There is no other factory in the world that mixes its chocolate by waterfall." Pipes which hang from the ceiling come down and suck up the chocolate, then send it to the various other rooms of the factory. Augustus Gloop falls into this river while he is drinking from it, and is sucked into the pipe which leads to the Fudge Room. Wonka then has an Oompa-Loompa take Mr. and Mrs. Gloop to the Fudge Room to retrieve their son.

The Inventing Room

The Inventing Room is the second room that the tour goes through, and is said to be Wonka's favorite room in the whole factory. This room is home to Wonka's newest experiment candies, many of which have not undergone sufficient testing or which are very defective, such as Everlasting Gobstoppers, Hair Toffee, and Wonka's greatest idea so far, Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum. This gum is an entire three course dinner, containing tomato soup, roast beef with baked potato, and blueberry pie with ice cream. However, the gum isn't right yet; once the chewer gets to the dessert, they'll swell with juice and become a giant 10 foot, plump blueberry. Their body would become spherical and their legs and arms would be sucked into their body. Violet Beauregarde suffers this fate after she impulsively grabs and consumes the experimental gum. Violet and her parents are subsequently taken to the Juicing Room so that the juice can be removed before the swelling causes her to explode.

The Nut Room

The Nut Room is where Wonka allows the party to rest briefly outside of after a long walk down a series of corridors but forbids them to enter it. This room is where Wonka uses worker squirrels to sort good nuts and bad nuts. Good nuts are used in his candies, while bad nuts are thrown down the garbage chute. Veruca Salt wants a squirrel for herself, and after she is refused one by Wonka, she enters the room and attempts to take one, but is quickly mopped by all the squirrels who reject her as a bad nut and throw her down the chute which leads to the incinerator. Wonka tells her parents that she could be stuck just inside the tube and they enter the room and peer into the chute but are kicked in from behind by the squirrels.
In the 1971 film, the squirrels are replaced by giant geese that lay golden eggs. Veruca wants a giant goose but is denied one by Wonka after which she breaks into her musical solo. After then making a mess of the room she stands on top of the eggdicator which judges her a bad egg and sends her plummeting down the garbage chute en route to the furnace. Her father then also falls down the chute in an attempt to rescue her, where he too is deemed a bad egg.
In the 2005 film, the plot follows the original storyline; Veruca is denied a squirrel by Wonka and attempts to take one for herself and is then rejected as a bad nut and thrown down the chute to the incinerator. Her father then also falls into the chute in an attempt to spot her. In this film, the incinerator is only lit on Tuesdays (the day of the factory visit). Luckily for Veruca and her father, the incinerator is broken at the time and they instead leave the factory covered in three weeks worth of foul smelling trash.

The Television Room

The Television Room is home to Wonka's latest invention, Television Chocolate, which he hopes to use to quickly send chocolate to houses all over the world. This device dematerializes a giant bar of chocolate, then sends it through the air in a million pieces to subsequently be reconstructed (in shrunken form) on a specially designed television set. The bar can then be taken from the screen and consumed. At Wonka's behest, Charlie takes the newly shrunken bar. Mike Teavee, who initially thought the chocolate was just a picture, is amazed at this new discovery, and sends himself through the television system, resulting in him being shrunken down to no more than an inch high. Wonka suggests that he be put through the Gum Stretcher, which tests the stretchiness of gum. The Oompa Loompas escort the Teavee family to the Gum Stretcher.
In the 1971 and 2005 film versions, Mike Teavee is stretched by the Taffy Puller. In the 1971 version, Mike's mother accompanies him to the factory, whereas his father accompanies him in the 2005 film. In the latter film, the consequence of his restoration is shown; he is now 10 feet tall and stretched impossibly thin like taffy.


PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS AND LIGHTNING THIEF


Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a pentalogy of adventure and fantasy fiction books authored by Rick Riordan. The series consists of five books, as well as spin-off titles such as The Demigod Files and Demigods and Monsters. Set in the United States, the books are predominantly based on Greek mythology. The Lightning Thief, the first book, is the basis of a film called Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, which was released in the United States and Canada on February 12, 2010. All the books are written as though the hero is telling the story. This helps with the suspense of solving the Oracle's mysteries and quests that start the conflict or hero quest particular to each book. Interestingly, the main character gets involved with all the prophecies whether they pertain directly to him or not. This is the recurring plot throughout all of the books. The protagonist of the series is Percy Jackson, who discovers that he is the son of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, or Neptune, Roman god of the sea. He learns that the legendary beings of Greek mythology still exist, and have always existed, including monsters, cyclopes, empousi, Titans, and the Greek gods, including the Twelve Olympians themselves, who dwell on Olympus; now situated on the mythical 600th floor of the Empire State Building in New York,New York. Percy is frequently attacked by monsters because he is a child of one of the "Big Three" or the three most powerful Greek gods: king of the gods and the god of the sky, Zeus, the god of the sea; Poseidon; and the god of the Underworld, Hades, who made a pact after World War II not to have any more children because they were too powerful and unpredictable. The other reason for the pact was a great prophecy, given by the Oracle, that a child demigod of the "Big Three" would decide the fate of Olympus and the gods, when the demigod child reached the age of 16. The pact was made in an effort to prevent the prophecy from ever happening. Both Zeus and Poseidon break the pact by having demigod children after the war – Zeus had Thalia Grace and Jason Grace and Poseidon had Percy Jackson. Ironically, Hades, who is meant to be the most untrustworthy god, did not break the pact. However, he had Bianca and Nico di Angelo, who were born before the war, but were trapped in the Lotus Casino for 70 years. This meant they were still able to fulfill the prophecy. Percy meets many other young demigods, both friendly and hostile, who are also in the process of discovering their ancestry and powers.
More than 20 million copies of the books have been sold in more than 35 countries.
As of December 5, 2010, the series has been on the New York Times best seller list for children's books for 177 weeks.