Headscratchers / Wonka

Noodles' mother

• So no one knew anything about Noodle's family up until Wonka read her mother's name from the cartel's accounting book … and yet a short time later, after going back above ground and exposing the baddies, when everything's being wrapped up, they say they know exactly how many people with that name are living in town, and that they had the telephone operator spend all afternoon looking for the one who was Noodle's mother. Was there a passage of time that the movie didn't indicate? How could they have tracked her down if they only just found out who she was?
  • They didn't have to call every single number on the list. Finding all the D Smiths in the phone book wouldn't take long and they'd get to stop once they got the right number. If they found the right person within the first few calls then it wouldn't take that much time.
  • How to call Dorothy Smith in only a few hours... "Hello, Is this Dorothy Smith?... No? Thank you, sorry about wasting your time"... Whole time period to do it, less than a minute. When you get Dorothy Smith, you ask the next question. Easy as pie.
  • To clarify, the question was posed because it didn’t seem like that much time had passed in between Wonka and Noodle leaving the cathedral and when they reveal they found “Dorothy Smith”—and yet I thought they mentioned that they looked “all afternoon” for her, or something. Maybe I need to watch the movie again, but when I saw it the first time, I didn’t know how they’d had any time to conduct a search yet.
  • Wonka and Noodle both had time to bathe and change in-between the Chocolate Cartel floating away and everyone passing out cups of chocolate. Presumably the others were making their phone calls during that time.

Lofty tracking down Wonka

• How did Lofty even know that Wonka was the one who took the only four cocoa beans on Oompah Land when he was sleeping at the time?
  • Maybe other Oompa Loompas spotted Wonka from afar and told Lofty.
  • He seems to be able to track Wonka to the ends of the Earth, and was aware the Cartel ate a jar of chocolate that was meant for him, so Oompa Loompas probably have some kind of tracking or forensic ability that may be magical, or appear as such. It may even be tied to the nature of Oompa Law—he's owed chocolate, he's going to get it, the "how" is a minor detail.
  • It could be that Lofty or another Oompa Loompa was able to spot Wonka leaving the island after taking the beans even if they couldn't catch him before he left the island.
  • Lofty was the one asleep, the other Oompa Loompa weren't. They saw a tall man leaving, Lofty sleeping, the cocoa seed vanished, it was a logical step blaming Lofty and the stranger.

Wonka giving his friends his mom's chocolate bar

• Why did Wonka let his friends eat the last chocolate bar his mother gave him? She gave it to him before she died, which was when he was still a child. The Chocolate should've been expired by then.
  • Besides the fact that chocolate doesn't truly go bad so long as it's properly packaged and doesn't contain other ingredients such as nuts (though it won't taste as good after a couple years), chocolate in Wonka can contain things like sunshine and yeti sweat. It's safe to assume that the Wonka family chocolate can't expire due to its unique ingredients.
  • Also the secret of Wonka's chocolate is sharing it, not just tasting it. Even if it went a little "off", it was still the best chocolate Wonka's friends ever ate because it was the gift of a dear friend doing his best to grant them freedom.

Why did the cartel lose Wonka?

• Despite what they claim otherwise, Slugworth and his pals actually seem to enjoy the taste of Willy's chocolate. So what was stopping them from hiring him and asking him to make their chocolate for them? Word of mouth of Willy's chocolate being the greatest of the word would result in more people buying chocolate from their stores and therefore more money.
  • Besides sheer pettiness, it could be a gentleman's agreement between them. If one of them hired Wonka, they would become far more successful than the other two and quickly drive them out of business. All three of them selling the same "plain, simple, uncomplicated" chocolate for inflated prices means all three get to stay rich.
  • They couldn't control Wonka, so they decided to get rid of him.

Why couldn't the cartel be pragmatic and keep Wonka around?

• Building on the point raised above: what exactly was the cartel's problem with Willy? It's obvious that they're shrewd businessmen (well, Slugworth mainly) and have enough acumen to have built an entire enterprise around chocolate. This being the case, you'd think they'd recognise the talent in Willy not as a threat, but as a potential business opportunity. Upon tasting his glorious chocs, why is their immediate thought "move him on, and if he doesn't comply, kill him" and not "start drawing up contracts to work with him and maximise profits"? Or at the very least you'd think they'd make an attempt to draft him into the cartel. I know, I know, 'cartoony villains', but it seems odd given what's established about the business-minded Slugworth.
  • They're a corrupt cartel, akin to mobsters. They keep an iron fist on new rivals coming in and shaking things up, and they're so greedy they did not be reasonable and do a deal with Wonka. Of course, their greed was what brought them down in the end, thanks to them eating Wonka's candies.
  • Wonka was too good, both as a chocolatier and as a person. They all agree his chocolate is amazing but while they sell their plain chocolates as luxury goods, Wonka sells his cheap enough that children and the poor can buy it casually. As shown later, just selling out of his cart threatened to put them out of business.

Wonka's mom never taught him how to read?

• So Wonka's mother gave him a chocolate card along with a card telling him it is fine to share it with those he loves. However, Wonka does not know how to read so why did she even put that there? Why did Wonka's mom never teach him how to read?
  • Presumably she intended to but it was low priority given their poverty and she died when Willy was fairly young so she never got around to it. Given the rough time period Willy's childhood takes place in (late 1890s, early 1900s), literacy wasn't very common among the working class.
    • In the real world, literacy rates in the USA were around 80% by 1875 and only would have been higher a few decades later. Also, Noodles is shocked that Wonka is illiterate even though she herself was raised as a slave, suggesting that illiteracy is highly unusual in the film's setting even among the poor.

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