For Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, go here.
Original Novel
- When Charlie's birthday bar of chocolate doesn't yield a Golden Ticket, he not only swallows his disappointment but offers to share the bar — the only chocolate he gets to enjoy each year, mind you — with the rest of his family.
- When Charlie discovers the final Golden Ticket at the sweetshop, the shopkeeper's at first just awed and overjoyed to bear witness to the find, but he proceeds to tell off the many bystanders offering to buy it off of Charlie. He then tells the boy that he's glad to see someone who clearly needs some good luck in his life actually get it. And before that, the shopkeeper, who probably noted how thin Charlie looked, encouraged the kid to have another bar to fill his stomach, resulting in the lucky find.
- On the boat, Wonka notices that Charlie and Grandpa Joe look a little skinny ("You look like a skeleton!"), so he gets out mugs and fills them with melted chocolate from the river to give to them. He even asks if they have enough food at home.
- Charlie's evenings with his grandparents, with them telling him stories about the chocolate factory, and how animated they (especially Grandpa Joe) become with him.For they loved this little boy. He was the only bright thing in their lives and his evening visits were something that they looked forward to all day long.
- The opening lines on the Golden Ticket:Greetings to you, the lucky finder of this Golden Ticket, from Mr Willy Wonka. I shake you warmly by the hand!
2005 Film
- Charlie’s family’s downplayed Heroic Sacrifice when Charlie gets the ticket. As Charlie himself points out, they need the money much more than they need the chocolate. But his family is willing to continue to endure poverty if it means Charlie gets the chance to go to the factory.
- As in the novel, during the boat ride Willy scoops up a ladle full of the chocolate river, and shares it with Charlie.Wonka: Here! Try some of this, it'll do you good. You look starved to death.
- Then after Charlie takes a bit of the chocolate, he shares a bit with his Grandpa Joe.
- Unlike in the novel, in which the toothpaste factory goes bust, Charlie's dad loses his job because the company has earned extra money due to the Wonka contest and decides to modernize, replacing him with a capping machine. You can see some regret when his boss hands him his pink slip. Fortunately, Mr. Bucket later gets a better job repairing the machine that replaced him, and he warmly shakes his boss's hand as he gets back to work.
- The Adaptation Expansion-based climax:Wonka's father: Willy?
Wonka: Hi, dad.
Wonka's father: All these years, and you haven't flossed.
Wonka: Not once.
(They hug.)- To clarify: Wonka's father Wilbur was a dentist who regarded candy of all kinds as a waste of time. He only let his son trick-or-treat to know what to expect, before burning the candy he collected. Once a chocolate survived unscathed and Willy tried it, leading him to become a chocolatier. This caused the falling out with his father. On the walls of his office however, was every single newspaper clipping about his son since the day he left. His love for his son overrode any sense of anger he had at his act of rebellion and natural dislike of all things sugary. To top it off, he's willing to overlook Willy's profession when he discovers his pearly whites are indeed pearly after all.
- There's also the touching awkwardness of their embrace, which allows the viewer to notice the subtle similarities of their outfits — both are wearing gloves at the time, and their vests are the same style. Much as Willy Wonka tried to put his past behind him, it was unconsciously informing bits and pieces of his behavior all along.
- And also the small but touching fact that Willy Wonka was always keeping his teeth in mint condition by brushing them everyday because he knew that's what his father would want.
- And for another heartwarming moment, this was actually a moment that had happened to Tim Burton and his mother. Apparently, the two didn’t have a good relationship, got into a fight and didn’t speak for years. But one day, he returned to visit and found his mother kept all his movie posters and the ticket stubs from when she went to see them.
- The ending. Charlie helps Wonka reunite with his father and he repays Charlie by allowing him and his family to move into the factory, even relocating their house to the chocolate room, and the Buckets treat Wonka like he's part of the family too.
- When Wonka sits down for dinner, Grandma Georgina tells him he smells like peanuts and that she loves peanuts. He understands this is meant to be a compliment and pays her one back, that he likes that she smells like old people and soap, which causes her to hug him. In contrast to Violet's attempt earlier in the movie, Wonka pats Georgina's arm with a smile instead of freezing up.
- Mr. Wonka welcoming Grandpa Joe, a former employee of his, back to the factory is not excessively noteworthy. Mr. Wonka doing so after asking Joe if he was one of the spies that forced him to shut down all those years ago and taking him purely on Joe's own word that he wasn't is truly striking.
- Weirdly enough, Violet's fate in this adaptation. Here a professional athlete, Violet's little "incident" with the gum leads her to become essentially a Rubber Man, of which she's nothing short of delighted as the newfound flexibility would almost certainly give her a competitive edge. The only caveat is that her blue skin is now permanent, something she doesn't seem to mind (though her mother, who is intentionally unlikable anyway, does). Out of all the "bad" kids, she's the only one who ultimately comes out of this at least somewhat happy.
- The fact that her mother considers her blue skin less prideful and is thus less likely to put pressure on her to compete may end up working out all the better for Violet anyway.
- Another weirdly heartwarming thing about Violet's fate: in this version, Wonka is genuinely concerned for her safety and actively tries to get her to stop chewing before things go wrong. It's not much, and he isn't successful in doing it, but it is a marked contrast to his cheerful apathy toward the other kids' accidents.
- There's also Veruca's more understated fate, in which Mr. Salt, tired of her unceasing demands, implies that he's going to be a lot more strict with her from now on, leaving hope that she too can still turn out better.
- Wonka and the Oompa Loompas. Loompaland is show to be full of trees and vicious creatures that can easily take out an Oompa Loompa and they're lucky if they get three cocoa beans a year. So, when Wonka arrives, he meets with the Cheiftan and shows that he cares for them - he knows that you never reject food from another nation because it may offend, no matter how disgusting it looks, and then makes an offer to the Loompa cheiftan freely: come and work for him, in a factory where it's safe (or at least safer as Wonka can presumably undo everything that happens with Gum chewing issues, etc), and he'll pay them in all the cocoa beans they can eat. The Ooompa Loompas accept. This isn't slavery, or forced working: this is the safety of their species. They're safe from Vicious Knids and Wicked Wangdoodles and get enough cocoa beans to not just survive, but thrive.
2013 Stage Musical
- There's an Exact Words twist that leads to an unusual, subtle heartwarming moment. It turns out that with regards to the lifetime supply of sweets, one Everlasting Gobstopper qualifies as such. Charlie is willing to accept this, which suggests that he's not only grateful for even a small gift but can understand the giver's thinking — that it is not a trick but simply Mr. Wonka's unconventional way of keeping a huge promise.
- After Mr. Wonka catches Charlie adding to the notebook and giving him a speech about his daydreaming habit.Charlie: Have I done something wrong?Willy Wonka: Strike that and reverse it Charlie. You've done something right... you've won.
- The Eleven O'Clock Number in this version, as Willy Wonka takes Charlie up in the Great Glass Elevator and reveals that the boy's won the factory, is a lift from the 1971 adaptation: the iconic "Pure Imagination". The placement of the song this late in the show as the culmination of this show's overarching Aesop about the transformative power of imagination is touching enough, and Douglas Hodge's performance on the cast album is incredibly warm and wonderful — in every sense of the latter word.
- There's something adorable about Grandpa Joe, who's Fun Personified in this version, becoming the official taster and an honorary Oompa-Loompa!
- The Reveal at the end throws a goodly chunk of the preceding action into a warmer and fuzzier light with some thought. Mr. Wonka was sensitive enough to realize Charlie might be who he was looking for and rigged his own contest to give the boy a chance to prove it. And though he couldn't make any Pet the Dog moves without risking the Secret Tests, he made sure the boy got to bask in the same limelight the other finders did.
2017 Retool of the Musical
- It's a very small moment, but while Veruca has shortly before insulted Charlie for his attempt to readapt an invention Wonka calls a "waste of time", the reveal that Charlie's family barely even has electricity at home manages to shock everyone in the Mixing Room without anyone hiding it, not even Veruca herself. Further, when Charlie comes up with "Liquid Sunshine" as the glowing concoction's name, Mr. Beauregarde pipes in that the name sounds good, and Mr. Salt even agrees he'd buy it (leading to a subtle funny moment of Veruca looking up in interest).
- The View From Here, The Eleven O'Clock Number written for the Broadway production, plays out like Pure Imagination did in London. However, the lyrics are much more character-specific, celebrating Charlie's creative spirit and what kindness and imagination can bring to the world.Willy Wonka: When a boy has just a touch of odd
And he walks the streets without a nod
He should know that odd is a gift from God
Like this starry blue chandelier
And the more he lives
Perspective gives him
Sight so crystal clear
That's why I brought you
To see the view from here- In the middle of the song, to further cement Charlie winning the factory, Mr. Wonka presents him with his letter, showing that Wonka received it after all.
- Towards the end of the song, during a duet, Mr. Wonka describes how Charlie restored his faith in the world:Willy Wonka: When the world is full of spies and thieves
And for all that's good, your spirit grieves
You may meet a boy and he believes
And there's your new chocolatier
