Edward Scissorhands 10th Anniversary Edition DVD cover

Edward Scissorhands is a movie directed by Tim Burton released in 1990. The movie is a fable set in an exaggerated stereotype of both the 1950s and late 1980s. It also has a central theme of the isolated, misunderstood major character; a theme that shows up in a lot of Tim Burton's work. It stars Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder. Further, many of the motifs and much of the plot from the 1931 film Frankenstein are reprised in Edward Scissorhands.

Plot

When the neighborhood Avon lady, Mrs. Peg Boggs (Dianne Wiest) fails to make any profits in her neighborhood, she goes to the creepy castle on the hill and meets Edward (Johnny Depp). Edward is an artificial man whose inventor (Vincent Price) dies before being able to put hands on his creation. Instead Edward has scissors for hands. Mrs. Boggs brings Edward home to her family and thus Edward must adjust to life in the suburbs. He falls in love with Kim Boggs (Winona Ryder), who hates Edward at first, but grows to love him while everybody else in the neighborhood - even her own parents - grows to distrust him because of his dangerous handicap. In the end, Edward and Kim go their separate ways, but a love remains between them.

Johnny Depp would end up becoming a regular in Tim Burton movies, playing Ed Wood, Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow, and is portraying Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a more faithful adaptation of the book by the same name written by Roald Dahl.

Tim Burton stated that he named the lead character "Edward" because of its similarity to the name "Ed Wood."

Motifs and Themes

The plot of Edward Scissorhands bears resemblances to Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein , inasmuch as Edward is an artificially created man; however, such similarities to the novel are limited (for example, no conflict occurs between the creator and the created being, in contrast to a central theme of Shelley's Frankenstein). Rather, Edward Scissorhands follows more closely the plot of the 1931 motion picture Frankenstein in that Edward, a creature without malice or knowledge of deception, is naïve to the selfish, malicious, deceiptful or fearful nature of his human hosts. As a result, an innocent mistake by Edward is interpreted as a malicious act by the people of the neighborhood, and leads to his ultimate destruction by a crowd of those Edward had trusted and had thought of as friends, but whose apparent friendship may only ever have been a mask for their underlying fear and misunderstanding of Edward.

Similarities and common plot developments are also seen between Edward Scissorhands and Disney's Beauty and the Beast; in both movies, a misunderstood and visually frightening (but nonetheless emotionally sensitive) "beast" earns the affection of the lead female character, only to be eventually attacked by a lynch mob of townspeople.

See also

• 1990 in film
• List of fantasy films

External links

• IMDb entry for Edward Scissorhands
• All Movie Guide entry for Edward Scissorhands
• Review of a pornographic parody, Edward Penishands