Which keeps more to the story Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd or the original?

Answer 1

I don't think you're going to get an answer to this question until you explain what you mean by "the story" and "the original."

First, what is "the story?" There are several different versions of the Sweeney Todd story. They all have the same basic plot: that he was a barber who murdered his victims with his straight razor, and then transported their bodies via a trap door to where they were made into meat pies and sold to unsuspecting customers.

But in some versions he works alone, while in others he has an accomplice, Mrs. Lovett. Sometimes she is his lover, sometimes not. Sometimes he does it because he's greedy and evil, sometimes because he's insane. The storyline with Lucy, Joanna, and Judge Turpin was not invented until 1973.

Although there are some people who firmly believe that Sweeney Todd was a real person (see Related Link #2), the consensus among most historians is that Sweeney Todd was only ever an urban legend. According to Wikipedia (see the first Related Link), the legend of Sweeney Todd may have originated from an older urban legend about human flesh being sold in meat pies to unsuspecting cutomers. One of Charles Dickens' characters mentions this legend in the novel Martin Chuzzlewit.

So when you say "the story" of Sweeney Todd, what story are you talking about?

The second part of the question is also too vague: "Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd or the original." There are dozens of different stage, screen, and print adaptations of the Sweeney Todd story, dating all the way back to the mid-1800s. There's about half a dozen film versions, three or four musical versions, half a dozen stage versions, three or four TV versions, several short stories and novels... Again, see the Related Link below; the Wikipedia entry lists all the more well-known ones.