Summary
The Red Queen and the White Queen walk towards one another on the chess board and greet one another, as the rabbit blows a bugle. "On this, the Frabjous Day, the Queens, Red and White, shall send forth their champions to do battle on their behalf" he announces. The White Queen pleads with the Red Queen to reconsider the fight and choose to repair their relationship, but the Red Queen deflects, summoning the Jabberwocky.
As the Jabberwocky approaches, Alice tells the Hatter that killing him will be impossible, to which he replies, "Only if you believe it is." "Sometimes, I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast," she says, and steps forward to face the Jabberwocky. As she walks, she counts all the impossible things she has believed that day. When the Jabberwocky addresses the vorpal sword, Alice cuts off its tongue, before getting knocked off her feet. She lists more impossible things as she fights the Jabberwocky, the last impossible thing being that she can slay the Jabberwocky.
The Jabberwocky knocks the sword out of Alice's hands, and the Hatter grabs it. Seeing the Hatter interfere, the Red Queen declares battle, and the knights begin to fight. As the Jubjub bird flies towards the dormouse (who is riding on Bayard's back), the dormouse throws its pin into the Jubjub bird's eye, and the white knights launch a giant rock from a catapult, which lands on the bird's head.
Alice finds herself in a large ruin of sorts, away from the battlefield. Suddenly she encounters the Jabberwocky, who roars at her and blows purple electricity from its mouth. It knocks her down and chases her up a winding staircase. At the top, it outstretches its wings, and Alice climbs on its back. It struggles and thrashes, and Alice manages to behead it, yelling "Off with your head!"
As the Jabberwocky's head rolls down the staircase, everyone watches in awe. The Red Queen orders her knights to kill Alice, but they drop their weapons, signifying that they will no longer follow her. Suddenly, the crown flies from the Red Queen's head, transported by the Cheshire Cat. He places it on the White Queen, who tells the Red Queen that while her crimes are punishable by death, she will instead be banished, along with the Knave, for the rest of time.
The Knave goes to stab the Red Queen, but the Hatter throws a pin into his wrist preventing him. "Take off my head!" the Knave screams as the knights carry him away. Suddenly, the Hatter begins to do his iconic dance, the Futterwacken, and everyone claps.
The White Queen collects some of the Jabberwocky's purple blood in a vial and gives it to Alice as a reward for slaying him. Alice asks if it will take her home, and the White Queen says it will if she chooses. The Hatter suggests that she can stay, but Alice tells him that she must return to the real world, takes a swig of the Jabberwocky blood, and tells him she'll be back before long. "You won't remember me," he says, sadly, but she insists that she will.
With that, Alice goes flying back up the rabbit hole, emerging from the tree and wandering back to the garden party. Back at the gazebo, Alice tells Hamish that she cannot marry him, that he's not the right man for her. She tells Margaret that she needs to make her own decision, and tells Margaret's husband Lowell that she will be watching him closely. Alice then goes to Aunt Imogen and informs her that there is no prince and she must speak to someone about her delusions.
Alice assures her mother she will find something useful to do with her life, then tells the two girls who spoke to her earlier at the party that they remind her of some boys she met in a dream once. Hamish's father, and Alice's father's business associate, approaches her and she tells him they have business to discuss. Before going into the house, Alice does the Futterwacken.
Inside, Alice and Hamish's father discuss a trade route her father proposed. "Why not go all the way to China?" she proposes. Impressed, Hamish's father suggests that she become an apprentice with his company.
We see Alice boarding a ship to China. It sets sail and she goes to the bow, looking out over the ocean, as a blue butterfly lands on her shoulder. "Hello Absolem," she says to the butterfly, and it flies away.
Analysis
It is in this section of the film that we finally meet the horrific Jabberwocky, about which we have heard so much. As the score turns dramatic and dark, the great beast emerges, a terrifying nightmarish dragon. It roars ferociously, a creature something between a dinosaur, a bird of prey, and a dragon. If Alice already had doubts about her ability to slay the Jabberwocky, she is all the more discouraged by the sight of it.
When she tells the Hatter that she thinks her mission is impossible, however, he suggests that her power exists within her. He suggests that the slaying of the Jabberwocky is impossible "only if you believe it is." Thus we see that bravery and a willingness to risk the impossible are the key ingredients to Alice's success. The Hatter's words echo Alice's father's insistence on the virtue of facing the impossible, of fighting for what is right, even against the odds.
Indeed, it is this memory of the importance of believing impossible things that gives Alice the courage to begin fighting. As she approaches the Jabberwocky, she lists all the impossible things she has believed, which include all of the unbelievable events that have occurred since she arrived in Wonderland. Using these impossibilities as a kind of mantra, she is filled with enough courage to begin fighting back against the Jabberwocky, a creature many times her size.
In the middle of Alice's struggle with the Jabberwocky, the Hatter intervenes, which causes a giant battle to break out between the revolutionaries and the oppressive forces from the red castle. Scrappy members of the resistance, such as the dormouse, Tweedles, and Hatter, might not be strong or formidable opponents, but they are crafty and creative in their fighting, and they provide backup for Alice, their leader.
Interestingly enough, Alice's time in the whimsical world of Wonderland only makes her more practical in the real world. The lessons of the upside down and nonsensical fantasy world teach Alice some very real lessons about being brave and saying what she wants. She returns to the garden party with a more assured outlook, baldly telling Hamish that she does not want to marry him, telling Aunt Imogen to get over her romantic delusions, and assuring her worried mother that she is going to find something useful to do with her life. After slaying the Jabberwocky and embracing the illusions of her own fantasy world, Alice has a stronger sense of self, and uses it to propel herself towards success and happiness in "the real world."
