The Chronicles of Narnia

[Whistler]

A very fine adaptation, I think. No moments of soaring sublimity, as we got from LOTR, but as Pearl has observed these stories are simpler, more intimate, and don't require such moments.

I predict great success. The audience last night was deeply into every moment and responded appropriately at every point.

Yes, the action was amped up at the expense of quieter moments and dialogue. But thankfully the children were not turned into self-aware, wisecracking mallrats making pop culture references and rolling their eyes at the stupid adults. That concession to mass audiences would have killed the thing even beyond Aslan's redemption.

[vison]

So, Whistler, on the whole you liked it? Good.

[Whistler]

Yes, I liked it...apart from the silly inclusion of out-of-period pop songs, presumably included for the purpose of getting some radio play and maybe an Oscar nomination. But I've forgotten them all now, and I don't think there was anything memorable enough for either.

Another concession to the unwashed masses. But a mostly harmless one, in this case.

[WampusCat]

But thankfully the children were not turned into self-aware, wisecracking mallrats making pop culture references and rolling their eyes at the stupid adults. That concession to mass audiences would have killed the thing even beyond Aslan's redemption.

I shudder at the very thought.

[Whistler]

Did you know, Wampus, that this was exactly the intention at one point?

The story was to be updated and moved to Los Angeles after an earthquake. The kids were to be “hip,” and the animals were to be Madagascar-style smart alecks. Doubtless there would have been some fart jokes.

And the White Witch? Janet Jackson.

[Pearly Di]

Merciful heavens.

That makes PJ and his daft XenArwen ideas sound positively puristy!!!!!!

Aaaaaaaaaaarrrggggghhhhhh.

Oh, thank the Lord that never came to pass!

Ack!!!!!!!!!! Ackackackackack!

[The Angel]

The story was to be updated and moved to Los Angeles after an earthquake. The kids were to be “hip,” and the animals were to be Madagascar-style smart alecks. Doubtless there would have been some fart jokes.

And the White Witch? Janet Jackson.

I believe the Turkish Delight was also to be replaced with a hambuger.

Just for completeness, I'll include my thoughts on the film, lifted lock stock from TORC and TOB:

A superb film, Adamson did a great job, and he was my biggest worry about all this, as I found the Shrek films to be good fun, but nowhere near worth the hype that got thrown around them.

Massive shades of LOTR, of course; not just in appearance here and there, but also in methodolgy -- LOTR has taught film makers to give fantasy source material space and time and let it work the same magic it worked in book form. It's a while before Lucy first falls into Narnia, and the time is used to establish the Pevensie kids fairly well as four distinct and real individuals. They come across as real kids with good sides and bad sides that make sense. Edmund, the "traitor", isn't a bad kid, he's just bitter and angry because he misses his dad, and kids do get bitter and angry because they miss their dads, trust me.

This has the same effect on LW&W as the early scenes in the Shire had on LOTR, by allowing us to believe in, and understand, these main characters, it makes believing in the fantastical circumstances they find themselves in that much easier.

Once the main plotlines have been established though, and the film really starts to get moving, it moves in earnest, with a superb rollercoaster pace, that never lets up, and because of the quality of the material, never needs to.

Once Aslan arrives, the film just becomes that much bigger, and makes the step up from the fantastic to the glorious. While I think Liam Neeson's voice was a touch too light for the delivery he was going for, as Alys said, he had a tremendous warmth -- you could understand loving this lion, as well as fearing and respecting it. The final battle is, quite literally, more fantastic than anything LOTR -- where else do you find charging rhinos, cheetah special forces, phoenix flashbangs and some centaurs so insanely hard, they'd be a fair match for the charging Rohirrim?

The film's final ace in the hole is one of the few things that the LOTR films genuinely lacked -- a first class, top drawer, villain(ess). Tilda Swinton is simply fabulous as the White Witch, pure evil, beautifully feminine and terrifyingly masculine all at once. She absolutely deserves a best supporting nomination for this performance. She'll scare you the way a flaming eye never could.

The acting, both voice work and in person, is never less than good, and perhaps Adamson's best achievement are the aforementioned great performances he coaxed out of his four young leads. Other standouts are McAvoy as Tumnus, Ray Winstone and Dawn French as the beavers, whichever gravelly voiced Americans did the wolves and Jim Broadbent, more or less cameoing as the Professor.

On a personal level, just about my favourite thing in the whole movie was the creature effects work. When you were raised on Narnia TV shows where the talking animals were (the superb Aslan animatronic aside) actors in varying degrees of bad furry costumes or slightly ropey cell animation, to see beavers that simply are beavers, and wolves that simply are wolves, is just terrific. All the effects work is about as good as you could possibly get these days, but I think the wolves are the best, being pretty much seemless between shots of RL wolves and some CGI ones.

So, in short, it has all of LOTR's fun, perhaps without some of its weight and depth, and is comfortably the best fantasy film since, well, Sean Astin was back.

Edit: Regarding Turkish Delight, I've just been reminded of a fact that I read the other day; since the Narnia promotion kicked in, sales of Turkish Delight have increased by 300%.

[Whistler]

Great remarks, Angel: my assessment, too, on the whole. And I do remember reading about the hamburger. Too horrible for words!

Tilda Swinton has been known to scare people in real life, too. In a recent interview, she revealed that she used to shock her brothers by exposing a nipple.

Her third nipple.

[Athrabeth]

Tilda Swinton has been known to scare people in real life, too. I a recent interview, she revealed that she used to shock her brothers by exposing a nipple.

Her third nipple.

And by my count, that beats out Janet Jackson by at least one nipple.

[WampusCat]

Did you know, Wampus, that this was exactly the intention at one point?

The story was to be updated and moved to Los Angeles after an earthquake. The kids were to be “hip,” and the animals were to be Madagascar-style smart alecks. Doubtless there would have been some fart jokes.

And the White Witch? Janet Jackson.

Tell me you're joking. They didn't really consider this, did they? Spy Kids in Narnia? Were Timon and Puumba going to frolic with Aslan?

<ponders crawling into a cave somewhere with beloved books and hiding from the world>

[truehobbit]

Oooh, so many great posts!

Angel, good review - I hope you don't mind my saying this - I thought the Fox sounded a lot like you.

I'd like to get back to the answers to my questions a bit - thanks so much, everybody, this was quite helpful!

Lewis was adamant that he wasn't trying to put across Christian themes when he wrote the stories. He said the stories began with images, such as a faun with an umbrella, and grew from there. What was most important to him bubbled up into the tales, but the tales were not written for that reason.

Ah, ok - that does make a big difference, I think - the way I'd understood it was that he wrote the stories in order to get the reader interested in Christianity!

You list a good number of themes that are represented in the story - I can see all those, too - so, if that's the intention, I agree it's fulfilled. I guess that, when I heard it was supposed to be a story with a Christian background, I expected a proper redemption story, like LOTR (the way I see it, that is).

Aslan’s reference to the “Deep Magic,” which accounts for his resurrection, seems to be a reference to Old Testament messianic prophecy

Oh, that's an interesting explanation, Whistler! I must admit the "Deep Magic" part bothered me.
I should really read the book again!

I have a lovely liberal Catholic friend who really doesn't like Aslan at all, actually ... finds it all a bit blasphemous. Interesting reaction a bit like Tolkien's.

Same as me, then! And if Tolkien saw it similarly, maybe it's something Catholics have in common!

Then I've found all these scary fundamentalist sites that claim Narnia is all about witchcraft and that Lewis was not a 'real' Christian at all and that his books are full of spiritual deception ...

Now, that's interesting - much like the fundamentalist's reaction to Harry Potter!

Yep, I loved Peter, too. And Aslan's voice. All the voices and acting, really.
I'm with ttbk and most others on the songs, though - ewww!

'Prince Caspian' is in development for 2008.

Three years till the next movie?
The funny thing is, I first thought with so many books they couldn't do a film a year, the three years for LOTR had really been as much as you could ask of the audience - but then I remembered Harry Potter!
(Ok, the difference is that LOTR was one story you had to wait three years for to finish.)
Hmmmh, I'm sorry to say so, when you sound so enthusiastic, but I think the stories of the other books sound a lot like the typical prequel/sequel - the author telling the same story again in a slightly different setting.
Still, you enthusiasm does make me curious to try reading some more...

[TheTennisBallKid]

That was John Boorman, who also had rather interesting ideas about how LOTR should have been done...

I don't think it ever really got off the ground, for obvious reasons....

Do you know, TTBK, I didn't pick up on that at all.

I did.


Oh well... :|


I expect I'll be in the minority in not liking this, even Wildwood gave it a thumbs up.

The script is nicely witty too. My favourite line: Susan to Mr and Mrs Beaver, "But we're not heroes. We're from Finchley!"

That was something I did like. I can relate to her cynicism. And when she tells Mr beaver that the prophecy "Doesn't really rhyme... ", that was exactly what I would have said. Gave me quite a chuckle...



ttbk

[The Angel]

Angel, good review - I hope you don't mind my saying this - I thought the Fox sounded a lot like you.

Alys laughed when she heard that TH .

The Fox was voiced by Rupert Everett:



who looks a bit like me, but not so handsome .


Edit to make the image show up

[truehobbit]

The Fox was voiced by Rupert Everett

Yes, I know - I watched out for who it was in the end credits!

I was wondering whether it was the accent, but I think even more than that it was the mix of nonchalance and underlying seriousness, audible in the tone somehow - very nicely done, and fitting with the character, btw.

[Whistler]

I just read that there were so many Weta people on the site, most of them wearing shirts with LOTR logos, that Tilda Swinton began to feel like an outsider. So she had her own shirt printed, with this message:

The Lord Of the Rings: I Wasn't In It

[JewelSong]

I cannot wait to see this movie. I adored the Narnia books as a child - read them to shreds, literally. Even now, I can pick one up and get engrossed.

I always thought the Christian symbolism was very apparent. And I always liked how the books were so...loving about it.

A little note (for those who don't read my LJ)
My son Luke has always had great difficulty reading. He was very late to learn and even now, has trouble deciphering words and phrases. He will read the sports pages and sometimes other non-fiction for information, but has never really "gotten into" a book and become "lost" in it.

Last week, he was home from school due to a teacher professional day. Usually he spends the day hanging on the couch watching TV, playing on the computer or outside shooting baskets. But when I came home from work, he was on the sofa in my study, his head buried in a book and he barely looked up at me. He had spent the day reading this book from cover-to-cover.

What was the book? "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" by CS Lewis.

Isn't that great? Now he wants to read them all! *hugs CS Lewis and Narnia*

Oh, and when I mentioned that he usually didn't like fiction, he responded that he liked this story because "it was true!" But he is really excited that he actually "got" the story.

[yovargas]

Cut n paste from b77:


Okay, just got back from seeing it. I've never read the book so this is a unbiased opinion.


SPOILERS obviously

Overall grade - C at best

Good things:

I enjoyed the whole opening sequence. The WWII bits and the interaction of the children was nice. They had character and it was filled in smoothly and efficiently. I enjoyed Lucy's first trip in and I really liked the Faun (Thomas?) quite a bit, would've liked more of him actually. The Ice Queen was excellent, easily the best part of the movie. She doesn't really do much unfortunately, but she owns the screen every moment she's on it. Really, I was enjoying it all quite a bit until the four kids enter Narnia. And then...

Bad things:

Um, why should I care about any of this? What are we fighting about? Why are the kids important!? They don't DO anything yet Aslan kills himself for Edmund as if Edmund is crucially important to the fate of Narnia. WHY? What are Aslan and the Ice Queen fighting about? Why should I care about which side wins? Because the Ice Queen's followers are uglier? Why the hell do the kids get crowned as royalty at the end? What in the world have they done to earn ANY of the respect and loyalty and following? NOTHING! Did anyone else find it completely ridiculous to have a little teen kid who just picked up a sword a couple days ago commanding an army with virtually no fear or hesitance? What, he accidentally stabbed one wolf and now he's a fearless leader of a horde fantastical creatures? Not only that, but he can expertly fight to the point where he can go toe to toe with the most powerful and dangerous foe in Narnia!?!?!? What the hell????? Which reminds me - it kept annoying me how almost entirely lacking in wonder the kids were through any of this, as if talking beavers were just a neat occurance as oppose to wildly amazing. The story just absolutely could not work for me without these ginormous gaps in logic filled in. The only thing that could fill in any of it was some unexplained prophecy said they were gonna be kings and queens, so I guess that means they should make these four kids those royalties. Of course, they didn't actually DO anything to make the prophesy come true, they just sort of showed up and watched it all happen. If all Aslan needed to do to end it all was just bite her face off, couldn't he have done that in the tent earlier and be done with it? Whatever.

Elsewhere. The Beaver's were cute at first but they very quickly fell into lame kiddie fare. Meh. The CGI all over the place was distracting. The cinematography was consistently boring, as was the entirely forgettable soundtrack. The giant battle scene was entirely lacking in real tension of any kind. Some pretty sights and neato events (the phoenix-arrow thingy was quite cool) but almost no emotion. Aslan's death scene felt silly and his ressurection was ridiculous. I knew about the supposed Jesus parallel beforehand, but on-screen it just looks like some lame contrivance. And the girls crying and mourning his death for what seemed like hours and hours when, as far as we could see in the movie, they barely knew this lion at all. Why are they SO broken up about it?

That C score is me being pretty generous.


*************************************

Did anyone else find it completely ridiculous to have a little teen kid who just picked up a sword a couple days ago commanding an army with virtually no fear or hesitance?

The books go into the magic of Narnia making the kids braver and nobler and wiser than they otherwise would be. Still, I can see how your other complaints would stand.

Okay, I can sorta buy that. But the biggest problem for me is the feeling that Narnia doesn't need these kids. They don't actually do anything to save Narnia. It seemed like Narnia could have saved themselves just fine without them.

When Edmond is rescued and the four are back together, I think it's Susan who says they should get back now, which is what I was thinking. But then Lucy and Edmond give a little speech about how they can't leave now because Narnia needs them, and I'm thinking, "Um, need you for what exactly?" Still don't know the answer to that.

[Whistler]

Yov:

In themselves, the kids have no importance. Aslan could destroy the witch at any time. In fact, they aren’t really fighting: Aslan is king from the beginning, and the witch is alive and active only by his permission. The kids have done nothing to deserve any particular respect, and certainly nothing to deserve elevation to royalty. The kids do things they couldn’t do, exhibit abilities they haven’t earned or learned. Nothing makes logical sense about any of it, really. It is just as baffling as you suggest.

So I think you are right, but I think you are wrong. The story is about the grace of God, or (more precisely) Christ. It is not about how God works his will without man’s involvement, and it is not about how man gets anything because he has earned it. Everything happens as it does because Aslan would have it that way, not because it makes sense to an outsider. It’s a story that takes place on a whole different level of thinking in which man is drawn in for reasons that we do not, and cannot, understand. It’s a story in which flawed and foolish man is made into something he has no right to be, just because God wants more for us than we dare want for ourselves.

I think you “got” it pretty well, actually. But what you got meant something other than you think it did.

Good to see you posting here, by the way.

[yovargas]

Putting it that way...it annoys me much the same the Christian story annoys me (spoken as a guy raised in the Church but who left it about a decade ago).

So do any non-Christians enjoy this story?

[Túrin Turambar]

I think it's a fun story. Nothing great, but still a fun story. The strongly Christian elements bother me less than the inclusion of, say, Father Christmas. I don't necessarily agree with the content of C.S. Lewis' allegory, but I like it when a book or film has a 'moral universe' that I can try to figure out.

I haven't seen the movie, though, so I have no idea how it comes off.