Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Chronicles of Narnia

I saw it this weekend. It was good,
though I think they tried to be a
bit too Lord of the Ringish in the
sense of making an epic story.

What does everyone else think?

Battler, I thought it was incredible!! It kept true to the books, and it certainly held that youthful tone that differed from LOTR. Disney should try for this quality in all it's movies, instead of the sappy feel good mush it usually pushes.

All of the children got defined, and we even see a little of Susan's future maturity come through. Edmund never came across as an evil boy I first remebered, just a snotty brat.
It was nice to see the fox on the side of right and wolves finally portayed as the villainous beasts they really are. And Aslan was done rather well.

A wonderful adaptation.

Haven't wolves been portrayed as villainous beasts for several centuries?

Does the movie cover all the books, or just the first?

I just started to read the series this weekend.

and wolves finally portayed as the villainous beasts they really are.
seems like someone doesn't like wolves???

The first book only, if your set counts them in publishing order. LW&W was the "first" book when I first read them, but some sets these days number "The Magician's Nephew" as the first since it's chronologically set before LW&W.

Yeah, my set has The Magician's Nephew first, but I knew by the copyright date that it was written last.

This particular movie is subtitled, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It covers that book only. Rumour has it the books weren't published in order of Lewis' intentions. However, the tone and story of the Magician's Nephew is perhaps the most mature, so I can't see why he would have chosen that title to start with.

Magician's Nephew was my least favourite, and the slowest paced of the series. I think that would also be the most difficult to adapt.

But they did a fantastic job here, and hopefully they continue throughout the series.

Hehe, there's a bit of bias there yeah. I find foxes to be the most perfect creature. But here in this wolf infested state, folks are always trying to give me wolf-themed gifts, claiming they are the same thing. RRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Quick, hide. Here comes the WCLU (Wolves Civil Liberties Union.)

That's not actually the case. Check out the following site for a detailed explanation of the debate between Publicationists and Chronologists:
What Order Should I Read the Narnia Books in (and does it matter)?

That was a lovely essay.

However, I do think that LWW is a beautiful place to start, and when the history of the Wardrobe comes back (in prequel form) in The Magician's Nephew, it gives one a really nice tingle to find out at long last from where it actually came. That little shiver of delight (as well as finally finding out the history of the White Witch) is worth reading TMN later, at least for me.

I guess by that essay I would be a publicationist. LWW is certainly the one that I would consider the appropriate one to start a young reader on the series with. Starting with The Magician's Nephew would be like reading the Lord of the Rings starting with the Appendices. I was interested to note that A Horse and His Boy has been resequenced also, it's always been my least favorite of the series.

Re: the LOTR resemblence.

"Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis', and a member of the Inklings, a literary discussion group to which both Lewis and Owen Barfield belonged."

Straight from Wiki. I knew you were talking about the resemblences of the movie making...not the books but still pretty cool.

Now if Disney would only remake Alexander Lloyd's Black Cauldron with this quality!

i really enjoyed this film, and i've currently been to see this twice over this last week !!

i loved it's 'old fashioned family film' feel !! from what i can remember of reading the book years ago, i think it was very true to what was written !!

anyone know of any details that were missed ??

the SPX were great, it was really had at points to tell what was 'real' and what wasn't IMO !!

like the beavers, i thought they were great !!

Matthew.

We went to see it on Friday and while Chris absolutely adored it I was a little less enthusiatic. I'm not entirely sure why though because it was certainly very good. Tilda Swinton was absolutely perfect as the White Witch, most of the effects were brilliant and the story worked very well without them cutting out any significant amounts. But...

I dunno, I think possibly it's that I find all four of the children ever so slightly irritating. That's not just a fault of the film though. I felt like that when reading the books and watching the BBC version from the 80s (which is worth seeing btw) so I think it's probably something I'm always going to feel. OK so you're not supposed to like Edmund for most of it but I found the other three annoying too. Peter is the only one who was a bit wooden in the film (Lucy was a great actress) but I just felt like slapping all four of them.

Also, the fact that most of the effects were so good showed up when they were really bad. The bit where they're on the top of the cliff looking out on the frozen river had some appaling matting going on and Aslan was hugely inconsistent in terms of his size. There were bits where he was regular lion size and then other bits where he was huge. That might have been intentional but it didn't appear to be, or at least the change in size didn't make any sense in terms of the story (like if he'd been bigger when he coems back to life that would make sense, but he wasn't). Plus the fox was really crappy compared to the other animals. He just looked a bit cartoony. Perfect voice casting with Rupert Everett though.

I did think though that it was a shame that while little was cut out the whole explanation for the stone table and the ancient magic and stuff wasn't explained terribly well. I don't think it mattered hugely in terms of the plot but it did make the whole Aslan coming back to life thing a little... well, maybe not confusing but not terribly clear. OK so it's a Christian allegory but in the books at least you get an explanation of the spell on the table and stuff which I thought got short thrift in the film.

All in all a good film (loved the costume design, even the White Witch's bizarre big backed dress from when she was in her palace) but it just left me a bit unsatisfied, but I think that's because of my own slight dislike of the four children rather than any failing on teh part of the film, if you see what I mean.

I don't get all the talk of Christian allegory, Aslan as a metaphorical Jesus. We read comic books, characters come back to life constantly. When I was in college, I use to watch Days of Our Lives, and I don't know how many times characters have returned from the dead there. But in a magical land of talking animals...?

I get the "son of Adam" bit does suggest some form of Judeo-Christian bias, and Lewis' other writings have a certain leaning. Because Aslan dies and is reborn mysteriously, he's Jesus?

It's not my intention to rile anyone up. Folks are welcome to read and enjoy the books and take what they want from it. This particular topic has surfaced almost everytime Narnia is discussed and I've yet to see a well documented arguement for the arguement.

While the Christian teachings are not in my pervue I can point out a couple of sites that do all the work for me.

Into the Wardrobe

Christian Bible Studies has a free guide for comparing The Magician's Nephew.

Lewis, of course, denied that Narnia was a Christian allegory. But he also was said to use a strict definition of the word allegory:

TLTWATW isn't quite as much a Christian allegory (accepting that Lewis didn't like the word 'allegory') but a lot of the other Narnia books are very much so (Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle especially). The Christian message in TLTWATW is... well, not quite muted, but it's not as extreme. However it's still there and in a way an important part of teh story. Aslan is to a certain extent a Jesus figure (because of the whole resurection thing) but in fact is much more of a Jaweh figure, certainly when you read the books (it's slightly downplayed in the film). I don't think the message is so strong that you can't read the books and enjoy them without being Christian, but it's certainly there. Chris did wonder whether the bit with Aslan walking acrioss the sand and the pointed shot of his footprints was a reference to the poem about the footprints in the sand, but if it is that's the only obvious Christian image in the film (ignoring the whole 'son of Adam' bit). Quite how far Lewis intended to take that allegory is hard to say, it could be something as extreme as the Christian children (the only 'real' people in the books) saving the pagan lands with the help of the almighty king, or it could just be an adventure story influenced by Lewis' own religious beliefs. Either way though the message is there (as it is in a lot of other literature to be fair) but it's easy to see why Christian groups are so eagerly looking to the film as a way of getting people interested in the Christian faith.

Like I say though all that being said doesn't mean that you can't enjoy the books and the film as something non-religious. I think the strength of both is that they're well written enough that you can enjoy them just a story or as something deeper depending on your world view.

*MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE LAST BATTLE*

I thought the movie was terrific, and I wasn't going in expecting that I would like it so much.

I understand that a lot of people characterize it as "LOTR-lite" -- and the movie does invite those comparisons, to some degree, with some of the epic shots of the kids marching over snowy crevasses -- but all in all I thought it did well on its own. It wasn't meant to be, nor did it really attempt to be, truly epic. It was a story about four kids caught up in something larger than themselves, and it had a few appropriately epic elements here and there.

I thought that the parts they added to flesh out the book worked well -- the Blitz and other parts at the beginning did a good job of giving us a peek at Edmund's personality and the interaction among the kids generally. And I thought they did a good job of setting up Susan for what happens to her in The Last Battle. She's the one who says "Impossible!" when they arrive in Narnia, which is echoed later in the movie by the White Witch at Aslan's return...

Check out this really good essay about the issue of Christian "allegory" in the Chronicles of Narnia. The author seems to have a good perspective on the whole matter and cites some pretty solid references.

I finally saw LWW yesterday. It was...okay. I find it interesting that all of the concerns I raised above were allayed, only to be replaced by a slew of new ones. As with LotR, I was generally less bothered by what they left out than by what they added in. I didn't like how they changed the flight from the wolves. I didn't believe that the wolves wouldn't just kill them without conversation. I didn't like that they took out the almost-execution of Edmund. His rescue by the loyal Narnians at the point of death makes his predicament much more immediate in the book. I didn't like the attention paid to the battle. It went on too long and took too much time away from the more important scene of Aslan rescuing the captives at the witch's castle. I was sorry that we didn't get the moment of Aslan needing to remind Lucy of her responsibility to the other wounded; it adds a bit of humanity to Lucy's character, showing that she isn't always so bloody perfect. I wished that the Narnians hadn't been so overwhelmingly humanoid. The sense I gained from the movie was that most of the inhabitants of Narnia are fauns and centaurs, along with a few talking animals; I really wanted a feeling of a large population of animals, accented by a few mythological creatures. And I was terribly unhappy that they took out the parallel concepts of "Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time" and "Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time," replacing them with simply "Deep Magic." How utterly boring.

Still, there were things I did like. The prologue in London goes a long way toward establishing the childrens' situation and relationships with each other. When Lewis wrote the book, British audiences wouldn't need to be told what the wartime situation was like; modern American audiences need the leg up and the movie accomplished it well. I also loved Tilda Swinton's portrayal of the White Witch. Spot on, as our British cousins might say. Many moments from the book really leapt out in a nice way: the first shot of the children in the coats; the children sitting around in the Professor's house. The dwarves were also well done; better than LotR actually. I really enjoyed Jim Broadbent's portrayal of the Professor, especially the short epilogue scene in during the credits. He was exactly the kind of understanding adult that the character should be. I also liked that they added a bit more of a hint that the Professor had himself been to Narnia.

Overall, between the good and bad choices, I felt the movie lacked a certain soul. It was like a rock skipping over the surface of the novel, hitting moments from the story without really immersing itself until the very end. I enjoyed it, but I hope that for Prince Caspian they get a little closer to the real heart of the stories.

Having never read the books (I tried; his style didn't draw me in) I myself was worried the Christian subtext would be too annoying. It wasn't.

It was a fun movie; well-done. I didn't appreciate wolves being bad-guys; I think we have all seen enough undeserved treatment on that account. But I'm not going to hold a grudge against the flick for it.

It would've been nice to see some wolves (and Minotaurs and polar bears) on Aslan's side- and cheetahs and centaurs on the White Witch's.

Other than that, I loved the movie. It's been YEARS since I've read the book, so whatever was left out or skimmed over wasn't at the forefront of my brain.

I thought Tilda Swinton was perfect. Fierce, coldly seductive, owning the costume and the character.

I found the ice palace set quite impressive- and the winter scenery. I even liked Father Christmas- which I remembered as a bit out of place when I read the book.

I thought the casting of the children was terrific. They all looked and acted the way I remembered the characters in the book. I really liked the kids portraying Peter and Lucy.

LOVED the fox! Rupert Everett!! Cool. My aunt gave me this book when I was tennish-- telling me that there was a character in it from which my name comes from. She meant the fox. Since then, I've loved the animal.