a thread for anticipating the first narnia movie

no do not bring up my horrid memory of hiding in my mums closet and my friend locking the door on my and then me crying to get out and then another time somehow i was crushed by a large falling wardrobe. TOO LATE!

oh, i nearly forgot - major, major plus point = tilda swinton. absolutely perfect casting, even better here than she was in constantine.

are they gonna do the rest of the books? i wish they'd skip "prince caspian," that one always bored me.

My cinema was half-empty yesterday too. Perhaps they'll get better.

I like the Horse and his Boy. None of those pesky kids!

--the blue velvet chair (its the bondage one) (dennis hopper as the ANGRY MARSHWIGGLE)
--voyage of the dune treader (reepicheep IS the kwizatz haderach)
--prince ELEPHANT-MAN

but the best wz the original: NARNIAHEAD, abt about a magical wintry world BEHIND THE RADIATOR in which a WITCH (w.puffy cheeks) battles w.a jesusy LION (also w.puffy cheeks)

(1) It deepened the characters of the children, especially Susan's, who will be summarily dismissed shortly by Peter in The Last Battle; we can understand why it will eventually happen. I liked the bits of business: the first thing they do in Narnia is have a snowball fight; Lucy's one-liners; Peter standing up for her (he's more of a prig in the books).

(2) Tilda Swinton as Jadis. OK, she was far from my first casting choice, but Swinton is a marvel: not only was she was beautiful and terrifying (she looked like an Inca goddess when she stands over the prostrate Aslan at the Stone Table, flashing a knife) but she's quite convincing playing her tricky first scene: when she pretends to act motherly for Edmund's sake.

(3) It showed the Royal Children getting used to being royal. I always thought Peter took the news that he was going to be High King rather too cavalierly in the book; his initial disbelief and gradual acceptance of his fate (dovetailing with his increasing bravery) mirrors the audience's growing faith in him.

(4) The final battle (even though it's too CGI for my taste) was more violent than many parents expected. I'm glad we saw long scenes in which Peter (clumsily) fights the White Witch.

(5) I loved how the spirits of the trees appeared to Peter and co.: these shimmering butterfly wisps.

True, the New Age music was the worst element. And Aslan, both as digital effect and as a Liam Neeson performance (A.O. Scott said that Aslan speaks "in the voice of Alfred Kinsley). But the film honored (and in some places depeened) the book's emotional arc.

http://www.jamesmcavoy.com/albums/album24/tumnus_001.jpg

shortly = AFTER TIME ENDS and OLD FATHER ETHAN TIME squeezes out the SUN!!

I really liked it! Not as fanatic as most of y'all about the books tho, I only read "The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe" halfway through when I was little, and reread the whole thing now a few months before the movie came out. I don't think they fucked up any parts of the essence of the book too badly -Susan seemed written a bit whinier, tho (no fault of the actress, who was great.) Also, the landscapes always felt kinda *small* for a fantasy epic, but I guess they wouldn't if I was a kid (kinda like how all those 90 minute Disney movies felt like 160 minute epics at the time.)

Endless fun with Spot The Critter games! No fair including polar bears on the bad guy's side tho, no no no. Just 'cos they live in the cold - you might as well have suggested evil penguins.

The cockney beavers were fine with me, but I'm guessing might enrage some UK ILX Narnia fans who go to see this.

It must've been, ooh, twelve years since I read "A Horse And His Boy", but didn't it have some rather dubious undercurrents about teaching christianity to heathen arabs? I may have exaggerated the implied racism in my mind, but I do remember the main bad guy was a fella called Rabadash who doesn't believe in Aslan/Jesus.

ew.

You know fauns were known for their large, er, egos.

I like how he went bare-chested but with a scarf on. I think this could take off.

Very OTM. In the books he's as self-righteous as Evelyn Waugh, without the wit. At least Lewis had the good sense to make Peter pay for it.

when lucy and edmund return, they come back as kids...well, as old as their real world selves anyway.

Pullman loves Oxford, but he’s far from donnish. His books have been likened to those of J. R. R. Tolkien, another alumnus, but he scoffs at the notion of any resemblance. “ ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is fundamentally an infantile work,” he said. “Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other. He’s interested in maps and plans and languages and codes.” When it comes to “The Chronicles of Narnia,” by C. S. Lewis, Pullman’s antipathy is even more pronounced. Although he likes Lewis’s criticism and quotes it surprisingly often, he considers the fantasy series “morally loathsome.” In a 1998 essay for the Guardian, entitled “The Dark Side of Narnia,” he condemned “the misogyny, the racism, the sado-masochistic relish for violence that permeates the whole cycle.” He reviled Lewis for depicting the character Susan Pevensie’s sexual coming of age—suggested by her interest in “nylons and lipstick and invitations”—as grounds for exclusion from paradise. In Pullman’s view, the “Chronicles,” which end with the rest of the family’s ascension to a neo-Platonic version of Narnia after they die in a railway accident, teach that “death is better than life; boys are better than girls . . . and so on. There is no shortage of such nauseating drivel in Narnia, if you can face it.”

Pullman also makes the argument that Lewis really isn’t all that Christian. The fate of Susan Pevensie, he told me, indicates “some sort of crazed, deranged Manichaeism. Here’s a simple test: What is the greatest Christian virtue? Well, it’s charity, isn’t it? It’s love. If somebody who knew nothing about Christian doctrine, and who had been told that Lewis was a great Christian teacher, read all the way through those books, would he get that message? No.”

but yes. the music was bad. i think one of the things the book got right (in accordance with good kids' fantasy in general) was a kind of funny way of taking fantastic things in stride, and the movie was like "let's slow it down and put in some sappy music!"

This is a bit of derailment, but don't you think Pullman misses the whole point here? The biggest charm in Tolkien's work is exactly that he creates a totally new world with it's own maps, languages, history, and prehistory, thus making Middle Earth more "real" than probably any other literary fantasy realm. The characters were always secondary to that, though I have to say that when I read LotR for the second time a couple of years ago, I found the characters more three-dimensional than I had remembered. The realm of Narnia (in the movie) was more difficult to get totally absorbed into, because it mixed fantasy with real-life elements, such as gas lamps or Santa Claus (wtf?), to an alienating effect.

Except that pretty much every other author whose done this and created maps, languages, history, prehistory, etc. comes off as a colossal bore. I think there's more to Tolkien then the fact that he basically invented a bunch of stylistic tropes for anal retentive nerds to imitate.

I thought the mid-90s BBC TV adaptations were terrific, lovely character design and a great combination of unrealistic characters (people dressed in huge beaver suits etc) and natural locations. Also, good control of music. I'm sure the Disney version is far less poised.

Also, I think this Christian parallel thing has been overplayed. There are as many references to Greek mythology (fauns, satyrs, dryads and nymphs) in the Narnia books as to Christianity. If Lewis meant to make it evangelizing Christian propaganda, he failed.

i dont think the christian allegory things has been overplayed at all. the greek mythology is very superficial, and it's the christian theology that relates to the books' themes.

i could swear aslan says to the kids at one point (not in the Wardrobe book) something like "but you know me by another name in your world" or some such.

and i would certainly disagree with your final statement - i think these books have been HUGE in evangelizing. I knew a bunch of kids in college who came to Christianity in part because of these books. At some other point in there one of the people (or maybe i'm getting it wrong, maybe it's Lewis himself?) says that they'd rather believe in Narnia even if it IS fake because it's a whole lot better off than the "real" world.

i dunno man, the only thing more christian than this is
ihttp://a1204.g.akamai.net/7/1204/1401/05110205011/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/10340000/10340744.jpg

I agree.

I'll also admit to liking the BBC adaptations and loving the new film

I enjoyed the film, it was sprightly, for lack of a better term, and pretty much just adapted the book scene for scene aside from the kids-seeking-Aslan/Edmund-with-White-Witch tweaks (it would have been interesting if the almost-sacrifice of Edmund had been filmed as it was written). Aslan didn't quite connect and Liam Neeson is now pretty much the new Mr. Miyagi, as my friend Tom once said. Tilda Swinton, though, that was a class performance. Also it was kinda nice that Kiran Shah gets a role where you get to see his face after spending all of the LOTR films being a hobbit standin.

Lewis actually says:

"Sir," said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. "If I have read the chronicles aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?"

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "Is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy you still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.' "

"Oh Susan!" said Jill "She's interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grow-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

"Well, don't let's talk about that now," said Peter.

which isn't the same thing at all.

Andrew Rilstone's excellent essay Lipstick On My Scholar might shine some light on the topic.

I liked the way Santa had to go in to arms dealing when the bottom fell out of the Christmas business.

-- jel -- (jel), Saturday, December 17, 2005 6:48 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

this demands more lol

this is also better than any of the harry potter films by miles

plus the dvd has a blooper reel showing the dude in the black minotaur outfit sprinting across the prairie in his green-screen sweatpants and WHUMP plowing a nice divot with his schnoz which is fucking A+++ solid gold

This holds up much better on second viewing when the CGI shit doesn't distract you.

and fuckin' a -- Tilda Swinton in war paint on a chariot driven by polar bears!

this was awful. guess I was too young to notice the jesus cross smacking me in the face when I read it.

that argument is SO tired by now.

Tilda Swinton in war paint on a chariot driven by polar bears!

shit was hawt

After killing Aslan, she does this gesture where she bends down and swings her arms to the side and screams, "The Great Cat IS DEAD!" with her face as blank as Falconetti's that's the scariest thing I've ever seen.