Chronicles of Narnia Discussion - Page 2

BUMP!


Any ideas as to what these guys are going to be releasing at Comic Con? Got into a discussion about it with some friends a couple days ago...should be something cool I would think. Anyone heard anything?

Tilda Swinton is perfect for the White Witch, IMHO, since she has a great physical representation there.

The lion (aslan) is less than ideal, but that's the naturalist/zoologist/anal perfectionist in me.

It probably won't impress me as much as LOTR, but I am really hoping it is not disappointing. The immediate area on the 'other side' of the wardrobe (lampost et al) was just as I visualized it.

Lewis was most definitely a conserative Catholic, largely due to many lengthy discussions with Tolkien who fostered him back to the faith after many years of being a proclaimed atheist. Trust me, Senior year of college I wrote a massive paper on these two, and the Religious aspect was a major point of my piece. Read Lewis' non-fiction(Especially Surprised By Joy) and you can get a great understanding of the man and his beliefs. I went to Boston College (A Jesuit institution) and one of the more popular professors there teaches several classes on Tolkien and Lewis for the Theology and Philosophy department, unfortunately I didn't have the time to take these classes, but my friends did, and man the Prof. laid out a lot of heavy stuff judging by their notes. It still irks me I couldn't take those classes. It will be unavoidable to secularize this film, and hey, I don't want them to. The underlying religious metaphor is a key component to what makes these stories work so well, its good to see that the themes may be slightly downplayed but not neutered, its also good to see that we don't have an "Omega Code" like production on this film as well. I think there can be a balance of the Secular fantasy story aspect and the Christian allegory put forth in this work. Sorry to rant here, I'm just a huge fan of Tolkien and Lewis and seeing their works brought to life gets me amped.

During the past couple months I've reread through the series, and there really are quite a few passages from the books that are nothing short of beautiful. I grew up with these books as a Catholic, and now being probably more of an agnostic, they still offer quite a spiritual experience reading through them. I still find more and more allegorical moments that I never really even picked up on when I was younger. Hopefully they remove the "lamb of god" reference (in #7) that kinda smacks you in the forehead, but other than that the books' subtext are quite gentle.

I read the books as a kid as well, and being rather non-religious, I really didn't pick up on a lot of the religious allegory. I'm looking forward to rereading them before I see the movie, and it will be really interesting to see how much more of it I pick up on this time through.

http://chud.com/news/4112


Aslan looks great. Incredibly noble, Noble with a capital N, just like he should.

I don't quite get the strange ears on those gryphons, though.

I just hope "The Horse and his Boy" is made into a movie. That is my favorite of the books.

Didn't see all of these reported on here at CHUD, but they have a ton of new production photos that they put up last week over at Narnia Web. Some good one's of The Professor, the kids bowing before Aslan and The White Witch with Edmund. The one of Aslan looks pretty amazing, I agree they've done a great job with him.

Narnia Pics

A first look at it -
http://churchofthemasses.blogspot.co...eep-magic.html

Sounds like it's gonna be a good'un.

From that review:

Someone explain that shit to me. Jackson subverted Tolkien's Christian message? Horseshit. There wasn't one.

Some people would disagree with you. Of course from what I recall Tolkien himself said there wasn't one. But all of that aside, The Chronicles of Narnia certainly are allegories and it's important that they stay that way on film.

Not to say that Tolkien didn't infuse his basic Christian ideals into LOTR. The basics of any religion are there, though, to treat fellow man with respect, to treat nature with respect, that there is such a thing as True Evil which will always exist, and must be fought by Good, etc. But these ideas were certainly not man-handled and subverted by Jackson. All of those basic tenants are certainly present in the films, if not further expanded upon.

My basic point remains; that writer has some skewed viewpoints. She seems a little bit on the aggressive side with the notion that Tolkien's voice was somehow silenced in the movies, and that Christians shouldn't bother putting out a helping hand to non-Christians through their art. But I'm not in disagreement that Narnia shouldn't be ripped away from its messages, as certainly Lewis made much more of a connection to Christianity than Tolkien.

From the review: "People particularly want to know if Aslan comes off as a Christ-figure, or just some warm and fuzzy magic lion. Well, I personally cried every moment Aslan was on the screen."

Cried everytime the lion was onscreen? Sounds like a Detroit football fan.

I thank you.

Anyway, that review = hilarious.

The Chronicles of Movies I'm Not Going to See

Do they even bother to explain how Riddick became a lion?

I like how Christian groups act like they're sticking it to the man when they get any allusion to Jesus in a movie.

Be honest - how excited are you guys to see Skandar Keynes peformance as Edmund Pevensie?

Not nearly as excited as I am to see Patrick Kake as Oreius!

I'm excited for these movies purely because I love the books, not because I need to have my head thunked with the allegory. The books do have a heavy Christian subtext, yes, but it's an undercurring theme and certainly doesn't hamper my, a pronounced atheist, enjoyment of them. They're well written fantasy novels, with some fantastic morals provided to children.

This whole hoo-rah from the evengelicals is kind of a turn off to me, because I'd rather see this movie without reliving the mass amounts of churches flooding the lines, using the movie as an excuse to do recruitment duty, like they did with The Passion.

Aslan is a Jesus parable, but then again, so is Neo, and about a thousand other literary and cinematic characters. The reason Narnia gets so much noise from the devout is because they get to use Lewis as a poster boy for the converted. If the exact same books had been written by anyone else, they'd simply be regarded as classics.

Too true, g-dude. Good points.

I remember watching the cartoon as a kid. It was literally word for word, save for Father Christmas being cut out.

Then I saw the BBC version...>_<

I really don't think you can compare this to the Matrix. Narnia is strictly a Christian allegory whereas The Matrix mucks about with different religious beliefs.

I guess my question is would "anyone else" (by this I presume you mean a non-Christian) have written such a clear allegory of Christ? I'm glad that the allegory doesn't turn you off and I seriously hope that Christians don't "Browncoat" this movie. Don't get me wrong I'm sure this will blow the doors off Serenity, but I know overproseletyzing of any movie can backlash. And hey if it does do "Passion Dollars" then maybe that means we'll see the other books in film?

It's really a step beyond simple allegory, as Aslan actually is supposed to be the same Jesus+God as our own. (if you believe such a thing )

"But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

Yeah I keep forgetting that myself. Aslan is literally Jesus, not a symbol. Son of the Emperor Beyond the Sea, whom I would assume to be God. And yet, Aslan is also the creator, not just a savior, of Narnia.

I don't think anybody cares too much that it is a Christian allegory, so long as the movie doesn't contain an overt "become a Christian" message.

What people often forget about religion being fodder for allusion and allegory is that the Bible contains many great stories, including the story of Jesus. Heck, it's often been said that between the Bible and Shakespeare you have every plot-line ever devised.

It's only when someone tells you to take the Bible as literal truth, rather than enjoy the fables and tales it contains, that trouble often ensues.

For me the allegory isn't that important. I read the books as a kid and was unaware of the Christian allegory, I simply loved the stories. I am, however, very happy to here they are keeping the movie as close to the book as possible, I think that is important for stories as classic as this one.

Even if it was released in May, that trailer is still giving me goosebumps. It's a Disney movie and yet...no trace of any Disney fingerprints at all. Scary.

My friend just showed me the interactive Narnia map that came out this weekend(?)

http://movies.aol.com/movie_exclusiv..._of_narnia/map

A bunch of cool features. I'm so much of a Narnia nerd I actually enjoyed seeing them draw out the paths each of the children took in their travels around Narnia.

I'd be lion if I said I was looking forward to this one.

That's a bit too simplistic. Narnia is all about the Jesus, yes, but what Lewis did that made it so interesting was that he tied in a lot of stuff that's usually associated with "Pagan" mythology--satyrs, giants, dryads, witches (I can't remember if there was an actual minotaur in the book or if that's an invention of the movies)--and used it as a series of metaphors for Christian principles and ideas. It's similar to the Arthurian mythos in that sense, the Arthurian cycle being a big part of Lewis's inspiration (especially with "Prince Caspian").

Anyway, it's just interesting that Lewis was obviously very comfortable with, and even loved, the kinds of pagan trappings that modern day fundamentalists freak out about. But that comes from his background in Medieval studies, in which the pagan was much more intertwined with the Christian. Look at Tumnus, for example--he's clearly a seductive figure who leads Lucy astray, but he's not EEEEEVIL or demonic. I believe he even redeems himself somewhat.

Oh I agree, it's great that he used elements of fantasy in his world. And you're right Tumnus does redeem himself and is shown grace.

Well I don't think Aslan is "literally" Jesus, but is clearly a Christ figure. And don't forget that Jesus in Christianity is the creator as well as the savior.

John 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

It's still allegorical of course as the book is fiction, but if we're only talking about the fictional world of the book, (Earth, Narnia, etc included) it's made pretty clear that Narnia's God+Savior and Earth(Christianity's) God+Savior are one and the same being. (Seeing as Aslan refers to Jesus as "me.")

I'm really underwhelmed by Liam Neeson's voice for Aslan :| (shown in the new trailer) Aside from being imo way too recognizable, it just doesn't seem to carry the strength needed... maybe just needs some getting used to.

Talk about sticking it to 66% of a potential fellow audience. There's perspective. And stigmatising/marginalising/separating something that's supposed to give off a universal message. "Fuck you, Muslims, this pictures ours !"

I hope things don't get saturated come release time.

hughj, I was a little concerned at first, but I actually think it sounded pretty good in the trailer. I imagine hearing him over the course of the movie we'll adapt to the voice pretty quickly.

I forget exactly how Lewis explained it, but once he started pulling together an overarching plot for the Narnia books (somewhere between thinking up the image of a streetlight in the middle of the woods and thinking up a gigantic lion), he started to think of it in this way: If Jesus were sent to save not just one world but two, the other one being completely different and containing all the ideas of human mythology, how would He go about it and in what form would He appear? Hence the idea of Aslan...

New commercials are calling the book an epic.

It's maybe sixty pages long. If that.

208 pages in paperback, bitch!

Which was about 207 pages too long.

For those that haven't read any Narnia reviews yet (not sure if there have been any comprehensive reviews of the full film, this is the first one I've seen). Lot's of praise for the CGI, Mr. Tumnus, the wolves and the battle scene.

Narnia Review

Another recap of the reviews: wardrobe, Christ, kids with broadswords.

I heard it was Narniawesome.

I'm not familiar with the book. Is the lion the mane character?

I'm going to the theater to get in lion.

I almost fell for this one.

Goddammit.

I found it to be excessively mediocre but not for the reasons I expected.

IGN's review...
http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/674/674222p1.html

that review sums the movie up decently.

the effects are mostly great, but some of the animals do look photorealistic and some dont. its a bit distracting. and aslan doesnt. hes really close, but still looks cartoony.

mediocre all in all. the kids were really bad.

Dunno, as great of an admirer as I am of all things Lord of the Rings related and fantasy film in general, I just can't get behind this...though I did read and enjoy at least one of the books as a kid. I guess I'm turned off by the Focus on the Family Seal of Approval that seems so firmly in place.

i spoke with a few friends who caught a prescreen and they thought it was amazing...im still very much looking forward to seeing it. i cant buy this mediocre business...i just wont. heh.

The Guardian's critic likes it.

I particularly like the dig at Mel Gibson. And the one at Margaret Thatcher.