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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe

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Regrettable Juvenilia

09:54 / 25.05.05

But what will the Christian Right make of the bit where Aslan lets that Tash-worshipper into Heaven because he worshipped Tash with devotion and didn't do anything bad and so was really worshipping Aslan? They won't like that up them. They will think it means all religioussers can get to Heaven. But the people who think all religioussers get to Heaven won't like the fact that Tash is really a DEMON (with his terrible Beak and grasping Claws). So nobody will be happy.

Not even the donkeys.

10:03 / 25.05.05

And so we return to begin again.

10:19 / 25.05.05

Yeah, CS Lewis really dropped the ball on that one. Religion should be easily digested and internally consistent and never, never mysterious and challenging. However, one thing we can be sure of is that those who constitute The Christian Right will all come to believe the same homogenous opinion after it has been dictated to them by their Masters. And that the war with the simpering Christian Left will continue unabated.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:42 / 25.05.05

Off topic and I don't even know how serious any of us is being, but Seth, would you rather we just pretend that there isn't a group of people who self-identify as Christians and will often rapidly mobilise to complain about the content of popular culture? I think the producers of Jerry Springer: The Opera might have experience that suggests otherwise...

13:48 / 25.05.05

Put me squarely in the camp of 'preview looks far too much like LOTR.' And isn't the Ice Queen supposed to look...well, icy? (dressed in blues and whites and such?) though it's been a looong time since i've read the books.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:04 / 25.05.05

I liked both the Narnia books and LoTR as a kid, but fell out of love with Narnia in my teenage years when I discovered nylon, lipstick and boys. True story.

As for the order I like the books,
1) Voyage of the Dawn Treader,
2) The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,
3) The Horse and His Boy,
4) Prince Caspian,
5) The Magicians Nephew,
6) The Last Battle
7) The Silver Chair

I don't like The Magicians Nephew because I'd read The Lion,The Witch & The Wardrobe first and Aslan is so vastly different to how he is in every other book it's not funny, also, there are so many retcons. The Last Battle is okay except for the fact that when the shit has really gone down God doesn't like an awful lot of people (The Last Battle is the Left Behind series with talking animals and dwarves, discuss) and The Silver Chair because everyone argues so fucking much, though at least for once human children don't get to be Kings and Queens and actually get their hands dirty.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:54 / 25.05.05

The arguing is what makes The Silver Chair great! That and the bondage and mind control.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:59 / 25.05.05

Finderwolf:

Looks pretty icy to me.

This "looks like LOTR" camp isn't the dumbest one you've ever been in, but it is deeply annoying.

15:07 / 25.05.05

oh, an ex-christian, right. so clear now.

15:13 / 25.05.05

Ahh, ok. The 2 or 3 shots of her in the preview showed her shot in all warm colors and warm light, lots of orange and such. There wasn't a single cold/cool colors, Ice Queen dress shot of her in the preview. But Tilda looks terrific nevertheless.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

18:34 / 25.05.05

I know this is a stupid and petty objection, and it's not going to put me off seeing the film, but can I just say that one other thing I got from the trailer is that I hate hate hate the typeface or font or whatever you call it that they use for the title?
No?
Okay, I won't, then.

Scrubb is on a downward spiral

18:48 / 25.05.05

but can I just say that one other thing I got from the trailer is that I hate hate hate the typeface or font or whatever you call it that they use for the title?
I hear you, Stoatster. I know it's lifted from somewhere but I can't think what. Possibly Word 95.

My dumb trailer objection was that Aslan ought to have been - bigger. Like, bigger than your average lion. A really *big* lion. Anyone?

No?

...Also, the 1950s clothing - wood and tweed and suchlike gives me the horn.

19:49 / 25.05.05

Yeah, weird as it sounds, I thought Aslan looked too boring...he should look bigger than a regular lion or have some CGI stylization on him. He shouldn't just look like a plain old lion.

Regrettable Juvenilia

19:52 / 25.05.05

Yeah, lions are so boring, aren't they? I see them in the street every day. Pah. I think they should use CGI to make it look as if Aslan is on fire.

And he should have a lightsabre.

20:03 / 25.05.05

Some of the Christian Right seem to be happy already. How I loved those books as a child, innocent of their underlying Screwtapeness.

Watching the trailer, I too was dismayed to see a blaze of light broadcast from the wardrobe door as soon as Lucy opened it. She should be stumbling through mildewed old coats before she feels the chill and sees snow fall. Fortunately, I have forgotten so much of the plot after forty years that my pedantry and cherished memory should not impede enjoyment too much when the time comes and the thought of James McAvoy with furry little faun's legs is highly exciting. And Tilda Swinton, I bow down and worship!

I wonder how many of the woodland creatures will have American accents?

Scrubb is on a downward spiral

23:32 / 25.05.05

Thank-you Flyboy - Jesus Lion with a Lightsaber will be the title of my first album.

I wonder how many of the woodland creatures will have American accents?
Oh God. God God God. Say it isn't so...

23:50 / 25.05.05

"Howdy, pardner. They call me Tumnus."

05:05 / 26.05.05

Right. Now you've gone and made my thread downright scary.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:11 / 26.05.05

See earlier in thread: Tumnus is being played by the British actor James McAvoy.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

08:07 / 26.05.05

Perhaps they could use Ewan McGregor to overdub him anyway.

09:08 / 26.05.05

I'm looking forward to this...mainly because much like LotR, the technology has come to the point where things look (almost) real so it more closely matches what I imagined when I read the books. That was always the letdown for me when I watched the older versions, the fact that I just couldn't equate the felt-covered animatronic puppet on screen to the creature I had rampaging around in my imagination.

On a related point, I get the feeling that every movie with a major battle scene featuring hordes of sword/club/spear/whatever wielding figures is going to get compared to LotR for at least the next three years. The first thing that went through my mind when I saw the siege scene in the trailer for Kingdom of Heaven was that it looked like they just reprogrammed the Minas Tirith scenes from LotR, complete with siege towers. The battle scenes that Weta built were ground-breaking, and they've set the standard that everyone's going to be measured against. Because really, there's only so much you can do with the concept of two sides having at each other with swords and whatnot.

10:12 / 26.05.05

Flyboy: I thought it'd be an interesting pre-emptive tactic to take the piss out of the usual 'Lith tendency to create grossly one-dimensional Christian caricatures before the fact, as opposed to waiting for the inevitable. A preventative measure, if you will.

Sadly, however, the topic is already at two pages over six months before the film’s release. My best-laid-plans won’t have jack-shit chance of effecting the skip-to-the end brigade who can’t be arsed to read the thread from the beginning. I predict that my valiant efforts will be thwarted, and I now know how Ozymandius must have felt at the end of Watchmen.

Grey Area: that’s precisely why I think the LOTR comparisons are lazy. The visual style of this film is nothing like WETA’s previous work. They’ve gone out of their way to distinguish the two, and it shows. The comparisons don’t seem to have any real weight to them besides “Ah-ha! A fantasy film! With fighting! It’s just more of the same…”

The criticism that bears thinking about more is the sense of scale. I think it’s worth remembering that LOTR upped the odds for the sake of spectacle, too. I’m fairly sure shield-riding elves, rollercoaster chases away from the Balrog down crumbling staircases and ludicrous homaging of the ATAT battle from Empire Strikes Back weren’t part of Tolkien’s original work, they’re something that we’ve become accustomed to from Peter Jackson’s reimagining. Admittedly it’s been a long time since I read the books, but nothing about this seems too inflated. It’s still seems on the scale of a skirmish after many of the battles we’ve seen recently.

I’m also a little bit puzzled about Jack Fear’s comments concerning the saving of individual souls being lost in such inappropriate grandeur. We can broadly comment on the effects and the design because we’ve seen a tiny fragment. Any detailed opinions on the quality of the script, acting and characterisation are a little premature, don’t you think? I have no idea how the individual character trajectories will play out against the backdrop of the other elements of the movie… and neither do you.

Regarding big lions… what, do you mean Princess Mononoke size? I actually think that would be a rather good move…

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:11 / 26.05.05

I now know how Ozymandius must have felt at the end of Watchmen.

Ozymandias wins at the end of Watchmen. You clearly understand nothing about Alan Moore, the bearded bard of Wolverhampton, and his work.

12:52 / 26.05.05

You are the one who knows nothing of Albert Moore, you filthy ex-fundamentalist. Run back to your Bible. Run now!

14:31 / 27.05.05

Aslan's roar gave me the shivers. I'm all a-twitter.

The Professor's house is perfect, and I think it's interesting that they've expanded on the train ride - we all remember the significance of that, don't we? - and on Mrs. McCreedy's role...

I really do hope there are coats behind that door and not a bright flash of light. Sheesh.

The battle with the White Witch, if I remember correctly, was a reasonably large skirmish, but in the book, we miss most of it. Aslan goes off to the stone table, and the girls go with him, and the book follows them rather than the boys. We don't get back to the battle until it's almost over and we only see the final bit.

Gods I hope they do this right. Please do it right...

I agree with Lady that Dawn Treader is the best of the lot. But I am going to call her Lady Susan from now on.

17:25 / 27.05.05

RE: the flash of light from the wardrobe...

One enters the official website via an animation that takes one into the wardrobe, through the coats, then the branches, and then...an opening curtain of some kind? That last bit's different, but the rest suggests that passage through the wardrobe will be rather subtler than a flash.

10:47 / 22.06.05

I'm looking at the polar bears at the bottom and wondering if they aren't trying to steal a certain other children's fantasy series' thunder.

Well, I suppose that'll teach Pullman to criticise the Narnia books for preaching and then commit exactly the same crime on a fairly rabid scale.

Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER

12:04 / 22.06.05

I'm probably just oversensitive and irrelevant, but does anyone else find the image on the left of the young boys dressed in medieval armour and fully armed a little disturbing?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:55 / 22.06.05

It's a steal from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon isn't it? Because there is no way that Edmund has black hair. I'm sorry, but that's just ruined the film completely for me... heh.

Regrettable Juvenilia

16:18 / 22.06.05

Were the last two posts made under the influence of an enormous mountain of crack cocaine?

22:01 / 22.06.05

Bolivian Delight?

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

04:12 / 23.06.05

I remember quite enjoying The Magician's Nephew. Can't remember reading any of the other books. Well, I sort of can...I can remember reading the first three, becuase I remember the other ones being a total mystery to me. But I remember nothing beyond the BBC production of TLTWATW.

I've had this weird aversion to Turkish delight thanks to that damn movie. The strange traumas of my childhood...

The movie looks good. It looks fun, and the big battle looks...I dunno. More epic fantasy rather than the gritty, dark battles in LOTR.

I should read the books while I'm in Oxford. It'd be appropriate. I wonder how many I still have lying around...

04:44 / 01.07.05

That's funny, I started EATING Turkish delight (at least, Fry's chocolate-coated version) because of Edmund. And then when I found out about REAL turkish delight and moved to a suburb where it could be had for cheap in abundance, my head blew off.

Did too.

m.

00:25 / 06.07.05

Now, I loved the books as a kid, but as I grew older, my disatisfaction and distrust of the Christian faith grew and grew, until I declared myself agnostic and studied Eastern religions. Just recently, I discovered Pullman's thang. I love them more than words, it seems. And yet, I can comfortably have them sitting on the same shelf as the complete Narnia. That's fine with me. And when this comes out:

I'll have it sitting next to the DVD of Narnia.

03:29 / 06.07.05

They'll fight, you know.

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