The Chronicles of Narnia

[Whistler]

Yov:

Silly question. The story is enormously popular with many millions of non-Christians, many of whom don't even know what it means.

[Túrin Turambar]

I’ll have a shot at yovargas’ questions.

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?

Because the White Witch rules Narnia oppressively, turns people into stone and makes it always winter but never Christmas.

Why the hell do the kids get crowned as royalty at the end?

Because the prophecy says that when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve come to Narnia they should fill the four thrones of Cair Paravel. I know, prophecies make for really convenient plot devices…

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.

It’s a thematic point. It works a bit like Neverland – while they’re kids they buy into this much easier than adults would. In the later books, some of the kids get too old to go back, and eventually they all do. I suppose that as Kids learn and experience new things quite often, so wildly new and amazing things are less of a shock to them.

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?

She was under a flag of truce then.

Still, Aslan’s omnipotence does, to an extent, rob the story of some of its potential tension.

[Primula Baggins]

Except that Aslan wants the children to grow and learn as they do throughout the story, and wants Narnia to free itself.

[truehobbit]

Whistler, those answers to yov are fascinating - I think they go a long way to explain the part of the Christian message that I didn't get.

Yov, in spite of Whistler's deeper answer, I'd say that most questions you asked were answered in the dialogue of the movie - and if that didn't make you care, that's not a failing of the movie, it just means that it isn't to your taste.
I'd say if Christian messages bother you, you should watch/read other stories than this one.

However, one thing you said gave me pause - the kids not showing any wonder at what they see. I first was inclined to agree, but then thought maybe it's part of a child's world to accept things that are impossible for grown-ups as if they were perfectly normal. Not sure what to think of that aspect.

LordM, I agree on the appearance of Father Christmas - I thought that was somewhat ridiculous in the context, but maybe that's where we need to remember that it's a story for children. Presents and Father Christmas for them are a defining part of Christmas for them, Christ and Redemption is just the stuff behind it.

[Túrin Turambar]

I tend to take the appearance of Father Christmas as being ironic. The White Witch wants it to be 'always winter, but never Christmas' and so the appearence of Santa Claus shows that it is Christmas and that, therefore, the Witch's power is in decline. Still, he seems out of place, especially as he hands out weapons (!).

[vison]

This morning on CBC radio they replayed some really old interviews with C. S. Lewis. Fascinating. And they also played a sermon he wrote on the worth of friendship. But only the friendship of man for man.

He said it was not necessary for a man to know anything at all about his friend. Nothing about his job or his wife or lack of a wife, nothing about his professional struggles or triumphs or his family background or education. A nifty point of view, but then, I doubt that the janitor or the bartender was invited into the Inklings: everyone was from the same milieu and spoke the same language in the same accent, had been educated in the same way, and were, moreover, doing the same kind of work.

Mr. Lewis was an interesting man, and I enjoyed the interviews and the followup with two writers who specialize in him and his works, both of whose names escape me.

It is hard to listen to these old interviews without a bit of unease. The world he lived in was so removed from our world there aren't many places where they intersect. Not his Christian philosophy, but the other things that he just took for granted that are unknown by us or out of fashion or acceptance, and the things we take for granted and he would be amazed by or bemused by or disapproving of.

So now I guess I'm going to find that movie about him and his wife. How do those here who've seen it value it?

[Whistler]

Yov, the quibble you have about the kids accepting fantasy so easily is valid but irrelevant. We have been getting beyond that obligatory suspension of disbelief for years. Otherwise, we’d have to throw out quite a few great books.

Dorothy and Alice live in the “real” world, but both are transported into parallel worlds of fabulous creatures and events. These they accept pretty quickly. They have to: we don’t want to read a whole story in which characters do nothing but register shock and disbelief. If these stories were real, the kids involved would need decades of therapy after such experiences. But both return home safe and sound, amused rather than horrified.

Sometimes, you just have to say “okay” and move on.

Vision, the movie "Shadowlands," with Anthony Hopkins, is very good, although it plays with the facts a bit. I wish it included Tolkien as a character, but (alas!) it doesn't. The film does take into account how insulated Lewis and his friends were from the world in general. In one scene, he's in a hotel room ordering a drink from room service. He can't do it! Later, he explains, "I'm afraid I panicked!"

[yovargas]

I’ll have a shot at yovargas’ questions.

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?

Because the White Witch rules Narnia oppressively, turns people into stone and makes it always winter but never Christmas.

Fair enough.

Why the hell do the kids get crowned as royalty at the end?

Because the prophecy says that when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve come to Narnia they should fill the four thrones of Cair Paravel. I know, prophecies make for really convenient plot devices…

My impression was that the prophecy said they were going to earn the thrones, not just have it arbitrarily handed to them. Convenient is a nice way to put it...

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.

It’s a thematic point. It works a bit like Neverland – while they’re kids they buy into this much easier than adults would. In the later books, some of the kids get too old to go back, and eventually they all do. I suppose that as Kids learn and experience new things quite often, so wildly new and amazing things are less of a shock to them.

Which was cute for the younger two, maybe, but Peter and Susan look in their mid-teens already.

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?

She was under a flag of truce then.

Did they mention that in the movie?

Yov, in spite of Whistler's deeper answer, I'd say that most questions you asked were answered in the dialogue of the movie - and if that didn't make you care, that's not a failing of the movie, it just means that it isn't to your taste.

Did you feel like the movie gave a good sense of why the kids were needed or valuable?

I'd say if Christian messages bother you, you should watch/read other stories than this one.

I was actually hoping it'd be more obvious. Though I'm not a believer, the Christian story as a story is good drama.

EDIT: Point taken, Whistler. Though I think a bit more feeling of wonder from them would have given a bit more feeling of wonder to me. Remember Sam's first sight of the Oliphaunts?

[truehobbit]

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?

She was under a flag of truce then.

Did they mention that in the movie?

I think it was pretty obvious. She came right into the enemy camp to claim the fulfillment of the law. It would be treacherous and cowardly to attack in that situation, irrespective of any formal laws and rituals of truce.

Yov, in spite of Whistler's deeper answer, I'd say that most questions you asked were answered in the dialogue of the movie - and if that didn't make you care, that's not a failing of the movie, it just means that it isn't to your taste.

Did you feel like the movie gave a good sense of why the kids were needed or valuable?

The prophecy (quoted by the beaver) said that Narnia would only be free when the four kids would arrive - that was good enough for me.
I'd agree that a vague prophecy doesn't do much to explain a message of any kind - it never seemed the kids actually had to do anything.
For me, this was one of the things that flaws the Christian message, really - the all-importance of some prophecy seems too much like fairy-tale or magic - but as part of a fairy-tale it explains the situation sufficiently for me.
Actually, I see a bit of a problem here for Aslan's sacrifice!
If it were a Christian story, he would sacrifice himself out of pity for fallen man (Edmund fell to temptation, but repented and he wasn't 'evil') - but with the importance the story gave to the prophecy it seemed to me that Aslan sacrificed himself not so much in order that Edmund could be saved, but because without Edmund the prophecy couldn't come true.

I'd say if Christian messages bother you, you should watch/read other stories than this one.

I was actually hoping it'd be more obvious. Though I'm not a believer, the Christian story as a story is good drama.

In that case, you seem to have a similar problem as I.
I also thought the story would be a redemption story from a to z, and such a story can hardly fail to touch people - but it seems the story's idea is more to introduce Christian themes and ideas via a fairy-tale story (see Wampus's post earlier in this thread).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Why would anyone make a movie about C.S. Lewis and not include Tolkien as a character? That baffles me immeasurably. But perhaps the literature that I have read that indicates that Tolkien had such a large influence on Lewis were exxagerated?

[Primula Baggins]

Doesn't "Shadowlands" deal mainly with Lewis's marriage? If I recall correctly, Tolkien did not approve of the marriage, which began as a legal fiction, a means of letting Lewis's American wife remain in England longer, and only later became a true marriage. (I also seem to remember that Tolkien personally disliked Lewis's wife.) Perhaps Tolkien and Lewis were estranged during most of that time.

[Alatar]

I think it was pretty obvious. She came right into the enemy camp to claim the fulfillment of the law. It would be treacherous and cowardly to attack in that situation, irrespective of any formal laws and rituals of truce.

*cough* mouthofsauron *cough*

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Doesn't "Shadowlands" deal mainly with Lewis's marriage? If I recall correctly, Tolkien did not approve of the marriage, which began as a legal fiction, a means of letting Lewis's American wife remain in England longer, and only later became a true marriage. (I also seem to remember that Tolkien personally disliked Lewis's wife.) Perhaps Tolkien and Lewis were estranged during most of that time.

Ah, I see.

[Primula Baggins]

Mind you, I don't have "Surprised by Joy" to hand, and my memory is a threadbare thing these days. So someone will probably be by momentarily to tell me I was thinking of Charles Williams.

[TheTennisBallKid]

I believe Tolkien (well, an actor playing him ) makes a very brief appearance in Shadowlands, in a scene in The Eagle and Child, if my memory serves...[/trivia]



ttbk

[Pearly Di]

Doesn't "Shadowlands" deal mainly with Lewis's marriage? If I recall correctly, Tolkien did not approve of the marriage, which began as a legal fiction, a means of letting Lewis's American wife remain in England longer, and only later became a true marriage. (I also seem to remember that Tolkien personally disliked Lewis's wife.) Perhaps Tolkien and Lewis were estranged during most of that time.

Judging from the Collected Letters and other sources, I think they became estranged during the mid-50's ... the friendship certainly cooled greatly, and gradually, over a number of years. The publication of the Narnia stories ran parallel to LOTR's publication.

Tolkien was certainly very disapproving of Lewis's marriage to a divorcee, and also hurt by the fact that Lewis kept it all a secret.

There were big differences between the two men, temperamentally and theologically, despite the superficial similarities between them. Tolkien was sensitive about his Catholic beliefs and sometimes - possibly unfairly - suspected Lewis of never having entirely shaken off an anti-Catholic bias from his Ulster Protestant youth. I think that is a bit unfair ... you don't get any sense of anti-Catholicism from Lewis in his writings. And he was a High Churchman, more Anglo-Catholic than Evangelical ...

I like the 'Shadowlands' movie, although it's an extremely romanticised and glossy version of the Lewis/Joy relationship which borders on the sentimental. Anthony Hopkins is really all wrong as Lewis. Totally wrong, in fact. The real Lewis, from all accounts, was gruff and kind and had a booming voice: he smoked like a chimney and could down a pint in true hobbit fashion. Debra Winger is immensely engaging and extremely beautiful, and very evidently nothing at all like the real Joy Gresham. The main virtue of the 'Shadowlands' movie is its wonderful evocation of Oxford in the 1950s.

Although there's no Tolkien in the film, there is one scene of Joy's son Douglas reading 'The Hobbit'. So, a nod in the right direction.

Joy Gresham had two sons, in fact. The reason they only showed one son in the film is that the other son, David, hates anything to do with Narnia and refused to have anything to do with the Shadowlands film.

Douglas Gresham was the co-producer on the Narnia movie, of course. He also has a little cameo voice part in the film, where Peter and Susan are listening briefly to a radio broadcaster announcing news about bombing raids ...

I met him a few times, actually, when I used to work at HarperCollins.
Eccentric sorta guy but very nice. He's done a good job of making this film a reality at last.

[Whistler]

It's quite true, Voronwë, that Tolkien and Lewis were not on the best of terms at that time. Tolkien disapproved of Lewis' marriage to a divorcee, and if he had appeared in the story that disapproval would have introduced a separate storyline that would probably have been a distraction.

Wouldn't it be great to see a film centering on both of them? Given the even greater popularity now of both authors, I think a film like that might be very popular.

[Teremia]

Oh, I really wanted to love this movie! But I didn't. Narnia was a large part of my childhood, and the film just didn't quite tap into that wonder.

Here's my review (from b77):

I agree about the Talking Horses: people should NOT be riding them! But the reason they did that here is that they pretty much dispensed with the notion that there are Talking Beasts and beasts that don't talk. Every animal seemed able to talk.

I snuck out yesterday to see this movie, my excuse being that I needed to see it before the kids, to decide whether it's too scary for the little ones. My friend and I afterwards agreed that it never quite managed to jump into Magic. It's hard to pinpoint what went (slightly) wrong, since many things one could point to were done well:

the beavers
some of the scenery
Lucy
Mr. Tumnus
the Cair Paravel exteriors

But Narnia needs to tap into a deep chord of longing in us: longing for the Platonic version of the flawed world we love. In Narnia the colors are more vivid than they are in England, and the tastes more alive, and everything more real, as if everything one loved best about England were preserved and made More So in this magic place. That's true about Narnia even before we find the Inner Narnia in the Last Battle and discover that just as Narnia is "more so" than England, so is there another world "more so" than Narnia itself. All right.

This film failed, in my opinion, to make Narnia that place more vivid and more real than real life. I had a moment of thinking they might manage it, very early on, when the train is racing through beautiful English countryside. I thought, yes, that's the point! This threatened England is what is preserved (only "more so") inside the Wardrobe. But when we got to Narnia (which we did rather quickly), it wasn't quite like that.

The film, for one thing, uses light very badly (I think). Everything looks too "flat," too plain. I kept being reminded that this or the other scene was being filmed on a sound stage somewhere. This was especially bad in the scenes in and around the Witch's castle, which seemed awfully stagey.

I thought more than once that (a composer like) Howard Shore might have rescued the movie, however, because he certainly managed to surmount the weaknesses in LoTR. But the music here was really sub-par, with the one exception of the faun's lullabye. Too bad! Narnia should have excellent music.

I would add that it does look silly for Edmund to be bossing around the "artillery" in the battle (at least Peter is next to a Centaur, and we know THEY're competent creatures).

I'm trying to think what would have fixed the film, apart from better lighting and better music, and perhaps one thing might be the narrator's voice in voice-over -- perhaps use the Professor's voice for that! He is, after all, one who knows something about Narnia and someone who hears the whole story from the children. He might add some gravitas. (I was thinking of the magical opening of FoTR, with Galadriel's lovely voice.)

How sad I was the film wasn't better! *sniff*

[Alatar]

New York Times Review (Crossposted from B77)

Two Wars of Good and Evil
By A. O. SCOTT
In the weeks leading up to the release of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," the entertainment press has sometimes seemed so preoccupied with matters of allegory as to resemble an advanced seminar in Renaissance literature.

It has never been a secret that C. S. Lewis, who taught that subject and others at Oxford for many years, composed his great cycle of seven children's fantasy novels with the New Testament in mind and with some of the literary traditions it inspired close at hand. To the millions since the 1950's for whom the books have been a source of childhood enchantment, Lewis's religious intentions have either been obvious, invisible or beside the point.

Which is part of the appeal of allegory, as he well knew. It is a symbolic mode, not a literal one - there are, after all, no talking beavers in the Bible - and it constructs distinct levels of meaning among which readers travel of their own free will. An allegorical world is both a reflection of the real one and a reality unto itself, as Lewis's heroes, the four Pevensie children, come to discover. The story of Aslan's sacrifice and resurrection may remind some readers (and now viewers) of what they learned in Sunday school, but others, Christian or not, will be perfectly happy to let what happens in Narnia stay in Narnia.

The supposed controversy over the religious content of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" may be overhyped, but a particular question of faith nonetheless hovers around the movie, which was produced by Walden Media and distributed by Disney. Anyone who grew up with the Narnia books is likely to be concerned less with Lewis's beliefs than with the filmmakers' fidelity to his work, which was idiosyncratic and imperfect in ways that may not easily lend themselves to appropriation by the shiny and hyperkinetic machinery of mass visual fantasy. But if a few liberties have been taken here and there, as is inevitable in the transition from page to screen, the spirit of the book is very much intact.

The movie, directed by Andrew Adamson, does not achieve the sublimity of, say, Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy (which had the advantage of working from a richer allegory by an even more learned Oxford don), but it does use available technology to capture both the mythic power of Lewis's tale and, even better, its charm.

Mr. Adamson, who directed the rambunctious "Shrek" movies at DreamWorks, has nicely adjusted to the technical demands of mixing live action with computer-generated imagery. He also manages a less jokey, more earnest tone and temperament. Stocked with an estimable cast of actors - some doing voice-over, some appearing in wild costumes - "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" suggests that, at least in Hollywood, there is no such thing as too much Englishness. British children are especially prized, and little Georgie Henley, who plays Lucy, the youngest of the Pevensie children and the first to discover Narnia, is both winsome and indomitable, with a wide smile and a priceless accent (though not quite the same one as that of the actors playing her siblings).

Lucy is sent off to the countryside to escape the Blitz, along with Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes), a fact mentioned in passing by Lewis and given more thorough treatment here. The opening sequence - German bombs falling on London neighborhoods, sowing panic and destruction - is a premonition of the climactic battle in Narnia, and also a reminder that the war between good and evil is not merely a metaphorical conceit. Exiled to the home of an eccentric scholar (Jim Broadbent) and his stern housekeeper (Elizabeth Hawthorne), the children spend their time playing and squabbling, during which the essential aspects of their characters emerge.

Lucy and Peter, the eldest, are the more virtuous, while Edmund and Susan have darker, more complicated personalities (as well as fuller lips). Edmund has a penchant for dishonesty and a weakness for sweets, which both make him susceptible to the chilly lure of the White Witch (a terrifying Tilda Swinton), whose rule has turned Narnia into a land of perpetual winter, where fauns are tortured and turned to stone, and a secret police force of wolves harshly deals with rebels and traitors.

Narnia's onscreen incarnation is credible enough. Talking-animal technology has made impressive strides lately, and most of the minotaurs, foxes and other creatures share the screen comfortably with the humans. Aslan, the noble lion who commands the fight against the White Witch, shows up late, looks fabulous and speaks in the mellow voice of Alfred Kinsey - that is, of Liam Neeson. The homey, chattering beavers, who provide comic byplay as well as a picture of shopkeeper steadfastness, are voiced by Ray Winstone and Dawn French. As the Pevensie children journey deeper into Narnia, the movie's scope widens and its dramatic intensity grows, a transition from intimacy to grandeur that is beautifully handled, without too many dead spots or digressions.

Parents should take note: the battle scenes, though bloodless, are more brutal than a PG rating would usually permit, and the death of Aslan may prove overwhelming to younger children. But the somber, scary aspects of the story are inseparable from its magic, which in the end may work only indirectly on adults.

For me, the best moments in the film take place in the wardrobe itself, which serves as a portal between England and Narnia. When the children pass through it for the first time, I felt a welcome tremor of apprehension and anticipation as the wooden floor turned into snowy ground and fur coats gave way to fir trees. The next two hours might not have quite delivered on that initial promise of wonder - we grown-ups, being heavy, are not so easily swept away by visual tricks - except when I looked away from the screen at the faces of breathless and wide-eyed children, my own among them, for whom the whole experience was new, strange, disturbing and delightful.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" is rated PG. It has some kinetically violent - though not especially gory - battle scenes, and the temporary deaths of several sympathetic characters.

[Cerin]

I read the books at the perfect time, after finding them under the Christmas tree at around age nine or ten, I think. I would say the most marked difference between LoTR and the Narnia books is the age they are aimed at. So I really don't understand the comparisons.

Those who are adults and love the stories love them because they read them as children. That's my guess anyway.

I don't know how I would have reacted if reading the stories first as an adult, but I can't imagine not loving them. I think Lewis conveys an extraordinary amount in few words. I get the same kind of wonderful feel for the landscape, for a familiarity and love of the natural world, as I do with Tolkien.

Then where and what are they? I asked specifically, because I hoped someone would point them out to me!

The 'Christian content' is developed throughout the series, hobby. It is much to do with the development of the characters in the moral dilemmas they face, in their interactions with the Lion and with each other.

What can possibly be the subject of the other books, then, I wonder?

The second book has the children returning to Narnia after much time has passed, to set things right.

The third book brings in the next child, Eustace, and is a wondeful ocean voyage. (As the children reach a certain age, they are told they will encounter the Lion as Lamb in this world, but will not return to Narnia.)

The fourth book brings in Jill to accompany Eustace on another mission to set things right.

The fifth book goes back in time to the Golden Age when the four Pevensies reigned; it tells of an adventure in the land of the Calormenes, and a case of a long lost child.

The sixth book goes back further in time to when the Professor was a little boy and he and another little girl are flung into Narnia at the moment of its creation.

The seventh book tells of an imposter as Aslan and the end of the world (this and that).

So now I guess I'm going to find that movie about him and his wife. How do those here who've seen it value it?

I enjoyed that movie very much, although I had no idea how accurate it was and I don't generally go in for supposedly fact-based movies for that reason. IIRC, it was visually very beautiful.