Narnia movie: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe- Page 2

[Plum]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 3:56pm

As was said before, parts of the stories can be seen as a broad Christian allegory. The great lion, Aslan, is a Christ figure, who even dies and gets resurrected in the course of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

The Magician's Nephew has a pretty straightforward Genesis parallel, and The Last Battle is obviously an apocalypse story, complete with an Anti-Christ. (A monkey who gets a donkey to dress up in a lion skin an pretend to be Aslan.)

There isn't really mention of churches or prayer, but the values of Lewis' brand of Christianity are definitely there. Hence why Susan didn't get to go to Narnia-heaven, which made me hissing mad even the first time I read it.

[Plum]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 3:59pm

The Silver Chair was...Eustace and his friend from school going underground to save a prince who was tied to said chair by another witch, I think. I remember at the end they got back to their school and conquered the bullies who were picking on them.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 4:01pm

My image of the White Witch was influenced by the back cover of the popular paperback edition that was sold when I was young. There were rumours early in pre-production that Nicole Kidman would play her.

[KelRel]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 4:01pm

This past Sunday my church was selling tickets for an advanced screening. They were even playing the trailer before service. It was a little odd. I get the allegory, but it is odd walking into church and feeling like I walked into a movie theater instead.

[Plum]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 4:03pm

I know she gets cast in waaaay too many things, but tall, beautiful, and unapproachable? Kidman would have been a wonderful White Witch.

[RobbO]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 4:03pm

funny. every time i walk into my church i think i'm walking into a bank. a bank where that only accepts deposits.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 4:07pm

Now Plum has resurrected some memories of mine: the only thing I now remember from THE SILVER CHAIR was being oddly turned on by the idea of a prince blindfolded and tied to a chair, and suffering from memory loss.....

I was an odd little boy.

[broadway86]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 5:48pm

Nicole Kidman would have been a wonderful White Witch, but I'm sure that Swinton will be perfect.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:09pm

Tilda Swinton can do unapproachable in spades. Check out her performance in Jarman's film of Edward II.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:13pm

Plus the hollowness in her eyes is eery.

The design of the movie looks fantastic. I love how the White Witch's crown is just icicles spiking out of her head.

Updated On: 12/6/05 at 06:13 PM

[Atrias]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 6:14pm

I really don't like the way they dreaded(sp?) out her hair. It looks kind of odd.

I've loved the books forever, and can't wait until they get into some of the later ones. Caspian was my first literary crush.

[Mojojo5]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 1:33am

I've been waiting for this movie ever since I saw the trailer before Star Wars (which was probably better than Star Wars too) and am tres anxious to finally see it. For the record, I always pictured Diana Rigg when I read the books growing up.

Zach

[JailyardGuy]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 9:30am

I can certainly see Nicole in the part, but I don't know if anybody on EARTH is more perfect than Tilda. That woman is *pure* ice, and one HELL of a monster actress. Nicole would have ended up a bit too adorable, I think.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 9:38am

I'm going to go see it tomorrow morning. I can't wait.

[Taryn]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 11:25am

I cannot WAIT for this film. Like many others have said, these books were a huge part of my childhood. Some of my fondest early memories are my dad reading The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to me as a child.

Since the subject came up, booksellers tend to sell the books in chronological order now because Lewis said before he died that he thought they should be read like that. My dad actually sent me an editorial recently where the writer put out his opinion that The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe should still be read first, as it provides the best introduction to the world of Narnia, as it was the first to introduce it.

I love the fact that, yes, while the books are chock-full of Christian allegory, you don't have to care about that to appreciate the books. There's just something wonderfully, beautiful magical about them.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 3:30pm

The UK reviews are starting to come in as the film opens here tomorrow and they're all pretty spectacular.

[Chloe]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 4:00pm

Did anyone else see the Times article today about a couple of new issue-oriented companies backing movies such as Syriana and Narnia? Apparently a reclusive millionaire who refuses to be interviewed but has put a lot of money into conservative Republican political campaigns created the production company partly behind Narnia.

It's unclear how much, if any, influence this company had over the content, but it kind of troubles me. These books were a big part of my childhood too, and I'm not altogether sure that C.S. Lewis would go along with all this. He was against the books being filmed as live action, for one thing, and I think his Narnia was quite resolutely English, not the sweeping New Zealand landscape.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 5:43pm

Well, Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my Fav. Caspian was dishy and I loved the dis on Modern Education. But Reepicheep was my fav Cyrano in a mouse's body! AND a good solid quest to boot.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 8:30pm

It's unclear how much, if any, influence this company had over the content, but it kind of troubles me.

That IS disturbing. Good thing that the Christian allegory in the Narnian Chronicles is pretty innocuous; no conversion of the Jews or anything. From what I've read, director Andrew Adamson has balanced the Christian symbolism well: acknowledging it without overselling it.

He was against the books being filmed as live action, for one thing, and I think his Narnia was quite resolutely English, not the sweeping New Zealand landscape.

Too late about the live action filming: it was already made into a popular BBC series in the late 80s.

There's very little left of the British landscape that is "untouched," so it would have been very difficult to film there. New Zealand bears close enough a resemblance to how Britain used to look like (waaaay back), only grander and more wild. I actually don't think that Narnia is all that English: doesn't THE HORSE AND HIS BOY have a strong Arabian element to it?

[Chloe]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 8:41pm

Yes, The Horse and His Boy has a quite different setting. I'm going on memory here, and it may be more my imagination than what was actually written, but the Narnia of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe seemed rather small and cosy to me.

I wish I had a link to the Times article, but my computer has been having trouble with their site lately.

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 9:02pm

I remember the cartoon very clearly from my childhood - I recently reread TLTWATW (yikes, there's an acronym!) and I couldn't get the images of the cartoon out of my head. I'm definitely looking forward to the movie!

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 9:36pm

Did anyone else watch the BBC series? The sets looked like they were built in the producer's backyard, but still fun.

[EponineThenardier]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 9:43pm

Blue Wizard, I adored the BBC version as a kid, I still love them even though they have such old special effects.

[Anakela]

Posted: 12/8/05 at 1:07am

Went to the EW screening of this tonight (12/7), enjoyed it, stopped by Strand Books after and picked up a copy of the book to re-read it for the first time since elementary school!

And for those of you talking about the pub order vs chron order of the books: there was a q&a before the movie started, for free tshirt prizes, except that the last question was for a 'big' prize (some software program or other, I wasn't really listening- so much for those sponsor dollars :)). So the question for the 'big' prize was "name all the books in order," and so the guy answering stood up said "book one, THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW..." and the q&a guy was all "sorry, they have to be in order" and pretty much the whole audience yelled out "that is the first book!" And so he didn't say them in the 'correct order' listed on q&a guy's piece of paper, but he still got the 'big' prize. :)

[DG]

Posted: 12/8/05 at 1:17am

I absolutely second pop's hope that this brings Ms. Swinton a higher profile and more work.

And Plum, I really hope the underlying meaning in some of your posts isn't that Ms. Swinton is NOT beautiful. She may not fall into the sterotypical cookie-cutter idea of 'pretty', but her classicism and dignity are almost unmatchable - except perhaps by Cate Blanchett. Personally, I think those two women could play any female role in their age-range - and probably most of the male ones, too.