narnia

Friday night I went to watch Disney's new movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, based off of one of my favorite childhood books, by C.S. Lewis. Also as a child I watched many many hours of a BBC television adaptation (the link actually is of a shortened version of the original mini-series - boo) of that and other books in the Narnia series, which I still love to pieces. The BBC production is much more accurate as far as the book goes, and considering that it was made in the 1980's, its special effects weren't all that bad.

My review of the movie is going to be mostly a comparison between the BBC production and the new production... Here goes:

-BBC sticks right to the book, almost word for word. New Narnia throws in a theme that I never caught in the book (family), adds a couple scenes that make the order of events different than in the book, and develops the characters in rather overtly obvious but successfully informative manners (I guess the makers didn't think that Lewis developed the characters well enough???). New Narnia also nearly completely ignores a couple of the more dear minor characters - the stone lion and the stone giant.

-The creatures... The BBC captures the imagination of children with its rendition of characters, which actually look much like the illustrations in every copy of the book that I've ever read. Sure they're people dressed up like beavers and wolves and stuff, but as a child I never thought that was weird. The drawback was that some of the non-costumeable creatures ended up being cartoony things, and that was a little different, but at the time I thought nothing of it because there was no other way to portray those characters! That's the benefit of the New Narnia - all the CGI things, which are seamlessly put into the movie. The one thing I think it stupid is this tree spirit thing, which is totally cheesy (and not exactly in the book). But the fauns, centaurs, etc., and Aslan are sooooooooo good. Aslan looks like you could actually pet him - every hair of his mane is so realistic. Good job, movie-makers. Too bad you gave all the fauns stubby tails even though Lewis specifically describes how Tumnus held his long tail over his arm. I suppose you pick and choose the details you want to incorporate - lion hair vs. faun tails...

-The witch... I really liked the BBC witch a lot more. Very more classic. The New witch has some really messed up hair that I don't think really fits with her character. She reminds me much more of Fiona from Josie and the Pussycats in that her appearance seemed to suggest "evil" and "bad" because she was eclectic, not because her heart was stone-cold.

-A little more about Aslan. In the New Narnia, as I stated before Aslan's CGI is AWESOME. However, I never got much of a sense of what he was like - there seemed to be little development of his emotions, especially in the scene where he is walking to the Stone Table. I think that the whole Stone Table sequence could have been much better as far as characterization - meaning, going back to the original book and including the dialogue between Aslan, Lucy, and Susan, Aslan's desire for their companionship, and Lucy and Susan's reactions (for example, the key line from Lucy that is lacking in the movie, "The cowards!"). The movie makers appear to have been much more concerned about showing off their creature-creations rather than telling the story. The Stone Table cracking was really lame, too. And, most disappointingly, Aslan's roar...not so much powerful or scary or anything. BBC wins in all of the above.

-The best part of the whole movie, I felt, was the casting. Pippa Hall did an amazing job of casting four children who are believably related. I couldn't get over it.

In short, I liked the New Narnia movie. It isn't just like the book, but rarely do se see a movie these days that is. I'm sure it's difficult to try to incorporate everything from a novel into a screenplay, but I'm still sad that writers and directors feel the need to add stuff that wasn't in the author's original work. Most powerful to me was the images of Lucy with Aslan; it sparked in me a desire for a more childlike desire for my Lion of Judah.