After seeing Narnia this weekend, several things came to mind, many of them similar to what my friend Travis posted on VITW, "That's Narnia Business". All in all I liked it, though there were parts of it that I was truly disappointed in. I had to keep reminding myself not to get caught on details, things that were in the movie but in the book. In comparison, both the BBC version that came out in 1988 and was aired on HBO, and the animated version released in 1993, were truer to the book. This Narnia is most definitely a Disney movie designed to keep the audience enthralled even though it had to stray from the book to do so.
While the larger main themes of betrayal and redemption through the sacrifice of another are still present with the Christological imagery, I think Disney should have stayed closer to the book, and paid more attention to details.
My other disappointment with this movie is that I don't really like how Susan was portrayed. She was shown as being much more overly pessimistic than she is in the book. Travis commented that he thought she was cynical. Yeah, I can go with that. I think Disney went over the top in her unbelief. In the book she is not so much cynical and pessimistic as she is timid, and unsure of things. The movie shows her has being totally without hope to the point of being reckless, not only with her life, but the lives of her siblings. This is all prior to meeting Aslan of course. While it makes the imagery of going from hopelessness to hope through the one who brings salvation much more dramatic and distinct, I don't think is true to Lewis's portrayal of her in his book. As I said before, this is totally a Disney movie.
In spite of my disappointments with the movie, I can see the appeal to the mass market. My hope is that the part of the deeper magic of this version of Narnia is that it will have the same magic found in Harry Potter in that it will encourage both children and adults to read more. I'd love to see school-aged children pick up the entire series to read, and then bring their parents along on the trip as well, or vice-versa. In this age of mass video entertainment, that would truly be magical.
2 comments:
Nice post, Cindy. I wish they would've dwelled a little more on Deep Magic vs. Deeper Magic, as it is these two forces that motivate a lot of action in the film. However, the Deeper magic is not mentioned and kinda' past by conceptually. I think a further description of Deeper magic would have more clearly juxtaposed the law vs. grace.
A journalism prof at UT (and major domo at WORLD magazine) admitted that he often reads selections from NARNIA to his kids at night just before bed.
Really great transcendant lit isnt dependent on the age of the audience. But personally I do feel a mom or dad or both should be there to explain some of the more theologically weightier issues.
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