Narnia-Not

[Teleios]

A lot of people from here in the office are really interested in going to see the new Chronicles of Narnia [http://imdb.com/title/tt0363771/] movie that releases today. Am I the only person not interested in watching it? I read the novels when I was a kid, and I saw the cartoon version of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. They terrified me. I'm not sure what it was, nor will I ever know.

I watched the trailer and tried to pick up the books to see if it would interest me - no desire. Now, I really am starting to think there is something wrong with me because everyone around me apparently loves The Chronicle.

 

[Sprout2]

Completely fair. No one says you have to see it or like it (well, escept jon). I don't blame you for not liking the books. They're pretty simplistic. And I DEFINATELY find no fault with your dislike of the former theatrical version of this tale. The old version frustrated me /so/ much and made me yell at no one inparticular for wasting money pumping out crap movies when there is so much potential in stories like these. Not wanting to deal with prices and crowds is a good reason to not go rushing to see it. I have a personal rating system for any trailer i see. Theater-worthy, Rent-worthy, Watch-As-Long-as-i-dont-have-to-pay-for-it - worthy.

However, I am excited to see it. It looks amazing and i love that the way they phrase it, as if they could/possibly are planning on creating the rest of the series. [cheers!!] And the people who did the graphics for this are the ones who did lord of the rings [awesome, awesome, awesome] no more people in stupid beaver costumes and rickety mechanical lions. SO, I am excited, and you can come over to see it when it comes out on video. cheers!

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Randall Fitzgerald
http://www.ikimashou.net
I think I started out interested in this movie, and just sort of got bored of the idea as it wore on and I saw the books get new covers on my frequent trips to borders. Seriously, though, I think advertising is killing my interest in these movies. Lemony Snicket was looking good, but every time I saw some new promotion pop up I got a little less interest, a little more apathetic. I never really liked the Narnia story better, as it didn't ring my bell and smacked too much of a time that doesn't really interest me (sorry, nothing really interesting about middle ages England style fighting people...)

Moreover, I am sort of sick of these non-awesome child actors. The kid in Narnia looks like a pud. Atreyu (let me take the moment to hate @ the dickhole band that stole the name) was awesome. The kids (except the damn baby) in Lemony Snicket were even pretty keen. The kids in this movie have come off in the previews as sort of bump-on-log-esque and the story seems like it might be a bit too epic for the participants. I don't so much remember the animated version being Baby Braveheart, but then, I missed a lot of it. All the same, I'm not even terribly excited about Aeon Flux, but I'd probably rather see that anyway, because even if the movie doesn't deliver, I still have nice adult women to drool over and a relative lack of the possibility that my night will be ruined by crying babies or obnoxious pre-teens.

No thanks.

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Brian Rubin
http://www.gamingwhore.com
You're not the only one with no desire to see it. I might see it with a friend, but I'm not really that interested at all.

 

[Joe]

See, I planned on seeing it. But, uhh, make sure you buy your tickets ahead of time when a popular book series is turned into a movie. And here I was hoping to write about it tomorrow.

Also, Whit, if you ever get around to reading the series, just read The Silver Chair. Best book in the series.

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Mark

I somehow found myself being dragged along to see it. It was all right, but it never becomes more than the sum of its (very well-done) parts.

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: jlaakso

Not interested at all. I like the idea of going to another (scary) world through a wardrobe, but that's about it. I think my mom read the books to us kids when we were, well, kids.

Still, the age-old motto holds here: if it gets good reviews, maybe. But there's Descent by the guy who did Dog Soldiers, and King Kong opens next week, and...

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Daniel Vanasse
http://ffo.warcry.com
Honestly you haven't missed much. I went to see it last night with a friend of mine cause she's a fan of the book and wanted to see it. Since Memoires of a Geisha wasn't playing in our theater yet we went to see it. The movie was beautiful but it's not that good.

It's pretty much what you'd expect out of a Disney movie. So don't feel bad for sitting that one out.

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: plangent
http://plangent.underhanded.org
Bear in mind that C.S. Lewis was good friends with J.R.R. Tolkien. They were both members of The Inklings, a club of literati based around Oxford (the town not necessarily the university). It was there that they began their conversations about providing England with a mythos comparable to the Greeks. Each went his own way with Tolkien favoring the Norse angle and Lewis favoring the Queen Mab/faerie style of Percy Shelley and the Gaelic tradition. In fact, Tolkien is credited with playing a very large role in Lewis' return to Christianity which heavily influenced the Narnia books. Check out The Screwtape Letters for a taste of Lewis' more overt religious writing.

All should take heed about not reading C.S. Lewis. They may be endangering their "geek cred" by not reading a guy who was tight with Mr. Middle Earth himself. Whether or not the "geek community" is "well read" enough to "catch this" remains to be seen.

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Andrea Appel
http://aerenhart.blogspot.com
***Might contain spoilers***

For me, Chronicles of Narnia was the gate to the world of fantasy I cherish so much right now. I started reading it when I was 10, and I was completely all over it, and read the seven books. Like you, I saw the cartoon version and it was pretty scary, specially the part where Aslan gets into the ritual and gets killed. But that's me. I like that kind of fantasy stories. But many people doesn't, and that's completely ok. And, the books are specially made for kids to understand, and if you're already a grown up, you can find it a bit boring, unless you start trying to find the second meaning of everything, which can be easily done.

To be completely honest, I'm going to see the movie to see what parts were removed and which were added to the story. Everybody knows that a movie isn't the same as a book. I teared apart the three movies of LotR, because I didn't like how the story was told, a lot of important sidestorys were removed, and some characters were more important than how they are in the books. So, the main purpose of me going to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is to see how twisted the thing is going to be

Books rules over movies. Always. (in the case the movie is based on the book, not in the other case).

So, is perfectly fine you're not excited about the movie. You don't have a special purpose to go see it, it doesn't meant that much to you. Does everybody has to be thrilled about a movie like that? Hell no!

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Tim
http://oghc.blogspot.com
Whitney, I don't want to see it either; and I did read and enjoy C.S. Lewis back in the day; but I think I don't want to see it because I committed Geek Blasphemy in the past. I liked Lord of The Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien was a genius with words. It was wonderful. Then Peter Jackson ruined everything.

Everything!!

I didn't like the movies.

I figure if I like the book, I'm not able to see the movie without some degree of self-mutilation. It happens every time. Needful Things, Jurassic Park, The Shining, Winnie the Pooh...

 

[Andraste]

Tim - I can understand this reason for not wanting to see a movie. An author who uses words not only to convey a story, but somehow makes them come alive often does not transfer into a movie. A. A. Milne is an Absolute Genius in this regard - I'm a huge fan of Winnie the Pooh. Have you ever read "The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff? Highly recommend if you enjoy A. A. Milne's writing.

I went to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. There were some inklings of Lewis' beautiful story-telling. I rather enjoyed it, but for people who love the writing, an impressive scene will never replace a beautiful turn of phrase.

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Funky J
http://www.funkyj.com
In LOTR specifically, most of the story was BORING AS HELL! I remember reading it as a kid, and being bored out of my brain in certain parts, skimming over tedious parts to the good bits. But the story was still really engaging.

That is what Jackson did to the story - took out the boring parts, and made it into a great FILM.

It's like the Harry Potter books & films - these aren't exact re-dreations of the book, but rather the director and scrpit writers interpretation of the story, in film form.

I have no interest in Cronicles of Narnia as, whilst I'm sure I've read the book, I can't remember a thing about them so I can't have like the story that much...

 

[Teleios]

Well, I'm glad to see that there are some people who agree with me. I'm just not all that into it, but it seems as though everyone around me is. No! I won't give into the peer pressure!

Plangent - It's interesting to think about the differences between C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien. I was a huge Tolkien fan when I was a kid and read them all multiple times, I just didn't enjoy C.S. Lewis at all...

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Greg Tito [contributor]
http://onlyzuul.blogspot.com/
I loved the Narnia books and read them all concurrently with LOTR when I was in 4th grade. At the time, I thought they were great stories. Plus it was a great escape fantasy, when you're a kid, there is nothing more tantalizing than being transported to another world where you are king.

But as I got older and thought about the books, I began to see C.S. Lewis's Christian propaganda poke through the story. Aslan as Jesus was not as cool as Aslan the killer lion who toomk one for the team. I guess I would consider myself an atheist now, so anything that smacks of religion and faith issues leaves me with a bad taste in the mouth region. The latter books (6&7 if I remember) touched more on these themse than the middle books (of which Dawn Treader is the best, i believe) and for that I dislike them even more.

Still, I am interested in seeing the movie, if only because I am a filmmaker and I like to see how they adapted it. It's a specific challenge, to take a story and adapt it to film. I'll go out on a limb and say that Peter Jackson did the best that is possible to adapt such a book like LOTR and he set the standard for similar adaptations in the future of film.

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: Ghostblur
http://www.dailychore.com
I didn't read the novels but I have read a lot about C.S. Lewis. That is why I went and wasted my time with watching Narnia. My friend sitting next to me was yelling out, "The Lion is Jesus!" I found the children to be the most annoying young protaganist I have every seen in a film. Too bad they did not drown when they fell on top of the ice chunk. It might have been wrong, but I wanted the wolves to live.

My Two Cents on The Lord of the Rings: T.L.R. movies were much better than the books. The books were so damn boring. It took about a third of the book for the hobits to get out of their hobbit village. It would take about three paragraphs for me to describe grass.

 

[Teleios]

Original Comment by: toshiro

I have seen the movie (for evaluation purposes).

That being said, I'm hardly what you could consider a fan of fantasy, but I've read some (and still read some, if brought upon it by friends/colleagues in who's taste I trust). Still, the movie made me yawn, laugh at some inconsistencies (always a bad sign if I notice these, it obviously shows I'm bored), and shake my head at some gross logical errors.

The CGI was nice... very well done. And the opening scene was the best part of the movie. But that's my own personal opinion.