a bit on NARNIA...

I've been meaning to do some more writing, but finding myself way unmotivated, mired in a spell of post-partem 'thon malaise... On the eve of opening day, I do have a bit of scattin' on NARNIA, mostly from an email I sent to Zorky...

Just rattling off what comes to mind about the flick...

A very satisfying and faithful (not Churchy faithful, but faithful faithful) adaptation of the beloved book (I love the book, and all the Chronicles).

While she makes a very regal and bitchy White Witch, I hafta say I don't love some of Tilda Swinton oddly sculpted witchy wardrobe. No biggie, really.

The battle scenes are very satisfying, with huge numbers on both sides, but shot so that you're never disoriented or lost in chaos. From what I can recall, the book might give a page or two to the ongoing battle, but focuses more on what goes on w Aslan at the stone table. The moviemakers quite rightly take this as license to put on a serious collision of two armies/menageries of all manner of fantastic creatures. Good crack.

I think I mentioned that the movie avoids any visible red bloodshed, but still delivers some solid sword-swinging and knock-down violence. Very smart really, to keep the movie suitable for kid viewing. Y'know, if you really and truly put stories told to children, or meant for children to read, faithfully onto the big screen, most would end up with an R rating for all kinds of ghastly frights, creatures, and violence. It's funny to SAY to a kid that someone's eyeballs shot out of his head when he got whacked w a club, but when you put that on screen, and it's not Bugs Bunny doing it (or even if it is, these days), we believe that kids can't handle it. Although they may inspire just as much analysis and interpretation by liberal arts grads, Lewis's original books are more for children's consumption than Tolkein's.

The "texture" of the live action married to the CG creatures seems different from that of Peter Jackson's RINGS films, but not necessarily better or worse. It is almost all brighter, in daylight and against the white of the Witch's winter, but again, not an automatic better or worse. I'm not certain, but my memory wants to tell me that that "texture" is something that belongs to the scenes in Narnia, as opposed to real world London, in the movie. If that is the case, extra well done. The talking animals are excellent. The perfect centaurs got me a little sentimental over the incredibly crappy but somehow acceptable half people half horsies of HERCULES and XENA, heh.

The children actors would not have been my first picks, physically, for the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. They do a fine job as the Pevensie kids, tho, planting them solidly in their archetypal not-always-so-agreeable-but-always-family sibling roles.

There's one good blank from the books that the movie starts to fill in pretty nicely - how these London kids end up being proficient at swordplay - a little bit of training. It could've been pushed even further, but at least it gives a glimpse, which in a movie can always stand for as much as needed.

"Always winter, never Christmas." Anyone remember that from the XTC -or maybe it was Dukes of the Stratosphear?- song? Always loved that Narnia reference.

Another wonderful Narnia reference for me is from FAMILY GUY. It's actually what convinced me that the show was worth watching. I was pretty lukewarm on the show when it first kicked off. I had a lot of trouble getting comfortable w the scrotum-chinned design of a lot of the male characters, and in general, the ugliness of most of the characters overall. But there was this one episode where Peter offhandedly makes some remark about losing socks in the laundry, and the show does one of its crazy cut/flashbacks showing him sticking his head into the dryer after the sock and spotting Mr. Tumnus by the lamp post in Narnia, running off w his sock. That. Is. Genius.

Joe and I got passes to the advance screening because we did some work for the website for the Narnian Chronicles, the original series of books by C. S. Lewis. We were in the running to work on the movie website, under the management of Walden Media, who created the film, but when Disney stepped in as distributor, they flexed their muscle and brought in their own developers to handle it. Bleah.

I'm very glad that LION's being movied first. I was way dismayed a few years back when I saw new editions of the Chronicles on shelves at Curious George Goes To Wordsworth (is that the full name of the store - the kids' bookstore in Harvard Square?). They'd renumbered the Chronicles with THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW as book 1 and LION as book 2. NEPHEW was originally the sixth book published out of the seven, I believe, and that's the order that I read them in. I think that Lewis himself once explained the NEPHEW is SUPPOSED to be first, as it's sort of the "Genesis" book of Narnia, explaining the origin and creation of the world beyond the wardrobe, but y'know what. He's wrong. Starting in the "middle" with LION, and later hitting NEPHEW, is way more satisfying for the reverse deja-vu you get in finding out where familiar characters and places began, y'know? Sorta like seeing EPISODES 1-3 after 4-6... only... y'know... Good! Well, allright... at least, better. =)

Pardon the tangent rant there... Time to close this up. Hope there wasn't anything too spoilery in there. When you're at the movie, try not to think about asking Tumnus and the Witch if they're registered sex offenders. =)

Keep on keepin on~