This version was pretty good:
Posted on 05/13/2005 11:51:38 AM PDT by dangus
Walden Media is set to launch a live-action version of C. S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” for the Christmas Season of 2005. At least four other movies from the series of books are planned. Disney will distribute the movies, but did not produce them.
The movie should delight fans of Lewis, since the movie should be much more faithful to the book than had been expected several years ago. Paramount had wanted John Boorman to direct. Boorman was famous for movies such as Exorcist II: The Heretic, Deliverance, Excalibur (1981), The Emerald Forest, and The Tailor of Panama. But rumors were that Boorman planned to strip religious symbolism from the film and set it in an earthquake-plagued California, instead of war-torn England. (Ironically, one character, Susan, lost her ability to visit Narnia because she moved to California to become a model!)
Boorman was replaced by Andrew Adamson, director of Shrek, who has never directed a live-action film. Adamson is filming the movie largely in Czeckoslavakia and his native New Zealand, where “The Lord of the Rings” series was filmed. Lewis’ stepson, Douglas Gresham is overseeing the production. The fourth book of the Narnia series was dedicated to Douglas and his brother, David. From the little that can be seen from the trailers, the production looks excellent. It should: Walden spent $120 million making the first Narnia movie. Little of that seems to have been spent on casting. Lucy Pevensie is played by first-time actress Georgie Hendley. Tilda Swinton (“Gabriel” from Constantine, Vanilla Sky) will play the White Witch, instead of the long-rumored Nicole Kidman. Character Actor Jim Broadbent plays Aslan. The most well-known cast member is Rupert Evert, who played Prince Charming in Shrek.
For those not familiar it, the Chronicles of Narnia was a series of Children’s books written Oxford Humanities professor and Christian apologist Clive Staples “Jack” Lewis. (A movie about Lewis, “Shadowlands,” starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, is a classic, romantic tear-jerker.) Lewis, who was converted to Christianity by his close friend and Oxford associate, “Lord of the Rings” author J.R.R. Tolkein, wrote several Christian non-fiction classics, including “The Four Loves,” and “Mere Christianity.” He also wrote more adult stories such as the “Perelandra” science-fiction trilogy and the “Screwtape Letters,” a brilliant exposition of how evil functions.
“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (alternatively entitled, “Lucy and the Wardrobe”) tells of four children who pass from war-torn England into a magic world ruled by a lion, Aslan.
It’s even good news that “The Lion” is the first movie filmed. Later American publications of Narnia begin with the book, “The Magician’s Nephew.” That book was originally published sixth, and serves to provide the backstory for the previous books. People who read it first cannot know the significance of details it takes great care to explain. Some fans speculated, when it was announced that Walden was only producing “at least” five movies that “Nephew” might be one of the books not translated into a movie. Other candidates are “A Horse and His Boy,” published fifth, but which takes place between the first and second stories, which would mean the original cast will have aged too much to be used; and “The Last Battle,” the final book portraying the fate of Narnia. One previous, low-budget production of Narnia conflated the second and third stories, “Prince Caspian,” and “The Voyage of the Dawn-Treader.”
Whether five or seven movies get made, Narnia looks likely to be a major force in Hollywood for the next several years. The series is more friendly to adaptation than either the enormousely successful "Lord of the Rings" or "Harry Potter" series; the books are relatively short and unlike "Lord of the Rings," each tells a complete story, and with the excpetion of the episodic "Dawn Treader," each follows a very traditional story arc.
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The trailer can be found and a short behind-the-scenes peak can be found here
VWRCmember supplied this list of other Narnia threads:
Here is a wealth of information available just from searching for articles that have been posted here with "Narnia" in the title:
Disney's Next Hero: A Lion King of Kings (Hollywood Nervous About Christian Narnia)
New Chronicles of Narnia behind-the-scenes featurette released!
Newsweek Exclusive: Welcome to 'Narnia'!
The Wonderful World of 'Narnia'
Freepers: Please add information as you find it!
And when it fades away, and when the audiences don't show up for "House of Wax 2" and "XXX - the final atrocity", the Hollywood whiz kids will ask themselves "How come no one wants to watch movies anymore?"
I watched the trailer (in French) on Saturday and was impressed. From the scenes depicted it appears to be pretty faithful.
We shall see....
Newheart: Care to ping the Anglican list for this movie by the most famous of Anglican Christian apologists?
A bit of an exaggeration, don't you think? We still have Star Wars Ep. III, and Harry Potter IV, both of which will be blockbusters, upcoming.
Both of which will be big hits at the box office. But you don't seriously expect Star Wars III to be less than disappointing. Do you?
Havign read and loved every single book in this series, I'm a tad nervous of it (the series) being made into movies, as movies ALWAYS screw up books!
The only one that comes close to doing the book justice is "The Shawshank Redemption".
I hope they succeed.
Prelimary reviews indicate that they got SW III right -- as in, this is the movie fans have been waiting for. I don't want to get my hopes up, but at the same time, I want to point out that there are other big movies than Narnia this year. (Personally, I'm also looking forward to Serenity and The Producers, but those won't likely be the mega-blockbusters like SW, HP, and possibly Narnia.)
Fair enough. I'll see Star Wars III. But I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's not as boring as the last one.
There would be a lot of redemption in blasting Jar-Jar to smithereens.
But my original point was merely that Hollywood makes few really successful movies, those that tend to be most successul tend to be rather rather more "red state" than "blue state" if you know what I mean. And yet Hollywood seems to spend 80% of its resources making "blue state" movies.
Every Star Wars movie has made less money than its predecessor. Episode 2's take was $302 million, down from Ep. 4's take of about $1 billion, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Because Ep. 3 is the long-awaited bridge episode, I expect it will stop the slide, and make about $320.
Likewise, each Harry Potter has made less than the previous one. Last Harry Potter made $249. I'd guess this one should make nearly as much.
In any event, both movies should be beatable for the top moneymaker of 2005. That's not to say it will be Narnia, but the existence of those movies are no counter-argument for it being Narnia, either.
The slate of upcoming blockbusters do not look promising to me:
Batman Begins
King Kong
Fantastic Four (Can you say "The Hulk?")
X-Men 3
Pirates of the Carribean 2
Jurassic Park 4 (2 and 3 sucked!)
Cars (worst Pixar ever?)
The Da Vinci Code
War of the Worlds looks the most promising; Indiana Jones 4 looks like it has potential; SpiderMan 3 will be a hit, but not huge, as will Herbie the Love Bug; I'll like A Sound of Thunder, but if it's any good, it'll be too intellectual for most summer fans.
The shorter the original story, the better the movie tends to be. Short stories make for good seeds of ideas, but the more detailed a book's plots, the more difficult it is to translate to a good movie. Although Lord of the Rings was very satisfying, despite its many failures to live up to the books. As I mentionned, Narnia seems very capable of being made into a movie with modern special effects. IN that regard, we are probably very fortunate that no-one has tried to make it earlier, since the technology hadn't existed.
By the way, I'll never understand why everyone loves "The Shwashank Redeption." I hated it. It's grossly unrealistic, (I've done prison ministries) bitter (Yay! the hero learned to be as evil as everyone else! /sarcasm), and nihilistic.
One movie which did improve on the book was Contact. The book was preposterously long-winded, for instance spending hundreds of pages on the heroine's sexual history. The movie twisted atheist's Carl Sagan's original story into a unique allegory of religious experience.
"By the way, I'll never understand why everyone loves "The Shwashank Redeption." I hated it. It's grossly unrealistic, "
Maybe so (I'll take your word & experience here). My point was that the movie was VERY true to the book. Perhaps the book is unrealistic and everything else you said, but the movie is still true to the book and loses little in its silver-screen adaptation.
Speaking of "grossly unrealistic" movies, have you seen "Contact"? :)
This version was pretty good:
>> Speaking of "grossly unrealistic" movies, have you seen "Contact"? :) <<
Oh, that was downright cruel. :^D
But yes, Contact certainly was almost as unrealistic as Shawshank. :^b
This isn't a doctrinal issue, but I'd love to have some discussion about Narnia from the perspective of its spirituality. Think your ping list might be interested?
I'm sorry, but that cover soooo much has that look of Christian-niche-market-only cheap-o animation. And Peter, with his bell bottoms, 70's 'do, and turtleneck looks like he is headed for a dance-off vs. John Travolta!
One of the most deep, sincere and Spirit-led prayers of repentance that I have ever prayed was not elicted by reading scripture, but by reading the conclusion of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (It's truly amazing how God uses everything!) Done right, these movies have serious evangelism potential.
They're remaking the Producers?!
Thanks for your comments. I believe C.S. Lewis to have been inspired.
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