Just Saw "Narnia"...it Sucked

After reading all the hype in the media and on FR, I was excited to see the film of the CS Lewis book. I have to say I was disappointed. For all it's grandiosity and provenance, I found it clunky, sometimes difficult to follow and worse, unbelieveable (even a "fantasy" movie must reasonable enough in the story and behavior of it's characters to hurdle the initial "willing suspension of disbelief")

The religious basis and backdop to the story has been argued at length on FR, so let's leave that at the doorstep and discuss it's cinematic achievements, or lack thereof.

This may have been why I had a problem with the movie. After the presentation of the premise and the characters, I found myslef resisting acceptance that an entire fantasy world filled with magic, mythologic creatures, witches, generals and armies was waiting for a four small children to come and save their world....by prophecy and design. It would have been more believeable if they happened into the world by accident and through clever plot twists were responsible for the salvation of Narnia. But there was nothing really special about these kids, no ancestors with a special connection/knowledge to Narnia, no special abilities, expertise or talents, They were not exceptional in any way...they were just kids. Why did the land of Narnia need them? They added nothing that wasn't already there and in fact detracted from it.

The setup took far too long. I wasn't watching my watch but it must have taken over 20-30 minutes for the first kid to walk out the back of the wardrobe closet into the land of Narnia. I didn't understand the emphasis placed on this part of the book as it had little to do with subsequent events. Did it matter that much to the story that the the kids were sent off to the professor because their mother was concerned about the danger of WWII? There was a passing reference later about being shipped off to avoid the effects of war only to be dropped in the middle of the war in Narnia (and whether they should get involved at all), but it fell limply to the ground.

Good cop bad cop. The maid is stern, the professor, kind. So what? The movie feints toward this professor knowing more about Narnia and the wardrobe, but it leaves it there. You think he is going to add some specific knowledge or experience that the kids might benefit from (if not be involved himself) but they movie drops it and he becomes a useless figure in the overall plot. Why waste screen time on it?

Lucy - A typical, precocious, British eight year old. The most likeable character in the movie (which might not be saying much) but I grow weary of the English tendancy to cast their child characters beyond their years. I had three "laugh" moments in this movie, two concerning her. First, when she hits the bullseye with her magic "knife" and then when she "flashes it" and heads off to vanquish the armies of evil. A real laugher.

Susan - The most annoying, negative character in the movie. At first I made parallels to Wendy from "Peter Pan, but you believed Wendy was concerned about the younger children while Susan comes off as a party killing shrew. They needed to soften this character but didn't. Throughout most of the movie I kept wondering when she was going to use those damn arrows...had to wait until the last 2 minutes and by then it was anticlimatic.

Edmund - The anti-hero who becomes hero. I busted out laughing (third instance) when they put he and his brother in those stupid looking suits of armor. We are asked to believe this 10 and 14 year old are going to take part in a "Braveheart" type battle with huge warriors and mythological creatures and vanquish all? I might have believed it if they were given extrahuman strength, speed and agility. Even with their magic "implements" the battle scenes with these two were comical. Think of William Wallace in a sword fight with Doogie Howser.

Peter - Peter is supposed to be the 14 year old hero of the story, protecting his siblings while winding their way through the dangers of a mystical kingdom. The residents of Narnia wait for his arrival to lead their armies of druids and gargoyles againt the forces of evil in a final battle of epic proportions and historic finality. Sorry. Through the first 4/5ths of the movie Peter comes off as an effeminate British girlie boy and it is too much to ask the audience to believe he is the saviour of Narnia. Why would they want or need him?

The Witch - Huh? Tilda Swinson does comes off as an evil bitch but I never did beleive she, or anyone, would want to be the King or Queen of Narnia. It would be like Sauron of Moldor and his legions of Orks waging an epic battle for the control of The Shire. Snooze.

That's my nutshell of a take. If you ave seen narnia and would like to comment, feel free to do so but let's keep it clean.

The order in which they were written, which is how The Coopster read them and how I read them, is NOT chronological order. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the FIRST book written. Lewis didn't write and publish The Magician's Nephew (first chronologically) until he had written the first 5 books in the series.

You apparently think that the original publication followed the chronological order, as I read you comments.

If this isn't true, then, as Emily Latella said, "Nevermind."

I am disagreeing with you because you are wrong.

I sit here with the original series in front of me.

On each spine, there is a number. They read as follows:

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (c.1950) - ONE

Prince Caspian (c.1951)- TWO

Voyages of the Dawn Treader (c.1952)- THREE

The Silver Chair (1953)- FOUR

The Horse and His Boy (c.1954)- FIVE

The Magician's Nephew c.(1955)- SIX

The Last Battle (c.1956)- SEVEN

Written in that order, read in that order - and I had no trouble "keeping up".

I don't know what "revised" list you're looking at - I didn't mind doing a little thinking on my own. Sounds like an order created to make it easier to keep up is exactly what I meant by ADD standards.

Here is an image from Amazon, precisely the same as my set that I bought 15 years ago, and exactly the soft-bound books that I read in 1982 in 6th grade, and if you look at the binding, the books are numbered. Read in this order, you can follow the story. As I said LW&W is book #2. The Magicians Nephew is #1. The publisher is Scholastic Books.

"I liked The Island too. Reminded me of a cross between Coma and Logan's Run sort of ."

yes, Coma
and Logan's Run,

but also Brave New World (Big Brother system of lies)
and Gattica (the genetic engineering)
and Blade Runner (scenes of Sean Young, sincere android)
and Solent Green (scenes of body harvesting)
and Matrix (for a completely detailed false world).

Scarlett Johansson plays an great role as ingenue (3 year old adult clone).
And reprises her roles in Girl with a Pearl Earring and Lost in Translation -- but gets in some real fight scenes.

I didn't say I hated them movie, I was disappointed probably because it was hyped up so much.

Though hard to do these days, I avoid hype, trailers, previews, and reviews all I can. Even then, there's enough ambient pop-culture around that you'll hear what features are on the horizon. If nothing else, the few films I see are surprises, even if they aren't so good. I think I gain a better appreciation of the effort when a film works and even when it fails.

For example, I've been hearing some uncomplimentary things about the special effects for Narnia. This is ironic, since WETA did the effects for this and the Lord of the Rings series as well. If anything, I thought the effects in Narnia brighter, better, and more consistent than those in the Rings films. Aslan, the Beavers, and the Wolves were especially well done. Kong was also better than the LOTR films in the SFX department overall, but failed to convince me that Ann Darrow wouldn't have been shaken to death before her first 24 hours with Kong had passed.

That's fine. The set I have was published in the early 70's. In that set, TLTWTW is #1, and The Magician's Nephew is #6. Get out your set and look at the initial publishing dates of the books.
If you went to Amazon, go back there and read the reviews. You will see there is a controversy as to which order they should be read in...the publishing order or the chronological order.
This should indicate to you that the order in which they were first published, the order in which Lewis wrote them, was NOT the order of the set you have. The publishers decided to re-arrange them.

If you haven't read the books recently, go back and read The Magician's Nephew. You will see that when Lewis gets to the creation of Narnia, he is obviously explaining something that he assumes the reader already has read.

That's fine. The set I have was published in the early 70's. In that set, TLTWTW is #1, and The Magician's Nephew is #6. Get out your set and look at the initial publishing dates of the books.

Magician's Nephew is book #1 because it goes into details of the creation of Narnia, much like the Boook of Genesis of the Bible goes into details of the creation of the Heavens and the Earth, among other things.

This should indicate to you that the order in which they were first published, the order in which Lewis wrote them, was NOT the order of the set you have. The publishers decided to re-arrange them.

The publishing date means nothing. Lewis admitted he didn't write them in order. Years after he died, the publishers rearranged them in the proper order. There is a reason why there are book numbers on the spine of the book. If you read them in numerical sequence, you can go through Narnian history, much like reading from Genesis (which talks about creation) to Revelations (which reveals things to come in history, including the "Final Battle" aka Armageddon) in the Bible.

You just won't give it up, will you? He wrote them in a particular order, which The Coopster has documented with the publishing dates. Now you are saying that nevermind the order in which he wrote them, it wasn't the proper order.

Why won't you admit that the books were originally published with The Magician's Nephew as the intended (at the time) Book 6?

Publishers have rearranged them, and until some time in the 1980's, people did NOT read them in chronological order, and had NO problem understanding them.

Did you have trouble understanding Star Wars because Revenge of the Sith wasn't made until 25 years later?

Well, there you have it, you know more and are better than C.S. Lewis. You should try to parlay your talent into a writing career....FYI: If you do not understand the analogy to the NT story, then it probably will not make sense. For example, your criticism of the children being unknowns with no previous connection to Narnia was C.S. Lewis' link to the disciples (Peter, and unknown lowly fisherman etc...)

CS Lewis was the most influential Christian thinker and writer of the twentieth century. His influence among adults came more directly in that he wrote quite a few books including "Mere Christianity", "The Great Divorce", "The Abolition of Man", "The Problem of Pain", "The Four Loves", and so on. All were very successful in his day and still top Christian bestseller lists.

His "Chronicles of Narnia" series was directly aimed at children and has been enormously successful from the time of their release until now.

Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" series has been successful but not until the latter half of the century. His "Lord of the Rings" books were not just for kids, but also for adults.

Both writers have proven to be extremely successful, but in their day I am sure that Tolkien would say that Lewis was quite a bit more successful.

Great. You've got the "revised" order, not the order in which they were written.

I'm glad that you found the revised order to be easier to follow. I didn't have any trouble with the original, and as I said - it actually made for some great "a-ha!" moments, when I discovered a little tidbit about a previous book.

I notice that you mention that the publishers rearranged them AFTER Lewis' death. Do you suppose maybe it was because he wrote them in the order that he intended them to be read in? MO - it was unnecessary, and probably done by publishers who didn't want kids to work their poor little brains too hard. I would also note that someone decided to release the first book written as the first movie.

But - the bottom line is that you could read them in any order and they would be good books. And the movie was quite good.

The problem I had the with movie was the same as the problem I had with the books. It was just too "thin", and very linear. I think that's fine if you're a kid, because they get lost if the story is too complex. Or maybe it just suffers in comparison to LOTR. But it just seemed to me that not very much happens, and I'm someone who read the books for the first time perhaps 30 years ago, and reread them recently.

That being said, my kids liked it. But my 5 year old liked it more than the 9 year old because the older one was a bit bored by it.

I think you're being too critical, especially if you are trying to compare them to the LOTR trilogy.

These book are on average less than 200 pages each. How involved did you expect them to be? And how could you expect that they would contain the same level of detail as the LOTR books, which are all at least 4-600 pages long?

At least you did read them, and your opinion is based on some actual knowledge of the stories. And since you didn't much care for the stories, I can't really expect you to enjoy the movie. I'm glad your kids liked it.

These book are on average less than 200 pages each. How involved did you expect them to be? And how could you expect that they would contain the same level of detail as the LOTR books, which are all at least 4-600 pages long?

I don't, and I didn't. I just thought it was a very thin story. The main plot of getting the White Witch, and the subplot of Edmund. And both about as linear as you can get. With all the subtlety of a bottle of Tabasco.

I'm not saying that either the movies or books are objectively "bad". They're not. They tell the story the way Lewis wanted to tell it, aimed primarily at kids. I'm just saying that I personally found the story to be thin.

There were some things about the movie I liked, so its not like I didn't "get" it. It was enjoyable. It's just that, like Chinese food, it didn't stick to the ribs after it was over, maybe because the tone was just too fantasy-oriented for me. Not that I dislike fantasy, but that there wasn't a sense of...reality to this particular fantasy. But I did like the scene with Aslan being dragged to the alter. It was the one scene that -- to me -- had some grit and realism to him. And it helped draw more strongly the parallel with Jesus.

But I did like the scene with Aslan being dragged to the alter. It was the one scene that -- to me -- had some grit and realism to him. And it helped draw more strongly the parallel with Jesus.

Boy, I'll say. It really jumps out at you on the big screen, doesn't it? Not only Jesus and the crucifixion, but the tomb, the two women, the ressurection, missing body - everything.

I read them when I was - oh, I don't know, maybe 10. And they were pretty good stories to me then.

Now? I still think they're pretty good - as kids stories, as they do only take about 2 hours to get through. One thing I like is the syntax, which maked you feel like everyone involved is at least literate. Just a throwback to before the "dumbing down" of society began, I guess.

It's no big deal that you didn't think that it wasn't that great, and I certainly hope I didn't give the impression that I thought you didn't "get it". It's kind of like "Napolean Dynamite". I got it - I just thought it blew. :-)

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