Your opening is more like how the books started. However, I read something that the makers of the movie felt like today's primary audience (children) wouldn't understand the times that the Narnia children were living in, and they felt like they needed to set that situation up. I think it was good for my children, and I know my son (who has read the books) liked the set up.
"I read something that the makers of the movie felt like today's primary audience (children) wouldn't understand the times that the Narnia children were living in, and they felt like they needed to set that situation up."
See, that's what bothers me about production decisions in this movie. To me, that context is almost meaningless unless Lewis (and the producers) wanted to draw a cororally between events in the film and WWII/Nazis. The film, at least the Narnia part, is timeless and doesn't necessarily require a backdrop to any one period in history...unless it was important to do so.
According to most of the people on this thread, the corallary is the life and death of Jesus Christ. so why the WWII references?