Narnia

Erika, Amanda, and I went to see Narnia on Tuesday night. Overall I was quite impressed with it, but that doesn't make for a very good ranting blog so I will pick on every fault I can think of.

As far as a book-turned-movie goes it was very well done. The movie stayed very true to the feel of the book and followed the details remarkably well. While this was an impressive feat it also served to make the few discrepancies stick out quite badly. I don't understand why moviemakers have to add things to "jazz up" an already fantastical story. I could understand if C. S. Lewis himself had worked on the movie and wanted to tweak a few details or add scenes that would be more successful in a movie format than in the book, but why does Disney feel the need to take a much-beloved masterpiece and "improve" it. There were three scenes that really stuck out to me (if you haven't seen it don't read on): the waterfall/ice flow scene, the interaction between Edmund and Tumnus, and the attack of the deranged mutant killer monster snow Santa.

The scene where Tumnus and Edmund have a chat in the Jadis' jail cell is a complete addition. The White Witch reveals that Edmund sold out Tumnus and a soap opera-esque stare-down occurs. Supposedly this scene is to enhance the White Witch's evil character. Funny, I thought the cold, dark ice castle, the evil little dwarf, the spiky motif, the ghastly statues, and the random yelling and threats did a fine job of that already. Add to this the fact that there was no resolution between the two characters and I just don't get the point of having it in there.

Now the scenes on the frozen waterfall and the killer Santa I can understand to a point. In the book the journey to the stone table is fairly drawn out and somewhat uneventful as they actually have a day's jump on the witch. This would not be action-packed enough for today's...intellectually advanced audience (What? Five whole minutes without stuff blowing up or people getting impaled! You mean I have to decipher a plotline?!). So let's invent a scene where the children ride a large piece of ice down a river and almost drown and one where everyone thinks that the White Witch is breathing down the necks of her quarry with her killer reindeer about to gorge themselves on man-flesh only to realize that it was just Santa trying to get their attention so he could give them presents (but no tea!). He was just in a real hurry, that's all. While the first scene is a total fabrication, the second is only a bizarre interpretation of a scene where the children and the beavers stop for the night in a burrow and wake to the sound of sleighbells (which the book explains in that Jadis specifically tells the dwarf to use the harness without bells so the reader knows it's not the White Witch who the children hear). Then they all realize that winter is slipping and Christmas is here at last and they all have tea (I think Lewis would have been aghast at the severe lack of tea in this movie…not at all proper what, what?)

And can someone tell me what the hell Harry Potter's phoenix is doing in Narnia?!

I was also kind of disappointed with the look of the stone table. It looked fine, but not what I expected from the book's description (small point).

Other than that it was a great movie. Visually it was amazing and the feel of the book was intact. Also, as Matt pointed out, the Christian themes were there without any real attempt by Disney to dumb them down or new age-ify them. Except (okay, one more beef) that the best line of the entire series was butchered. The "He's not safe, but he is good" line was said by Mr. Beaver not Lucy and it was said before they met Aslan not at the end of the movie. The point was that the children found out Alsan was a lion and wanted to know if he was tame. It was to build the image of this terrible, amazing, awesome figure. The whole thing seemed too matter-of-fact in the movie. "Who's Aslan?" "Oh, he's a lion," "Okay, let's go see him," "Hey, there he is coming out of his tent" "Alright, let's get this over with." Meeting Aslan is supposed to be akin to meeting God!

Like I said the above begrudgements were only made because everything else was so well done.