Something I realized watching this film was the contrast between the visual medium and print. Much of what CS Lewis discsses lightly in the book and how it appears in the movie.

A testament to Lewis' skill at writing that he can craft a story about children, wars, evil witches, etc., and it still maintain the prose and innocence that is required for younger audiences.

I, too, worried that Disney would mess something up in the production process...until I learned that Walden Media was handling the actual filming, and that Peter Jackson's WETA studio was doing post-production. Needless to say, those two facts made me feel a little better.

Now, having seen the film, I must say one thing definitively...when the credits started rolling I didn't want it to end. And not from the standpoint that the movie didn't fulfill whatever it was that I wanted, but that it was so good. For two hours and ten minutes I was able to leap back to my childhood, recalling all the late nights (or early mornings, if you prefer to think of it that way) that I stayed up reading Lewis' Chronicles.

So...see it for yourself. Perhaps you won't like it quite as much as I did. But then again, it cannot be worse than the old BBC productions (which were fine at the time, I suppose, but nowhere near the Narnia of my mind's eye).

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

Narnia was.

I don't know if the previous versions of LOTR and LW&W were ever filmed with "live" actors before their latest incarnaitons but i do know that they had been animated.

By saying I mean its easier and perhaps better to compare live action King Kong to live action King Kong vs live action LOTR/LW&W to animated versions of LOTR/LW&W

This brings up a question. Are the royal They planning on doing the other Narnia books as well, or just LW&W? I've always been rather disappointed that common knowledge thinks that LW&W is a standalone book. The entire series as a whole is incredible.

P.S. I hope they do The Horse and his Boy. That is my favorite story, and I don't think it has an allegorical point to it. It's just kind of a fantasy adventure. Orphan boy meets talking horse, they meet girl also with talking horse, girl runs away from arranged marriage, boy and girl flee, lots of bickering to conceal sexual tension...

I guess the allegorical point to it may have been how Aslan interacted with their adventures, propelling them toward the conclusion. Not a deus ex machina so much as a deus ex ignition, deus ex carbeurator, deus ex gearbox, deus ex powertrain... What makes deus ex machina [really] annoying is when they pop out of nowhere. But Aslan could as well have been a Greek god in this story, except for not getting any earthlings pregnant.

The first filmed version of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" was a TV special, on CBS, I think, sometime in the early to mid eighties. Yes, it was animated. It may have been only an hour long. (I think it may have been done by the same people who put on the animated "Hobbit" a few years before, but am not that confident of my opinion here...)

The second filmed version was a British production---BBC? They went on to produce versions of "Prince Caspian" and "The Silver Chair" as well (I saw the first and third ones, but missed the second for some reason.) These are available on DVD---I saw an ad for all of them in "Entertainment Weekly" the other week.

The gossip going 'round about the why of these movies runs along the lines of: Disney looked at the money that "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" have brought in, decided they wanted one of their own, cast around for something similar, and came up with "Narnia." (Looks like they've suceeded, from the early numbers.) I don't know if the books' Christian themes gave them a moment's hesitation---apparently they're not particularly toned down.

(I first read the Narnia books in high school---within a year of having read "The Lord of the Rings"---and though I've reread them a couple of times since (and remember a lot of details), they're not among my favorites. Even as a callow high schooler (as opposed to the callow adult I am now), I was somewhat put off by Lewis's laying-on of Christian themes with a trowel, thought the books were written down (like "The Hobbit," but more so), and found myself more attracted to fantasies like "Titus Groan."

Obviously, people who have little or no experience with or knowledge of Christianity and its fundamental characteristics will not be so quick to label Narnia a 'Christian' film. The remaining two groups will probably:

A.) Try to take Narnia and use it as a point of religious dicussion/debate, though Lewis himself claimed it was more of a 'supposition' than actual allegory. He intended it to be a good, wholesome children's tale...but also one that could speak to those familiar with the Christian faith on a deeper level. In this sense, it was written with an incredibly broad audience potential in mind, though the concept itself is fairly simple.

Or,

B.) Try to discredit Narnia as a mere tool of Christian propaganda, or at the very least dismiss it as being too symbolic of one specific religion.

In either case, I believe an injustice would be done to Lewis' work. While he surely had an intention to inject similarities to Christianity into the world of Narnia, he also realized the need to make the book general enough to be enjoyed by anyone. Here's a question for you: could the allegory/'supposition' present in Narnia be why, if on the most subtle level, the series has endured (flourished, in fact) over the years?

Anyway, as I said before. I believe it comes down to individual interpretation. Nothing more, nothing less.

Inkwell
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"The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp."
-Anonymous

There have been quite a few stories where some ordinary thing becomes a portal into another realm. Anybody ever read: 'The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles'? It was written by Julie Edwards (Andrews). Yes, the Sound of Music star. I read that around the same time as the Chronicles of Narnia in the 4th or 5th grade. I bought a copy of it last year, just to use as a reference. Pretty good childrens book.