While I am in the midst of exams, I took last night off from studying, and Sherri and I went and watched The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.
And I must say that I was not as disappointed as I expected to be. It was an exciting movie. There were a few things that could have been done better, and a few things that they put in that could have been taken out (i.e. they were not in the book). But over all, I think it was done well.
What I didn't like was that they politicized the whole White Witch versus Aslan thing. It wasn't a moral battle, with the Witch being evil, and Aslan being good (which they were, but not overtly). The Witch came off as a despot rather than a morally evil being, while Aslan came across as a good King, and only if you looked for it would you see his divinity.
People who have not read the books would not get that idea out of it, I think. Although if you know something of mythology, you could probably guess, since the Witch's followers were mostly the evil mythological characters: Minotaurs, black Dwarfs, Wolves, Cyclops, and a host of other things I could not easily identify. Whereas Aslan's followers were Centaurs, red Dwarfs, Fauns, leopards, beavers (of course), and many others.
All in all, it was rather enjoyable. But the book is still many times better. Although I will admit that it is a little dated, since Lewis was a 50-something year old bachelor living around the Second World War. And the people who made this movie updated it to make it appeal to a wider audience. This was noticeable especially with the battle scenes. There were women fighting on the Narnian side. This was not something that Lewis would have liked. He even puts a line in the book, when the children receive gifts from Father Christmas. Susan and Lucy receive daggers, but only for protection, for, as Lewis puts it, "wars are ugly, terrible things when women fight in them." This line was noticeably absent from the movie, especially because the first half of it was there: "wars are terrible ugly things." While I agree with Lewis, I think for the feminism of our day, that line had to be taken out, or risk offending a lot of people.
Anyways, those are my first thoughts on the movie. Now I have to study Dogmatics.
Go, watch the movie, and tell me what you think.
3 comments:
Cool, glad you liked it! Art was considering taking Tim, but then you get into the "which movies we watch at the theater and which we don't and why can't I go see this movie with my friends" debate. Maybe we'll wait for the DVD; this is probably one we will buy.
That's what Sherri and I decided... We plan on buying it when it comes out.
It was pretty clean, even though there was an extensive battle scene. There was very little blood, and most people were turned to stone.
Liam Neeson as Aslan was an excellent casting call. It took me a bit to figure out who it was (Sherri had to tell me, actually).
Yup, he would be good - I love his voice! See you on Sunday.
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