Into the Wardrobe

Just saw the film at the weekend. Oh dear.

I won't make a long list of my complaints here, partly because it would take too long and partly because it would only end in a similar and equally fruitless debate with pro-film people as that which was contested over LWW. What I will say is that all the secondary faults of the production (secondary but still pretty consequential) seemed to stem from the same kind of mentality that caused Aslan to be marginalised and misrepresented ("if you were any braver you'd be a lioness" huh?) This was directly in keeping with the first film.

If Adamson is definitely falling on his sword (not that he'd see it that way) that's something to be thankful for as is the fact that Reepicheep, who was one of the very few plus points of PC apart from Georgie Henley will be carried over into VDT. Also Caspian (the 26 year old!) will be just about the right age, though still a little old perhaps, by the time of the next movie.

There will be much metaphorical blowing of horns (at the right time!) and general invocation of Aslan (the real one!) that he will breathe upon the new director and that the quest for the missing Lords will display some kind of faithfulness to the original story.

Well, it wasn't the book made into a film, but it was just about a film version of the book!

I loved Reepicheep and that the 'tail incident' was left in.

I was really interested in the exploration of Peter and Susan's different attitudes to Narnia. It's the biggest indication that the intention is to make all 7 films, since the payoff for Susan having moved on and only wanting to be in Narnia for as long as she's there is in The Last Battle.

I could live with the semi-manifestation of the White Witch as a way for Edmund to gain 'closure'. Also, Peter didn't just lead his siblings 'wrong', he lead the whole of Narnia wrong with his attack on Miraz' castle.

I was disappointed by the trees - I had really high hopes of those. Also, there wasn't nearly enough of Dr Cornelius.

The only thing that I absolutely hated was Lucy sitting on the Stone Table.