Narnia movie innovations -- likes and dislikes **SPOILERS!**

[Edisonbaggins]

I can't say for 100% certain that the book doesn't mention the Witch's hair, but I just reread the whole book and I don't think it does. It's harder to not quote something than to quote it. I know the whiteness of her face and the redness of her lips is mentioned.

[robsia]

[nomad]

[Stanley Anderson]

[nomad]

[Marcus_P_Hagen]

[Esther]

[Edisonbaggins]

[Steve]

[Summer]

[Jill Pole]

I just have to join in here. I have been waiting for this movie since I first heard about it four years ago! :shocked:

First off, I have to say that it was a lot better than I thought it would be, story-wise. I knew the cinematography and such would be great, but I was most worried about what they would do to the story.

My family saw it for the second time recently. A lot of the problems I had had with it after the first showing, disappeared after the second: the Beavers bickering, the ice down the river, Peter not accepting the role of king more readily, etc.

However, something bothered me more the second time around that hadn't bothered me as much before. It really bothered me that Aslan was played down. :/ I didn't like how the children were made the focus when it was really all Aslan. That is now the only big thing that bothered me about the movie. The rest was all little stuff I could deal with.

But, just to reiterate, I loved the movie and am looking forward with great eagerness to Prince Caspian. It's my favorite book and I can't wait to see a non-BBC version of it.

Tiffany

[Messenger_of_Eden]

Well this is sort of a change, more of an omission--I think, at the end. after the first of the credits when it shows the Professor talking to Lucy, and he says she won't get back to Narnia by that door, and he says she will find a new door when she is not looking, he should have turned to her with that winsome, mysterious expression and looked down on her, and said "After all, once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia."

I know that in the book he does say at the end "Once a king in Narnia, always a king in Narnia", (but considering in the movie that in this scene it is he and Lucy alone)--I think that would have added a delightful punch, because in TLWW, the Professor does not tell the children that he was ever in Narnia, and it would set up a little mystery for the uninitiated watchers--how would the Professor know this?!

So anyway, I think they should have done that...

[nomad]

[Edisonbaggins]

[David]

Just a comment on books and films.

Film is an entirely different medium and must express things in different. In other words, film relies on different techniques to convey things. So we need to be generous in our criticisms of the Narnia films. They do not follow the book exactly and could not. They accomodate audiences somewhat, but they remarkably kept the essential story.

I've only seen one film that exactly followed the novel, and that was a film version of E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, a book I had read and taught. It was almost four hours long and excruciatingly boring. Film is always an adaptation, and think this first Narnia film was a good one.

Film limits. A film can never be as good as a book--but, again, it is a different art form, a translation from one art form to the other.

Now some things I liked:

As someone mentioned, the Phoenix was cool.

I loved the female centaurs! In all the myths, legends, and fairy tales I've read, I have never encountered one before, but unless the race of centaurs magically reproduces, there had to be women. They were cool.

On the second viewing I noticed a gorilla in Aslan's camp when the children first come in.

I liked the swift-looking cheetas Peter's army had and the dingy Siberian tigers in Jadis' host.

The polar bears pulling her war chariot was a good touch.