Thanks for linking that typically fabulous Morfordian rant. God, it would be a travesty if they murdered the Narnia books. The thing is, they really are tacky Christian allegories (even as a nine year-old I noticed, and re-reading them as an adult I was amazed that I overlooked it so much), so it's not unreasonable to maintain that in the movie -- provided they stay true to the book and don't give it the Disney/Passion of the Christ makeover. Morford makes a great point about the reason for the original magic of the books, which I'd never really thought about clearly. Like Milton, Lewis (who incidentally, I might add, was not only an Oxford man, but born in Belfast) was far too good a writer to allow his purpose of "justify[ing] the ways of God to Man" to get in the way of good storytelling/poetry -- and, as with Satan in Paradise Lost, the really memorable stuff in Narnia is all the (basically pagan) magic and wonder.
But why the bile? Ok, it depends on what the meaning of "technically" is, but The Lion, the Witch...is "technically the second" chapter (as Star Wars -- giving it Lucas' new name would be to endorse the kind of pointless and eviscerating revisions you allude to so wittily in your fabulous icon -- is "technically the fourth" chapter of its series).
I've never heard of any of these films you're looking forward to. A great part of being out of America is avoiding all the marketing hype! I'm looking forward to: Howl's Moving Castle (not released in Europe yet. I suspect it could be exception to the rule that great children's books get slaughtered on screen -- a rule which it kind of proves by being Japanese). I have modest hopes for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: even though Tim Burton's been off-form for about a decade, the trailer looked interesting, and I'm encouraged by the apparent return to the book, rather than the old film (of which, by the way, I was never a fan). I'm curious to see War of the Worlds, actually, but I'm even more intrigued by this (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/movies/01spie.html?8hpib).
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Mark Morford for President!
Date: 2005-07-01 10:25 am (UTC)But why the bile? Ok, it depends on what the meaning of "technically" is, but The Lion, the Witch... is "technically the second" chapter (as Star Wars -- giving it Lucas' new name would be to endorse the kind of pointless and eviscerating revisions you allude to so wittily in your fabulous icon -- is "technically the fourth" chapter of its series).
I've never heard of any of these films you're looking forward to. A great part of being out of America is avoiding all the marketing hype! I'm looking forward to: Howl's Moving Castle (not released in Europe yet. I suspect it could be exception to the rule that great children's books get slaughtered on screen -- a rule which it kind of proves by being Japanese). I have modest hopes for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: even though Tim Burton's been off-form for about a decade, the trailer looked interesting, and I'm encouraged by the apparent return to the book, rather than the old film (of which, by the way, I was never a fan). I'm curious to see War of the Worlds, actually, but I'm even more intrigued by
this (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/movies/01spie.html?8hpib).