Narnia revisited

[altivo]

Why is it so hard to tell what is already a masterful story without trying to turn it into something else? Apparently, if you're Hollywood or Disney, it's just impossible. We sat through Prince Caspian this afternoon. It's not bad as movies go, it's just not the story that Lewis wrote. It's a few ideas and characters from the book, rolled into something with vaguely similar beginning and ending. The whole middle part came from outer space. Points that are critical to understanding the story are omitted. Points that are going to be needed to make sense of the episodes to follow are also omitted or even altered.

I suspect that some of this deficiency is due to scenes that were actually scripted and filmed, but ended up being cut. Why were they cut when the book was so short to begin with? To make room for a whole lot of spurious violence and battle scenes that had no place in the original. Worse, the most important character, and the one that they have done a superb job on in the first film, Aslan himself, has almost all of his good lines and best scenes completely cut. This is downright outrageous, in my opinion.

Production values are high. The work done on Reepicheep and Trufflehunter is of excellent quality. But why, oh why spend so much to make a film, and then make a travesty of an award winning book in the process? Sure, see the film if you wish. But read the book too, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than the film does.

In other irritating news, the four rip-off gas stations in Harvard raised their prices by 30 cents a gallon this morning. They are now asking $4.29 for unleaded. When I passed them on the way home from work at noon, I noticed that even though it was the lunch time rush, all their pumps were vacant. I hope people really are boycotting them. It's only five miles or less to Chemung, where the price is significantly lower. This is an annual ritual. They slam the price up as high as they dare right before Memorial Day weekend. Probably by Monday it will be back down to $3.99 again, where they started this morning.

Comments

[kint.livejournal.com]

I generally enjoyed the movie, but was also quite struck by how dramatically it was changed. It's been a few since I read it so I don't know exactly what was 'wrong,' just that...well...plenty was, which is unfortunate. The first seemed more true to the book, and there was no reason this could not have been. They just wanted more action? Sad....

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, more violent action and of course the totally spurious romantic element between Susan and Caspian. Lewis never hinted nor remotely would have suggested such a thing.

They left out long sections of interaction between Lucy and Aslan, making it look like she was just a foolish child imagining things. Worse, they left out the whole segment of Aslan restoring Narnia and Narnians to their freedom, undoing the tyranny of the Telmarine usurpers. Individual bits of that, such as the river spirit, were retained without explanation just to create special effects. And the whole irony of the Telmarine race, a people who once lived by piracy on the high sea, becoming fearful of water and unwilling to swim or get their feet wet, was lost.

I inevitably feel upon seeing films like this that the people responsible must be the shallowest possible readers and thinkers, incapable of making connections, understanding literary devices, or perceiving the subtle nuance of plot and character development.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

I don't know why Hollywood takes books and modifies the storyline so much it's entirely different as a movie. If any other company produced a product that was named one thing but was actually something else, they would be hauled into court for false advertising. It sounds like they should been forced to put the subtitle "A story kinda-sorta based loosely on the book" on Prince Caspian.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Sorta-kinda is about it. I suspect there are two issues that join to create these disasters. First it is the lack of literary sensibility on the part of the screenwriters and directors. Second it is the assumed lack of intelligence and literary awareness on the part of the potential audience. "No one will understand that, so let's leave it out," never even occurs to them when the problem is actually "I don't get it, so no one else will either."

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

I actually agree with your review. In fact I think you hit is spot on. I still really liked the movie though.

I heard someone summarize Prince Caspian as "great film, bad adaptation." I think it's a very accurate statement.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a nearly accurate statement. Except that even the potential of the film is marred by so much unexplained detail. For instance, the apples at Cair Paravel, which appear, and we see Lucy eating one, but all the symbolism and history behind them was omitted or else filmed but cut. The gloriously pagan and sensual restoration scenes where Aslan released the imaginative children from the school and "broke the chains binding the river god" by roaring and making the Telmarine bridge collapse. The appearance of Bacchus and Silenus, one of my favorite details, was completely omitted in favor of a whole bloody and dreary battle scene created out of thin air. I'm glad to hear that a different director will take over for Dawn Treader.

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

Yes, those are all fair criticisms. They completely left out Bacchus and the children.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

I honestly never read the books, so can't judge on the adaptations, but as a movie, I actually didn't care for it.

I didn't really feel the bible thumping of the first book, resurrection doesn't bother me. This one, I felt it and was sickened of the value it places in blind faith, something I loathe, detest and cannot sit comfortably with.

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

It doesn't place any value in "blind" faith. Faith based and confirmed on past experiences is not blind. The hope and trust is put in Aslan because he always ultimately comes through. Reliability and repeated patterns of fulfilled promises does not constitute blind faith but reasoned and wise faith.

It's interesting that such themes could sicken you because the same things in the movie that made you sick were like music to my soul. Obviously, if you hate everything Christian, then Narnia must be a miserable experience.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Remember that some people have very good reasons for not liking or trusting Christian ideas and attitudes. Those who have been severely ostracized and tortured by avowed "Christians" cannot be blamed for having a negative attitude.

I manage to remain tolerant most of the time myself, but I very much understand how others have lost all patience with this sort of thing.

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

And you think you're the only one who has been hurt, ostracized, or tortured by Christians? Been there. You're not the only one who has been hurt. I'm still tortured by two Christians who I call my parents.

The difference between us is that I don't let other people define what I know about God and my relationship with Him. I don't confuse the message with the messenger(s). Unfortunately you let the messengers get in the way of message for you. That's what I think which doesn't amount to anything, I know.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

When the messengers insist stridently that they are the only true representatives of god, then I just shut them out. Period.

I do not reject the entire message of Christianity, only the parts that are inconsistent with itself and with reality. I think you still underestimate my vision. I have not so much shut things out as kept myself open to additional input and possibility.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

Demanding faith, worship and/or obedience without proof is the very definition of blind faith.

I am one of many ex-Christians, but most people never hear about ex-Christians, only ex-Gays, ex-Muslims, etc. who "found" Christianity ... there are many times more ex-Christians, in my observation, than ex-Christian.

It lauds itself as the religion of peace and love, but what I've read tallies up the largest number of kills of any religion in history (Islaam still has a long way to go to catch up).

The demand for faith over facts excuses creationism, the conviction of herecy for anyone who believed the world was round or the earth is not the center of the universe (IIRC, the Catholic church did not even amend this until 1989 or so), it is still herecy to believe the Theory of Evolution. Anything not in line with the book is to be blindly disbelieved, anyone else who believes it is to be shunned, and heaven forgive anyone who is not Christian at all, because Christians themselves sure won't. Yes, I've had bad experiences, including getting shot at ... it isn't as though I could entirely blame that individual Christian themselves, though, as when I still clung to "Christian" morals, I came quite close to taking my own life or taking other drastic measures to cure my sick thoughts that considered something other than heterosexual love might be appealing to me.

Fred Phelps' congregation harrasses the families of dead soldiers because of blind faith. A lot of Germans allowed Hitler to rise to power and follow Martin Luther's condemnation of Jews because of blind faith. The McCarthy anti-Communism witchhunt, the Salem witchhunts, the Conquistadores' extermination of an entire culture, the Inquisition, the Crusades ... all blind faith.

Why is it a good thing again?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You really should read the book. It's infinitely superior. The notion of blind faith is not really what was going on, either. They omitted a whole lot of action in which Lucy repeatedly sees Aslan and even speaks with him, and the point was not blind faith but rather using and trusting her own judgement and intuition. Not being afraid, but exercising courage. This was hinted at by a single line in the film that mostly was lost in the constant spurious war drumming.

Narnia is not necessarily a Christian myth or allegory at all. Lewis imagined and wrote much of it before his own conversion to Christianity, even though it was published afterward. It is filled with gloriously pagan and sensual elements that the author was often called upon to defend, and he did so vigorously. Some conservative Christian critics and at least one Freudian have been intensely negative about Narnia and even considered it material that children should not be permitted to read. ;p

The repeated lessons given by Aslan are not just blind faith, but more like traditional fairy tale, in which the heroine is told that everything will be all right if she just doesn't eat the apple, or never looks over her shoulder, or whatever. The rewards are often utterly pagan and immediate. One has to trust the conviction of one's own heart, which is not blind faith, but the very essence of living. Not only that, but near the end of the seventh book, Aslan reveals the marvelous truth known to pagan believers: anyone who has lived faithfully to his own sense of justice and honor has done well. Those who do the noble thing for the sake of the evil spirit are rewarded just as if they had done the noble thing for the sake of Aslan himself. Those who committed injustice and wickeness "in the name of Aslan" will suffer for it. And those who refused to believe in anything but selfishness and narrow mindedness suffer the worst fate of all: every horrible thing they believed about the world turns out to be true, but for them alone so that they are unable to taste fine food and drink and unable to see beauty or take joy in anything, no matter how perfect, because of their own bitterness and cynicism.

[shadow-stallion.livejournal.com]

Thank you for putting a bit of a pagan spin on the book. :)

[soanos.livejournal.com]

I have not read the books or haven't watched the film, and I doubt I will get around to do it, but I assume the book and the movie should be treated as two completely separate entities. I got the impression the movie suffers from the "Disney-syndrome", which, to me, has the same effect like running fingernails across a chalkboard. It can entirely ruin movie experience for me, force-feeding joy, happiness and other yaddayadda in the middle of a story where it might not belong. It just causes the feeling and the atmosphere collapse like a deck of cards. In my opinion, that kind of stuff belongs to Teletubbies and Bob The Builder and such. :P

Fuel prices jumping up and down randomly are a pain, but it is just amusing how the station owners cannot see the short-sightedness of their action. OF COURSE everyone goes to buy the fuel from somewhere else, and they get no sales. The profits gained with elevated prices are probably extremely low, and all the competitors reap the benefits as people go to them.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The books are really quite excellent, and one need not take them as Christian truth or even Christian symbolism in order to appreciate them. The only warning I would give is that the first two that were published are aimed at a very young readership and sometimes seem a bit shallow. The later ones are marvelously complex with layer upon layer of allusion, symbol, and history that draws from multiple cultures and legends. The truth that everyone can find in them is summed up in the Golden Rule: Treat others justly and as you would want to be treated yourself, and you have nothing to fear because ultimately you will receive the same as you give.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Heh, Golden Rule is a good rule. That is all you need really :)

[chris-sawyer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have been trying to formulate a Narnia entry myself, but I think you nailed it.

Story aside, it's interesting to think about the narnia world.

What WOULD it be like if the godhead of your world could come down and interact with the inhabitants?

Would they constantly be calling to the godhead to come down and solve every little problem? Would the inhabitants even be able to function?

It's questions like this that make me think that "okay, there could maybe be a god, and this kind of situation is likely why he/she/it stays the hell away from us."

And if you absolutely MUST worship a god, at least worship a cool lion. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

And if you absolutely MUST worship a god, at least worship a cool lion.

As long as I get to touch him, OK. ;p They do a spectacular job on Aslan in the first film. In the second, you barely get to see him, which is not the case in the book at all where Lucy sees a lot of him even when the others don't.

The whole Narnia story does seem to address that very question, about whether god (or god's son, since Aslan is sometimes called that) would be there in person all the time. The answer appears to be a definite "No." Aslan expects the Narnians to solve their own problems and do it fairly and in a manner he would endorse. In the entire history of Narnia, we only know of a few times that he appeared "in the fur." One is the creation of the world, another is the end of the world (when he only stands in the doorway between heaven and Narnia.) He came in person to deal with the White Witch, and again to put Caspian onto his father's throne, but he did not visit Narnia in person for the other three books. If I remember correctly, he appears in name only for The Horse and His Boy, and in Dawn Treader and Silver Chair he appears, but outside of Narnia where he gives advice and instructions to Narnians or visitors who then bear the responsibility for carrying out his will.

As for worship, no. There is no evidence of actual worship of Aslan. Respectful veneration in word and deed, perhaps. But no temples, no priests, no rituals or sacrifices are ever mentioned.

[chris-sawyer.livejournal.com]

I would think that respecting and cherishing the creator's world, and his fellow creations would be the best way you could offer worship.


Sadly, that isn't done in this world.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, it is done. The sad part is that those who practice that don't often get much notice for it.

[chris-sawyer.livejournal.com]

Or they get insulted for it. (Tree hugger anyone?)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I hug trees. I'll hug you too given a chance. XD

[chris-sawyer.livejournal.com]

I'm kinda tall like a tree. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I know, and I like.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think there just pushing it now to see how high
they can go with gas before we start shooting.

I can sorta understand why they did Prince Caspian the way
they did, the first fifty or so pages of the book are a
huge flashback, thats hard to script. These books were
never ever ment to be movie material in the first place,
so I'll let them slide with this one just because they
tried.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The thing that bugs me is creating all the gratuitous violence. They've done that in both films, and it's something that Lewis never would have approved.

Susan's behavior is really in character, I think, but still not something Lewis would have done.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Actually Lewis used to be asked about the
violence in his books, he said something
on the order of, "Its okay for evil and
violence to be in a story as long as things
work out in the end." I think his mindset
was coming from the aftermath of the Second
World War. He knew his books would be read
by children of war who knew what violence
really was, and some guy or mouse stabbing
a troll wasn't going to make them have
nightmares the way the sound of air raid
sirens would. If you think about it, the
scene in the Magicians Nephew where the
kids are walking through the ruins of a
city is something that would have been
very easy to imagine for most children in
Europe in the 1950s. Lewis wasn't down
on violence, but he probably would have
thought the battle scenes in Prince Caspian
were far too glamorous, not the sort of
mideval jousting sort of violence he usually
went for in the series.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nonetheless, the two films have already presented three to four times the amount of violent action as what Lewis actually put in those two books. That whole "invade the castle" business was totally made up by Disney, and wasn't in the book at all. No wonder the film is too long for what it is.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I'd have to say I didn't get into most of the other books in the series, I wonder if I'd appreciate them more now. I was very young when I tried to read them.

As to the petrol stations, the ACCC here cracked down on Supermarket chains offering petrol specials with shopping dockets but basically just cranked the price of their petrol too. So people saved nothing.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You might well like the Narnia stories better now. The last four are quite complex, and difficult for many younger readers to follow. The first two are overly simplified for many adults, though, and can seem too "preachy."

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Its funny how they didn't kick up such a fuss with the loony religious type as the Harry Potter series.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh there have been religious objectors over the years, mostly to the printed books. I suspect the films have remained largely free of that because, after all, they are Disney and that means they are above criticism from the right-wing looneys. If they had come from Dreamworks or someone else, then all bets would be off.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I just don't get that, am I funny for not understanding this?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, not funny, no. Which part of it don't you get?

Disney has always fought to preserve a straight-laced, conservative, "pro-family" image. Walt himself was hardly a political or social liberal, I guess. Consequently, Disney offerings are rarely questioned by the religious folks. No one is looking for Disney to do anything they'd object to.

As for objections to Lewis' own books, yes, there have been more than a few. For one thing, they include obvious pagan elements, magic, minor gods or spirits, rebellion against "authority" and especially in the final volume (which won a Carnegie Medal, a very prestigious award for British children's books) some theological concepts that conservative Christians find pretty repugnant. Then there is the more simplistic complaint that Lewis depicted Jesus Christ as an animal...

Lewis himself always denied that the books were allegorical, or that they were intended to teach "Christianity" as such, or that Aslan was supposed to represent Christ. It's certainly true that he had done considerable work on them well before he converted to Christianity himself, and that they contain clear pagan elements drawn from classical myth and Teutonic religions.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

But Disney owns Pixar as well, and some of their animation is not only aimed at kiddies.

Also Lewis being a Catholic helped I'm guessing.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ah, but Lewis was not a Roman Catholic. He was Church of England all the way. Tolkien was Roman Catholic.

Pixar has little name recognition among the sort of people who would picket against a motion picture. Disney, however, has been well-known in the US since the 1930s, and always with a squeaky-clean apple-pie image.

This heaven...

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

As for worship, no. There is no evidence of actual worship of Aslan. Respectful veneration in word and deed, perhaps. But no temples, no priests, no rituals or sacrifices are ever mentioned.

I haven't read any of those in quite awhile. I was never very fond of the first two books- the first one wasn't half bad- save for the tone- the second I must confess largely escapes my memory, while the next three I was fairly fond of (Dawn Treader in particular). I always felt there was more of a historical quality woven into mnay of them. I felt there were elements from pagan, Arabian and even Russian influences. Unfortunatly, you bring anything, especially something of complexity and wisdom to this land of confusion and it all becomes about money, allegory, and restrictions. The money becomes the true motive to make a film, the restrictions limit anything that managed to get ok'd, and the allegories- representative of the true nature of the minds that create & misinterpret them- only help to cloud, confuse and further limit the consideration of anything not already endorsed by this society. In the end, this society merely seeks to continue and further itself. Reverence? Feh. Only for culture. I personally cannot revere a culture as pathetically half-witted as ours. Life? Heh. Do you see reverence for either the living or the dead in this culture of ours?

Re: This heaven...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Do you see reverence for either the living or the dead in this culture of ours?

The only thing approaching "reverence" I see in US culture is a reverence for wealth and those who hold obscene amounts of it. As for "worship," that is almost entirely reserved for pop personalities, the movie and performance stars. There's also a fair amount of what I can only term "jingoism" though it attempts to disguise itself as patriotism.

The loudest voices among the self-styled religious are whited sepulchres like the Pharisees of the biblical tales, or else batshit insane like Fred Phelps.

Re: This heaven... is quite a hell on earth.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

*sits back and nods* Truly, those with more experience can speak it better than I. I was going to say "reverence for power", but maybe your words are more apt. It'd be very hard not for me to respect your opinion here -_- *closes eyes and smiles quietly*

Re: This heaven... is quite a hell on earth.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Since power in the US is almost entirely the realm of the extremely wealthy, the two go pretty much hand in hand. The last president we had who wasn't a millionaire was probably Eisenhower, who came to his position as a result of jingoism for the most part. Before him there was Truman, but he got there by accident since he happened to be vice-president when FDR died. Nixon and Ford were less wealthy than most, but still significantly richer than the average American.

Re: This heaven... is quite a hell on earth.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

So I geuss they both work >_> ...and the haves & havenots come back around yet again *rolls eyes*