A review of the Chronicles of Narnia
So I finally saw the chronicles of Narnia. I swear that was the longest kid movie EVER! But all-in-all I liked it.
Like most movies, Narnia suffered from stupid people trying to make things kid friendly.
Why do they do this? Shielding our children from the sometimes harsh realities of life make them weak and unable to cope. I'm not saying that we should take them to R-rated fare like Hostel or Braveheart, but these same kids have watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, all six Star Wars, Independence Day, King Kong, Chicago and Jaws.
From these movies they have learned about the bonds of friendship, self-sacrifice, bravery, standing up for oneself, death, overcoming massive odds, magic, fighting for what you believe in, overcoming fear, that there are monsters in the world, and much more.
Narnia sugar-coats these lessons, making them bland and tasteless. The only truly memorable event that affected my kids was when Aslan died. Everything else was so glossy that their minds skipped right over it.
In Lord of the Rings the battles were detailed, gritty, and realistic without being overly graphic. People get hurt and die in battle and these movies didn't shy away from that fact. Neither did they glorify the bloodshed. I am comfortable with my children watching these films.
In Narnia the combat is glossed over and blatantly unrealistic. Creatures do die, but the killing blow is never seen. Either it is edited out or sped up and blurred so much that you can't even see the creature getting hit. Despite a long fierce battle and several dozen "deaths" there is not a single drop of blood in the whole film.
One of the main characters, the oldest boy whose name is Peter, kills five or six creatures with a sword that never loses its polished finish. He accomplishes this in the heat of battle, without any training or prior experience.
Another boy, Edmund, is captured and presumably tortured by the White Witch. He appears halfway through the film, having been beaten, with a slip and bruises on his face. None of his injuries are explained and I'm guessing as to their origin.
There are two girls in this movie, although only one of them is worth noting. She is the youngest of the children, a girl named Lucy. She discovers the doorway to Narnia, meets the first of that land's people, and gets the rest of her family to follow her through.
Once in Narnia with the rest of her family, she disappears into the background where all of the rest of the female characters (outside of the Witch) reside.
The eldest female, whose name I can't even remember, was completely useless throughout the movie. She received a magical bow a bunch of arrows, but she only fires the thing once in combat and once in practice. Way to go.
BTW Her much younger sister was able to throw a dagger with much more accuracy from the same distance.
Otherwise the movie was pretty good. Talking animals in a live action movie was always a recipe for disaster, but here it worked. The story was relatively new and had some interesting things in it.
Did I love it? No. Did I like it? Yes. Could I watch it over and over for the next few months? Not even close.
This movie will not age well at all. The graphics and effects are already dated (see King Kong for better effects), the movie is made for children only and not readily rewatchable by adults. It did make me interested in reading the novels, but that's about as far as I can take it.
For a much better film of the same nature, watch the Lord of the Rings.
Like most movies, Narnia suffered from stupid people trying to make things kid friendly.
Why do they do this? Shielding our children from the sometimes harsh realities of life make them weak and unable to cope. I'm not saying that we should take them to R-rated fare like Hostel or Braveheart, but these same kids have watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, all six Star Wars, Independence Day, King Kong, Chicago and Jaws.
From these movies they have learned about the bonds of friendship, self-sacrifice, bravery, standing up for oneself, death, overcoming massive odds, magic, fighting for what you believe in, overcoming fear, that there are monsters in the world, and much more.
Narnia sugar-coats these lessons, making them bland and tasteless. The only truly memorable event that affected my kids was when Aslan died. Everything else was so glossy that their minds skipped right over it.
In Lord of the Rings the battles were detailed, gritty, and realistic without being overly graphic. People get hurt and die in battle and these movies didn't shy away from that fact. Neither did they glorify the bloodshed. I am comfortable with my children watching these films.
In Narnia the combat is glossed over and blatantly unrealistic. Creatures do die, but the killing blow is never seen. Either it is edited out or sped up and blurred so much that you can't even see the creature getting hit. Despite a long fierce battle and several dozen "deaths" there is not a single drop of blood in the whole film.
One of the main characters, the oldest boy whose name is Peter, kills five or six creatures with a sword that never loses its polished finish. He accomplishes this in the heat of battle, without any training or prior experience.
Another boy, Edmund, is captured and presumably tortured by the White Witch. He appears halfway through the film, having been beaten, with a slip and bruises on his face. None of his injuries are explained and I'm guessing as to their origin.
There are two girls in this movie, although only one of them is worth noting. She is the youngest of the children, a girl named Lucy. She discovers the doorway to Narnia, meets the first of that land's people, and gets the rest of her family to follow her through.
Once in Narnia with the rest of her family, she disappears into the background where all of the rest of the female characters (outside of the Witch) reside.
The eldest female, whose name I can't even remember, was completely useless throughout the movie. She received a magical bow a bunch of arrows, but she only fires the thing once in combat and once in practice. Way to go.
BTW Her much younger sister was able to throw a dagger with much more accuracy from the same distance.
Otherwise the movie was pretty good. Talking animals in a live action movie was always a recipe for disaster, but here it worked. The story was relatively new and had some interesting things in it.
Did I love it? No. Did I like it? Yes. Could I watch it over and over for the next few months? Not even close.
This movie will not age well at all. The graphics and effects are already dated (see King Kong for better effects), the movie is made for children only and not readily rewatchable by adults. It did make me interested in reading the novels, but that's about as far as I can take it.
For a much better film of the same nature, watch the Lord of the Rings.
posted by Keko at 13:58
5 Comments:
Hahaha! I find this so funny Calamar. In some ways I begin to think that you are obsessed with violence and what you call "realism". You're number one complaint about the movie is that there isn't any blood?! Or that the characters can fight with a sword without any training?! It is in fact a children's story, and an OLD children's story. Most of our parents read Narnia when they were children. Thus there are talking animals and the main characters are in fact children. What young boy does not invision himself becoming king of a magical relm, or picking up a sword and being the hero of the day? There is a reason why it is make believe. In the innocent land of children's make believe a young boy can do these things.
I know you think that it does these kids a disservice to allow them to believe that this is possible, but I think that it does them a disservice to not allow them to be children and to insist that their imaginings have to be full of blood, real combat, and sword training before they can wield a sword. We as adults know these things need to happen, but do we really need to insist that our 10 yr old does too?
The lord of the Rings is also an old story, but it was written for a much older audiance. It focuses on a lot of the same themes, but does so in a much darker way. I believe that the themes are important, but that we all need to learn them in varying degrees as we grow up. What is so wrong in allowing children to live in a world of make believe for a time? Our society is too full of violence as it is.
Finally, do I think cinnematically do I think this is the best movie ever made? No. The graphics are MUCH better than the previous encarnation though (yes! Narnia has been done before!). Is this my favorite movie? No. I do think, though, that I would be far more likely to watch this over and over again than The Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars. For one thing, it's only 1 movie...lol For 2, I think that the symbolism is much stronger when I don't have that forboding feeling around me all the time.
You’re right. The Lord of the Rings is made more for an adult audience. We’ll compare Narnia to another children’s movie that you mentioned, Star Wars. I’ll stick with Episode IV, the original movie.
Luke started off as a kid (a bit older physically, a bit younger maturity wise) who lost his family and got sucked into another realm far beyond his imaginings. Like Narnia, there were large scale battles, with little to no blood shed.
Unlike Narnia, people died in these battles. War was shown to have consequences and thus the triumph of good over evil was that much stronger and more meaningful because of it.
Luke started off as a pilot. That is stated in the movie when they were flying away the Mos Eisley, he just didn’t know interstellar navigation. (It is also given in more detail in the novelization of the movie which I am geeky enough to have read in my younger years) However, he didn’t know much about fighting and started learning swordfighting, meditation, and other powers from his mentor Obiwan Kenobi almost immediately.
Now compare that to Peter, the main protagonist in Narnia. He was the eldest child in the movie. I put his age at about 16 years old. He is very mature however as his father has been gone for a while and he has had to care for his three younger siblings.
He is a typical child, without combat training or any applicable skills for the world that he enters, unlike Luke who grew up in a dangerous frontier desert world. Luke already knows how to fly a ship and to shoot a blaster (gun) before the story starts. Peter knows nothing of combat outside of wrestling with his younger siblings.
Yet Peter kills several well-trained enemies with a sword after no training. He does this during a fierce battle that he helped plan (this is implied in the movie).
Luke only gets to partake in his battle. He is not a leader, although based on his friend’s recommendation he does get two wingmen.
And while Luke does fire the perfect shot that destroyed the Death Star and win the battle, he does so after listening to advice from his (dead) mentor and using the training that he received in the beginning of the movie.
It boils down to the fact that Star Wars holds itself accountable for realism, plausibility, and the suspension of disbelief while still maintaining a fun, kid friendly environment.
Narnia makes the assumption that children are too young to care about realism and plausibility. Narnia also makes the assumption that young children need things simple so that they can understand it. So they dumb down the movie and sugar-coat all the “bad” things in it in a feeble attempt to spare our children the “evils” of the world.
The creators of the movie Narnia haven’t picked up the fact that children notice and understand much more than they are given credit for. They also missed the fact that a rich, multilayered story will sustain itself through the passage of time.
Star Wars has funny creatures, cool sound effects, obvious good and bad characters, and robots for young children. It has a princess, spaceships, guns, and cute guys for older children. It has a classic story of rebellion against the evil empire, rescuing the princess, lightsabers, the force, and strong female leads for teens and adults.
Star Wars has been around for almost thirty years and is still going strong. The movie truly appeals to people of all ages. Thus it’s sustaining popularity.
Narnia on the other hand appeals solely for younger audiences and those who prefer a more subdued level of violence. This movie will not age well as it is one dimensional and children will grow out of it. Much like certain Disney cartoons. (This is pointed more towards the older cartoons. Pretty much everything since the Little Mermaid has been geared towards a wider audience and will stand up better than the classics have).
The biggest problem that I had with Narnia wasn’t its lack of realism, though that did bother me. It was its chauvinism.
There are four main characters, an older boy, an older girl, a young boy, and a young girl. The eldest boy is the main character of the movie which is fine. Someone has to be. The youngest girl is the one that the story centers on for a spell until the entire family reaches Narnia, then she is forgotten until the very end of the movie.
The young boy has a large role as a traitor and as a plot device allowing the bad guys to appear wherever the main characters are even though they made after he was captured by the White Witch. He does redeem himself in the end and gets stabbed for his trouble.
The eldest girl? She gets a bow which she shoots twice (poorly). She travels with the other characters and offers an occasional comment. She cries over Aslan’s corpse and ride him into battle after his “resurrection”. That’s it.
She was such a forgettable character that I can’t even remember her name. She has a magical bow and supposedly is a decent shot with it, but her younger brother (who never picks up a bow) is put in charge of the archers in the battle (which both girls happened to sleep through).
In Star Wars women are strong. Princess Leia more than holds her own, even when surrounded by large masses of testosterone in the form of Han, Luke, Chewie, and even C-3PO (which has a male voice). You will never forget her nor will she ever fade into the background.
Apparently, a long, long, time ago in a galaxy far, far, away they had no need for a women’s liberation movement as women were already held as equals to men. Narnia allows women to become queens and to rule, but not to fight or to do anything else important once the “men” arrive.
That just gets my goat.
I find it interesting that you think of Peter as the main character. I think of Lucy as the main character. I agree that the older sister is pretty neglegable, which is probably a flaw in the original story line, but she does provide a kind of semetry (2 girls, 2 boys). I don't remember it being any different in the book. You seem to see the movie as being almost entirely the last battle. To me, that is a very small portion of the total movie, and is actually neglegable in my memory of the previous movie, and this one. Aside from the cool things, like the polar bears pulling the White Witch's chariot, it's not that important to me.
The main story line focuses more on what the witch is doing to Narnia, and is a true Allegory. As a child, I enjoyed the animals, and the kids who conqured, but as an adult that Allegory litterally jumped out at me this time. It was truely beautiful in it's very in depth symbolsim. There are the same elements in Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and even the Matrix, but it is really just a theme in them, while Narnia is all about the symbolism.
Edmond's role is actually quite intergal to this. He represents all of us. We have all made mistakes that have put us under the White Witch's power (Satan) and condemn us to death. We can not change this. It is only through Aslan's sacrifice (Christ) that we can live. If you don't choose to see the story as an Allegory, then you are right, he is just a spoiled brat of a child who later becomes very unimportant.
As to the chovenism, I don't really see it. Like I said, I think of Lucy as the main character. She is the most strong willed and vocal of all of the children. True, she is not present during the battle, but does a Heroine need to be a part of the physical battle to be on equal footing with the men? They were present at Aslan's death, and at his resurection just as women were for Christ. It may be a result of the time that C.S. Lewis chose not to have the girls play a prominant role in the battle, or it may have been a consious choice, I don't know. In all actuality, I find it incredibly irritating that the world feels the need to either change previous stories to fit the new "feminist" world, or to put negative connotations to the placement of the female characters rather than thinking it might be a coincidence. What if they had all been boys? Would that make Lewis sexist? Note, that also in the Lord of the Rings, the women are fairly neglegable. The elf is the love interest, and the human woman is there to kill the bad guy at the end. If the story does not concsiously put men and women on equal footing in battle, is it no longer relevant to our day in age? Is this why it won't stand the test of time? The funny thing is that this story has. It has been imensly popular for a very long time now. I find it interesting that you had never heard the story before.
Wow! You are definately passionate about this movie!
The Narnia story has always been one of those stories that you hear about on occasion but never get around to reading. I do want to read it, and will when I get the chance.
As for the strong female presence or lack thereof… I thought that the movie (remember, the movie is all that I have to go on) was going to focus on Lucy as the main character. It sure started that way. But once everyone was in Narnia, she disappeared.
The movie focused on the two boys.
Now, I can pretty safely assume that in the novel, all four characters get nearly equal “playing time”, but that just doesn’t happen in the movie.
And as for a strong female presence…
In the Lord of the Rings, Arwen was a joke. I didn’t like her and I don’t think that it was just because I think that Liv Tyler is a snatch-faced hack. The character was boring and stupid.
Eowin was different. She was memorable, strong willed, and reckless. You cared about her and wanted her to get with Aragorn. When she defied her father, tradition, and the shackles of femininity to fight in the war, we cheered for her and hoped that she’d make it. When she killed the ring wraith, as cheesy as it was, we applauded.
Besides, she was cute and I thought she was the most attractive woman in the movie.
In Star Wars you have Princess Leia. She was also strong willed, outspoken, and reckless. She avoided fighting in the original movie, outside of the three to five shots she fired when getting rescued.
I used the battle at the end of the movie to illustrate my point because that is where the most glaring inconsistencies were.
I guess that a better example my overall opinion of the movie would be the Harry Potter books. Narnia was like the original book. Bland, simple, and without depth or meaning.
I prefer movies that are more in tune with the later books like the Goblet of Fire and the Half-blood Prince (which, while not that great, still rocked with some cool plot twists and things). Again, note the presence of a strong female lead…
I guess that I’m just more of a feminist than you ;-)
I do understand that the author of Narnia purposefully made it symbolic of Christ and his teachings (Judas anyone?) and he followed the Hero’s Journey to a T. Which means that it could be very good. But the movie took it, sugar-coated it, and spoon fed it to the audience.
The result is a frustrating bland but sour taste, kinda like a vomit-burp after eating spicy chili.
The story is good, and I can see just enough of it to have a good idea that I’ll like the book. But the movie is not one that I’ll watch again unless I have to.
I'd give this movie a C+
I don't know if it's that I REALLY liked this particular movie, or I just find your reasons for not liking it anoying...lol
You probably are more of a feminist than me. In general I find feminists anoying and whiney. On that tangent, Grant thought the main character was the Witch, who is in fact a woman... Does that mean that powerful women are evil? lol
I think, in general, we may just have different opinions on movies. I like a little bit of "sugar coating". It makes me feel happy. I get tired and begin to feel discouraged if I get too much realism. I don't like the evil things that happen in this world, and I can't do anything about it. When I retreat into my fantasy world, I like to pretend that things aren't as evil as they really are to escape. That's what pretend is all about. Obviously, you don't subscribe to the same philosophy. That's ok.
Yes you are right, the story isn't nearly as in depth as the Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars, or even later Harry Potter books. It is only one movie, however. I guess that I like it being only 1 movie. That means it has to be short and to the point. I get bored and lost in the diologue in Lord of the Rings. Well, that combined with the fact that they speak so darn quietly... grrr.
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