I hate to be the only naysayer, but the movie, The Chronicles of Narnia is, in my humble estimation, too long, too slow, too sappy, and I don't like books or movies with talking animals. The chatty beavers put me over the edge. But, then again, I'm not a child. The heavy Christian symbolism is probably what's feeding the box office.

I wanted to see it because I just read The Golden Compass and was informed that it was the anti-Lewis novel. I don't normally read fantasies of this type, but Compass came highly recommended and I did enjoy most of it.

I think I need to read some Bradbury short stories immediately to clear my head of Narnia!

If you want to really get into it about Philip Pullman and Narnia here's a good place to start: http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.books.childrens...200#f2c4f41eece80200

quote:

I hate to be the only naysayer, but the movie, The Chronicles of Narnia is, in my humble estimation, too long, too slow, too sappy, and I don't like books or movies with talking animals. The chatty beavers put me over the edge. But, then again, I'm not a child. The heavy Christian symbolism is probably what's feeding the box office.

If you don't like movie or books with talking animals, then this movie would have never been liked by you. You just wasted $10 by seeing it, you do realize that, right?

It isn't only children who saw that movie, I live in a predomanatly college aged town (the town only exisiting because of the University in it), and nearly everyone around here loved the movie. So don't say that anyone who liked it must be of a child mentality, because that's just rude.

And, personally, I don't think the Christian symbolism is feeding the box office on this movie. I loved it to death, outside of the ending, and I don't know anything about Christianity. Well, outside of what I learned while watching Japanese movies. (I wasn't aware of what christianity was until I was seven, and even then it was just something one of my classmates was.)

But trust me, if you hate talking animals, or anything of that line of fantasy, steer clear of Brian Jaques and the Redwall series. It would send you into fits.

The Lake and Ameko,

Consider the words to this World War II song:

There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow--just you wait and see.

There’ll be love and laughter and peace ever after,
Tomorrow when the world is free.

The shepherd will tend his sheep,
The valley will bloom again,
And Jimmy will go to sleep,
In his own little room again.

There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow--just you wait and see.

--Words & Music by Nat Burton & Walter Kent

When Lewis wrote of Narnia, I think he had in mind the courageous and heart wrenching situation in England where children were separated from their parents in order to keep them safe from the blitz, (the first ten minutes of the film broke my heart). Someone once said that, “Love can be fleeting but the pain of it can last a lifetime.” Wonderful writers like Lewis and Ray Bradbury help us to escape the pain and realize a sense of wonder. I don’t think that Narnia is about talking animals and forgetting our parents. I think the children in the story just found a way to escape the pain of separation for a moment or two.

Hmmm...maybe I'll finally read "Watership Down" after they come out with the live-action version of the movie...hmmm....

Great poem Chapter 31, in view of the selection Montag makes in F451, with Matthew Arnold's poem on the same theme though a totally different perspective:

http://www.naic.edu/~gibson/poems/arnold1.html

All I meant was that I could see where Narnia has great child appeal. No double meaning intended.

Also, the Christian appeal is definitely fueling the box office in the same way The Passion was promoted:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:xSTbMy9VrlQJ:www.c...urches+tickets&hl=en

I stand by my review of the movie.

Chap,
Wasn't it Vera Lynn the "Forces Sweetheart" who sang that as well as "We'll Meet Again", the latter being used by Kubrick at the end of "Dr. Strangelove"...
Personally, I thought "Narnia" was very well done and was glad the WWII scenes at the beginning were included. Actually, C.S. Lewis is one of my favourite writers. I read many of his theological works before I even heard about the "Narnia" books. "Mere Christianity", "The Screwtape Letters", and "Miracles" are probably my favourites and were also written during the war, I believe.

Braling II,
“The Screwtape Letters” is one of the cleverest books I’ve ever encountered. And yes, Vera Lynn. She also did “A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square”, another of my WW II favorites. I don’t have any of her CD’s so I’ll have to go a Googling and see if I can find some. Oh, and another favorite is a song I think is called “I Know Why And So Do You” from the film “Sun Valley Seranade”.

The Lake,
No problem. Tomay-to, tomau-to. We can both still see the sun when it rains, right?

fjp451,
I love that line: “Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

dandelion,
Yes, “Watership Down”. But what about “The Wind In The Willows”?

Been there, read that, got the t-shirt.

Actually, I consider the British series "Last of the Summer Wine" to be a live-action "Wind in the Willows" in a way.

dandelion,
I had never heard of “Last of the Summer Wine” before, and just googled it. Wow, does that look interesting!

Yes, it was Vera Lynn who famously sang "The White Cliffs of Dover" and "We'll Meet Again" in Britain during World War Two.

Lynn sang with a heart-wrenching tenderness, an emotional intensity born of Britain's terrible ordeal in the Forties. Her voice warmed the hearts and stoked the courage of an isolated and war-weary people.

Her music gave the Brits hope in a dark era when totalitarianism was on the ascendant and liberal democracy seemed a lost cause.

Many of her songs, like the two aforementioned, pointed the way to a time--hard to imagine during the Blitz--when the bombs would stop falling, the men would come home, and the long dark night of fascist aggression would finally be over.

Vera Lynn didn't sing only of the pain of present separation and the hope of future peace, but also of the fighting spirit that wins wars and makes peace possible.

I love Lynn's passionate version of a song we Yanks play at our graduations, but whose lyrics are now anathema to the politically correct, because of its British triumphalism and pro-imperialism: "Land of Hope and Glory."

"Land of hope and glory,
Mother of the free.
How shall we extol thee
Who are born of thee?

"Wider still, and wider
Shall thy bounds be set.
God who made thee mighty,
Make thee mightier yet.

"God who made thee mighty,
Make thee mightier yet!"

Not a bad song to sing when Britain was fighting for its life against the Nazis! Perhaps not so bad a song to sing again today, given the current world crisis.

Dr. Patrick Mullins

Hear hear!

"King Kong" is coming to my theater this coming weekend!

Mr. Mullins,
Amen!
I've now got that song on the brain!
For those unfamiliar with the music, it's set to Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance". Another favourite is "I Vow To Thee, My Country" set to Holst's "Jupiter" from "The Planets".
The war is still very present to the British. Fresh flowers on all the cenotaphs are proof.