Just watched Narnia (Possible spoilers)

[The_Universe]

Okay, so how do you reconcile "There is not much you can do in this regard (Aslan's death is so central to the text)..." with "It's not obvious to the casual observer, just very well written allegory"? Those two seem rather contradictory. If it is so central and blatant that you can't remove it, how is it no obvious?

And I have to disagree Gandalf. But that's for another thread

Irrevocably "central" and "blatant" are not synonymous. Trying to reconcile the two different concepts is not difficult, at least linguistically.

 

[The_Universe]

Given that the symbolism practially beats you about the head and shoulders in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this is an almost amazing statement.

Edmund, the sinner whose life is forfeit to evil is redeemed by Aslan, the son of the Emperor-Over-The-Sea who made Narnia. Aslan, though without sin himself, willingly sacrifices himself to redeem Edmund, and is abused, humilated, and ritualistically killed on the stone table. He conquers death, breaks the stone table, and returns, to be found by two women, and then frees those bound by evil, and defeats the devil incarnate.

You cannot really get more obvious without inserting "mankind" for "Edmund", "Jesus" for "Aslan", "cross" for "stone table", and "Satan" for "White Witch".

Agreed. One does not have to be searching for religious comparison points to find them here. They were more than welcome to this viewer, however, and may the movie an ever more pleasing experience. Lewis himself may have admitted that he started writing a simple fairy tale, but he goes on to note that the Christian symbolism pushed itself into the work. When he says he didn't do it on purpose, he - typically in the same breath - will attribute the inclusion to the hand and intention of the Divine, Himself. His arguments do not tend to be that the comparison is not valid - he's just crediting someone else for the work.

 

[talmar]

Well, as a cristian I don't go see movies for the benefit of my faith, I go to church. I make every attempt to leave religion in my life and go to see movies for pleasure, relaxation, childlike enjoyment and escape from reality.

As to the movie, it was wonderful. I loved it, my wife loved it and my 9 year old loved it. We all want to go see it again. I found myself smiling throughout the whole movie. This movie is the 2nd best movie I've ever seen, and I'm a movie junkie. First best remains LotR (all 3 = 1 movie). I saw the first XMen every showing on opening day. I prebuy all my tickets as soon as I can. I am a movie junkie, I love going to the movies and go once every week and I will reiterate, this is one of the best movies I have seen. I will easily see this another 3 or 4 times. I know at least twice as I'm going again today and Tuesday.

A must see movie and already on my family's list to buy the DVD when it's released.

 

[Rykion]

I watched the movie friday night and enjoyed it quite a bit. While some of the original Christian aspects aren't in it, I believe the cuts were mostly to get the movie down to the desired running time. The cast of kids did a very good job for performers their age. I give it a 9/10.

For those of you who have seen it - how would you rate the violence aspect and intensity of the movie?

There is a good deal of violence, but no blood or gore. There are a few intense scenes. The death of Aslan is obviously very intense. I was with a 4 year old and a 7 year old that both loved it, but their parents have let them watch LotR, so they've seen more violent movies.

 

[sniffles]

I'm not a parent, but I personally don't think any child under age 8 ought to see this movie unless the child is very mature for his/her age. I was with a couple who brought their 7-year-old son, and he got restless by the end, although I'm not sure what he thought of the violence. He isn't usually allowed to see anything violent. I thought the battle scenes were quite visceral, even though there is no blood. And seeing another child risk injury might disturb some children I suppose.

As to the religious allegory argument, I've never really bought that one. I read the book for the first time a couple of weeks ago, being fully aware of all the discussion, and really didn't find the religious aspect at all obvious. But every reader gets out of a book what he/she puts into it; naturally our own beliefs color what we perceive.

 

[Firebeetle]

Into the Wardrobe link

http://cslewis.drzeus.net/papers/

A link to some interesting literary criticism and general history of the Narnia books.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

I'm not a parent, but I personally don't think any child under age 8 ought to see this movie unless the child is very mature for his/her age. I was with a couple who brought their 7-year-old son, and he got restless by the end, although I'm not sure what he thought of the violence. He isn't usually allowed to see anything violent. I thought the battle scenes were quite visceral, even though there is no blood. And seeing another child risk injury might disturb some children I suppose.

The young girl that sat next to The Universe, AIM and I was probably somewhere around 10-13. She was asleep by 30 minutes in and (literally) snored through the rest of the film.

 

[Fiery James]

I liked it alot. I think I brought a lot of my own "baggage" to the movie which resulted in a big payoff. I loved the books as a kid, bought the series for my wife when we first started dating (her gateway into fantasy lit), and have been reading them to my daughter for the past few months.

My kids, 3 and 5, love the movie. They love going to the theatre, were familiar with the story, and had seen the animated film several times.

My only regret for them is that now they expect movies to be this good. They didn't have to wait 30 years for a decent version of TLTW&TW or the LOTR -- they'll just assume that everything's been made into a great movie! When they're older, I'll make them go back and watch the animated film again and let them know, "THAT'S what I had when I was a kid! You have no idea how good life is for you!!"

Of course, much like my wife, this is the gateway into fantasy for them. I'm looking forward to starting the Potter books with my oldest in a few years, and when she's ready, the Lord of the Rings!!

And then GAMING!

- JB

 

[Green Knight]

As to the religious allegory argument, I've never really bought that one. I read the book for the first time a couple of weeks ago, being fully aware of all the discussion, and really didn't find the religious aspect at all obvious. But every reader gets out of a book what he/she puts into it; naturally our own beliefs color what we perceive.

Even disregarding the six other books, there're plenty in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. The constant references to "Sons of Adam" and "Daughters of Eve", Edmund betraying them for Turkish Delight (Or 30 pieces of silver, although he, fortunately, met a better end then Judas), Aslan sacrificing himself for the sins of Edmund (Willingly, which was preceeded by them beating him), and then rising again (And being found by two women, like Jesus), the White Witch playing the role of the Devil to the Emperor Beyond the Sea (Aslan's father), and the fact that Aslan is a lion. Jesus is most often depicted in the Bible as the Lamb of God, but he's also depicted on occasion as the Lion of Judah.

And then when you get into the other books, well... 1) Aslan sings Narnia into creation (Creating it with a Word, one could say), 2) Aslan appears as a Lamb to the children, 3) He tells the children that he does exist in their world, but that they'll have to come to know him by another name (And I doubt that name is Zeus, or Ahura Mazda, or Elton John), and 4) The "Anti-Aslan" in The Last Battle. Just a couple of examples. Somebody else who's read the books more recently could probably give a more detailed accounting.

 

[Captain Tagon]

Okay. I said in the non-spoiler thread that I'd mention here things I noticed the second viewing around. At the moment, only two things really stand out for me as being noticably different the second time around.

1) During the "chase" scene where they think the White Witch is chasing them, there are clues early on that it's actually Father Christmas. The close up scene of the reindeer shows them to be the White Witch's crystal ones, but when the shot pans out to include Peter and the rest, the reindeer can be seen to be brown. I didn't notice it at first, but the whole scene is spliced together shots of two different locations at once. So I thought that was pretty cool.

2) The second thing I really noticed was because of a debate over at the Hero game forums. Someone had complained about how the children were nice throuogh the film to all the animals, but were hunting the stag at the end. Only problem was none of us could remember for sure if the siblings were armed when chasing the stag. On a second viewing, I noticed that none of them even carried any weapon, much less had their weapon prepared to use on the stag.

If I think of anything else I noticed the second time around I'll be back.