Narnia!

[lettered]

Writing reviews is kind of natural to me. I always want to write what I think after I see a movie, and I figure now I may as well, since I have a place to keep them and someone or other might be interested. This one is about Narnia. Over all, I liked it, but this ended up being mostly about faults I saw, so...reader discretion is advised? I don

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[mshepnj]

My Dad's a clergyman - Episcopalian (retired) and has the entire collection of the works of C.S. Lewis, including The Chronicles of Narnia, the Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, etc. etc. C.S. Lewis was - to our Dad - a Christian writer first and foremost, and I was less interesting in reading Narnia in my childhood as a result... I liked my fantasy straight up but I preferred Science Fiction. So I didn't read The Lion, The Witch and The Wordrobe until my son came along at which point I could enjoy the story without feeling hammered by the iconry.

“God do I still wish I could’ve felt more sympathy with Edmund, and figured out why, exactly, these kids are so special to Narnia.”

I suspect it has something to do with the idea that the even humblest human is the Master of God's creation (Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve... sheesh) - fit to lord it over on the lesser beings but that's just my suspicion. That, sadly, plays into the Christianists' hands and I think part of the reason I get twitchy by how many Christians are slathering praise on this movie as a tool for conversion and proseltyzing. Not that I'm cynical or anything...

I'm glad to get impartial reviews, because I haven't seen it yet, and want to know if it's worth $10.50 and the cost of popcorn, or if I should wait until it comes out on DVD.

[lettered]

It wasn't until after I read the books that I found out there was supposed to be so much Christian symbolism. I truly didn't think about it much when I was reading them...seems weird, now, because there's so much.

As to the humblest human being Master--I could see that, except first the kids weren't all that humbel (heh) and second, wasn't Aslan supposed to be a Christ figure? So all the other animals are lower than humans, but the lion is higher? Or what?

I did like the movie though. It's easy to watch without feeling preached at. I think they were careful about that--they don't even use the word "Christmas" when Father Christmas shows up (which I thought was rather silly. Almost like they were too careful). If you enjoyed the story with your son, you'll probably enjoy the movie. Just don't hope it's better than the books (which I was secretly hoping for!)