C.S. Lewis thinks I'm going to hell!
And my god, my brain just started drawing parallels between Susan Pevensie and Stephanie Brown. Clearly, this is the fault of monkeycrackmary. *shakes fist*
It was actually quite fascinating to see how Mr. Adamson was completely unable to disguise any of the unpleasant philosophical background of Narnia and C.S. Lewis' ideology, where Mr. Jackson faked it pretty darn well in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not that I'm casting any blame; I'm really not sure it would be possible in Narnia's world, although it would have been nice if Susan had, uh, actually done anything in the battle. At all. But Jackson could pretty much just clean up around the edges a bit to at least revise Tolkien for a (comparatively) enlightened world, whereas Adamson couldn't really do anything without making the whole house of cards fall down. Susan is a Problem (practically a generational problem for a whole generation of sf/fantasy creators and fans, no less), but you can't really give her a sword, either... Lack of arrows aside the film did an excellent job with one particular aspect of Susan's character I'd noticed last time I read the books but almost entirely forgotten - she's explicitly damned for liking make-up and boys (because that's so much worse than betraying a country), but implicitly, it's for asking too many damn questions. Susan is a skeptic, not purely out of personal sibling squabblery like Edmund but because there are very good reasons to be.
I imagine I'm preaching to the choir, though, so moving on. Overall I really, really enjoyed the film, but it lacked bite. Definitely a work for the kiddies (I'm almost glad, in a depressingly backwards way - it's really hard to buy into Narnia without buying into the philosophy, and if the film had worked that well, in the current American political climate it would make me a tad nervous) - and it's a sad state of affairs when a film clearly made for the children-but-the-adults-can-come is nearly impossible for me to discuss without opening up a political Pandora's box. I may be an angry liberal cynical feminist who has to quibble with everybody on general principle*, but it's waaaaaay too darn easy.
I loved all the actors, actually, they were all quite brilliant. Poor William Moseley, unfortunately, kept getting undercut by unfortunate aesthetic choices:
Peter: OMG I am brave English boy!
Me: Yay King P-
Poorly chosen background music: Dooly dooly doot DOOT doopa doop!
Me: *bursts out laughing*
Lucy was especially - no, lying, I loved them all. Except Peter, and that wasn't his fault. Must join in the Mr. Tumnus love which I know is there without having read anyone else's lj commentaries ... the CGI was fairly decent once you got used to it, I thought, but my standards are low because anything is better than Warwick Davis with a mouse nose stuck on. I liked the expansion of the minor character the Fox into Rupert-Everett-Fox, which was entertaining and a very clever way to muddle the "good race"/"bad race" lines, a little. Philip was hysterical, and I was embarrassingly squeeful about the griffin. The unicorn upset me a little because I have a ridiculous fondness for Jewel, who is clearly illustrated as a fairly deerish/goaty sort of unicorn, but it wasn't intrinsically bad. I doubt they'll get that far, anyway. My brother and I had a bit of a debate as to whether they'd even make Dawn Treader. On the one hand, it's very gotta-catch-'em-all and nothing very much happens; on the other, it's unfilmable in a very similar way to how I thought Goblet of Fire would be, and it's traditionally one of the most popular of the novels and I'm sure the Powers that Be aren't unaware.
St. Nick was nearly unrecognizeable, which takes all sorts of talent, really.
*I think everyone is stupid and have trouble reconciling with the idea that I'm stupid, even though I probably am, so I whine a lot. It's a phase! <3
Interesting. I just pulled out my £4.99 set of Narnia books to resolve an argument with my brother about when The Magician's Nephew was set, me being of the impression that it was early 1900's and him the 1890's. The Disney site says 1900, but, uh, whatever. I wasn't expecting Mr. Lewis to give an exact date, but what he says is pretty entertaining:
"In those days Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in Lewisham Road."
He's setting his novel's timeline based on ... other novels written by other people (for those of you who didn't go through the entire E. Nesbitt line, the Bastable children were the poor-but-plucky protagonists of a series of books she wrote). It's sort of nifty and would definitely not happen today because Mr. Lewis would get his butt sued off.
On an entirely different note - reverendgayner, was that you who left the anonymous comment a couple posts ago? You're the only person I know who would actually watch A Very Minty Christmas and then report back in that analytical tone. Heh.
It was actually quite fascinating to see how Mr. Adamson was completely unable to disguise any of the unpleasant philosophical background of Narnia and C.S. Lewis' ideology, where Mr. Jackson faked it pretty darn well in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Not that I'm casting any blame; I'm really not sure it would be possible in Narnia's world, although it would have been nice if Susan had, uh, actually done anything in the battle. At all. But Jackson could pretty much just clean up around the edges a bit to at least revise Tolkien for a (comparatively) enlightened world, whereas Adamson couldn't really do anything without making the whole house of cards fall down. Susan is a Problem (practically a generational problem for a whole generation of sf/fantasy creators and fans, no less), but you can't really give her a sword, either... Lack of arrows aside the film did an excellent job with one particular aspect of Susan's character I'd noticed last time I read the books but almost entirely forgotten - she's explicitly damned for liking make-up and boys (because that's so much worse than betraying a country), but implicitly, it's for asking too many damn questions. Susan is a skeptic, not purely out of personal sibling squabblery like Edmund but because there are very good reasons to be.
I imagine I'm preaching to the choir, though, so moving on. Overall I really, really enjoyed the film, but it lacked bite. Definitely a work for the kiddies (I'm almost glad, in a depressingly backwards way - it's really hard to buy into Narnia without buying into the philosophy, and if the film had worked that well, in the current American political climate it would make me a tad nervous) - and it's a sad state of affairs when a film clearly made for the children-but-the-adults-can-come is nearly impossible for me to discuss without opening up a political Pandora's box. I may be an angry liberal cynical feminist who has to quibble with everybody on general principle*, but it's waaaaaay too darn easy.
I loved all the actors, actually, they were all quite brilliant. Poor William Moseley, unfortunately, kept getting undercut by unfortunate aesthetic choices:
Peter: OMG I am brave English boy!
Me: Yay King P-
Poorly chosen background music: Dooly dooly doot DOOT doopa doop!
Me: *bursts out laughing*
Lucy was especially - no, lying, I loved them all. Except Peter, and that wasn't his fault. Must join in the Mr. Tumnus love which I know is there without having read anyone else's lj commentaries ... the CGI was fairly decent once you got used to it, I thought, but my standards are low because anything is better than Warwick Davis with a mouse nose stuck on. I liked the expansion of the minor character the Fox into Rupert-Everett-Fox, which was entertaining and a very clever way to muddle the "good race"/"bad race" lines, a little. Philip was hysterical, and I was embarrassingly squeeful about the griffin. The unicorn upset me a little because I have a ridiculous fondness for Jewel, who is clearly illustrated as a fairly deerish/goaty sort of unicorn, but it wasn't intrinsically bad. I doubt they'll get that far, anyway. My brother and I had a bit of a debate as to whether they'd even make Dawn Treader. On the one hand, it's very gotta-catch-'em-all and nothing very much happens; on the other, it's unfilmable in a very similar way to how I thought Goblet of Fire would be, and it's traditionally one of the most popular of the novels and I'm sure the Powers that Be aren't unaware.
St. Nick was nearly unrecognizeable, which takes all sorts of talent, really.
*I think everyone is stupid and have trouble reconciling with the idea that I'm stupid, even though I probably am, so I whine a lot. It's a phase! <3
Interesting. I just pulled out my £4.99 set of Narnia books to resolve an argument with my brother about when The Magician's Nephew was set, me being of the impression that it was early 1900's and him the 1890's. The Disney site says 1900, but, uh, whatever. I wasn't expecting Mr. Lewis to give an exact date, but what he says is pretty entertaining:
"In those days Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in Lewisham Road."
He's setting his novel's timeline based on ... other novels written by other people (for those of you who didn't go through the entire E. Nesbitt line, the Bastable children were the poor-but-plucky protagonists of a series of books she wrote). It's sort of nifty and would definitely not happen today because Mr. Lewis would get his butt sued off.
On an entirely different note - reverendgayner, was that you who left the anonymous comment a couple posts ago? You're the only person I know who would actually watch A Very Minty Christmas and then report back in that analytical tone. Heh.