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tealin(Minor spoilers for those who haven't read the book and don't expect villains to get their just desserts)
THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE
A Festival of Parenthetical Phrases
I have had a somewhat conflicted relationship with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Through most of my childhood I felt it was a book I ought to like (I'm sure countless people recommended it to me), but I never quite connected with it. (I can hear Tann gasping from here....) I'm sure this may come as a surprise to those people who know me as a Harry Potter artist, but it was too fantastical for me. I'm not terribly thrilled by fantasy; it has to have at least a grounding in reality for my brain to latch onto it. Narnia's only grouning in reality (besides basic things like gravity, and ... and gravity) is that you can access it from a mundane wardrobe. Much as with The Hobbit (time for Ubiquitouspitt to gasp) I kept thinking that maybe I wasn't getting it, so I'd read it again every couple of years, but it never really clicked. Nor did the two other film adaptations I saw of it – one being the rather ugly animated one and the other something dimly remembered with puppets – they did have the benefit of not having C.S. Lewis's narration, which was part of what put me off the book, but still... meh. So I wasn't really looking forward to this new movie; curious to see a new take on it, yes, and to see how they'd approach it with the success of Lord of the Rings. I wasn't completely drawn in to Narnia mania upon seeing it this time, either, but this movie did make me see how so many people can like it so much.
Onto specifics now, going through my notes hastily scrawled in the dark:
The opening with the German bombers I liked very much. It really just dumped you in the middle of war, the drama and terror of the Blitz, and grabbed all your attention right away. It was visually exciting and served as a handy quick screen on which to project the principal characters' personalities. Setting off for the Professor's house and that whole opening credit sequence filled me with an innocent joy of anticipation and adventure that I honestly have not felt in a movie for years – a completely unselfconscious elation that even my moviegoing cynicism couldn't penetrate. This feeling managed to last a surprisingly long time through the movie, until anticipation inevitably turned into experience, but the fact that I'd felt it at all kept me flying high even after I'd left the theatre (much to the annoyance of my sister's friends).
The introduction to the land of Narnia was well-done, to my mind, especially when considered from an allegorical standpoint. Most notably, the way each of the children 'land': Lucy walks comfortably in, Edmund falls headlong, Peter and Susan get sort of dumped in. If Mr Adamson didn't do this deliberately, it was a very lucky accident. My only trouble with the Narnia we're first introduced to is that, despite being covered in rather convincing snow, no one seemed all that cold. The casual way they stood about in their summer clothes made the snow look like styrofoam when otherwise it would have been such a lovely effect.
Mr Tumnus has always been my favourite character, but until now it's been because I thought he should be: the evidence put forth in his description matches up with things I know I like, but there was no real feeling behind it. He (like most of the other characters, it's true) always seemed a bit too exposed; he openly narrates his motives and feelings, is used as a bit of a pawn for plot points and moral lessons, and has the general feeling of 'acting for children' when the actor (or author) feels the children are a bit dull and need everything explained. This Tumnus, however, despite a brief onset of hokey dialogue which no one is immune to in this script (more on that later), has not only a genuine heart but also a mind, and the struggle between the two results in a scene of internal conflict that is played out more sincerely than I was expecting. The Beavers also had more presence than just sentient plot points, and were entertaining characters to spend time with rather than bland sources of exposition or annoying talking-animal comic relief. This even managed to overcome my first impression of Mr Beaver: it's probably something to do with how he was animated in one of his introductory scenes, but the first thought in my mind was of the R.O.U.S.s from Princess Bride. Between the faun and the beavers, they managed to establish a tone of an underground resistance party secretly fighting the White Witch against great odds, and I am the world's biggest sucker for that plot device so it pulled me even further in.
My notes get a bit more fragmented from here on in, and it's getting late, and I have to work tomorrow, so briefly now:
- I've never gotten the Christmas thing. 'It's always winter but it's never Christmas,' they say, and they run into Father Christmas in the woods. Okay, in a fantasy world that is obviously devoid of Christianity, where on earth do they get Christmas from? If the whole story is supposed to be a Christian allegory, isn't the celebration of 'Christmas,' complete with a jolly gift-giving man with a sleigh, a bit like opening a box with the key that's inside it? If, at that point in the story, they haven't been 'saved' yet, whose birth are they celebrating? The best I can come up with is that perhaps it's some sort of Narnian solstice celebration, and it's easier to just translate it into 'Christmas' than to have a jolly bearded man say 'Hello children! Happy [Winter Festival]! I am Jolly [Winter Festival] Gift-Giving Man, here are your presents!' I'm probably over-thinking this, and my insistence on internal consistency and validity may explain why I like Lord of the Rings so much better, but dang it, taking this sort of thing seriously is how Discworld was born! I am fully vindicated!
Oh yes, and his lanterns? They have the sign of the Light on them. I know, I know, it's an ancient sun symbol, and for all I know it's a symbol quite commonly found in British Christmastime iconography, but to me it is the sign of the Light. If anyone reading this is from a studio (a worthy studio) that wants in on the YA fantasy books-into-movies bandwagon, this is your message: MAKE THE DARK IS RISING. MAKE IT RIGHT, AND MAKE IT NOW. And, if I may be so bold, cast Billy Boyd as Hawkin, because he has the perfect face for it.
- I really liked most of the Witch Queen's imagery. I like how they changed her hair from black to blonde and gave her creepy white eyelashes and no eyebrows; it makes her look so much more frigid and frosty. But I do not like, not one little bit, whatever strange carpet underlay thing they've done with the upper part of her bodice: she looks like the Football Queen. I'm sorry, she does. It's just weird. Everything else about her is really cool, or at least really well-done (she is evil, after all, which is not cool), and she is extremely well-acted, again an example of a liberal injection of sincerity and realism into an otheriwse superficial character. But the padding ... the padding! Gah!
- Do watch out for a cameo appearance of Mr Gryle in the Stone Table scene. It was ... most amusing.
- I may have still been high on innocent glee sparked by the title sequence, but in the portrayal of Aslan I felt ... just ... such a lot of ... love. Not love for Aslan, necessarily, but he just radiated an intense glow of love. And in this respect, at least personally, I feel Mr Adamson has got the allegorical tie-in 100% correct. If God = love, and Aslan = God, then it follows that Aslan = love. I don't know how they did it, maybe subliminal messages or something, but there was a serious love overflow happening, and somehow it was in a way that was subtle enough to sneak in under the cynicism radar. It wasn't in a blatant, obvious way that would make any sensible person say 'Oh puh-LEEZ,' it was entirely sincere and unexpectedly powerful.
- Someone at Weta is very good at feline acting. When Aslan is on the stone, he really acts like a distressed cat. I tip my hat to you, cat animator.
- Someone else (I'm assuming it's a different person) is really, really good at flying. With the gryffins in this movie and the eagles in Return of the King the little part of me that made me want to be an ornithologist when I was five stands up and shouts 'YES! YES! THAT IS FLYING!!' I can feel the lift, and the aerodynamics, and the power of the flapping. Whoever it is should give lessons to the person who animated the crow in Goblet that looked like a penguin would if it could fly. I like birds. A lot. And when they're done right, that makes me happy.
- The way they made the trees communicate was genius in its simplicity and clarity.
- Once again, a great climactic fantasy battle is fought somewhere that looks just like the Wasatch Front would if there weren't any pesky buildings mucking it up. With this movie and Lord of the Rings, I need never visit Utah again.
- There was a nifty alphabet on the Stone Table! I must learn it!
- I hope I'm not reading too much into it, but I liked how the gryffins dropping rocks on the Witch Queen's army very closely mirrored some of the shots from the Blitz at the beginning. It made me realise there's very little reference to the parallels between the two wars in the story, and I don't remember if it was played up in the book. There could have been potential there, but if it was handled in the wrong way it could have been disastrous, and it would have just added unnecessary time to the movie. Still, it seems odd that it doesn't even cross anyone's mind that they escape one war just to land in another. This had never occurred to me before, but then I'd never believed the characters to have minds before, so perhaps this weakness is merely the result of new strengths in other areas.
- Jadis at the battle reminded me very much of Boudica. Or how I imagine Boudica. Or how she is popularly portrayed, at least.
- The opposing imagery of either side might, I'm afraid, be useful as subconscious ammunition in the global warming debate: cold, ice, and animals from boreal or arctic lattitudes (polar bears, white tigers, wolves, reindeer) are 'evil'; warmth, sun, and animals of the savannah (which a large amount of jungle will become, according to computer models) are 'good.' I can understand this from an anthropological perspective, but still...
- Okay, that thing with the phoenix making a dividing line of fire on the battlefield: We so did that in Dragons 2 way before them! Bah! Okay, not with a phoenix, but it looked almost exactly the same so the point still stands.
- Judging solely by this and LotR, I think Tolkien and Lewis had very different perceptions of nature. If they didn't, then the production designers at Weta deliberately swung the associations with natural vs artificial to reverse polarities... perhaps to set the films apart? I am in Tolkien's party on this one, if only because I am aware of the practical implications of making lots of shiny metal armour.
- One of the few specific things I [think I] remember from the book is that Jadis is supposed to die by Aslan jumping on her and she dissolves in a puff of black dust. It was kind of disappointing to see Aslan just kind of pounce on her and, aw, she's dead. And just lying there. It seems kind of anticlimactic.
- Okay, there is some hokey dialogue. But you know what? It's better than in the book. And there are some genuinely humourous exchanges which I don't remember ever existing before that make up for the occasional slip into supercilious artificiality. At times it very nearly verges on a translation of the 'Oh, Pippin!' refrain played up by the parody musical Fellowship!, which makes me want to draw an 'Oh, Edmund!' gag sketch, but overall the writing is an improvement, I'd say.
Everything else I have left to say is minor technical quibbling, so there you have it. In closing, I think the best thing I can say about this movie is that it made me want to find out what happens next. Neither the book nor any other film adaptation has kindled even the faintest interest in me. The only other book in the series that I've bothered to read is The Magician's Nephew, which I prefer because it has more interesting imagery, and which I only picked up because my Grade 4 teacher read it to the class. But now ... I want to know. I'll wait for the movie, though. I wouldn't want to spoil a good movie by reading the book first, when I have the choice. Save the best for last.
THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE
A Festival of Parenthetical Phrases
I have had a somewhat conflicted relationship with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Through most of my childhood I felt it was a book I ought to like (I'm sure countless people recommended it to me), but I never quite connected with it. (I can hear Tann gasping from here....) I'm sure this may come as a surprise to those people who know me as a Harry Potter artist, but it was too fantastical for me. I'm not terribly thrilled by fantasy; it has to have at least a grounding in reality for my brain to latch onto it. Narnia's only grouning in reality (besides basic things like gravity, and ... and gravity) is that you can access it from a mundane wardrobe. Much as with The Hobbit (time for Ubiquitouspitt to gasp) I kept thinking that maybe I wasn't getting it, so I'd read it again every couple of years, but it never really clicked. Nor did the two other film adaptations I saw of it – one being the rather ugly animated one and the other something dimly remembered with puppets – they did have the benefit of not having C.S. Lewis's narration, which was part of what put me off the book, but still... meh. So I wasn't really looking forward to this new movie; curious to see a new take on it, yes, and to see how they'd approach it with the success of Lord of the Rings. I wasn't completely drawn in to Narnia mania upon seeing it this time, either, but this movie did make me see how so many people can like it so much.
Onto specifics now, going through my notes hastily scrawled in the dark:
The opening with the German bombers I liked very much. It really just dumped you in the middle of war, the drama and terror of the Blitz, and grabbed all your attention right away. It was visually exciting and served as a handy quick screen on which to project the principal characters' personalities. Setting off for the Professor's house and that whole opening credit sequence filled me with an innocent joy of anticipation and adventure that I honestly have not felt in a movie for years – a completely unselfconscious elation that even my moviegoing cynicism couldn't penetrate. This feeling managed to last a surprisingly long time through the movie, until anticipation inevitably turned into experience, but the fact that I'd felt it at all kept me flying high even after I'd left the theatre (much to the annoyance of my sister's friends).
The introduction to the land of Narnia was well-done, to my mind, especially when considered from an allegorical standpoint. Most notably, the way each of the children 'land': Lucy walks comfortably in, Edmund falls headlong, Peter and Susan get sort of dumped in. If Mr Adamson didn't do this deliberately, it was a very lucky accident. My only trouble with the Narnia we're first introduced to is that, despite being covered in rather convincing snow, no one seemed all that cold. The casual way they stood about in their summer clothes made the snow look like styrofoam when otherwise it would have been such a lovely effect.
Mr Tumnus has always been my favourite character, but until now it's been because I thought he should be: the evidence put forth in his description matches up with things I know I like, but there was no real feeling behind it. He (like most of the other characters, it's true) always seemed a bit too exposed; he openly narrates his motives and feelings, is used as a bit of a pawn for plot points and moral lessons, and has the general feeling of 'acting for children' when the actor (or author) feels the children are a bit dull and need everything explained. This Tumnus, however, despite a brief onset of hokey dialogue which no one is immune to in this script (more on that later), has not only a genuine heart but also a mind, and the struggle between the two results in a scene of internal conflict that is played out more sincerely than I was expecting. The Beavers also had more presence than just sentient plot points, and were entertaining characters to spend time with rather than bland sources of exposition or annoying talking-animal comic relief. This even managed to overcome my first impression of Mr Beaver: it's probably something to do with how he was animated in one of his introductory scenes, but the first thought in my mind was of the R.O.U.S.s from Princess Bride. Between the faun and the beavers, they managed to establish a tone of an underground resistance party secretly fighting the White Witch against great odds, and I am the world's biggest sucker for that plot device so it pulled me even further in.
My notes get a bit more fragmented from here on in, and it's getting late, and I have to work tomorrow, so briefly now:
- I've never gotten the Christmas thing. 'It's always winter but it's never Christmas,' they say, and they run into Father Christmas in the woods. Okay, in a fantasy world that is obviously devoid of Christianity, where on earth do they get Christmas from? If the whole story is supposed to be a Christian allegory, isn't the celebration of 'Christmas,' complete with a jolly gift-giving man with a sleigh, a bit like opening a box with the key that's inside it? If, at that point in the story, they haven't been 'saved' yet, whose birth are they celebrating? The best I can come up with is that perhaps it's some sort of Narnian solstice celebration, and it's easier to just translate it into 'Christmas' than to have a jolly bearded man say 'Hello children! Happy [Winter Festival]! I am Jolly [Winter Festival] Gift-Giving Man, here are your presents!' I'm probably over-thinking this, and my insistence on internal consistency and validity may explain why I like Lord of the Rings so much better, but dang it, taking this sort of thing seriously is how Discworld was born! I am fully vindicated!
Oh yes, and his lanterns? They have the sign of the Light on them. I know, I know, it's an ancient sun symbol, and for all I know it's a symbol quite commonly found in British Christmastime iconography, but to me it is the sign of the Light. If anyone reading this is from a studio (a worthy studio) that wants in on the YA fantasy books-into-movies bandwagon, this is your message: MAKE THE DARK IS RISING. MAKE IT RIGHT, AND MAKE IT NOW. And, if I may be so bold, cast Billy Boyd as Hawkin, because he has the perfect face for it.
- I really liked most of the Witch Queen's imagery. I like how they changed her hair from black to blonde and gave her creepy white eyelashes and no eyebrows; it makes her look so much more frigid and frosty. But I do not like, not one little bit, whatever strange carpet underlay thing they've done with the upper part of her bodice: she looks like the Football Queen. I'm sorry, she does. It's just weird. Everything else about her is really cool, or at least really well-done (she is evil, after all, which is not cool), and she is extremely well-acted, again an example of a liberal injection of sincerity and realism into an otheriwse superficial character. But the padding ... the padding! Gah!
- Do watch out for a cameo appearance of Mr Gryle in the Stone Table scene. It was ... most amusing.
- I may have still been high on innocent glee sparked by the title sequence, but in the portrayal of Aslan I felt ... just ... such a lot of ... love. Not love for Aslan, necessarily, but he just radiated an intense glow of love. And in this respect, at least personally, I feel Mr Adamson has got the allegorical tie-in 100% correct. If God = love, and Aslan = God, then it follows that Aslan = love. I don't know how they did it, maybe subliminal messages or something, but there was a serious love overflow happening, and somehow it was in a way that was subtle enough to sneak in under the cynicism radar. It wasn't in a blatant, obvious way that would make any sensible person say 'Oh puh-LEEZ,' it was entirely sincere and unexpectedly powerful.
- Someone at Weta is very good at feline acting. When Aslan is on the stone, he really acts like a distressed cat. I tip my hat to you, cat animator.
- Someone else (I'm assuming it's a different person) is really, really good at flying. With the gryffins in this movie and the eagles in Return of the King the little part of me that made me want to be an ornithologist when I was five stands up and shouts 'YES! YES! THAT IS FLYING!!' I can feel the lift, and the aerodynamics, and the power of the flapping. Whoever it is should give lessons to the person who animated the crow in Goblet that looked like a penguin would if it could fly. I like birds. A lot. And when they're done right, that makes me happy.
- The way they made the trees communicate was genius in its simplicity and clarity.
- Once again, a great climactic fantasy battle is fought somewhere that looks just like the Wasatch Front would if there weren't any pesky buildings mucking it up. With this movie and Lord of the Rings, I need never visit Utah again.
- There was a nifty alphabet on the Stone Table! I must learn it!
- I hope I'm not reading too much into it, but I liked how the gryffins dropping rocks on the Witch Queen's army very closely mirrored some of the shots from the Blitz at the beginning. It made me realise there's very little reference to the parallels between the two wars in the story, and I don't remember if it was played up in the book. There could have been potential there, but if it was handled in the wrong way it could have been disastrous, and it would have just added unnecessary time to the movie. Still, it seems odd that it doesn't even cross anyone's mind that they escape one war just to land in another. This had never occurred to me before, but then I'd never believed the characters to have minds before, so perhaps this weakness is merely the result of new strengths in other areas.
- Jadis at the battle reminded me very much of Boudica. Or how I imagine Boudica. Or how she is popularly portrayed, at least.
- The opposing imagery of either side might, I'm afraid, be useful as subconscious ammunition in the global warming debate: cold, ice, and animals from boreal or arctic lattitudes (polar bears, white tigers, wolves, reindeer) are 'evil'; warmth, sun, and animals of the savannah (which a large amount of jungle will become, according to computer models) are 'good.' I can understand this from an anthropological perspective, but still...
- Okay, that thing with the phoenix making a dividing line of fire on the battlefield: We so did that in Dragons 2 way before them! Bah! Okay, not with a phoenix, but it looked almost exactly the same so the point still stands.
- Judging solely by this and LotR, I think Tolkien and Lewis had very different perceptions of nature. If they didn't, then the production designers at Weta deliberately swung the associations with natural vs artificial to reverse polarities... perhaps to set the films apart? I am in Tolkien's party on this one, if only because I am aware of the practical implications of making lots of shiny metal armour.
- One of the few specific things I [think I] remember from the book is that Jadis is supposed to die by Aslan jumping on her and she dissolves in a puff of black dust. It was kind of disappointing to see Aslan just kind of pounce on her and, aw, she's dead. And just lying there. It seems kind of anticlimactic.
- Okay, there is some hokey dialogue. But you know what? It's better than in the book. And there are some genuinely humourous exchanges which I don't remember ever existing before that make up for the occasional slip into supercilious artificiality. At times it very nearly verges on a translation of the 'Oh, Pippin!' refrain played up by the parody musical Fellowship!, which makes me want to draw an 'Oh, Edmund!' gag sketch, but overall the writing is an improvement, I'd say.
Everything else I have left to say is minor technical quibbling, so there you have it. In closing, I think the best thing I can say about this movie is that it made me want to find out what happens next. Neither the book nor any other film adaptation has kindled even the faintest interest in me. The only other book in the series that I've bothered to read is The Magician's Nephew, which I prefer because it has more interesting imagery, and which I only picked up because my Grade 4 teacher read it to the class. But now ... I want to know. I'll wait for the movie, though. I wouldn't want to spoil a good movie by reading the book first, when I have the choice. Save the best for last.
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no subject
Date: 2005-12-15 03:04 pm (UTC)I'm a bit of a linguist so I find this sort of stuff fascinating. Thanks for pointing out something I forgot in the emotions of that scene.
no subject
Date: 2005-12-17 10:16 pm (UTC)