The Chronicles of Narnia

[Pick]

Mayabird: I've seen both the BBC version and the animated version (at least, part of the animated version...after a while I couldn't take it anymore).

Someone shares my pain at the animated version? I'm touched...

Additionally, I never saw the BBC version... I take it that this version is recommended?...

I didn't like Last Battle much either, mostly at the time because of what happened to Susan (my favorite character generally), though on the other hand, because of symbolism, perhaps it's not so bad?... Maybe it is... I don't know; that book made my head hurt.

[RogueIce]

My fifth grade teacher was a huge fan of the books, so I got to read all of them except A Horse and his Boy and I think The Last Battle IIRC (it's been so long I don't really even remember much of the stories themselves). That and we watched at least two of the movies (I know we saw LWW, and I have distinct memories of Reepacheep and the Dawn Treder sea scenes...I guess it was the BBC version *shrug*).

Don't know if I'll watch this or not. Maybe if someone I know wants to and I get invited along.

[Kuja]

You know that feeling when you take a really big dump?


Awesome.

[Cairber]

I love these books! Heres hoping the movies dont fuck with them too much. As for the religious symbolism...having done countless in depth readings of Paradise Lost, I cant help but appreciate the things Lewis does with Milton's work. He's written some great papers on it, I def recommend them.

Narnia and Paradise Lost are related? Please explain... I'm intrigued...

yupyup! Take a look at the Magicians Nephew and the chapter of Paradise Lost that describes the garden of Eden (through the eyes of Satan when he climbs the wall). Lewis actually wrote a paper on this part, and how he decided to word his "sign on the gates." If i can find it online Ill send you a link...my professor use to have a bunch of the Lewis/Milton stuff on her website but shes changed it ( .

I could go on and on about this, I wrote a huge paper on it...but Im actually heading off to bed at the moment. Ill write more monday!

[Vympel]

I disliked Last Battle so much I barely remember what the hell happened in it, all I can remember is that it was utterly peculiar.

[mr friendly guy]

I disliked Last Battle so much I barely remember what the hell happened in it, all I can remember is that it was utterly peculiar.

Something along the lines that the Narnia we have been seeing isn't the real Narnia. The real Narnia is really a shed in the old Narnia, and like Doctor Who's TARDIS this shed is bigger on the inside than the outside. Once you enter that shed you will see that the inside is really the "real" Narnia.

At least thats what I remember from it. If I am completely wrong, someone correct me.

[El Moose Monstero]

I disliked Last Battle so much I barely remember what the hell happened in it, all I can remember is that it was utterly peculiar.

Something along the lines that the Narnia we have been seeing isn't the real Narnia. The real Narnia is really a shed in the old Narnia, and like Doctor Who's TARDIS this shed is bigger on the inside than the outside. Once you enter that shed you will see that the inside is really the "real" Narnia.

At least thats what I remember from it. If I am completely wrong, someone correct me.

It was something like that, I think Aslan compared it to an onion, although the further into the layers you go, the more real it gets, or something. Was our own world supposed to be the first layer, and then Narnia the second, and then this third layer being the more-real Narnia? Still, should be interesting to see on the big screen. Also interesting as CS Lewis and JRR Tolkein were writing buddies, CS Lewis was also Inspector Morse's sidekick.

[speaker-to-trolls]

This movie looks very promising (at least from a visual standpoint), especially the minotaurs. I liked the books when I first read them, but I don't know what my reaction would be if I read them again.

I remember that my reaction to The Last Battle was one of dissapointment more than anything else, what exactly was the point of all that fighting if Aslan was just going to bail everyone out?, it just seemed anticlimactic (having said that, I have always thought the image of the evil vulture god was very cool), but as I said, I read these things a long time ago, and I might have forgotten bits of the story.

[Crown]

Bah. C.S. Lewis and his silly Jesus parallel story is too baka for me.

Okay, y'all realise that C.S. Lewis was an athiest and it was Tolkien who was the religious one of the two, right?

[Stofsk]

Bah. C.S. Lewis and his silly Jesus parallel story is too baka for me.

Okay, y'all realise that C.S. Lewis was an athiest and it was Tolkien who was the religious one of the two, right?

Uh... I heard differently. I heard they were both religious.

[Crown]

Bah. C.S. Lewis and his silly Jesus parallel story is too baka for me.

Okay, y'all realise that C.S. Lewis was an athiest and it was Tolkien who was the religious one of the two, right?

Uh... I heard differently. I heard they were both religious.

Not according to the special edition DVD's on the Lord of the Rings (primarily the Fellowship ones). On the doc of Tolkien's life they mention his good friend C.S. Lewis, who was a loud mouthed athiest, contrary to Tolkien who was a devote Christian ...

I don't have the DVD's so, if anyone else does, care to verify?

[Stofsk]

I don't have the DVD's so, if anyone else does, care to verify?

Well... I have the DVDs... but, well... there's hours there to chew through. So... no. The lazy man in me would rather surf the 'net. I'll just take you at your word.

Besides, I don't even remember where I heard that about CS Lewis, so I'm probably wrong.

[Crown]

Well according to this.

Lewis had been raised as a Christian by his parents, who were Protestants. However, it wasn't until he was sent away to boarding school after the death of his mother that he began to read the Bible for himself and to work out his own thoughts on religion. Possibly Christianity offered him some consolation at a time when he was feeling great loneliness and sorrow.

In his teen years, though, Lewis abandoned Christianity. He became increasingly interested in Germanic mythology, which led him to see religion in general as a "kind of . . . nonsense into which humanity tended to blunder." Lewis moved further away from Christianity after he left school in 1914 to be tutored privately by William Kirkpatrick, a family friend who had tutored Lewis's father. Kirkpatrick, who was a staunch atheist, challenged Lewis to think for himself and to abandon conventional ideas about religion.

Later, however, as he entered his early 30s and settled into both his professional and domestic life, Lewis came to a real turning point in his spiritual life. While riding on a double-decker bus in the early summer of 1929, Lewis suddenly felt he had no choice but to acknowledge a belief in God. Shortly afterward, alone in his room at the university, he knelt and prayed.

His reconversion to Christianity was not quite this simple, because it was accompanied by many doubts, inward debates, and discussions with friends. As Lewis explained in a letter to his brother, though, he became a Christian because for him there was nothing else to do. Christianity was to become a central aspect of Lewis's adult life and a subject of many of his writings, including the Narnia stories.

Now I don't know what to think

[Norseman]

Bah. C.S. Lewis and his silly Jesus parallel story is too baka for me.

Okay, y'all realise that C.S. Lewis was an athiest and it was Tolkien who was the religious one of the two, right?

Uh... I heard differently. I heard they were both religious.

C.S. Lewis was an atheist for much of his young life, and indeed convinced of the superiority of materialist and atheist thinking; then apparently he had a conversion experience, I'm not sure if he's the one that suddenly cried "The Ontological proof is correct" when out shopping for snuff, or if his conversion was more gradual.

At any rate C.S. Lewis became a devout Christian, and went at his work with the passion of the convert, writing several apologetic stories.

Tolkien however was born and remained a devout Catholic all of his life.

At any rate C.S. Lewis also wrote things like "That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups" featuring NICE http://www.davidszondy.com/future/Dystopias/nice.htm Somewhat relevant to this board I guess.

[HemlockGrey]

On the doc of Tolkien's life they mention his good friend C.S. Lewis, who was a loud mouthed athiest, contrary to Tolkien who was a devote Christian ...

C.S. Lewis was a Christian, who "converted" to atheism, who "deconverted" back to Christianity when he saw some leaves blowing in an interesting manner.

He's one of the foremost apologists for Christianity in the modern era, and the Chronicles of Narnia are heavily influenced by Christianity. The Last Battle is essentially the Book of Revelations-meets-the-Crusades, right down to the evil dark-skinned devil-worshipping hordes and the righteous, God-fearing white folk who are saved at the last moment by a literal deus ex machina and are then judged to be worthy to pass into heaven. It's even got a nice little bit of misogyny to give it that extra Christian kick.

[Zaia]

I disliked Last Battle so much I barely remember what the hell happened in it, all I can remember is that it was utterly peculiar.

I know what you mean. I adore the series and have read the first six books a hundred times each, easily, but The Last Battle I think I've read maybe twice (and the second time only to see if my reaction was still ).

But a movie! And with the special effects people from LotR!!! AND they say "beginning with" at the start of that clip, which means they might do more! YAY!!!

[Mayabird]

Tolkein had a lot of issues with C.S. Lewis's writing, since Tolkein HATED allegory, which Lewis was ridiculously fond of in his born-again days. After reading his space trilogy and The Pilgrims Regress I realized that the Narnia series was just very thinly veiled allegory (though, except for the last book, I could still stand them). I knew that about The Last Battle when I read it, though.

If you were wondering, here's what happens: the evil darkie Muslims worship Satan and bring about Armageddon and the end of the world. Everything in Revelation happens (like the stars falling to the ground), and since Revelations is like an acid trip the book is like an acid trip, then all the good people go to Heaven and say, "Gee Aslan, I somehow didn't realize this entire time that you're actually Jesus." And then Amy hurls the book against the wall and screams some profanity.

[Elheru Aran]

Another small tidbit for those interested in the Tolkien/Lewis relationship-- Tolkien worked devoutly for much of his life to get Lewis to recant his atheism, but was extremely disappointed that when Lewis did become a Christian again, he adopted Anglicianism instead of Tolkien's beloved Roman Catholicism. The two of them were never quite on the same terms after that, although much of the split also came from Lewis' good friend (who was instrumental in his choice of Anglicianism) Charles Williams.

[Stofsk]

If you were wondering, here's what happens: *snip* And then Amy hurls the book against the wall and screams some profanity.

See, this is why I stick with science fiction. Nuts and bolts, alien pregnancies that end with John Hurt's (strangely appropriate last name) insides getting splattered by the 'baby', and so on...

As an aside, I remember watching a Narnia movie when I was a kid in my Catholic Primary School. It must have been really really boring though, because I can't remember anything about it. I haven't read them either, and it sounds like I probably shouldn't based off of your description.

[Drooling Iguana]

I loved them, and never noticed the Jesus sumbolism until it was pointed out to me. By all means, give me films!!!!

I noticed the religious symbolism in the books when I first read them as a kid (particularily Aslan's speech at the end of Dawn Treader in which he said that he existed on Earth under a "different name") but was able to put them aside due to the fact that the stories were not told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, but rather from a chronicler who'd heard the stories secondhand from the characters involved, and often had to skip over sections of the story because the characters wouldn't describe them to him, for whatever reason. It therefore made sense to assume that the religious stuff was just the narrator's own biases creeping in.

This also made it easier to write off The Last Battle as not taking place within continuity, since, with the way that story ended, no one would have been able to tell the narrator about it, so it had to be a fabrication.

[Elheru Aran]

If you were wondering, here's what happens: *snip* And then Amy hurls the book against the wall and screams some profanity.

See, this is why I stick with science fiction. Nuts and bolts, alien pregnancies that end with John Hurt's (strangely appropriate last name) insides getting splattered by the 'baby', and so on...

As an aside, I remember watching a Narnia movie when I was a kid in my Catholic Primary School. It must have been really really boring though, because I can't remember anything about it. I haven't read them either, and it sounds like I probably shouldn't based off of your description.

Actually, you should. They're quite excellent, despite the Christian undertones; don't let that ruin the series for you. If you must, don't bother with reading the last book (it's not really necessary in any case; one senses, almost, that Lewis was basically just trying to find some way to end the series so he could concentrate on other pursuits). Read 'em as young adult fantasy; don't bother with looking for any underlying subtext. You know it's there; ergo, you can ignore it. If it's too obtrusive, well, just toss 'em, but at least you'll have some idea of the events of the stories...

[Master of Ossus]

I just read those books again last year and I was flabergasted at how good they were. I hadn't realized that there was a movie coming out, but I'd love to see how they do with it.

After seeing the film, some of the props look cool, but many of them don't have the practicality I expect. I look forward to the film, though.

[Currald]

If nothing else, they're considerably better-written than Harry Potter.

My wife will be thrilled. She loves Narnia. When am I going to see a decent Lensman movie...

[Drooling Iguana]

My main concern with the movie is that they'll try to make it too LotR-like, and that Weta video didn't make me any more optimistic. I hope that the filmmakers for the Narnia movies realise that the books were not epic fantasy, the way Lord of the Rings was. They're fairy tales. While Lord of the Rings was about a bunch of fairly forgettable characters playing out their roles in a big, world-changing event, the Narnia books were much smaller in scope, focusing much more closely on the characters, with the details of the setting remaining firmly in the background.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Any of you yanks seen the BBC version of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe?

Yeah, I saw "Voyage of the Dawn Treader." Or, enough of it to get the idea... It was my favorite Narnia book, too.