Contradicting Popular Opinion: Narnia

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Contradicting Popular Opinion
A.K.A.

An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks

:Narnia

Intro

So for right now, I’m gonna say Narnia in lieu of The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. You all should know that that is what I mean, but if you don’t when I say Narnia I really mean to say, The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Except, of course, if I just say Narnia. In that case, I am talking about the imaginary world of Narnia and not The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

You dig? We clear on this thing?

The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe AKA just f*cking Narnia.

With the recent success of film adaptations of British fantasy novels by initialate authors, it was only a matter of time before somebody tapped the works of C.S. Lewis, especially considering the connection between Lewis and LOTR‘s JRR Tolkien. (It was Tolkien who converted Lewis to Catholicism, after all.) Things are to the point now, where these large scale fantasy films are expected in the months of November and December. The audience is ready made; half the work is done for you.

And people certainly did show up to this Narnia thing. I don’t have the exact numbers on me, but I am fairly certain that Narnia made roughly seventeen bajillion dollars at the box office. Now, a lot of people seem to attribute these numbers to the film’s marketing, namely, its marketing to Christian groups. You see, old Jack Lewis made the whole series of books into this big Christian allegory, and was very outspoken about his faith. He gained special favor by professing to be a former Atheist (something of which I have a fuller explanation, but that is neither here nor there).

So, let’s take a look at the movie and see its ties to Christianity. Let’s see what matches up.

1. Witches are evil: so far so good.

2. It’s not a good idea to have women in positions of authority: Both the movie and Catholicism seem big on this one.

3. Aslan: Ah, the famous Jesus lion. Not only do the two share similar locks, they both are put to death (a death they freely accepted), suffered, died and rose again. The number one followers of Aslan and Jesus are both named Peter. Aslan, like the Christian God, also inexplicably goes missing for centuries at a time, seemingly indifferent to the suffering this absence causes. When each shows up after their respective desertions they come back to raise an army.

4. The people not with you are evil: Essentially what we have here in Narnia are crusaders. The “good guys” have no qualms about drafting children into their war. The “bad” guys are seen as irredeemably bad. They are killed with neither hesitation nor regret by the “good” guys.

5. Santa Claus: If you haven’t seen the movie, the right jolly old elf shows up to give each of the children an offensive weapon and a defensive tool. No, seriously. He gives a little girl a throwing knife. He gives the older sister a bow and quiver of arrows (obviously a chick weapon). St. Nick gives the older boy a nice and phallic sword. (At the time, the younger brother wasn’t present, so he got zilch. Although he is a little shit, so he probably would have gotten the big goose egg anywho.)

6. It is right to believe in things that make no sense: The children in the film are repeatedly reminded that they should believe in foolish nonsense; that somehow, it is more likely that a fantasy world exists in an armoire, than to assume that their shell shocked small sister has imagined a fantasy world to deal with the stress of World War 2.

Yes, I am saying that even in the context of the film Narnia is not a real place. Here is my evidence:

A. Nothing is brought back from Narnia: No weapons, no tools, no food, etc. Lucy doesn’t even bring snow back with her on her shoes. Being from Buffalo, I can assure you that she would have left puddles coming back from the first trip.

B. The end of the film: Not only do the characters returning from Narnia revert to their original ages, but also their original, long since abandoned, clothes.

C. The Societal Structures of Narnia: We see no money. It has been winter for 100 years, but food supplies seem ample. The Queen has a personal body guard of only 1 bearded Kenayan midget. We see no villages, no groups of homes, no shops, no inns, no cleaners, no trash collection, no bathrooms, no blacksmiths, etc.

D. Animals speak: What is that word for when animals speak in fiction? Anthr- No, oh yeah Stupid. The animals all speak fairly eloquently, whether or not they have any adaptations to do these things. You’ve got a couple of logistical problems here. For instance, how well is an animal with a brain the size of a walnut going to be able to communicate? Or even if the animal does have the brain capacity to speak, are they physically able? How can things with non-human lips and tongues speak precisely like humans? Shouldn’t some, at the very least, lisp? Or even if they could speak proficiently, what about taking into account throat sizes? The different animals all seem to speak in a normal human adult pitch. The smaller ones don’t speak in higher voices, the larger ones don’t really seem lower.

E. Animals speak English: Despite Narnia being a completely different world than our own, everybody seems to speak English. Not only English, but pretty much the same dialect of English with few variations. The main variations I can think of are the Liam Neeson Jesus-lion, and the Michael Madsen wolf.

But it strikes me that this column is “an Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks” and I have danced around this thing, implying a lot of what I dislike about the flick. So let’s jump right in with both feet.

I. The Direction: The thing is directed about as artfully as a cereal commercial. It lets me know that Chex don’t go soggy in milk, but doesn’t really make me give a damn about the whole thing. Narnia was directed by Andrew Adamson, director of the freakishly over-rated Shrek and the mostly unnecessary Shrek 2. So, I guess I can cut him a break, since I cannot imagine he has any idea what he is doing with people.

II. The acting: We’ve got a film about children, so mediocre acting is to be expected. But it wasn’t that the performances weren’t great, rather that the performances were forced, grating and obnoxious. I wanted desperately to slap that homely actress playing Lucy sharply and without apology. I’m sure the kid is great in real life, so I’ll place the blame on Andrew Adamson. Otherwise, the midget henchmen turns in a pretty lousy performance, even for a stuntman. Liam Neeson doesn’t have much interesting to do. The actress playing the White Witch was fine enough, playing the part like a Masterpuss Theatre villainess, but she was often upstaged by her redonkulous wardrobe. Dawn French as Ms. Beaver and Rupert Everett (probably misspelled) as the Fox are head and shoulders above everything else in the flick.

III. The Pacing: The film is boring. Painfully long and boring. It is somewhat less exciting than watching video game cutscenes.

IV. The Characters: Our four main characters are about as interesting as folding laundry. They can be summed up as follows, Reluctant Hero (older brother), Square (older sister), Stupid Useless Little Shit (younger brother) and Little Girl (little girl).

V. The Races: We’ve got a bunch of different being living in Narnia. But they seem interchangeable. It doesn’t much matter that Aslan is a Lion or that Tumnus is a Faun or that Beaver is a Beaver. Basically, everybody speaks and acts the same regardless of what they are. The animal version of the myth of One Tribe Nation.

VI: The Effects: Sure, the CGI lion looks pretty nice, but I tell you what, the makeup is shitty. The prosthetics of the bad-guys during the campfire scene look like something I could have made. They look terrible in comparison to stuff that came out 30 years ago. (Hell, more than that number considering the current age of The Planet of the Apes.)

But, I will give the flick this much credit: It is the probably the best movie I have ever seen that features a beaver wearing mail. (Chain mail is a redundant term.)

Pimps

Lucard will be gone for a week playing the real life versions of Subspecies and Hostel. So, he needs pimps

Scott has started up a new column. This one, like The 50 Club, will have a revolving author set-up.

I didn’t pimp Mark Burlesque last week. So here.