NEWS: 'Narnia' to be très Chick?

CULTURE: 'Narnia' to be très Chick?

The Telegraph ran this piece yesterday claiming that Disney has hired a public relations company to market The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe directly to Christian organizations, with executives themselves attending private meetings to assure believers that the Christ allegory will be left intact.

My understanding of the novels was that Lewis came up with the characters first and later formed them into a Christian allegory, which is what made the Narnia books at least feel like more than just an Identikit petting zoo. Considering the recent track record of evangelical cinema, I doubt they'd jeopardize a $100 million production on anything too overbearing anyway; perhaps they're just kissing up.

Side note: I can't imagine a better actor in the world to play the White Witch than Tilda "Fahrenheit 9/11 is sophisticated cinema" Swinton.



Thankee: Portal of Evil News

I agree with you totally. I think this kind of stuff is a perversion of christianity. After all greed is a sin right? And like you said promoting isolationism leads to racialism, sexism, and all sorts of other kinds of hatred that mostly comes from christians anyway. We donÂ’t need more.

Wasn't that the second book?

yeah its the second one, the 1st one i believe is the magicians nephew

When I first read the series, I didn't even know they were a Christian allegory until the last couple chapters of The Last Battle when it gets really blatant with the whole apocalypse part. Even after I knew, I always just thought of them as a collection of brilliant adventure stories that I loved. Why should a kid with any other belief have to be alienated from it?

My favorite part of The Last Battle was when they meet a clearly Islamic soldier going to heaven with them, and he explains that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're a good person. Obviously someone at Disney hasn't read past Book Two.

That's what I thought. I always liked that one, they should make it a movie.

He wrote the Lion the Witch and the Wardobe first, the Magician's nephew was a prequel.

And it is a Christian allegory. So what's the fuss about?

So a Christian writer writes some Christian books, and Disney promises to keep it that way when they make the movie. And this is bad? Why can't we leave them alone? How can we expect to have our beliefs respected when we curse their excercise from others?
IMHO, the Narnia books are a great thing for Christianity. I think it exposes them to the essence of what they believe and forces them to deal with it.

Older sets of the Chronicles, and (I hear but have no proof) British sets have them in the order of publication, putting LW,atW first, and MN second to last. It's the order I read them in the first time, and much prefer.

The first book is The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Publishers just rearanged it into chronological order much to the chagrin of Lewis. The only book that is 'in order' the way Lewis wrote them is the Last Battle. I'm a Lewis dork. Sorry. Disney selling a christian story for money? Not that shocking. They'd copywrite Jesus if they could.

I loved the series when I was a kid. I read them again recently and they're horrific. I imagine they'll have to be changed; they're practically a Nazi guidebook.

how so?

If the books were already Christian allegories, then emphasizing that feature is just marketing (which I don't believe is a good thing). The only blatantly Christian part of the first book that I can remember is that Aslan dies and comes back to life -- but didn't Keanu do that in "The Matrix"? Why wasn't that marketed to Christians?

I'm sure that, somewhere in the world, it was. Neo's resurrection isn't the only element of Christian allegory in the Matrix-- but there were so many bits of other religion and philosophy mixed in that it's not nearly as much of a Christian story as Narnia. I mean, I'm sure it could be argued that it is, but I'm not going to be the one to argue it.

Frankly, I don't have any issues with the movie having noticable Christian elements--because, yeah, even when I was a little kid, I noticed the parallels. But when such a huge chunk of the marketing scheme centers around that aspect of the story, I start to get annoyed. Just because Lewis included some Christian allegory doesn't mean he wanted it crammed down our throats. I mean, MAYBE he did; I'm not that familiar with Lewis. But I doubt it; I think more people would have noticed it sooner.

This is just another excuse for Disney to push its family-friendly agenda on the non-family friendly. And I usually LIKE Disney movies. But this idea of America: Rated G? It doesn't work for me.

[Edited on Mar 08, 2005 by Cavatica]

Yeah, I'd like to hear more as well. . .

I think the point of the article is that they ARE leaving it alone. Specifically, they are leaving the Christ allegory in the story.

That's not true. They're in the same order as everywhere else here.

Eh?

what the heck are you talking about? if you leave it as is there is already a christian context in the books. have you actually read them?

Well, Nazi is maybe a bit strong, but it's all about women doing what they're told and doing womenly things and people not getting ideas above their station. It's chockablock full of English Class System stuff at its worst. Read them again, now, and you'll see what I mean.

Also, if I was being a bit of a cock, I'd say something like "read the books, but image that instead of animals there are foreigners, see how weird that is", just to wind people up. But I'm not, so I won't.

Well then. What that person said up there about them being rearranged and stuff., that's what I meant to say.

Is that a Jack Chick reference?

Well done.

I was just going to say that.

Ahhhh, man, I loves me some Chick tracts.