NEWS: 'Narnia' to be très Chick?

I have trouble seeing a Narnia film made WITHOUT the Christian alegory...

I am so sick of the word 'allegory' after reading this shit...

the real question is would this many people be having a shit fit it was an allegory for anything other than christianity?

Also, isn't the expression 'tres chic'?

IM GOING TO PISTOL WHIP THE NEXT PERSON WHO SAYS, "SHENANIGANS!"

Seriously; calm down. If it's overbearing, that's one thing. But Lewis was a Christian, and the books are allegorical, so the question isn't 'will this be a Christian film?', but 'how do they handle it?'

[Edited on Mar 08, 2005 by Jeff_Fries]

I don't recall that. I do think it's odd though, because the monkey spends the book telling everyone that Tash (a bastardization of Allah) and Aslan (Jesus) are the same god, and then Tash (Who is also Satan) eats him.

"The Horse and His Boy" and "The Last Battle" were obnoxiously allegorical, racist, and painful to read. "The Magician's Nephew" was fun, but heavy-handed at the end. "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and "Prince Caspian" were good, and not overdone on allegory. So I like 'em.

Oh, and Lewis said a few times that no matter how good a person is, they either believe in Jesus or go to hell. That Calmoren soldier must have been a fluke.

^^^ It is explained pretty clearly in the book. The soldier says I have been seeking Tash my whole life, and Aslan is like no... you have been seeking me your whole life, because nothing good can come from Tash and nothing bad can come from me. Whenever you seek good, you seek me, blah blah blah. It seems like CS Lewis is not only not saying that only following Christ can bring you to heaven, but that following ANY god can bring you to heaven provided you are truly searching for "good" or whatever... because that means you are searching for Christ and just haven't found him yet.

Dude, these books are full of Christian allegory. In fact, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is basically a retelling of the passion of Christ, as well as the death and resurrection. It isn't just a tiny metaphor at the end... the witch is holding the world in neverending Winter, Aslan has to die for the sin of man (Edmund) and his blood redeems the world. Aslan IS Jesus Christ... it isn't just a metaphor... he tells the kids in um... I think The Voyage of the Dawn Treader... that he exists in England "under another name" or whatever.

You can't really over-Christianize CS Lewis, so I wouldn't worry about that. I would have been more worried about over-secularizing it, but it doesn't seem like that is an issue either.

I have read all of these books at least like... 15 times each... they are up there with LOTR for me. They better not screw these movies up.

[Edited on Mar 08, 2005 by Brinstar]

Re-telling=metaphor in my book. If it's not stated, that makes it a metaphor.

On the other hand, I didn't read Voyage of the Dawn Treader, or the Silver Chair, so I'm no total authority.

Like I said, it is stated. Aslan is Christ in the books, not a metaphor for Christ, but he actually is Christ. When he sends the two kids home (well, one of the times he sends kids home) and tells them it is their last time in Narnia they are like "it's not Narnia we will miss, it is you" and he is like "I am also in England, but there you will come to know me by another name."

He didn't straight up say Jesus Christ, but I'm pretty sure he didn't mean the Buddha.

I'm pretty sure he did mean Brian.

Now I wonder if they'll keep the Pagan elements also...(Bacchus, etc.)

(Anyone who says the books are "pure Christian" obviously hasn't read them all that well.)

[Edited on Mar 08, 2005 by Miel]

Okay, I cede the point gladly.

Call me a loser. I have no clue who that dude is.

Jack Chick writes Missionary Tracts (little comic books) with intent to convert people to accept "Christ as their personal savior".

This guy amuses the hell out of me.

Here you go

And no, I'm not a missionary.

I especially love the one about gays, the one about Dungeons and Dragons, and the one where they convert a Muslim man to Christianity in about 30 seconds.

Oh and the one with the cookie!

It's all so clear to me now.

It's a Christian allegory, the whole meaning to it is that it parallels Christianity in a subtle manner. The marketing is not being done by Christians for Christians it is being done by a public relations company who was hired by Disney so that they; Disney, could make a killing off the films. These people are "exploiting" the Christian element in the books and now the movies by showing them to various church groups and emphasizing the Christian element just to ensure that Disney gets MORE MONEY. Anyone who has ever read those books can recognize the Christian element in the stories but first and foremost anyone who has ever read those books and enjoyed them would most likely be willing to see the movie anyway. Lewis did put alot of the ideas of his day and his own personal ideals into the books and they may be ideals that we do not tolerate that's not the point in this discussion. I am so sick and tired of readin about how Christians are this and Christians are that and "greed is a sin" it's not the Christians who are exploiting; it is the idea of Christianity in this book that IS BEING EXPLOITED.

Yes, the main point to this particular book is the fight between good and evil; but it's not just good people fighting evil it is in particular the epic struggle of one being who is the essence of all that is good fighting against another being who is the essence of all that is evil. Hence the Christian allegory. (there I said it)

[Edited on Mar 09, 2005 by Blossom]

Heh...I read the books and didn't really notice or care. But then, I never thought that way; symbolism is something I've been told about later, and it's still not anything I particularly consider important or indicative of good writing. I got that Aslan was God and especially the end book noticed all that, but it's not like I really thought about it too much. Provided that they just keep the stories intact, I'm fine with them marketing this shit to the more gullible Christians.

People exploiting Christianity to make money??? NEVER!!!!

If we're gonna start a crusade against that, let's just start with faith-healings, shall we? Pat Robertson still, every night, sits there with his eyes closed and says "There's someone out there...your left knee hurts...it could be because it's broken or maybe there's a cancer in there...anyway, God is taking that pain and removing it for you right now...in Jesus's name."

I don't care what you think it looks like in God's eyes, here on Earth there are degrees of sin. If you exploit Christianity to make people see a damned movie, that's not good, but it's nowhere near as bad as flat-out lies told to personally make you money. Let's start with one and then worry about the other. No one's lying; the books really are what they're saying they are.

Everybody gets converted in 30 seconds in Chickworld. I love the dinosaur one...

Person 1- Who knows how long a day is to God?
Person 2- Well, He made plants before the Sun. They had to be real days, or the plants would have died.
Person 1- OH WOW! YOU'RE RIGHT!

It only would have convinced him if he believed person 2 to begin with.

I'm sorry but there is little "subtle" about Narnia. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is the passion and ressurection of Christ. The Magician's Nephew is the creation of the world, with the Adam and Eve story in it. Not just the metaphor of Adam and Eve in Narnia (though it has that too) but Aslan specifically speaks about Adam and Eve. The Last Battle is what will supposedly happen when Jesus Christ comes back. Even the other books that don't directly account for Christ's life are so steeped in Christianity that there is no avoiding it... period.

No big surprise since CS Lewis mostly didn't deal with fiction (all Christianity = fiction jokes aside) but was a Christian apolgist writer for the vast majority of his works. His only fiction was the Screwtape Letters (letters from the devil to his nephew... not very subtle) his sci-fi trilogy (about twice as steeped in Christianity as Narnia... dealt with Jesus directly and the forces of evil trying to keep him from returning to Earth) and then Narnia. I'm not sure why people think with the fact that everything he writes is heavily Christian that with Narnia he just decided to write a nice fairly secular fantasy story with only subtle elements of Christianity...

Like I said before, you simply can't over-Christianize his works. And of course they will be marketing the film to Christians... this is one of the biggest Christian works to hit the theatres since well... THE PASSION.