I have been to see “Chronicles of Narnia III: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” and it makes me fear for the future of this series of movies. I’ll be writing a full review for www.chalcedon.edu , so this is just a preview. (Hint: When you go to the movies these days, arrive late enough to miss the commercials and the previews. You’ll be glad you did!)
“Dawn Treader” has received mixed reviews so far (not a good sign). Apparently a lot of the reviewers don’t know the story as C.S. Lewis wrote it, and are blissfully unaware that the story has been radically changed. In fact, they changed so much of it, I wondered why they bothered to make the movie at all.
Why, why, why do they do that when they make a movie? If C.S. Lewis’ story was so inadequate as he wrote it, why would you want to make a movie out of it in the first place?
And then we’ve got Liam Neeson, who provides the voice for Aslan in these films, flapping his jaw in public about how Aslan isn’t just Jesus Christ, he’s also Mohammed and Buddha, blah-blah… How stupid can you get?
Who cares about some actor’s opinion? I’d be more impressed if he were a bricklayer. 🙂
The difference is that the bricklayer’s wall has got to stand up, but the actor’s doesn’t.
Exactly. Our society has some very poor priorities. An actor’s opinions seem to come down with the force of law, but not the man that built the theater.
How important is a janitor? When ours was sick for three days the rest rooms were very unpleasant places. It might be menial labor, but it’s important. If Liam Neeson went on strike for the rest of my life nothing would change. 🙂
I recently reread the first edition of the “Narnia” series, and I can honestly say I enjoy the “Bell Mountain” series more. I am waiting for some perceptive movie maker to buy up the rights to it.
I’ve often tried to imagine a Bell Mountain movie. Claude Raines as Lord Reesh, Max von Sydow as Obst… But I need for these books to catch on, before anything like a movie can happen.
There’s a good question there; if they are going to change the story, why bother to make a movie based upon that book?
A word I’ve heard in recent years is reimagining, and when I hear of read that word, I tend to run in the opposite direction. Reimagining seems to mean changing the meaning of something, to adapt it to current values, even if this changes the message. There was a Canadian TV series of Anne of Green Gables a while back, and while much of it was quite good, and the actress they used to portray Anne did a wonderful job, it was obvious that there was an undercurrent message that would have been completely foreign to the author of the original works. This only detracted from the end product.
I didn’t see the Chronicles of Narnia movie, and don’t plan to, but it’s obvious that the values of C.S. Lewis have been superseded by the values of the producers, and nearly eight years after my last post, I still don’t care about Liam Neeson’s opinions.
The old BBC Chronicles of Narnia was wonderful. They stuck to the story, as Lewis told it and the child actors who played the roles of the children were marvelous. Patty
As far as I remember, I have not read any of C.S. Lewis books. After reading these comments, I just might read a few of them one day.
The following comments should probably have been placed on the Post “My Favorite Authors.” But I was busy at the time, so here they are.
Before I became a Christian, I read Robert E. Howard’s books featuring the iconic hero Conan the Barbarian. I enjoyed Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, Robert A. Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy, and many others. But my favorite author was Edgar Rice Burroughs. I read every book of his I could find: The Hollow Earth-themed Pellucidar series with David Innes, John Carter of Mars Barsoom series, Carson Napier of Venus Amtor series, the lost-world-themed Caspak trilogy, and, of course, the twenty-five books starring Tarzan of the Apes.
Now, I enjoyed reading Frank Peretti’s, “This Present Darkness” and Piercing the Darkness” which I really liked. “The Oath” by Peretti, I didn’t like, and I haven’t read recently, any other books by him. However, he still writes, and there are a few titles that look interesting, and I might buy them. Other authors are Ken Ham, Henry Morris (I have many books by him). His books “The Genesis Record” and his coauthored “The Genesis Flood,” with John C. Whitcomb “are excellent. David Chilton and Dr. Kenneth Gentry, I consider very knowable on the subjects they write about. Ralph E. Woodrow’s, easy reading style, is filled with facts, and good information on any topic he writes about (mostly about “end times” topics), and John L. Bray’s book “Matthew 24 Fulfilled,” should be Must reading for those “looking” into the end times and last days issues. And Gary DeMar’s books dealing with this subject, should also be read by those interested. John Noe’s books dealing with this are also good reading. There may be a few teachings I don’t agree with Noe, that doesn’t mean his expertise and proficiency on the other subjects he writes about, should be disregarded.
There are the “Heroes of the Faith” series, with notables such as John Wycliffe, William Wilberforce, George Whitefield, and over 40 others by Barbour Publishing. Unfortunately, they ceased publishing that series a number of years ago. I was able to find eight of them If you can find any in a used book store, buy all you can.
There is one old book I found in a used bookstore “The Flood” published in 1951, authored by Alfred M Rehwinkel, which if you can find it buy it. Just looking at the pictures and illustrations found scatted throughout, almost make this worth buying. I loved reading this book. And the termites that live here haven’t eaten it yet. I have lost about 10 books so far, to those nasty bugs.
They sound pretty interesting. Patty