Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, The [23]

Premiering Dec 9th 2004: "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," the first in an exciting series of films in the making and based on the phenomenal bestselling novels by C.S. Lewis, concerns a war between good and evil, pitting the magnificent lion Aslan against the forces of darkness in the magical world of Narnia. A White Witch has used her dark powers to keep Narnia in winter for 100 years, but it is foretold that four humans will be able to help Aslan break the spell. When the Pevensie siblings -- Lucy, Susan, Edmund, and Peter -- discover the magic of Narnia by entering the enchanted world through a wardrobe, the stage is set for a classic battle of epic proportions.

If the Lord of The Rings could be brought to the Big Screen, then so can the Chronicles of Narnia. There are seven books in the Narnia series, spanning seven different time periods. So they really could not all be filmed together. Also different actors would appear in each one.

J.R.R. Tolkien was great friends with C.S.Lewis and they socialized together in a small Oxford literary group of friends, called the Inklings, who used to meet in an Oxford pub. They would bring their writings and read out and compare their works. As the story goes, C.S.Lewis's Christian Science Fiction works (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength) were written as a space-faring trilogy intended to complement a time-travel trilogy of Tolkien's. Tolkien's main interest was the Middle Earth works, for which he wrote copious notes and then hand typed himself. So the time-travel trilogy, concerning an Atlantis-like island called Numenor, was never finished. However the history of Numenor was eventually published after Tolkien's death in the Silmarillion, the history of Middle-Earth. The story is called "Akallabeth" and concerns the history of Aragorn's ancestors.

Both Lewis and Tolkien were Christians, Lewis an Anglican and Tolkien a Roman Catholic and their faith infuses both their works, although it is generally much more obvious and allegorical in Lewis's books.

I enjoyed the 1979 TV version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I figure that I live action version with CGI fill in will be something special. Now that there is interest out there for something to satisfy a Harry Potter/Lord Of The Rings type audience, this movie seems like a natural. I look forward to seeing it, and may actually pay full matinee price. {BB}

Added: October 18th 2004
Reviewer: BB
29 Point Scale Score:    [23]

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