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Chronicles of Narnia Trailer 619

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-waiting-for-superfudge dept.
Ant writes "After United States' broadcast debut of the "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" trailer on Saturday, May 7th during ABC's network premiere of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", Ain't It Cool News posted AOL's link to the QuickTime movie (direct link to download the 56 MB high quality trailer file)." Fix yourself some turkish delight and enjoy.
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Chronicles of Narnia Trailer

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  • Here's hoping they don't destroy C.S. Lewis's excellent series of books.

    Here's disney's formula

    • annoying animal sidekick
    • fast paced animation
    • slapstick humor
    • no matter how historical the theme, bring it up to date with some uncalled for topical humor
    Sigh...

    • Re:Another crappy Disney movie (Score:5, Interesting)

      by solios ( 53048 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:20PM (#12468608) Homepage
      Yeah, I read "Disney" and groaned. But I watched the trailer and didn't catch Eddie Murphy or Gilbert Gottfried anywhere and Narnia certainly isn't musical fodder, so... it looks more like they're trying to cash in on the current LotR frenzy. Box office has proven people want Big Epic Fantasy, and despite the overt religious themes, Narnia is exactly that. It's Big, it's Epic, and it's Fantasy. In a lot of cases (at least in my home skool district), it was the first fantasy novel(s) read by many, many children. I was reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader while I was still building Construx forts for my Star Wars action figures. Hopefully Narnia makes a decent transition to the big screen, but from the trailer it looks like they're focusing on everything they think made LotR a huge success (eg battle, battle, battle - gods that shit bores the hell out of me. Has since The Phantom Menace).

      I never got around to reading LotR - I was completely turned off by all the singing and poetry in The Hobbit and figured there'd be more of it in the trilogy... and I found Sci-Fi to be a hell of a lot more interesting (at least until the rack at Barnes and Nobel started to look more like a bad collection of Heavy Metal cover art)...

      If they don't screw it up, they can easily cash in on film adaptations of the rest of the series - there's quite a lot of material to work with.
      • *I never got around to reading LotR - I was completely turned off by all the singing and poetry in The Hobbit and figured there'd be more of it in the trilogy.*

        Try this: Don't read the poetry/songs. I skipped right over them and never missed 'em.

    • Film/Book Order (Score:4, Insightful)

      by oboylet ( 660310 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:31PM (#12468689)
      CS Lewis sort of jumped around in the timeline. Some of the books are prequels to others. Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a comparison of the published order versus the story's chronology.

      If Disney ends up filming each of the Chronicles, how do they manage to continuity? The characters are going to grow up and the boys' voices will predicibly change before they can film the prequels. Or are they going to hire different actors, breaking continuity.

      I imagine it was a business decision. Everyone's heard of "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" but "The Magician's Nephew" might not be as well known.

      Overall, I'd say the trailer shows promise, though.

  • Christian propaganda...? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:05PM (#12468482)
    Anybody else get a little creeped out by the possibility that alot of what CS Lewis was doing with his fantasy writings was really Christian propaganda? I know this sounds terribly like a troll, but it's honestly not meant that way.

    I originally liked the stories as a kid, but then I read The Screwtape Letters, and while I thought it was a neat exercise in combining Christian morality with fiction (the story is about one devil advising another devil on how to corrupt a soul), I also got the vague feeling that CS Lewis was out to manipulate the readers. Then THAT got me thinking that maybe he might be trying to do that with a lot more than just TSL...

    Anyways, just wondering.

    • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:11PM (#12468537)
      And The Lord Of The Rings isn't antimodernist propaganda? A book is going to reflect the author's beliefs in some way unless it's very superficial.

      LOTR is subtle where Narnia is obvious, but both advocate their author's views on life, because that is what literature does.
    • I agree. I read the books when I was pretty young and didn't realize until later about the religious undertones.
    • Yeah, but...who cares? I loved the stories as a child, and I turned out fine, you as;eklh;lkh fwe!2';wetjkokp[12'WTEGkrekl;ioh124j! 'wer['lgjk;;u

    • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by brokeninside ( 34168 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:17PM (#12468576)
      The Screwtape Letters was supposed to be a morality tale. If it disturbed you because it was trying to get across a fairly orthodox Christian point, that's because it was. Lewis wrote a few other `fictional' books with the same idea such as The Great Divorce. That said, I don't think it fair to saying that he was trying to manipulate his readers. It isn't his fault that most readers today aren't cognizant of the original context that The Screwtape Letters originally appeared in. His target audience was fully aware of what he was doing.

      But neither The Chronicles of Narnia or his space trilogy was written for that purpose. The Chronicles were originally conceived as bedtime stories for his nieces and nephews that eventually poured themselves out into a series of novels. His space trilogy came out as his attempt to get into that new fangled new literary genre.

      • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MythMoth ( 73648 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:46PM (#12468816) Homepage
        That said, I don't think it fair to saying that he was trying to manipulate his readers

        I think that's an important point. Lewis was writing at a time when being a Christian was the norm. His books were written to put across Christian morality, not Christianity in and of itself.

        I remember being upset when I found out that the Narnia books were about Christianity; I felt tricked. But really the parallels are so blatent that there's no way he was trying to sneak anything past anyone. It was just his inspiration for the stories.

        As for Screwtape, well, it's a story written as letters from a senior to a junior devil - if you can't spot the possibility of a Christian message there, then you can't really blame the author!
        • Elsewhere in the mid-20th Century, "being a Christian" was not the norm. Being Hindu in most of India, Buddhist in Tibet, Shinto in Japan, Muslim in Arabia was normal. And every one of those religions has its stories of devils plotting to subvert souls. And, like Christianity at Oxford, each of those religions has its writers, whose writing is constructed within their beliefs, whether overtly or otherwise. And readers who think their particular religion is "the" normal one.

        • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by feronti ( 413011 ) <gsymons&gsconsulting,biz> on Sunday May 08, 2005 @01:14PM (#12469014)
          Oddly enough, when I first heard of the Narnia's ties to Christianity, I felt foolish for not noticing it before. I also found them even more interesting, because of how well written the allegory was. It wasn't so much that it was subtle (it's not) but that the story works well even if you are ignorant of the allegory! That is what I found most impressive about them.

    • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Informative)

      by maczealot ( 864883 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:19PM (#12468605)
      EVERYTHING C.S. Lewis wrote was about his Christian beliefs. If you didn't realize that then I'd approach whatever school you went to and ask for my money/time back. Again, do a simple google search and you will find that both Lewis and Tolkien wanted to create stories to teach Christian principles to readers through fun stories. The mark of an educated mind is the ability to hold and idea without accepting it. So do you ALSO complain when you read the Illiad or the Odyssey because Homer was *GASP* really writing propaganda for greek religious beliefs!! SAY IT AIN'T SO! Why is that Christianity is the only religion it is still ok to hate?
      • Why is that Christianity is the only religion it is still ok to hate?

        Christianity is not the only religion it is ok to hate. I find them all equally reprehensible. (Said with tongue only partially in cheek).
        • As an atheist, I can't stand talk from people about hating all religions. It shows lack of discernment. Some religions are far worse than others. Christianity, though it has its bad points, is one of the better religions. It is, after all, inseperable from Western life and culture.
      • "Why is that Christianity is the only religion it is still ok to hate?"

        Because the christians control the most powerful govt in the world and because the bug red button is under the control of a born again christian fundamentalist.

      • Why is that Christianity is the only religion it is still ok to hate?

        Because it's not the underdog here in the West?

      • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:47PM (#12468822) Homepage
        Why is that Christianity is the only religion it is still ok to hate?

        Huh? Like many agnostics and atheists I dislike all religion. Christianity certainly doesn't have any particular prominence in that respect.

        What does raise my hackles more than other is prozelysation, though. This of ocurse includes some Christian evangelcal sects and writers, but I am just as annoyed by prozelytising Hindu and Islamic sects as well. Hint: if I'm interested I promise to come over to your church/synagogue/temple/kiva/bloodstained sacrificial altar and discuss it, but knocking on my door, pushing leaflets in my hand or harassing me on the town is making me less - not more - likely to have a kind thought about what you believe in.

        Converesly, among religions the one I dislike the least is Buddhism and especially quiet, contemplative variations of it. It tends to be philosophy as much as religion (no father figure in sight), and they never bother you unless you actively want to be bothered.

        So no, Christianity is not special at all when it comes to general dislike. If you are Christian, though, you are of course a lot more attuned to criticism towards it than other religions (and more like ly to see it at all) and so it's of course easy to get the impression that it is singled out in some manner.
      • So do you ALSO complain when you read the Illiad or the Odyssey because Homer was *GASP* really writing propaganda for greek religious beliefs!! SAY IT AIN'T SO! Why is that Christianity is the only religion it is still ok to hate?

        Because our government isn't being hijacked by Greek Orthodoxy.

    • Yeah, but let's face it every book can be looked upon as some sort of propganda. If an author doesn't set out to manipulate you in some way, even if it's just to manipulate your emotions, then his work probably isn't worth reading.

      Are "Animal Farm" or "1984" any less valid because they are anti-communist propaganda (no my US friends, that isn't meant as flame bait!)?
      • Are "Animal Farm" or "1984" any less valid because they are anti-communist propaganda (no my US friends, that isn't meant as flame bait!)?

        Note that Orwell hated fascism as much as he did communism. Indeed, Orwell fought in the spanish Civil war on the side of the socialists and communists against Franco. He was a socialist, but one disillusioned with communism (socialism and communism in the twenties and thirties being seen as close to the same thing). "Animal Farm" obviously being a parody (not propagand

    • You know, it's not like he *hid* that fact... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cfalcon ( 779563 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:23PM (#12468632)
      That's like complaining that the Fountainhead seems to promote individualism, or 1984 seems down on totalitarianism, or that Mein Kampf seems a touch racist. It's the goal of the author, and it's not hidden.

      He's not out to "manipulate", he's out to convert, and then to improve the behavior of the converted. That might be the same thing as manipulation in the books of many folks, and I can definitely see how you wouldn't want that out of a fantasy series...

      But honestly, CS Lewis pretty much wrote Christian propaganda, books on why he's not an atheist, etc...

      It's just like complaining that when you went walking in the rain you got wet, is all.

      • Neither Mein Kampf nor 1984 were written for young children.

        That said, I do not feel the Chronicles of Narnia are effective propaganda because the enjoyment of the story does not (IMHO) do anything to encourage you to believe in the source material (Xtianity).

      • Re:You know, it's not like he *hid* that fact... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @01:44PM (#12469243) Homepage Journal
        He's not really trying to convert anyone. The books are written with the assumption that the reader is already Christian of some sort. He is trying almost exclusively to improve the behavior of Christians. For that matter, the last book features fundamentalist Christians destroying the world, and nice pagans going to heaven.

        In fact, someone reading the CoN without a Christian upbringing is unlikely to identify the Christian elements in it without having them pointed out, and is certainly unlikely to find any relationship between the events of the book and modern Christian practice. The message is really that you should have a particular morality, whatever your articles of faith happen to be. The Christian elements serve primarily to make this message more persuasive to Christian readers. It's actually more like complaining that The Fountainhead seems to promote architects than individualism.

    • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Trillan ( 597339 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:25PM (#12468652) Homepage Journal

      No, not really. I don't believe in censoring those willing to bear the social and monetary cost of bringing a story to life. (Piggybacking on someone else's infrastructure and budget is another matter entirely.)

      For example, were I offended by the passionately atheist, I might view Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as atheist propaganda. Although I'm not sure the movie maintains the book's stance, the book was very hard line against religion.

      There's certainly room enough in my philosophy for both stories, and room enough on the video store shelves for both movies.

    • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jonathunder ( 105885 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:27PM (#12468670) Homepage
      The possibility? He'd call it apologetics, not propaganda, but it's more than a possibility that nearly all of his fiction promotes Christianity; it's no secret at all.

      Some of his most Christian books are so well written, though, that some serious doubters like myself can really enjoy them, particularly Narnia, but also Screwtape. I would really recommend Till We Have Faces, which unfortionately is often overlooked. Lewis thought it was his best novel, and I agree. Interestingly, it is set in a pre-Christian world.

    • Anybody else get a little creeped out by the possibility that alot of what CS Lewis was doing with his fantasy writings was really Christian propaganda?

      No. I mean, WTF? It's damned great reading and I never turned into a Christian because of it. It doesn't creep me out at all.


      Then THAT got me thinking that maybe he might be trying to do that with a lot more than just TSL...

      This just in: Writers use writing as a way of conveying ideas and beliefs. Get the full news at 11.

    • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:34PM (#12468709) Journal
      Along with the other comments you've recieved to date, I'd like to ask you something: I believe that when a person criticizes someone for something, they should have a plausible alternative in mind. Otherwise they are just whining.

      What is the plausible alternative for C. S. Lewis? Authors write things that are true to themselves, be it Christian, Pagan, Materialist, or what not. Any author who tries to be inauthentic to themselves generally turns out garbage; even if you can't put your finger on why, you'll not like it. A lot of young writers make this mistake, by trying to be someone else, instead of themselves.

      Was he supposed to write non-Christian stories? But that's not who he was. And it's hardly like the Chronicles of Narnia are blatent propoganda; instead, it's simply that they are set into a Christian framework. I've read things set into Buddhist frameworks, oodles of things in strict materialist frameworks, things set in a Victorian framework, various philosophies, etc. Do you blame any of those authors for their frameworks?

      Was he supposed to not write stories, because they bother you?

      When it gets down to it, at the level you're talking about, every story "pushes" some worldview at you. Why is it you're only bothered by this one?

      The most likely reason is that you don't realize that you're getting many other ones pushed at you, all the time, and you've only been sensitized to this one. In that case, the problem lies with you, not CS Lewis, and you're probably getting yourself nicely manipulated by other people without even noticing it. Everyone has a worldview that colors everything they do and everything they right. (In fact, Christian writings seem one of the best places to pick that up, regardless of how you feel about the rest of them; see Lewis' non-fiction writing and the works of Francis Schaeffer.)
      • I believe that when a person criticizes someone for something, they should have a plausible alternative in mind. Otherwise they are just whining.

        So what's wrong with critizing for criticism's sake? There's no need to have a plausable alternative. Criticism helps us decide is something is good or bad.

        It certainly helps you save the 10 bucks to go see a sucky movie. And you can always ignore the critics anyway.

        • Re:Criticism (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Jerf ( 17166 )
          You misunderstand.

          When you are criticizing a movie vaguely, you implicitly have an outcome that you would prefer in mind. Specifically, make a better movie. Generally, your specific criticisms point to how you would improve it; if you complain the directing is poor, you have this idea of what better directing would be. You may not be able to do it yourself, but you know you've seen it. Artistic criticism rarely falls under this.

          The topic at hand is one of those rare instances, since the criticism boils do

    • It's not just a possibility, it's a fairly widely accepted fact. Both CS Lewis and Tolkien were Christian and attempted to bring a Christian spirituality into a style of romantic story telling that more traditionally was a nature spirituality (what might today be described, inaccurately, as pagan).

      Propaganda might be a bit of a strong term, but the underlying currents and messages of the books are pretty strongly Christian.

    • It is well known that Lewis put obvious Christian allegories into the Narnia books. He didn't try to hide the fact.

      I fail to see how this manipulates the reader.

    • Anybody else get a little creeped out by the possibility that alot of what CS Lewis was doing with his fantasy writings was really Christian propaganda?

      I actually discovered CS Lewis/Narnia through my pastor as a teenager. He made no bones about it being a very christian-based story.

      Regardless of it's intentions, it's a great story. I'm sure I would have eventually discovered it later on, but I always thought it was kind of cool that a pastor would know of a novel that was christian, yet borrowe

    • Maybe Disney made the _Hitchhiker's Guide_ movie not funny, because so many of the jokes were at "god's" expense. Now they'll put out Narnia, a Christian parable saga. Every story is told within a belief framework, and the (authentic) Christian one is both valid and popular. It remains to be seen whether Disney's Narnia preaches acceptance, humility, and personalized spirituality, as well as inflexible moral prohibitions against persecution and killing. Or whether it's more allied with Crusader movies, hypo

    • Re:Christian propaganda...? (Score:5, Informative)

      by UpLateDrinkingCoffee ( 605179 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:55PM (#12468886)
      Could it be because C.S. lewis was one of the greatest apologetic Christian writers of modern times? He was also an atheist in his early life and accepted the Christian faith based on logic and reason (with the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien I understand). Yes, for more dissapointment, Tolkien heavily used Christian themes throughout his stories also, although they were more heavily veiled than in the works of Lewis.

      Here are his works catergorized as "Christian" in a faq [demon.co.uk] I found:

      • The Problem of Pain - 1940
      • The Screwtape Letters - 1942
      • Mere Christianity - (Probably his most famous)
      • The Abolition of Man - 1943
      • Miracles - 1947
      • Reflections on the Psalms - 1958
      • The Four Loves - 1960
      • Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer - 1964
      • Devotional letters to an imaginary friend
      • Christian Reunion
      • Christian Reflections
      • Fern Seed and Elephants
      • First and Second Things
      • God in the Dock
      • Of This and Other Worlds
      • Present Concerns
      • Screwtape Proposes a Toast
      • Timeless at Heart

      P.S. "Apologetic" does not mean making an apology for. In this context it means making a formal justification or defense.

    • Anybody else get a little creeped out by the possibility that alot of what CS Lewis was doing with his fantasy writings was really Christian propaganda?

      C.S. Lewis (1898-1965) brought a Christian perspective to all his work, and may be the most accessible and appealing of modern Christian apologists. The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics [amazon.com], C.S Lewis Foundation [cslewis.org].

  • Turkish Delight Isn't All That Good (with recipe) (Score:5, Informative)

    by licamell ( 778753 ) * on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:06PM (#12468493)
    I remembered being in grade school and watching the movie and craving to try Turkish Delight. Well we had a "party" one time in class and one of the teachers brought it in. It was disgusting! So much for childhood dreams... As you can see, it's mainly just water, sugar and corn starch (corn flour).

    Anyways, here's a link to the recipe [thefoody.com]for those that are interested.

    Ingredients:
    1lt (1¾ Pints) Water
    900g (2lb) Sugar
    285g (10oz) Corn Flour
    225g (8oz) Icing Sugar
    1½ tbsp Rosewater
    2 tsp Lemon Juice
    Red Food Colouring (optional)

  • Mac? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tharkban ( 877186 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:07PM (#12468504) Homepage Journal
    We're sorry, this feature is not yet available for Macintosh.

    You'd think they could figure out it's a linux box not a mac. I guess they just assume since it's not windows it must be a mac.

    I'm also sick and tired of browsing through javascript trying to figure out exactly what the link to the actual file is that doesn't plugin correctly. Mplayer deals with the file fine, but the page won't tell me what the URL of the stream is.

    Anyone have a torrent up?

    • I was fine downloading it from the direct link - this is what I like to see in my /. summaries.

      But I noticed that the Harry Potter trailer is out and I can't get that one on my linux box. I can download the .mov file but this is just a bootstrap of somesort. Some of them have the actual .mov file in them as a URL and you can get this out with a Hex editor. The Harry Potter one doesn't though. Anyone know how to get the actual trailer, please?
    • I haven't set up a torrent before, so this may not work, but you can try this [timandjeni.mine.nu].

      Though last I checked the source site was actually holding up astoundingly well. It gave me download speeds exceeding 300Kb/s.

  • More reading: (Score:5, Informative)

    by stealth.c ( 724419 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:14PM (#12468557)
    Fans of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia should also look for the work of the other authors that were in the same writing group at Oxford with those two. My favorite is G.K. Chesterton [amazon.com], but there is also Charles Williams [amazon.com] and Dorothy Sayers [amazon.com].
    • Dorothy Leigh Sayers was not one of the inklings, or in any other way that I'm aware of a part of the "same writing group", except in so far as she was a contemporary of theirs at Oxford. I believe she exchanged letters with Chesterton later in life.

      That said, I think she was also a better writer than any of them (save Charles Williams whose works I've not read). "The Nine Taylors" is sublime.

      Dave.
    • There's a great little book I have called Tales Before Tolkien. Most of it is even public domain, so you can dig it up through Gutenberg.

    • G.K. Chesterton (Score:3, Informative)

      by qbzzt ( 11136 )
      Hi,

      My favorite is G.K. Chesterton,

      I agree. I may disagree with a lot of what he said (he was a staunch Catholic, I'm not even Christian), but he was one sharp writer. For people who don't want to spend money before having a chance to review his work, click here [dur.ac.uk].

      Bye,
      Ori

    • Chesterton wasn't at Oxford (Score:5, Interesting)

      by panurge ( 573432 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:38PM (#12468742)
      and was of a completely different style from Lewis. (He was also embarrassingly anti-semitic as was his friend Hilaire Belloc.)

      Dorothy L Sayers shouldn't be mentioned in the same paragraph. When she was advised that a character in one of her books could be taken as anti-Semitic, she promptly started to write in positive but not over-signalled Jewish characters.

      I mention this because one thing that does stand out about the writings of CSL is that, like Sayers, he was a Christian but not a fundamentalist bigot - he was too well educated, well connected and well read for that. In his adult science fiction he started to play with the idea that Christianity was a partial revelation, and that the battle between good and evil was going on in other civilisations elsewhere in the universe. It's a pity he got over mystical and started to bring in the Arthurian legends, because there is stuff in That Hideous Strength which to my mind spoils the book. But I guess no-one will make a film of it anyway, because it is anti-corporatist, anti-Statist and proposes that a small group of activists can and should employ rather violent means to defeat a technocratic dictatorship. In fact, if the Department of Homeland Security is reading this, you might want to investigate who has been reading That Hideous Strength. They might be potential terrorists.

      • Re:Chesterton wasn't at Oxford (Score:5, Informative)

        by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @01:56PM (#12469328) Journal
        I haven't yet read that series, but I believe your mistaking Lewis' liberal theology with universalism--while his beliefs were, for the most part, mainline Christianity, two beliefs more than any others separated him from todays "fundamentalists."

        He didn't believe in Biblical inerrancy; that is to say, although he believed that the 66 books contained in the Bible are in fact divinely inspired, he didn't believe that all of them were historically accurate. He didn't believe, for example, that Jonah actually got swallowed by the whale, or that the earth is only 8,000 years old. They are scriptures in the sense that they are divine teachings, but they are also myth (according to his line of thinking).

        God works "in cognito" in other societies where the Christian gospel is not heard in order to promote his values. Lewis agreed that no one could make it to heaven without believing in Christ, but he also believed that many who never crossed paths with a Christian were given revelation about God through their own mythology. After death, according to Lewis, those who rejected Jesus during their lifetime would surely bring hell upon themselves because they really wouldn't want to spend eternity with a God they hated.

        I personally wish more men like Lewis would lead the American church today, because in the absence of reason, superstition has become more and more powerful.

    • Re:More reading: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LarsWestergren ( 9033 )
      A popular modern fantasy series primarily directed at children but with appeal for adults as well is Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials [randomhouse.com].

      Surprisingly negative portrayal of organised religion, especially Catholisism, in the third book, and I say this despite being an atheist. Still, a breath of fresh air from the religious stuff in Lewis work.

  • What the heck ? (Score:4, Informative)

    by loekf ( 557026 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @12:37PM (#12468736)
    Quicktime 6.5.1 for Windows says: couldn't open the file, because the filename was bad. Well... appearently Apple programmer's just can't handle files as: chroniclesofnarniathelionthewitchandthewardrobethe _trlr_01_high_dl.mov Yikes... bad sense at humor at AOL ! Of course changing the file name to a.mov does not the trick.

    • Re:What the heck ? (Score:3, Informative)

      by antdude ( 79039 )
      Same problem in Media Player Classic from QuickTime Alternative [free-codecs.com] when playing a local file. I renamed to a shorter filename with your long filename tip, and now it works. :I
  • The League of Concerned Christians will no doubt lambast this movie as Satatnic propaganda, due to its depiction of magic and speaking beasts.

    The League of Concerned Satanists will no doubt lambast this movie as Christian propaganda, due to its thinly veiled allegory.

  • Disney's Big Move (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @01:55PM (#12469322) Homepage Journal
    The other day on the radio they were discussing Narnia, and how it appears as though it's Disney's big attempt to revitalize itself in the movie industry. They're putting more money into it than any movie they've ever done, and some of the higher-ups at Disney have said they're expecting it to work for the company similar to how The Little Mermaid did.

    If you compare it to any other Disney live action movie, none of the others come even close in terms of scope, story, budget, costume design, sets, CGI, etc. They're putting a lot on this movie.

    Since both my wife and I are big fans of Lewis (my wife even more so), I hope Disney's gamble pays off. There's word that they're hoping they can do additional stories from the book series, which makes sense if the movie is profitable.

    As for the few people that complain about it being a movie about Christianity, who really cares? Even though I'm considered a "Christian conservative", I still enjoy movies about other religions and cultures. They're not trying to hide what the story is really about, and there's people out there that actually ENJOY movies about Christianity (see the success of Passion of the Christ for an example). Just get off your anti-religious podium for a second and try thinking about it as just a story, similar to how some colleges will read portions of The Bible or Paradise Lost.


  • "In a world of peace, four children are sent to a strange house, where they find a portal to another world of perpetual snow and talking animals."

    *Cue gratuitous beaver shot*

    "My word, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve! Come in and and have tea!"

    Four children clash hands together and shout "Talking Beavers! Excellent!"

    But then one encounters a mysterious woman:

    "Yes, dear boy. I am an evil witch! You can tell by my impeccable manners and cut-glass English accent!"

    "Uh oh!"

    "Like some Turkish Delight?"

    "Are they like Hershey Bars?"

    "Yes, but not quite as evil and low carb as well"

    To be continued...

    *sigh*

  • Pretty Disney Perfection (Score:3, Funny)

    by xombo ( 628858 ) on Sunday May 08, 2005 @05:29PM (#12470787)
    I'm sorry but it seems as though Narnia doesn't believe in dust. Everything in the trailer appears squeeky clean. One thing I particularly enjoyed about the Lord of the Rings was that pieces were dated well and you could honestly believe that this is something that exists in reality.
    Frankly there's no way an old British woman and four children could keep that house perfectly dusted.
    Furthermore, what's with the horrible choice of colors? I've never seen so many primary and secondary colors used in costume and set design in my life. If Narnia is so primitive, technologically, wouldn't it make sense that they would have to use natural dyes--frankly you can't get colors that perfect from natural dye.
    Disney just isn't selling it.

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