Narnia

[Fribbi]

I finally saw this movie in last sunday. I don't shame myself for doing that even I was in theater with lots of young kids. Brilliant movie specially when it is near the end. I mean looking on all of this monster creatures minotaurus, unicorns, griffin, trolls, ogre I mean wow.  :eek

I know now where that idea came from in KQ5 remember when Graham met the wolf which led him to ice queen (white Queen) that idea must have being from that novel storybooks.  ;)

I can't wait to see how your griffin will look like in Quest for glory 2. Will it have same look as I saw in that movie.  :D

Please don't hate me for asking this, but is it now possible to see a screenshot of that griffin of yours?  8o

[Erpy]

I think I mentioned this before, but the griffin in QFG2VGA is a 3d-sprite. This means he looks different from a typical Sierra-style sprite, but his animations are pretty smooth.

I doubt he'll look just like in Narnia.

[JustLuke29]

Won't that seem a little jarring? In my experience, hand drawn/painted sprites don't mix well with pre-rendered 3d ones. I'd be interested to see how well that works too.

So I second Fribbi on this one - any chance of sharing a screenshot of that?

[Da_elf]

you can always run it through some photoshop filters to make it look 2d. you will keep the nice 3d animation look however have a 2d feel to it

[Spikey]

Bah, on one hand you're alluding to universal themes rather than any specific stories in the bible and on the other you are misrepresenting elements of Lord of the Rings to fit a Christian world view. For exampe, you know as well as I do that although the Valar and Maiar where created by Illuvatar they are far more closely related to the template of Norse and Greek gods than Christian angels.

Wasn't that the point? As I said before, Tolkien said it had nothing to do with anything, he just wanted to write a nice story.

[JustLuke29]

It seems like you forgot to include the last paragraph when you quoted me. Perhaps because it proves my point?

[Spikey]

I tried to prove the same point. Read back a few posts. Like Blackthorne said, everything  can be propaganda if you look hard enough.

[JustLuke29]

Perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of propaganda?

[Angelus3K]

Perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of propaganda?

[Spikey]

Perhaps you misunderstand the meaning of propaganda?

I have no intention of cluttering this thread with nonsense, and I will not be repeating the same thing over and over again, so let me explain it to you once more, cause you've clearly not understood the meaning of my postings.

In my first post in this thread I said explicitly that both Lewis and Tolkien have said that their stories were not meant as stories with Christian parallels. My conclusion was that the Chronicles of Narnia as Christian propaganda is farfetched (Blackthorne corrected me on this one, as any book can basically be used as propaganda for anything, which I agreed upon).

Then I reacted to a post to state how Gandalf was resurrected.

Then calethix ( who actually did read my post) said that the resurrection of Gandalf alone wasn't much of a Christian parallel, and basically asked me to elaborate on this.

Sounds like Spikey could elaborate on this.  What I remember from The Silmarillion, it said Gandalf was something like an angel and he wasn't the only one so I think comparing him to Jesus because he was resurrected is a bit of a stretch.

So I started elaborating on how people could see Gandalf and some other themes in Lord of the Rings as Christian, thereby acting as the devil's advocate, since I clearly said that both Tolkien and Lewis just wanted to write a story. I thought I made myself clear before, and obviously, most people except you understood that. Now you know / understand, I hope.

I'm not known around here as somebody who doesn't know how to engage in discussion, therefor I apologize for this post and the last few posts.

-x-
Spikes.

[JustLuke29]

No, I understood your posts perfectly well and you raised some interesting points. However, I suggest that you may in facrt not have understood the meaning of my post regarding Christian themes in Tolkien and Narnia. I'll try to make this clear so there is no more understanding.

I understand that you do not believe that either Tolkien or Lewis intended their work to be specifically Christian.

I also understand that you used the Lord of the Rings to demonstrate that Christian propaganda could be found in any book.

In the post where I objected to the way you twisted the ideas in Lord of the Rings to try to prove your point I did so not not because I didn't understand your meaning but to show the difference between searching for ideas that seemed vaguely Christian in theme and the way in which Lewis draws direct and clear parallels not only with Christian ideas but also specific stories, characters and event in the bible

Lewis may have stated that that his stories were not meant to be religious Christian allegory but in some ways his opinion is meaningless. Have you ever heard of New Criticism/Formalism? It is an approach to reading/understanding/criticising literature in which (amongst other things) it is believed that texts possess meaning in and of themselves. In other words, when the book was written, how it was written, who the author was and what his intentions might have been are irrelevent. Therefore, if you believe in this approach (as I do) then it is perfectly acceptable to argue that Narnia stories are implicitely Christian propaganda - regardless of what C. S. Lewis might have said or intended.

By the way, I am sorry that you seem to have lost your temper. Opposing viewpoints are necessary in any debate and I enjoyed hearing yours.

[Spikey]

I lost my patience, not my temper. When I lose my temper, my posts here will be deleted. I didn't think your one-liners were substantial. Again, I didn't twist any ideas to try to prove my point in that post, I took substantial LOTR themes and compared them with Christian themes, something I prefer not to do with texts as such.

That the themes are vague in Lord of the Rings, I agree to, else I would actually think it Christian. Maybe more vague than in Narnia. But as I said earlier, Lewis also incorperated a lot of specific pagan stories, characters and mythology. It's almost as much pagan as it is Christian. Seeing a work where there are dryads, naiads, centaurs, unicorns, fauns, satyrs, bullmen, Santa Claus as Christian is foolish, I think. Even all the references to Christmas are as pagan as they can get, referring to the old, pagan midwinter festivity.

What a text says cannot be separated from how the text says it. That is a form of formalism.

[daventry]

In the Movie at the end when the children become King's and Queen's, they Grow up. When they returned to their real world, they're Children again.

Are they Grown ups again when they return to Narnia "Prince Caspian" and become Children again when they return to their world, doesent that kinda mess with your head.

In what Order would you put your Books as with the Movies when they are done.

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian

The Horse and his Boy [b][u]Not sure where this one goes or how it fits the Books[/u][/b]

The Voyage of The Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

Here are the Order of Books to Movies in years to come. www.narniaweb.com/news.asp?id=895&dl=9563075

[Spikey]

04. In the Movie at the end when the children become King's and Queen's, they Grow up. When they returned to their real world, they're Children again.

Are they Grown ups again when they return to Narnia "Prince Caspian" and become Children again when they return to their world, doesent that kinda mess with your head.

05. In what Order would you put your Books as with the Movies when they are done.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Well, in Prince Caspian, the reign of the four children is ages ago. They return not long after their first visit, but in Narnia, so many years have gone by upon their return. Narnia has fallen in the hands of the human race of Telmarines who don't believe in the old Narnia. Prince Caspian does, though, and he's the rightful next king as a Telmarine. The children come to his aid.

The right order is as follows:

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe / The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

The horse and his boy happens within the the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so to speak. The Pevensie children are all grown up though, when it happens. They actually talk about it on the special edition timeline feature.

You can wonder how they are going to place all of the same actors in the movies....it's kind of messy.

[spoiler]'Nephew' stars a young Digory and Polly who are forced by Digory's uncle to explore another world. They dub it the Wood Between Worlds, from which they enter the world of Jadis, the later White Witch. After a messy situation with her being drawn back in our world and in the Wood Between Worlds, all three of them and some others end up in Narnia upon it's creation. Humans brought evil to Narnia, and so humans are destined to protect Narnia from evil as their kings and queens.

'Wardrobe'...well we've seen that. It stars an old Digory and the young Pevensie children, but technically they grow up in Narnia and are children again when they return.

'The horse and his boy' have two Calormenes as main characters, and the grown up Susan, Edmund & Lucy make short appearances.

'Caspian' stars the young Pevensie children again, and another main character: the young Caspian.

'Voyage' stars young Edmund, young Lucy with their nephew Eustace and young Caspian. By this time, the actors who play Lucy and Edmund could be too old....but then again...maybe not.

'Chair' stars young Eustace and a classmate of his, Jill, and an old AND young Caspian.

'Battle' stars all main characters except for Susan. Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace and Jill all enter Narnia after a tragic event in their own world. The only ones whose age matters here are Eustace's and Jill's.[/spoiler]

[daventry]

Cool, thanks.

I read that a Special Edition DVD with extra Scenes that werent in Theater is on DVD, i dont se any diffrence.

[Corsair]

Sure. Narnia is written by a Christian. Inspired by the Bible. So what?

Star Wars has definite Buddhist underpinnings. Funny, I watched those when I was really young, yet I'm not a Buddhist.

Kids aren't stupid, they're intelligent enough to make their own decisions, despite what you may think. Don't worry about the underpinnings, Christ is not going to come into their hearts because of a book or movie.

[Jontas]

None of you know this but I'm a theology major at a Christian university, so I think I can help you out a little with where J.R.R.Tolkein and C.S.Lewis are coming from.
First you should know that both Tolkein and Lewis were strong Christians and good friends, they liked to spend there spare time at a local pub discussing theology and writing while drinking beer (who said you can't have the best of both worlds?).
It was Tolkien who actually converted Lewis to Christianity and subsequently Lewis became one of the greatest theologians of modern Christianity. "Mere Christianity" is considered one of his most famous works (he wrote more non-fiction then fiction).

Obviously their fictional works have Christian themes, any writers work is a reflection of who they are and where they come from. To call it propaganda though is just naive and ridiculous, as others in this discussion have well argued.
I do believe however that Lewis was more purposeful in implementing Christian themes then Tolkein was, his purpose was to draw from the rich themes and values of Christian mythology and not to turn his works into tools of evangelism.

What bothers me, as others have mentioned, is the unfair treatment so called "Christian movies" get compared to "Normal Movies". First people need to stop labeling them that way and start to appreciate and recognizes movies with Christian inspiration on an equal par with movies with say Buddhist inspiration, or homosexual inspiration. I think it would be equally unfair to label Brokeback Mountain as gay propaganda (as unfortunately many of my Christian contemporaries have).

In conclusion a story is a story, and a work of fiction should be merited and appreciated for its artistic integrity and creativity, no matter what themes or convictions influence or immerge through that story. It's easy to label stuff you don't agree with as propaganda while validating stuff that doesn't rub you the wrong way.

[Spikey]

Obviously their fictional works have Christian themes, any writers work is a reflection of who they are and where they come from. To call it propaganda though is just naive and ridiculous, as others in this discussion have well argued.

Some sense, at last!

I do believe however that Lewis was more purposeful in implementing Christian themes then Tolkein was, his purpose was to draw from the rich themes and values of Christian mythology and not to turn his works into tools of evangelism.

I've wondered about this, too, but I think it's the other way around. Lewis' Christian themes are more obvious because the world of Narnia is far and far less elaborated and complex than middle-earth, and thus, more obvious, so to speak.

[Alistair]

I think the Narnia movie led a resurgence in Christians (especially US Christians) trying to use it as propaganda, although like you guys, I vehemently disagree that it was. (For example, I was in the state of Oklahoma in November-January, and saw Narnia in Kansas over Xmas, and subsequently saw Christian bookshops in OK advertising the Narnia books as some big thing.)

At any rate, I didn't enjoy the movie. I enjoyed the original BBC TV series production infinitely more- the Disney-esque movie axed a lot of good bits, and lacked a certain charm the TV show had.

That said, bits of the movie were excellent- but on the whole the TV series was better for me. (I guess, compare 2 hours with 3. There's an hour of plot they had to axe to make it for the big screen.)

- Alistair