The Chronicles of Narnia (Movie)
Jan. 2nd, 2006 03:48 pmThis was the third movie I went to in 2005, which is a record for me. It was also the only one that wasn't in an almost-empty theatre, so I'm hardly in a position to claim that movie attendance isn't declining.
I enjoyed it; it seemed to be about as faithful an adaptation as a modern movie could be expected to be. (It's no good my trying to assess movies as movies per se; I don't have the experience or the cognitive toolkit for it.) The centaurs and fauns were just about perfect; the talking animals slightly less so, but an order of magnitude better than the ones in the 1980's BBC version, and the White Witch was brilliant if fashion-challenged. (It took me a while to cotton on to where the fur on her battle breastplate came from.) The scenery was lovely, and the look and feel of the whole thing were just about right, with nothing jarring horribly with my 25-year-old memories of the book. One of my companions did complain that the whole thing would have been over a lot faster if Susan had just shot the Witch before she performed the sacrifice.
One thing I realized a couple of days later, and after rewatching part of Peter Jackson's LOTR; the effects were a lot less confined to dim light than the Jackson ones, and the climactic battle takes place in broad daylight! I'm not sure if this reflects improvements in the technology, or a just a slightly different set of priority tradeoffs between visibility and realism.
( Minor spoilery specifics )
I'll have to read the books again one of these days.
I enjoyed it; it seemed to be about as faithful an adaptation as a modern movie could be expected to be. (It's no good my trying to assess movies as movies per se; I don't have the experience or the cognitive toolkit for it.) The centaurs and fauns were just about perfect; the talking animals slightly less so, but an order of magnitude better than the ones in the 1980's BBC version, and the White Witch was brilliant if fashion-challenged. (It took me a while to cotton on to where the fur on her battle breastplate came from.) The scenery was lovely, and the look and feel of the whole thing were just about right, with nothing jarring horribly with my 25-year-old memories of the book. One of my companions did complain that the whole thing would have been over a lot faster if Susan had just shot the Witch before she performed the sacrifice.
One thing I realized a couple of days later, and after rewatching part of Peter Jackson's LOTR; the effects were a lot less confined to dim light than the Jackson ones, and the climactic battle takes place in broad daylight! I'm not sure if this reflects improvements in the technology, or a just a slightly different set of priority tradeoffs between visibility and realism.
( Minor spoilery specifics )
I'll have to read the books again one of these days.
