If you scroll down here you can see a set of the PowerWalker stilts that the actors playing centaurs wore. They’re designed to allow them the gait of a creature with knees where we have feet, and more freedom to move naturally. In the first movie, the actors just stood on wooden boxes to get their heads to the right height, and had to be pushed around to “walk”. But they also have very small feet, so the actor playing Glenstorm couldn’t stand still on his own - he had to constantly shift his weight to keep his balance. Which, really, is how actual horses mostly stand, so it didn’t bother me.
Yes. And that scenario–a small child facing a large and brutish army twanged a memory chord in me. I dunno if it’s from a crusade tapestry (or Joan of Arc type stuff) or a legend that I have long forgotten, but as metaphor, it worked well.
The stilts–gah. The centaurs in Harry Potter move much more gracefully, IMO. These centaurs were disporportioned, probably from the stilts. I found it distracting when they moved.
I loved LW&TW as a child, but upon rereading them aloud to my kids, I found that it wasn’t the plots that I liked so much, it was Lewis’ descriptions of Narnia. They did the flower petal/goddess thing quite well in the film. I think my love of the English countryside stems from Lewis’ passages about spring coming to Narnia etc.
What did you all think of the costumes? I liked them overall, but the last scene–what in hell is PC wearing? Even Susan’s dress is awkward. None of them look good–too flouncy for me.
I agree about the final scene costumes–I didn’t like Susan’s dress at all. Mostly whenever I see the Narnia costuming I’m overcome with sewing lust–I want to turn my two little girls into Susan and Lucy! (I have a whole plan–my friend Kim’s two boys can be Peter and Edmund…)
I don’t agree with you about Susan, though. IMO Lewis pretty much turned her into himself as a young man–he had to have someone who would choose to leave and Susan’s the only possible one. Peter’s the High King, Edmund is the repentant sinner, Lucy is Lucy. She can come back, the possibility’s there, but it’s up to her to choose.
Good news for everyone that like the movie and are looking forward to the next, due out in 2010.
The movie did great box office. $56.6M and the budget was only $100M
Compare this to Speed Racer that is only up to $29.8M but had a budget of $120M
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe cost $180M and made $65.5M the first weekend. It went on to gross over $260M in the US alone. So the franchise appears to be in excellent shape.
Jim
I looked in Wikipedia, but there is no entry of just Susan Pevensie.
I thought she wasn’t allowed back into Narnia due to something about a lipstick(?)
Am I making this up or what? (don’t make me read them again, please–no time).
dangermom–up to that scene, I truly loved the costuming. I even found myself wondering if I could make myself a tunic like Caspian’s (the under one when he is talking to Cornelius outside the How. He says something about it all being futile, and his tutor reassures him. The tunic is cream colored with embroidery around the neckline and bodice.). I don’t much sew, but I can sew a tunic… And then he showed up in his mother’s drapes and I lost all ambition. 
And Susan’s neckline–no and no and no. Even Peter’s tunic looked effete and affected.
Here is the Wiki Article: Susan Pevensie - Wikipedia. I don’t know why you didn’t find it, you spelled it correctly. My bolding for what you were thinking of.
Oh, I did like that embroidered tunic. I wanted to get a good close look at it!
In the books, as Susan gets older she gets more interested in worldly things than in Narnia. She makes fun of the others’ “pretend games” and wants to be sophisticated. Lewis describes this as being interested only in lipstick and invitations, and I think people often take it the wrong way–it’s not like he was opposed to makeup and parties. He was talking about how many young people–and it’s his own youthful self he’s thinking of especially–want to look grown-up and sophisticated, and so they put on a pose–in this case of disdaining fairy tales and being interested only in a gay whirl of social life (as opposed to the value he puts on myth and story as truth and real friendship). His idea is that a real adult would see the truth of Narnia, and this sophistication is only a sham grown-upness.
So Susan has every chance to truly grow up and come back to Narnia, to admit that it’s real. In real-life, Christian terms, she’s given up her faith, but she can come back. Since the Narnia stories are supposed to illustrate Christian archetypes, someone has to play this part.
But he didn’t choose a guy to do so, did he… I am still :dubious: re Lewis and women (but then, I could --and do–say the same thing about Christianity and women). Heh, I could write a treatise on how someone has to cook the food/take responsibility for the daily round of life and perhaps Susan should not be shunned due to her pragmatism or wanting to live in the real world. She’s more Martha than Mary in my eyes, anyway (older sisters tend to be). What is not mentioned and is more intriguing is how the males in the story don’t seem to need a sexual awakening–shades of his life prior to Joy being a part of it, I guess. Does Peter ever look at a girl? Or Edmund? Hmm…
I think I spelled it Penvesie when I wiki’ed it (I spelled it that way when I posted and went back and corrected it).
I don’t see this actress as coming across shallow-but then Lewis’ version of shallow would likely be a Rhode’s scholar by today’s standards.
Did anyone else hate the emo song at the very end? I kept thinking–no, no, not some shallow pop song!
Other things I liked: the story arc of Prince Caspian. I found his naivete plausible and his honor genuine. Apparently, the actor based his accent on Inigo Montoya’s --what an homage! (and Miza killed his father to boot!).
Miraz dear, the name is Miraz.
Missed the edit window. I read the Wiki article. I am not the first one to question the handling of Susan–I love controversial characters. 
(could she be a shade of Eve? IMO, Lucy represents the innocence of childhood, Edmund the “naughtiness” and Peter --well, Peter is very Arthurian, no?). Or perhaps Susan is actually blessed–she got to go to Narnia, and live a full life, and then enter the Kingdom. Lucy, Ed and Peter get to die in a train crash (and enter the Kingdom of course, but still!).
Hmmm… food for thought.
I love the fact you posted this. In the scene in Miraz bedchamber, I leaned over to my friend and whispered, “My name is Prince Caspian, you killed my father, Prepare to die.”
He broke up laughing.
Well, remember that he didn’t actually start off to write a whole series. And he used Edmund as the sinner in the first book. Susan’s the only one left, since, yes, Peter is the High King in a pretty Arthurian way–and Lucy is practically Joan of Arc, he might as well have named her Agnes. 
She’s the symbol of perfect, childlike faith, while Peter is the Christian who converts and then goes through trials and weaknesses, but never leaves.
I’ll agree with you that he wasn’t the world’s best authority on women, but I don’t think Susan’s downfall is because she’s female, it’s because she’s an ordinary, worldly young person. I think he identifies with her somewhat–he was her.
I don’t know that I agree with you about the males and sex. It’s a children’s story, and even when they’re adults (in The Horse and his Boy), sex just doesn’t come into it. That’s not what the story is for. But you could try reading his space trilogy if you want his views on that–it’s for grownups.
I don’t think she’s supposed to be. It’s probably 8-9 years later that Eustace says what he says about her in The Last Battle.
I was not thrilled.
Not to my knowledge. But Caspian did, in DT. After they’d met Ramandu and his daughter, he got an odd look in his eye when she was mentioned. And he did marry her; she was Rilian’s mother.
But look at the character arcs–series or no series. I think he didn’t know what to “do” with Susan.
See, now I see him as Edmund–the younger, thoughtless brother who learned a hard lesson and who came (very reluctantly) to believe by the end of TLTW&TW.
It’s not that I want sex in the books, but you really can’t get away from it. Not sex, per se, but sexuality and puberty (which is why Peter and Susan can’t go back). I mean, if he’s going to drag Susan into and say she’s fixated on lipstick and nylons (2 artifacts of adulthood designed to make one sexually attractive to the other sex), he is being disingenuous in not admitting that part of Peter (and Edmund) to be shown or alluded to.
I meant that actress portraying Susan throughout the series–she has too much intelligence in her gaze to be seen as shallow, IMO.
Oh, and ta, Rilchiam for that reference–but I am curious to know if Ed or Peter ever had such a look in their eyes…
Ahh… no. Peter and Susan don’t come back because they don’t need to anymore. They have matured, but it’s not only physical but mental and spiritual. They’re strong enough without Narnia now, and have to go live their lives.
I doubt that very much, very much indeed. Lewis knew well that spirituality (and Christianity) was an ongoing journey and struggle. Why else leave it ambiguous for Susan in the last book? Why else have Aslan show himself in different ways and proportions in each book? Christianity is not a goal that once achieved can then be rested on like a laurel. Lewis knew that and wrote about it. The professor may not be able to return to Narnia, but remembers it well and draws from it. I think Peter and Susan will do so as well, but it’s more like they’ve internalized Narnia than they don’t need it anymore. They don’t need that manifestation of it–and perhaps that route is no longer a viable option for them.
I can buy the mental maturity of Peter and Susan, but not the emotional and spiritual. The sexual is a natural part of the whole, one that Lewis does not address except tangentially, and then only for Susan (and not in a flattering way–it is seen as a turning away from Aslan/God).
I have no doctoral thesis to prove here, but this convo sure is interesting. I acquit Lewis of malice or even forethought, but I find it interesting how shaded and complex Susan really is. In a way, he says more by leaving whole topics untouched than he would if he had even obliquely mentioned them.
Meh. Since when has Hollywood NOT taken a good book and screwed it blue?
It’s two hours of escapist fantasy and it’s fun to watch. That’s all that is required.
The end song was sung by Regina Spektor - I thought it sounded like her, but I was a bit surprised, since she’s not exactly a pop singer. Her songs are usually quirky and weird.
I don’t think Lewis was thinking much about anything when he banished Susan from Narnia. She was always portrayed as the “doubting Thomas” character, and I suppose Lewis was trying to make some kind of point by banishing one of the children forever: must keep faith and not let self be distracted by earthly things, etc. His very brief mention of her in the final book simplifies her dilemma to nylons and lipstick - that’s what I can’t forgive him for.
A) He didn’t “banish her forever” --she has every opportunity to go back.
B) It’s not like Lewis was an ascetic, against enjoyment of the pleasures of life. On the contrary, he was all for it (and despised teetotallers like me).
I don’t think that Lewis is the only one committing simplification here.
Well, it doesn’t say that in the books. I re-read the thread and the post about how he said she did have the opportunity to go back if she so chose to do so - but for me the author’s intent doesn’t count unless it comes through in the text (like the whole Dumbledore is gay thing). Intentional fallacy and all that.
I know Lewis wasn’t against wordly pleasures. I never said he was. People in Narnia certainly aren’t ascetics by any stretch, and there’s plenty of food and dancing and wine going on there. All I’m saying is, Lewis never explains Susan’s banishment from Narnia (temporary or otherwise) apart from the nylon and lipsticks line. From here we are supposed to infer that she’s become a shallow and materialistic girl, and her banishment from Narnia is self-imposed, but I’ve always felt that such a characterization isn’t in keeping with the Susan of the first two books. I think that way Susan is portrayed in this movie gives more of a plausible backstory as to why Susan ends up the way she does - both in her initial conversation with Lucy and her feelings for Caspian.
I haven’t read the books in awhile, so if there’s something I’m missing from the text, I’m willing to revise my opinion.