So why try to get around it? There seems to be some market for “end times” stories (Left Behind, End of Days, etc.)
Again, what’s wrong with that? The question is whether it works as a story in its own right, not how closely it parallels Christianity; and I think you overestimate the number of people who are turned off by Christian parallels.
I predict that when this movie is filmed, they’ll take great care to make their appearance, costuming, customs, etc. different enough that they can’t be identified with any particular Earth society. I also predict that there will be controversy anyway, no matter what they do.
As far as some of the other books being too religious to film or release, remember that one of the top grossing movies last year was not just a Christian allegory - it was a direct telling of the crucifiction of Jesus.
Also, Douglas Gresham (Lewis’ stepson and Keeper of the Estate) has been assuring religious groups that the filmmakers did not attempt to downplay the religious imagery* in the movie. Presumably, if this one is successful, they will follow the same approach for future movies.
*It’s also worth noting that there is plenty of non-Christian religious imagery (specifically pagan and greco-roman) in the Narnia books as well.
I like the Narnia books, not because they’re great literature, but more because they were the first “real” novels that I ever read. As in, books that weren’t cardboard Dick and Jane books. I haven’t read them since then. I probably should, to see if my opinion is more like yours these days.
As I recall from some previous discussion of the subject, that was pretty much what Lewis did – get pissed off enough about fans bugging him for more that he wrote The Last Battle in a way that nobody could ever bug him about it again. “SO THERE! TAKE THAT!”
I don’t think that’s the case at all. Eschatology is an important subject in the Christian faith, and I think Lewis wanted to explore it as he had done with other themes:
Salvation - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Creation - The Magician’s Nephew
Personal rebirth - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Free will/predestination - The Horse and His Boy
Faith - The Silver Chair
I’ve never had the impression from reading Lewis’s published letters (especially his letters to children) that he ever got “pissed off about fans bugging him” about Narnia. He rather enjoyed it.
Definitely worth noting. There’s a lot or Norse imagery in there, too, with the “world ash tree” and some others I know I’m forgetting, and of course Bacchus the wine god is a character in several of the books!
You know, I never really thought about The Silver Chair or The Voyage of the Dawn Treader or The Horse and His Boy that way before and that’s with my reading them as an adult. You’d really have to work to miss the salvation in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and the creation of The Magician’s Nephew and the eschatology of The Last Battle (which I didn’t read until I was a teenager–too hard to get started for some reason.) And hell, if I have to choose an eschatology, The Last Battle seems far nicer than other eschatologies. But we’re still missing one. Does Prince Caspian have a subject in the Christian faith? I first saw it as more of an Arthurian take on Narnia but I could easily be wrong.
For that matter, is the space trilogy unfilmable? I’d have to say so. Great investigation into Christian thought, not bad as novels, but utterly unfilmable. It’d be like trying to film The Screwtape Letters.
It’s not a Christ allegory. It’s an allegory for all of us non-divine Christians. Did you notice, perhaps, that his restoration comes in the form of a baptism? It’s not about Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, but rather, about a human’s forgiveness by accepting Jesus.
I would tend to agree with you there. While there are broad Christian themes in Prince Caspian (just like there are in Tolkien, say), it’s not nearly to the extent that it is in the other Narnia books. The other books are, for the most part, more subtle in their symbolism than is Wardrobe, but except in Caspian, it runs very deep nonetheless.
And I can neither see any way that a filmmaker could downplay the religious aspects of Narnia, nor why a filmmaker would want to make a Narnia movie without the religious aspects, and nor have I heard any indications that they did do so. So I’m not too worried on that front.
From a strictly filmmaking standpoint, I don’t think you have to treat the symbolism at all. Just do your best to visualize the events as they appear on the page (or adapt them as faithfully as you can) and the symbolic impact on the viewer will take care of itself.
I agree that The Last Battle is damned near unfilmable, by the way. No, I take it back. It’s filmable, but it’ll come out looking like What Dreams May Come.
The thing that bugs me is the tie-in video game they’ve been advertising. They show nice battle scenes, but the battle really doesn’t take up much of the book, and I’m not sure the rest of the book is exciting enough for a video game, really.
The LotR at least did have a couple big battles, but the Narnia books aren’t really suited for that.
I pretty much came up with that list off the top of my head, but I left out Caspian because I couldn’t immediately tie it to my thesis. I agree with Chronos, there is definitely Christian subtext there but it is more subtle. I never thought of it as Arthurian but that makes sense and would not be out of character for Lewis - King Arthur legend also plays an important role in the third book of his SF trilogy, That Hideous Strength.
As far as filming the space trilogy, I also have a hard time imagining that. First of all, the mechanism of space travel is pretty unorthodox by today’s standards. But beyond that, the books are fairly “talky.” There are some elements of action, but the last two books especially have a lot of standing around and giving speeches. (Although Perelandra may be my favorite novel of all time).
Others have already spelled out the nature of C.S. Lewis’ Christian allegory.
That said, I used to work with a Turkish Moslem woman who loved the stories and read them to her kids (who also loved them), and who had no idea that there was Christian symbolism involved until I told her.
So, presumably, kids can and do enjoy the fantasy story without necessarily grasping there’s a huge Christian metaphor involved.
In general, I don’t think the Narnia books are as preachy as Lewis probably intended them to be, primarily because Lewis believed that things like self-sacrifice and redemption and forgiveness and so on were uniquely Christian, when really anyone can appreciate them.
Peronally, though, I always found the books to be sort of, well, the bad kind of English stiff and a little too animal-froofy childish. I never put them on the same level as Tolkien or even Llyod Alexander (Prydain was a WAY more influential and important story than Narnia ever had a chance of being) I’m hoping that the movies can rethink the tone: loosen things up, smooth over Lewis dull “lecture me, don’t show me” plotting.
Movie tie-in video games are almost universally crap, anyway. They’re generally thrown together as an afterthought. Even the LotR games that came out when the trilogy was going were not terribly good.
I didn’t pick up on the Christian symbolism either until I was told, either. Even worse, it took me a year to understand how The Silver Chair was about atheism. :smack:
I remember our teacher reading us TLTWATW in third grade. For most of the book, I thought it was just another fantasy story for children. As soon as Aslan died in the place of traitor kid and was resurrected, I realized that the whole thing was meant to teach kids about Christianity. I remember being upset that Lewis had tried to fool us, and upset that my public school class was reading a book that was obviously Jesus with a lion mask. (Much personal baggage is involved here. The short version is that it was not easy being Jewish in Virginia in the eighties).
My father is actually a fan of the Narnia series. But, that feeling of being lied to left a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve read Screwtape several times, but haven’t bothered with Narnia. OTOH, I did give Turkish delight another chance. Mmm, locum!
Definitely very subtle. If I had to give it a Christian subtext title, I’d call it “Faith in the Modern World,” which ties in with the Arthurian themes a bit. You’ve got the children called back to Narnia, but even the group of people who called them are of mixed opinion as to whether they will come in the first place, and if they do, if they will be at all effective. Even Aslan himself is not viewed as a sure thing, and of course everyone who doubted is proved wrong in the end.