The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is being made by Disney
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/lb_main.html
For those of you that like Disney films I am sure that this will be spectacular.
For those of you that liked the Chronicles of Narnia, I hope that they do the books justice.
You didn’t hear it from me, but this project is actually from Walden Media, under contract to Disney.
Ha. Let’s watch Disney trying to improve upon the BBC. :roll:
Who knows about the screenplay, but the special effects look pretty cool. Same folks that did Lord of the Rings. That aspect will be a definite improvement over the BBC production.
Cheers,
David
Is this the second or third time that LWW has been made into a movie? I am familiar with the BBC version and now the latest encarnation, but it seems to me that there was one more done in the UK…I may be mestaken…
I loved the books. Read them all at about age 32 when I was recovering from a bat bite. No, wait, I was recovering from the flu. Piled them all up on the bed and read 'em all.
I thought the BBC versions were quite good. I think they people doing this new LWW are under contract to do a total of 3, but I’m sure they’d do more if these do well.
Dale
LWW was made into a cartoon a long time ago - maybe 20 years?
The Narnia books are my all-time favorite, ever. I really hope the film does justice to them.
Beth
As LWW is Christian apologetics,
it will be interesting to see what happens to that
element in this version. It may be that Disney will
try to tap into the Christian market that was
discovered by ‘The Passion,’ and doing so will be true
to the author and the books. Probably they can find
a way to do it without turning people off; Lewis
succeeded.
Little over 20 years..1979
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079474/
At the risk of dating myself, I rented this a couple of months ago (along with several other movies from my childhood, like Red Dawn and V) in a fit of nostalgia.
They were a lot cooler then 
I’ve seen two versions of that animation over the years. Same pictures but two different voice casts, one American and one British.
I have read these books several times when I was younger.
I like the first several books in the series a lot–but after that it becomes a chore to read them and by the end of the last book I was always grateful to be done. When the religious lessonry starts feeling contrived and obvious, it always would knock me out of the story.
It’s interesting that often Narnia and Lord of the Rings get mentioned in the same breath. LOTR, in my opinion, is another work based strongly on religion, and which looks at the issues of religion, which exceeds Narnia both in its scope and in its execution. Of the two, LOTR is the more subtle and has the stronger story; in Narnia it almost seems sometimes as the religious theme is a “necessary evil” which the rest of the story has to be bent around. It always felt more than a bit contrived to me.
Just my $.02, probably worth exactly what you paid to read it.
–James
For the religous motifs, the Silmarillion is great. Inspired by great mythology but not contrived at all.
Wow. I loved the LOTR, but tried slogging through the Silmarillion as a teen and just couldn’t. It was about as riveting as reading Leviticus so maybe the religious theme idea somehow fits.
Yeah, the Silmarillion is pretty dry reading…the myths is relates are touching and beautiful, but it’s work to dig them out of the dust pit.
Both LOTR and the Silmarillion take a hard look at some of the Big Questions, like the true nature of evil, why evil exists, the dangers of using a technology you aren’t equipped to understand, the effects on ordinary people forced to live through extraordinary circumstances, and the difficulty of holding honor and faith when things look about as hopeless as they can get.
Wonderfully deep books. There are whole new layers of meaning in these stories that I see as an adult that I simply wasn’t aware of when I first read them as a child.
–James
Yeah, Silmarillion is not for the feint of heart or for the easily destracted 
, but for someone who was raised, dyed in the wool Tolkien fan, as a boy, I never understood it then. Now that I have been married a few years and, as of last Friday, the great privilege of having a child, I understand its themes much better. I guess having a child does that to you, y’know…hell, i even cried this week, while watching Return of the Jedi, when Darth Vader tossed the evil Emperor down that chasm on the Death Star, because I finally understood WHY he did it! (golly, there’s another nice piece of media with good religious undertones) 
Sorry to get so off the Narnia subject, but I agree that LOTR’s religeous themes are a bit stronger and directional than Narnia’s, thats all. heck, Star Wars has a bit better formulation than Narnia, but it doesn’t change the fact that Lewis was an awesome author and writor.
Has anyone read Mere Christianity or The Screwtape Letters, among the many Lewis publications? If you lean towards the Christian ilk, they are a very good read. Even if you dont, they make for a good thinkin’ session.
On a similar note, to continue my babbling ramble, I think that it is a good thing that books like LOTR and Narnia are becoming good movies (inasmuch as they stick to the theme of the book, gotta stay true to the ideals the author was portraying) because I think that the world needs a little more “religious” awaremess. not the religion that the Christian Right would have you believe in, but in morals and true principles and warnings agains the bad things that really are out there. Human beings need a direction, and if good books (and movies) like the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings can give it to them, then more power to those movie makers I say!
Now, then, theres MY $0.02, and if you paid 2 cents for the other post, you’ve paid a total of $0.04. Even in USD, you’ve overpaid!
I love the creation story in the silm. And the underlying thread of Feanor’s jewels that ties most of it together is great.
There is a whole lot of elvish people doing elvish things in the middle of the cycle that gets old and detracts from the larger work. But the tragic story at the heart is worth it.
I too loved the Chronicles of Narnia when I was younger. Now, looking at the books my children enjoy, I find that there are others more subtly written. My husband (who didn’t read them growing up) says the Christian allegory and the descriptions of guilt or joy really hit too hard between the eyes. But he is neither a child nor a Christian. I agree that compared to Tolkein there’s a lot of difference. But LOR wasn’t written as children’s literature. And I think that the Chronicles of Narnia as fantasy children’s literature really sparked something wonderful.
Is there a modern comparison? Has anyone else read a children’s book or series, not written as formulaic Christian crap (forgive the language, but I worked in a Christian bookstore for a while and there’s a lot written that reads too much like the formula of a Harlequin romance) but with a theme that deals with religion? Christian or other? I’d be interested.
I think I was in love with Prince Caspian until well after my first year in college.
Jennie
P.S. And, Tyler, congratulations on becoming a parent! It gets way more interesting from here on. Welcome to the new little one.
Jennie
If you haven’t checked her out already, you might enjoy the works of Susan Cooper.
Her “The Dark Is Rising” series of children’s books deals are wonderful and deal with some extremely serious themes. These are some of my favorite books of all time.
–James
I have never read the Chronicles of Narnia. Maybe I should. I have a first edition first printing of the Silmarillion. It is the one with the error in the credits. I need to go back and re-read it. Maybe I will understand it better now.
Ron