The wardrobe awaits… 
My thoughts:
Looks like the big, Lord of the Rings-style treatment, alright.
And it’ll make crowds happy. The crowd of fans who watched it with me at Biola a few weeks ago went berzerk and demanded an encore performance. So the fans are going to be happy, generally.
But…
… it also looks to me like a movie directed by a guy who usually directs cartoons. (And it is.) Mrs. McCready’s line delivery seems over-the-top. And the animation–especially Aslan–looks good, but also rather simple and, well, a little too perfect to be real, if you know what I mean. It’s very obvious to me, watching this, which parts are animated and which are actual people in costumes.
On the other hand, I had hoped that the Narnia films would feel more like films for children than the Lord of the Rings films, because the Narnia books are much more suited to children than the Lord of the Rings books. Narnia stories always felt simpler, to me, more like fables, stories that shouldn’t be illustrated with too much detail and realism. Middle-Earth, on the other hand, deserved the dusty, gritty, elaborately real detail that Jackson lavished upon it.
It’s still early, so I certainly won’t judge the film before I’ve seen it. I’ll just say that the trailer is at once thrilling and worrisome, making me desperately hope that this will be a case of a movie vastly exceeding the expectations set by the trailer.
I still have a strong appreciation for the theological allegories of the Narnia books since I read them as an adult in my first year of seminary – over the Christmas break – between two semesters of systematic theology. Though specific in his systematic, the books are built on a coherent theology that allowed me to “place” abstract theological constructs on the “actual” events of Narnia. From Creation (Magician’s Nephew) to Eschatology (the Last Battle) from Salvation (the stone table) to Sanctification (the ripping of the dragon’s scales from Eustace by Aslan’s nail), the story may be written for children but it is a gold-mine for adults.
Denny
Oh, I completely agree, Denny. In fact, one of the distinguishing characteristics of Lewis’s storytelling genius was that he could make something *feel* like it was for children, and yet, because of the depth of his vision, it could speak volumes to readers advanced in years. More often than not, when the Narnia stories are read as bedtime tales, it’s the *parents* who get choked up with emotion and realization while reading them out loud.
I haven’t seen HHGTTG (or however you want to abbreviate it) yet, but I’m noticing an interesting trend among this recent spat of SF/F films made into movies. Beginning with LOTR, we had a lot of Tolkien fans bemoaning how much the movies were not the books. I’ve seen the same with HHGTTG. And I’m expecting the same with Narnia. I think a close analysis of the comments might reveal something about how people respond to diff’t representations of texts that they feel very close to. This, of course, could be taken even further when one looks at Biblical movies. Yet another idea for an essay for which I might never have time. Sigh.
Being that his last film, “A Mighty Wind,” garnered the first actual nomination for a Chris Guest film, I’m sure that experience opened up new avenues ripe for comedy.
–Nick
… still waiting for my “My Dinner With Andre” lunchbox….