"It's faithful to the book. But we've published our own alternative version of the novel, to reflect all of our changes."

Peter T. Chattaway beats me to the punch:

Last night, I went to the local Chapters and discovered that a whole slew of movie tie-in books have already been released — including a children’s novelization of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which includes descriptions of scenes from the film that are not in C.S. Lewis’s original book. As my friend and colleague Steven D. Greydanus has pointed out, it kind of makes you wonder why there has been so much talk about the movie being so “faithful” to Lewis’s book; and it also makes you wonder why Walden Media, a firm that specializes in films based on books with “educational” value, is authorizing dumbed-down versions of Lewis’s original story that will essentially be competing with it for the book-buyer’s dollars. I mean, really, did anyone publish novelizations of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies?

What he said.

I’m bound to refrain from reviewing Wardrobe until Thursday. But I will share with you this lingering question: Why was I told, again and again, by people involved with the movie that “The movie is the book!”?? Some people are going to decide that these were flat-out lies. Others will quote Obi-Wan and say that the filmmakers were telling the truth “from a certain point of view.”

The film is faithful to the basic events and themes of Lewis’s book. But, for better or worse, get ready for some surprising excisions. And for Embellishments of Unusual Size. (Yep, that’s right. EOUSes.)

Elsewhere, here’s a good Douglas Gresham quote from The New York Daily News’ article about the film:

“Jack himself said, ‘We do not need more people writing Christian books, we need more Christians writing good books.’ I don’t think we need more people making Christian movies, I think we need more Christians making good movies.”