Saturday, August 7, 2010
The Chronicles of Narnia Movies
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Disney, 2006 (DVD Release). Directed by Andrew Adamson. ASIN: B000E8M0VA
Whenever one of my all-time favorite books is being made into a movie adaption, I always feel a mixture of pleased excitement and loathsome dread. In the past I have been sorely disappointed with many movie adaptions (the Twilight big screen adaption being the most recent terrible flop, and the movie adaptions of the Love Comes Softly series - one dear to my heart - has topped the list, leaving a searing, bitter taste in my mouth towards movie script editors and their ilk).
However, the adaption by Disney and Walden Media of the first book in C. S. Lewis' beloved Chronicles of Narnia series has left me very pleased. I fully understand that not every nuance, description and sub-plot story can be included in a two-hour movie. However, it is when the writers leave out huge chunks that define the character development (Twilight), or when they add elements that never existed (Love Comes Softly) that I become frustrated. Although a few new elements are added, this adaption holds close enough to the original story for my liking.
Furthermore, this book simply needed to be visually seen. Talking animals, flying creatures, battles and scenic beauty all begs to be visual. This was the greatest difficulty of the original 1988 BBC adaptions that appeared on PBS in the 1990's. Although it is hailed as staying true to the books (and they did, indeed stay extremely close!) the visuals were sorely lacking. Today, with modern CGI, Hollywood can finally realize the creatures Lewis dreamed up in a realistic way. For this, along with a good musical score and keeping the script (mostly) true, I applaud Disney and Walden Media!
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Do you have any other book to movie adaptations that you thought were well done and true to the original piece?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good question! I felt that adaption of the first Anne of Green Gables book into film in the early 1990's was spot-on. It's difficult to find other adaptions I was AS pleased with. On an interesting note, I discovered that I like the Bourne Identity movies BETTER than the book! Probably because they are almost nothing like the book, and I prefer the film adaption better.
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