Disney won't make the Third Chronicles of Narnia film

[paudemge]

I've not read the books, but Prince Caspian didnt' really seem like it was even in the same universe. Talk about a let down, the previous movies antagonist was an evil witch with magical powers that did in (temporarily) the good guys super powerful Aslan.
Prince Caspian, just a typical displaced rightful heir story.
I think this was a good move by Disney, it would be a hard sell to get back the audience levels they are looking for after the last movie. I suspect if it had not been a sequel or had the narnia name in it, its numbers would have been far worse.

 

[Steve Roby]

As someone who read the books to death as a kid, and as someone who was a good little Catholic boy then and is an atheist now, I was expecting to have a kind of mixed response to the movies.

As it turns out, I quite liked The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and I didn't care nearly so much for Prince Caspian. Just before each film premiered, I reread the book in question (for the first time in quite a few years). And what I hadn't remembered is that Prince Caspian, the novel, is an almost plotless mess. The most interesting part of PC as book and film is the beginning, as the Pevensies explore a changed Narnia and discover what's happened. The book has some deeply silly sequences, such as Aslan and the girls leading a wild pagan romp, complete with the Roman god Bacchus. The movie, which is apparently intended to be Christian entertainment, dropped all the pagan elements of the book and added a surprisingly violent battle sequence (the assault on the castle) that appears nowhere in the book and feels very out of place in a sequel to the relatively kid-friendly Lion.

So what you've got is a dark and often depressing movie with relatively little fun or wonder and a lot of LOTR-wannabe battles, a film that seems very different from its predecessor in tone, violence, characterization, and style, and seems to want to be something it isn't. It's not the same kind of mess PC the book is, but it is nonetheless a mess, and it lacks the charm the first film had. It's not really surprising it didn't do as well. Now, as I remember it, Voyage of the Dawn Treader was full of fun, wonder, and excitement, and a well-made and faithful movie could do pretty well. I hope it's made some day, but not necessarily written by the same people who adapted Prince Caspian.

(Incidentally... for all the fuss about the Chronicles of Narnia as Christian allegory, they're rather more complex than that; there's a lot of pagan and classical mythological influences in there. It's possible to read many of the books and not even pick up on the allegory, especially when you're young; I'm not sure I fully got it until The Last Battle, and even as a good little believer I didn't like the shift from covert allegorizing to overt sermonizing in that book.)

 

[Neroon]

One of my best and dearest friends is a self-proclaimed pagan, and she adores the books and has greatly enjoyed the movies so far.

 

[Gojirob]

This is obviously a case where a solid christian allegory is despised by Hollywood, while films full of questionable practices (Harry Potter) are trumpeted and given all the latitude that they can suck up.

Once again, the good people of this nation are under attack.

Dude, the movie didn't work, just like a certain Trek film that everybody hates. Deal with it.

And magic in the defense of good is not a questionable practice, except to Christian fundies whose knowledge of the world is limited to the Bible.

The way I understand it, the Christian problem with witchcraft is that, by emphasizing human manipulation of the elements, it ignores the crucial role God plays in making all things happen. However, that's more of an indictment of actual witchcraft than of Harry Potter. Harry Potter would only be questionable if the people reading/watching it believed it to be non-fiction rather than a total fantasy. I don't know of anyone who thinks that Harry Potter is real. (And if someone does think that Harry Potter is real, this should alarm Christians & non-Christians alike.) Thus, Christians should not find anything morally objectionable about the fantastical wizardry in Harry Potter.

And may I add, I found the Christmas scenes in HP+SS and HP+CoS to be more genuine than the sudden appearance of Father Christmas in LWW.

 

[Gojirob]

If they keep it going and make a movie of 'The Last Battle', do you think that they will change the part where, according to some interpretations,

Spoiler: Extreme spoilers for just about everything Narnia

one of the Prevensie family is seemingly excluded from the saved ones?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I think if they changed it, it would be tantamount to an admission that Lewis was a misognyistic git.

 

[Neroon]

I think if they changed it, it would be tantamount to an admission that Lewis was a misognyistic git.

something I would have an awfully hard time believing.

However, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the studios altered

Spoiler: regarding the end of The Last Battle

to include Susan, or at least allude to the possibility she would make it Aslan's Country one day. Even the book doesn't close the door completely.

 

[Colin Xavier]

I think if they changed it, it would be tantamount to an admission that Lewis was a misognyistic git.

something I would have an awfully hard time believing.

However, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the studios altered

Spoiler: regarding the end of The Last Battle

to include Susan, or at least allude to the possibility she would make it Aslan's Country one day. Even the book doesn't close the door completely.

That's because in the climax of the book ...

Spoiler: Regarding the end of the series

Susan doesn't die on earth. If she again becomes a "good" girl and starts to believe again, she will then join the others after her death

 

[Neroon]

Spoiler: Regarding the end of the series

Susan doesn't die on earth. If she again becomes a "good" girl and starts to believe again, she will then join the others after her death

Are you certain of that? That's not how I recall that aspect of the ending.

 

[Colin Xavier]

Spoiler: Regarding the end of the series

Susan doesn't die on earth. If she again becomes a "good" girl and starts to believe again, she will then join the others after her death

Are you certain of that? That's not how I recall that aspect of the ending.

I'm pretty sure that's the case,

Spoiler: The end

The rest of the family entered the new Narnia because they all died in the train accident while Susan remained alive because she wasn't with them thus giving her the chance at "redemption"

 

[stj]

Isn't it a damn shame a feelgood fantasy about ethnic cleansing can't make at least five hundred million $?

Seriously---I suppose it would be too much for the movie to have gotten bad word of mouth but perhaps people came out just a little shocked, hence were too unenthusiastic at repreat viewings and such. It would be nice to think so. The Narnia books should be controversial for their backward moral attitudes. How would a Dawn Treader movie depict Eustace's rottenness being due to evil-minded progressive education?

 

[Neroon]

Spoiler: Regarding the end of the series

Susan doesn't die on earth. If she again becomes a "good" girl and starts to believe again, she will then join the others after her death

Are you certain of that? That's not how I recall that aspect of the ending.

I'm pretty sure that's the case,

Spoiler: The end

The rest of the family entered the new Narnia because they all died in the train accident while Susan remained alive because she wasn't with them thus giving her the chance at "redemption"

Okay... we were thinking the same thing. Somehow I got confused about what you were originally saying, but we are agreed about that point. Goofy confusion on my part. It is a point in the story which used to upset my daughter quite a bit. But she eventually saw what you just pointed out.

 

[The Master of Tarquin Hill]

This is obviously a case where a solid christian allegory is despised by Hollywood, while films full of questionable practices (Harry Potter) are trumpeted and given all the latitude that they can suck up.

Once again, the good people of this nation are under attack.

Why do you have a sig that seems to stand for everything AGAINST your above quote?

Do you have something AGAINST Gene Roddenberry?

 

[Tulin]

Nothing at all. I just wondered why you were pushing a VERY pro-Christian point in your post but yet had a sig that basically says, "God cannot exist and if he does he's an imbecile and by extension, those who believe in him are also morons".

Through your sig you are basically labelling yourself as a moron for a belief in God.

Now you can see why I was confused.

 

[Gaith]

I'm not sure I fully got it until The Last Battle, and even as a good little believer I didn't like the shift from covert allegorizing to overt sermonizing in that book.)

The last page of that book pissed me off to no end. I was perhaps ten or so at the time, and I'd read them all...

Isn't it a damn shame a feelgood fantasy about ethnic cleansing can't make at least five hundred million $?

Word!

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.

I just wondered why you were pushing a VERY pro-Christian point in your post but yet had a sig that basically says, "God cannot exist and if he does he's an imbecile and by extension, those who believe in him are also morons".

Through your sig you are basically labelling yourself as a moron for a belief in God.

Now you can see why I was confused.

The other way to look at the illogic that Roddenberry speaks of is the "creates faulty humans" part. Perhaps humans aren't as faulty as we sometimes think. Perhaps, sometimes, sin is the point.

 

[Neroon]

Movie, please?

The discussion is veering away from that very topic.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Movie, please?

The discussion is veering away from that very topic.

Right. Sorry.

...And I got nuthin'.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I'm very happy about this. I loathe the books. I've read all of them (once I started a book or series, I'm a compulsive reader), but I really had hard times reading through some parts of them.

 

[QuasarVM]

I'm very happy about this. I loathe the books. I've read all of them (once I started a book or series, I'm a compulsive reader), but I really had hard times reading through some parts of them.

Erm...why did you bother to continue to read something you loathe?

Help me to under-shhhhand....