^ Yeah, VDT seemed more like a Narnia "spin-off" than a sequel. Like I've said, I think a few years from now the DVD will be in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart, lying next to "Tinkerbell 3."

I loved what Ben barnes had to say about the producers ideas for SC that was discussed at the premieres after party.

Hi DamselJillPole can you remember where this is?

He said he overheard them saying about possibly bringing Ben back as Caspian for flashblacks at the beginning of the film to explain his going back to Ramandu Island and how he got back to Narnia and had a son.

I really hope they do this too.

Of course you are right, glumPuddle. A few years from now, I know VDT will be sitting in the $15 stand at Coles for summer holiday entertainment for the kids, occasionally with copies of its two predecessors, LWW and PC, one or the other of any of the Harry Potter collection, Toy Story 25, Tinkerbex 4: Tinkerbell goes to the Knackers, and the latest rehashed Megamind episode. And there will be some wonderment among said kids - who have read the books in the school and public library - why down at the ABC shop, which will still be selling the BBC series, why even BBC could manage to get at least its SC episodes of Narnia up and running but not Walden or anyone else.

And we know that the only reason why VDT might be cheaper at Walmart than at Coles is because of different ideas on profitability, employment conditions and what is legal in their respective countries.

I wouldn't say the series is beyond saving, though, because there's a key difference between Narnia and Air Bud. Air Bud was a decent stand-alone movie, which studios milked dry with mediocre stories. Narnia, on the other hand, had seven phenomenal stories long before the movies were green-lit.

There is another key difference between Narnia and Air Bud. I knew all the Narnia stories off by heart by the time I was an adult, reading them to my children, who were also entertained by the 1990 BBC series, which covered the first four books. Whereas neither my children nor I have the slightest idea what, who or where Air Bud is, however good the original movie might have been.

Yes Police academy was somewhat overdone, running into more than 5 movies. The first couple of movies were funny, but the rest were merely much of the same in different localities. By the time they got to Moscow the humour and gags had worn thin. By contrast, the remaining 4 Narnia movies are completely different from each other, with a different combination of characters as well, and the filmmakers need to play up that difference.

This is not going to be easy when the main complaint of reviewers of VDT was the overriding similarity to earlier volumes in that in all of them the need for belief and the goodness and omnipotence of Aslan is so strongly emphasized. This is also why the series as a whole is disliked by the likes of Philip Pullman, and many others in the literary world and film industry. And it is also why some of the complaints of the story not living up to expectations have merely been grist to that particular mill.

Just say that VDT's worldwide totals overtake Golden Compass in the next day or so, and that it also equals that movie's foreign earnings of $302,000,000. That would be a most respectable result for VDT, despite its critics. Hopefully SC will then be greenlit. Does it really need more than a million dollars to make a decent film, even if unlike the BBC SC series, they take the trouble to employ a different person to play LOTGK?

This is not going to be easy when the main complaint of reviewers of VDT was the overriding similarity to earlier volumes in that in all of them the need for belief and the goodness and omnipotence of Aslan is so strongly emphasized. This is also why the series as a whole is disliked by the likes of Philip Pullman, and many others in the literary world and film industry. And it is also why some of the complaints of the story not living up to expectations have merely been grist to that particular mill.

This is why I still have hope for The Silver Chair. If critics like The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, my hope would be gone. If the film-makers read these reviews and take note, The Silver Chair could well be a good movie.

Just think about Prince Caspian. Evidently, the film-makers figured that Prince Caspian was too dark and heavy so they made The Voyage of the Dawn Treader light and whimsical- nauseatingly so in my opinion.

As for the audience getting bored with "the need for belief and the goodness and omnipotence of Aslan", it isn't because it was emphasized too much in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's that it was emphasized poorly. The book has great spiritual power, but the movie was spiritually weak. The awesome Aslan from the books wasn't in the movie, but all the "If you only belieeeve!" stuff was.

^ Yeah, VDT seemed more like a Narnia "spin-off" than a sequel. Like I've said, I think a few years from now the DVD will be in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart, lying next to "Tinkerbell 3."

If I'm not mistaken.. ALL films eventually end up at the $5 bin at Walmart. Unless you are a Disney animated classic. Then you will end up in the Disney vault. So do I think any less of Lord of the Rings (extended edition, mind you) because I saw it on the $3 bin at TJMaxx? Certaintly not. But I saved myself $20. But the film is still a classic.

As for the audience getting bored with "the need for belief and the goodness and omnipotence of Aslan", it isn't because it was emphasized too much in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's that it was emphasized poorly. The book has great spiritual power, but the movie was spiritually weak. The awesome Aslan from the books wasn't in the movie, but all the "If you only belieeeve!" stuff was.

Exactly! Well said. Viewers can infer as much as they want from the movie, even though it isn't actually "there" (kinda like the CGI). My little sister said it seemed more Christian than the other two. But for me, this was only true in the sense that it had more Christian-y catchphrases. The Prince Caspian movie in comparison, I think, though still demoting Aslan to Simba-status, deals with the "Christian element" with a lot more subtlety and depth. The VDT film's dialogue is all about catchphrases.

But even still, so far all the Narnia films have managed to reverse nearly ALL of Lewis' intended meanings. VDT more so than the first two. The main purpose of this has been to sensitivize the Chronicles for modern audiences. If Apted and co. had actually managed to write a script-version of the dialogue exchange between Caspian and Gumpus, you can bet that the crucial Gumpus line "have you no idea of progress?" would have been transferred to Caspian--and Caspian would be the one fighting slavery in the name of Progress, rather than in the name of Good Old Traditional Morals. It wouldn't "make sense" for filmmakers to do it the way the book does it because it doesn't fit the conventions of what goes into the "Conservative" and "Liberal" slots. Gasp! Slavery is a movement by economic progressives? Gasp! Caspian is enforcing monarchy and not allowing the Lone Islands to "develop" into their own state? Gasp!

The movies seem to be increasingly humanistic. In the last one, Lucy's temptation of turning herself more beautiful doesn't have to do with pride so much as "wishing herself away" whatever that means. It all gets turned into this vaguely eastern, vaguely christian mumbo-jumbo that attempts to please everybody and fails.

If they had just shown her looking interested at that spell and letting the audience do with it what they want, I think it would have made for a better movie. And that is just one example of the humanism in VDT that I'm really hoping doesn't carry over into SC.

My hope for SC is that they will leave the symbols as they are. Do more showing and less telling. People (I hope) go into this film knowing its based on a book written by a Christian philosopher. But if its done right, people can choose to just follow the story and enjoy the escape from reality or to analyze it deeper and possibly become a better person from the experience.

The movies seem to be increasingly humanistic. In the last one, Lucy's temptation of turning herself more beautiful doesn't have to do with pride so much as "wishing herself away" whatever that means. It all gets turned into this vaguely eastern, vaguely christian mumbo-jumbo that attempts to please everybody and fails.

Indeed! The thing about modern humanism is that it doesn't know its own implications. I guess one could deduce the meaning to "be a good person and don't try to copy another person just because you like them."

Shoulda said so in the first place and spared us all the trite, piano-in-the-background-themed lectures .

Instead of the sin being vanity and pride, which leads to jealousy and wars and lots of killing (these are bad things). instead Lucy's sin is...that she wants to look like Susan?

I know I've wanted other peoples' looks throughout my life. Not for a moment did I think or wish that would lead me to be a less geeky, book-ish person than I was.

My hope for SC is that they will leave the symbols as they are. Do more showing and less telling. People (I hope) go into this film knowing its based on a book written by a Christian philosopher. But if its done right, people can choose to just follow the story and enjoy the escape from reality or to analyze it deeper and possibly become a better person from the experience.

I agree with putting the symbolism in there and leaving it open to audience interpretation.... I think also the scriptwriter/producer/director bias is going to come in here when these movies are made....

I don't know, but if the scriptwriters are not spiritually inclined (not that necessarily need to be either, looking at LWW and how that translated fairly well, though maybe that was the exception?) and they're trying to come up with something that will sell a Hollywood buck then I'm not sure when they know to leave something alone and let the audience figure it out/read into it for themselves without having some sort of fear it will show as overtly something Christian....they're enough haters out there that dislike these movies and think one single line like "There I have another name" is too much.... Don't know if I made any sense there...

As for the audience getting bored with "the need for belief and the goodness and omnipotence of Aslan", it isn't because it was emphasized too much in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's that it was emphasized poorly. The book has great spiritual power, but the movie was spiritually weak. The awesome Aslan from the books wasn't in the movie, but all the "If you only belieeeve!" stuff was.

Odd! When VDT was first released I read quite a few reviews which I noted were repeated over time in various forms. One on http://www.wombat.com.auobjected to yet another 'lion-delivered sermon'. Average acting has often been cited as a reason for disapproval, with Liam Neeson targetted, in particular. Why would that be, I wonder? And the tone of some reviews, in particular the wombat one, suggest that the reviewer was not prepared to like anything Narnia or C.S.Lewis. Brandon Grey on BOM was not very complimentary, nor were others who thought that VDT was not up to competition with Harry Potter.

Now that would not be quite as noticeable the case if the film VDT was as spiritually weak as you say. It also would not be the case if the film was as humanistic as what Conina and Clive Staples Sibelius have claimed. That is why I can't agree with what you say here. I think that the film does its best to echo the spiritual themes of VDT the book within the parameters of a nearly 2 hour PG film.

Indeed! The thing about modern humanism is that it doesn't know its own implications. I guess one could deduce the meaning to "be a good person and don't try to copy another person just because you like them."

I think you are referring to a definition of humanism which can be confused with humanitarianism according to this google list. Humanitarianism is the doctrine that people's duty is to promote human welfare, which is not at all at variance with Christian doctrine, which urges us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, tend to the ill, visit the imprisoned and bury the dead.

Humanism, according to that site, taking it from a Princeton wordnetweb link, is defined as the doctrine emphasizing a person's capacity for self-realization through reason; rejects religion and the supernatural

Golden Compass is a humanistic film which paints the church as tyrannical dogmatists, after their own power and ready to assassinate anyone who disagreed with them. The core of the film is a horrible procedure which severs the connections between children and their daemons, which represent their true selves. The procedure leaves children without any meaning to their lives.

The bit that most ired ministers was in the succeeding His Dark Materials books in particular. There was an insistence that the children were on their own, with no divine being to turn to, that God, if he existed, was being controlled by a power-crazy archangel called Metatron, that heaven is a hoax played on unfortunate ghosts, and yes, both religion and the supernatural were indeed rejected.

There is no way that VDT can be described as humanistic with its emphasis on temptation, belief, redemption, and the rest. VDT is the complete opposite of Golden Compass, though it seems that in both cases there are critics who think that neither film has gone far enough in its intent. The problem in VDT's case is that it is to be released into two countries, one of which is definitely non-Christian, and where a heavy and obvious emphasis on Christianity could backfire on the VDT Japanese box office alarmingly.

It isn't as if there aren't values in the film that are worth universal consideration. It seems mere carping to object to Aslan saying 'There I have another name', or to Reepicheep's acceptance into Aslan's Country. Even those who do not understand Christianity will understand the 7 deadly sins, including the jealousy Lucy has for how Susan is wowing the boys in America, or the resentment Edmund feels for having to stay with someone like Eustace. Caspian might have his doubts about how far his murdered father would agree with Uncle Miraz's poor opinion of him, whilst Eustace hasn't learned that it is wrong to help oneself to everything around without checking it out first.

The beauty spell was clear enough, written in gold letters over the mirror. It turned the reader into 'she whom you will agree is more beautiful than thee'. I'm still wondering if the scriptwriters pitched their script too high, since obviously there are teenagers who are still not mature enough to understand Lucy's situation at the Magician's Island, despite its obvious resemblance to something they seem to experience daily, such as wishing away their alleged nerdiness, ugliness, or lack of means, being jealous of others.

For instance, Aslan never said 'be yourself'. He said that Lucy did not value what she had, and reminded her that she was the first to find Narnia. Of course it could have been put more strongly. Aslan could have read out the 10th commandment, which says 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife.... or anything that is his.' But that might be putting the case a bit too strongly for people who are like Lucy all the time. And yes, it is wrong to wish for other people's attributes, just as it is wrong to judge others without understanding their circumstances.

Now I've said too much, and really these matters, like the definition of humanism, should have been already hashed out in N & C forum. If this is the reception that the strongly Christian VDT receives from even those who support Christianity, I wonder what will happen should SC be greenlighted. Would people object to Puddleglum's great speech in Underland? What about obey the signs, trust the signs, only the signs matter?

I have come to the conclusion from reading these forums, and from reading some of the more clearly biased reviews, aka. any review from boxoffice mojo that the Narnia haters,those that don't even like the original source material, will never be satisfied with any Narnia movie. They might use various legitimate reasons, but no matter how good the movies are they won't like them. Likewise the die hard purist fans of the series I believe also will never be satisfied. When the Christian message is hard to find or underplayed they complain it is to subtle. When the message hits you over the head, like in VDT, they complain that it has been clichéd for the masses, or is to obvious, or that Aslans lines are not what they should be etc. To me this was the most religious of all the movies. Everybody I saw it with thought the same thing. Even the critics mention it over and over again. My problems with the movie more have to do with certain aspects of quality, such as lines and the rushed pacing. This is why I don't think many fans will be pleased with the Silver Chair or any other Narnia movie. No matter how hard they try, there will be critics on both sides that will pick it apart. My only wish is that they make a solid movie, and keep the feeling of Narnia. I believe that VDT achieved both of these, especially the last one.

Tarquin to be honest that is with every film that has ever came out. Same thing with LOTR, Twilight, and Harry Potter. There are the book fans, purists, the movie goers, the haters, etc. And any film in general. Everyone is a critic and everyone has different tastes in what they like and dislike. I'm aware that the Narnia films have decreased grossing money but I think it's mostly due to these peoples advertising of the films. PC was too dark and many parents didn't take their kids to see it and most protested against it. VDT came off as too childlike when they advertised it. Most of my friends were upset due to the fact that there wasnt anything romantic at all in the film. Firstly I disagreed because that isn't what these stories are about and secondly was mad at fact that the crew chose to ignore a romance that actually ever took place in these stories between Caspian/Lilliandil.

LWW when people first saw that around the world if they were watching Disney Channel got this great landscape of a battle and a story of these four kids journeying into a different world, it was exciting and the first time I saw it i had adrenaline, I went and called atleast 10 of my friends from school saying we need to see this film next year. Mostly because i was already a fan of the books and had no idea that they were making a Narnia film. That's what I get for not having internet access at all growing up.

Tnere is something in the advertising for LWW that did drag audiences to see it a lot and Fox needs to follow whatever that trend was.

As for the audience getting bored with "the need for belief and the goodness and omnipotence of Aslan", it isn't because it was emphasized too much in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's that it was emphasized poorly. The book has great spiritual power, but the movie was spiritually weak. The awesome Aslan from the books wasn't in the movie, but all the "If you only belieeeve!" stuff was.

Odd! When VDT was first released I read quite a few reviews which I noted were repeated over time in various forms. One on http://www.wombat.com.auobjected to yet another 'lion-delivered sermon'. Average acting has often been cited as a reason for disapproval, with Liam Neeson targetted, in particular. Why would that be, I wonder? And the tone of some reviews, in particular the wombat one, suggest that the reviewer was not prepared to like anything Narnia or C.S.Lewis. Brandon Grey on BOM was not very complimentary, nor were others who thought that VDT was not up to competition with Harry Potter.

Now that would not be quite as noticeable the case if the film VDT was as spiritually weak as you say. It also would not be the case if the film was as humanistic as what Conina and Clive Staples Sibelius have claimed. That is why I can't agree with what you say here. I think that the film does its best to echo the spiritual themes of VDT the book within the parameters of a nearly 2 hour PG film.

I don't consider a movie with bumper-sticker-esque catch phrases to be spiritually strong. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (movie) was obviously "Chrisitian" on the outside, but the inside was completely shallow. Kind of like a mega-church. The book was the opposite. On the outside it looks like a simple fairy tale, but the inside has incredible and subtle spiritual depth. Hope that makes sense.

Clive Staples Sibelius, it's funny you should mention the re-taking of the Lone Islands. I remember before filming had even started, that was one of the scenes I was most concerned about because it might be unappealing to mass
audiences. I never thought they'd completely skip the scene...

Tarquin, I disagree that Narnia fans can never be satisfied. Some Narnia fans maybe. I was satisfied with the first two movies, but not the last one.

I don't consider a movie with bumper-sticker-esque catch phrases to be spiritually strong. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (movie) was obviously "Christian" on the outside, but the inside was completely shallow. Kind of like a mega-church. The book was the opposite. On the outside it looks like a simple fairy tale, but the inside has incredible and subtle spiritual depth. Hope that makes sense.

That makes complete sense to me because I felt the same way. Everyone is going to read into the movie what they want to see. Though it was empty to me because they didn't go deep with the Christian themes, it was also empty in the sense that one (at least for me) did not feel emotionally invested in any of the characters or the story, and that's not necessarily tied into going deep with a Christian theme...though I personally think it would have helped more to help it be a successful film.......it's true of most any movie in general that one would want to see some emotional investment developed in the story for the audience....and not a hollow appeal to the lowest common denominator product.

On the outside it looks like a simple fairy tale, but the inside has incredible and subtle spiritual depth.

That's what I love about (most of) the books, the subtlety and complexity. You can read the books at different times of life and each time find something different to appreciate about them.