narnia trailer

• mlis
  8:31 pm on May 8th, 2005 1

  Gnat -

  The link is broken

• tangognat
  9:00 pm on May 8th, 2005 2

  Yikes! I fixed it!

• Dorothea Salo
  5:49 am on May 9th, 2005 3

  I didn’t like Tilda Swinton — and I love me some Tilda Swinton, so that’s not it.

  They seem to have forgotten that Jadis is beautiful as well as cruel and cold. They’re doing their best to make a lovely woman alternately flushed and sallow. And invariably ugly. I do not approve.

  Argh, costumes and interior set design! All Saturday-morning-cartoony, too-bright colors, unwearable designs, and silly-looking green pillars. Did we learn nothing from Peter Jackson?

  That said, the outdoor shots looked great, especially in the winter scenes. And I loved the mermaids!

  Verdict: Probably watchable. Definitely not LotR-caliber.

• Dorothea Salo
  5:50 am on May 9th, 2005 4

  Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, WHAT is this CALUMNY on Digory’s character? Are they simply not planning to do The Magician’s Nephew?

• Ely
  7:25 am on May 9th, 2005 5

  How is it a misrepresentation to do the movies in original published order? If nothing else, the Pevensies need to be older in The Horse and His Boy than in Caspian/Dawn Treader.

• tangognat
  7:35 am on May 9th, 2005 6

  I dunno, I didn’t look at Tilda and think “sallow”. I did think that she was hanging out in a lair with not so great lighting.

  I usually try to have really low expectations about movies based on books. Especially when Disney is involved

• Dorothea Salo
  11:41 pm on May 9th, 2005 7

  I don’t care about the order of the movies. I do very much care about the recasting of older-Digory-the-professor as Evil Uncaring Uncle. Bad, wrong, unacceptable — how can one do Magician’s Nephew if its hero turns into, well, Evil Uncaring Uncle?

• tangognat
  12:10 am on May 10th, 2005 8

  Yeah, you’re right. It has been a long time since I’ve seen the movies but now I see what you’re talking about — the creepy professor alluded to in the trailer isn’t right. If the Prof had to be characterized as anything it should be more the Benevolent Absent Professor Who Knows More Than He Lets On.

  Wasn’t most of the conversation in the trailer where the Prof’s house was made to seem unpleasant coming from Mrs. “not fond of children” Macready though? I see what you mean, if the whole “Don’t Disturb the Professor” thing means that they lose that great scene when the other kids discuss Lucy’s story with him and he keeps muttering about wondering what on earth they are teaching children in school these days. That was a great scene, and just the type of thing that they’d drop for time to fit in more battle scenes. Because it is nice to have Digory bookend the start and finish of the story.

  Jim Broadbent is playing him so I can’t believe that he’d be totally cut from the movie!

• Dorothea Salo
  8:49 am on May 10th, 2005 9

  Hm. Yes, I suppose the whole thing could be a demonize-the-woman trick. How very C.S. Lewis of them.

• Tanuki
  11:51 am on May 12th, 2005 10

  TangoGnat is right, the “Don’t disturb the Professor!” is from Mrs Macready, and it’s true to the book. I’m not so worried on that score. But it is Disney, and Disney doesn’t play nice — or, rather, plays TOO nice: they sugar up and tone down and shoehorn in comic relief (I loathe those damn gargoyles in Hunchback, and was really bothered by the way Mulan went back to being a sweet young thing awaiting Prince Charming even though the book has her continuing as a warrior — thank the gods that Studio Ghibli has a “though shalt not change” clause in its contract with them!). On t’other hand, the visuals are stunning, and I am much hardened by its being “Chapter 1″, rather than trying to combine all the books together. That looks hopeful.

  I still have a sneaking fondness for the BBC version, as absolutely awful as the special effects were. It did catch the spirit of the thing very nicely, I thought. And Tom Baker (the “all teeth and hair” Dr Who) as Puddleglum …

 

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