Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

[Sand]

Really? No thread on this? Going to see it tonight. Will report for better or worse.

[Merusk]

Wasn't done by Disney this time around and most reviews didn't like the movie.  I'm not sure how many of the reviewers actually read the books or not (one in particular mentioning how they should have made Eustace less of a pain in the ass ) but it was enough to make the wife and I decide to wait until it's in the cheap theater or on DVD.

[WindupAtheist]

Underperforming here, but the overseas markets love this Narnia shit.

[Slyfeind]

I liked it. It was a bit disjointed as they went from one island to the next to the next and then went home. But it was a fun adventure. And Eustace was fucking perfect.

[Sand]

It was bad. In fact I am willing to submit that it was worse than #2.

The first movie, which I liked, was an teen/adult movie with a kid's theme. ala the latest versions of Harry Potter.
The latest Narnia movie was a kid's movie period. ala the very first Harry Potter movie. But with flat acting and a scatter brained plot and or bad editing of the flow of the story.

Lastly, the Christianity themes were a bit more pronounced in this movie than they were in the first. Aslan actually says to Lucy something along the lines of "I am in your world, but known by another name. I brought you to this world to get to know me, so you would know me better in your world." 

[Sir T]

You really ought to read the book if you are complaining about that. Its like complaining that the Golden Compass movie was anti-religion.

And that line was straight from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader the book.

[Merusk]

Yeah, what Sir T said.  The allegory gets much more heavy-handed as the series moves on.  Lewis saw the series as a way of indoctrinating kids who weren't interested in the stuffy church of old.  So the first book was deliberately vague about it to get kids interested and drawn-in.  I can't remember most of The Magician's Nephew but I'm fairly certain that one was even more literal in a lot of places as it involved the creation of Narnia.   

[Ironwood]

Yes, it got worse and worse.  The Last Battle was utterly clownshoes fuck stupid in every way.

God pretty much ruins everything.

[Mrbloodworth]

Never even heard of it.

[Samwise]

The allegory gets much more heavy-handed as the series moves on.  Lewis saw the series as a way of indoctrinating kids who weren't interested in the stuffy church of old.

I remember reading an interview with Lewis where he got irritated at it being called an "allegory".  Aslan isn't meant as an allegory for Jesus, he's meant to actually BE Jesus.

[NowhereMan]

Never even heard of it.

The Last Battle seemed pretty awesome to me purely because it was so ridiculously heavy handed and in any context but hardcore Christianity the ending was absolutely fucktarded.

[Reg]

[RhyssaFireheart]

And no matter what the movie is like, could we please get the proper title on this thread?

[Engels]

People have argued that Susan got the shaft because she was too close to having secondary sex characteristics. Which, as much as I love the books, makes me wonder a bit about C.S. Lewis' ability to relate to grown women.

[Ratman_tf]

Yeah, what Sir T said.  The allegory gets much more heavy-handed as the series moves on. 

Lewis himself said it was never allegory. Aslan is straight up the embodiment of Christ in Narnia.

[Ratman_tf]

People have argued that Susan got the shaft because she was too close to having secondary sex characteristics. Which, as much as I love the books, makes me wonder a bit about C.S. Lewis' ability to relate to grown women.

Oh man. I"ve gone off on that topic before. Lewis mentions Nylons and Lipstick and some people blew their tops interpreting it as Susan getting dissed for being a slut.

Susan's trip was that she was wound up over earthly concerns. It would have been the same deal if she's been interested in NASCAR or needlepoint or stabbing herself in the eyeballs.

Really, she was entertaining suitors when she was a queen. (Horse and his Boy)

[Engels]

That sorta proves the point: woman entering that stage of sexuality means a loss of innocence, hence she's left off the Jesus bus at the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Pevensie

"She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

emphasis mine.

So, in essence, girls wanting to become women (ie a LARGE percentage of teen girls) are vain, silly and conceited. That sound like someone who understands women at all?

[Merusk]

Sounds like someone raising a teenager, actually. 

[Ratman_tf]

So, in essence, girls wanting to become women (ie a LARGE percentage of teen girls) are vain, silly and conceited.

This is where your argument falls down. Wanting to be a woman isn't silly, vain or conceited. Susan was a queen in Narnia, and had many suitors. Neither her maturity or her sexuality were an issue.
Being a woman isn't accomplished by wearing nylons and lipstick and getting invitations to parties. Those were the things that Susan was concerned with.

Susan wasn't excluded from Narnia. She renounced her belief in it. "Oh, we used to have such fanciful imaginations as children!" (paraphrasing) And none of it necessarily excludes her from Aslan's Country. (Heaven) Lewis himself said

"The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there's plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end... in her own way."

[Sand]

One thing that bothered me about the books as the progressed was how the oldest sister Susan became a pariah because she decided she wanted to live in the real world.  In fact I think at the end of the Last Battle she was the only one in the entire family not to die horribly and go to paradise England or paradise Narnia.

It always struck me as unfair.

So what your saying is: She won.  

[Reg]

Maybe if Lewis had actually shown us Susan behaving badly in some kind of Reverse Eustace maneuver it would have been easier to accept her as a bad guy unworthy of paradise. As it is, I still think she got a raw deal.

Hah, what a silly thing to be concerned about. By the time the books had gotten to be that heavy-handedly Christian I was only reading them to finish the series.

[Slyfeind]

I'm pretty sure she got there eventually. I mean, she wasn't bad, so she didn't go to hell, but I like to think she hung out in purgatory going to endlessly boring parties for like 200 years until she saw a mouse or something that made her think of Reepicheep then went "OMG what am I doing here!!!" then said her prayers and went to bed and woke up at the teddy bear's picnic, the end.

[pxib]

Anybody curious about how Lewis pictured Hell can read The Great Divorce. It's short and simple and pretty conventional in new-age christian circles.

[WindupAtheist]

Man, I hope that new Conan movie coming up in 2011 is R-rated as fuck and at least watchable. We need way the hell fewer magical English schoolchildren in fantasy movies, and less Jesus, but more tits, more decapitations, and more dudes turning into fucking snakes and shit for no good reason.

This Narnia shit looks like Lord of the Rings except made for that one kid whose mom wouldn't let him watch He-Man because it promoted witchcraft. I just want a fantasy movie with some naked bitches goddamn it.

[Ironwood]

Gaiman wrote a short story that explains what happens to Susan.  Kinda.

There's also naked witches and titties in it.

Lewis totally had a problem with women and sexuality. 

[DraconianOne]

This Narnia shit looks like Lord of the Rings...

Funny that.

[Engels]

Gaiman wrote a short story that explains what happens to Susan.  Kinda.

What was that short story? Do you remember?

Also, the specific references to parties, stockings and lipstick have to be taken in the context of the day; these accouterments were not 'vain', but just simply one of the staples of how women stepped from girlhood to womanhood. The pseudo-feminist angle that such things are part of the objectification of women and hence Susan was just tarting herself up seems to me to be a generational perspective that's not relevant to Lewis' time.

That Susan should be condemned for moving on from the imagination of youth to the real, on the ground, realities of where she was in her non-Narnian life smacks of infantilised Platonism. The 'real world' is beset with temptation and sin and we would be wise to take shelter in the comforting and inflexible ideology of our childhoods. Part of growing up is indeed leaving behind the safety and comfort of our childhood world view, and CS Lewis wants us thinking about knights, adventure and the peril of the Christian soul in the face of a complex world.  Look at his bigoted interpretation of the Islamic world in his books and then look where all that's gotten us today. 

[SurfD]

Gaiman wrote a short story that explains what happens to Susan.  Kinda.

What was that short story? Do you remember?

Also, the specific references to parties, stockings and lipstick have to be taken in the context of the day; these accouterments were not 'vain', but just simply one of the staples of how women stepped from girlhood to womanhood. The pseudo-feminist angle that such things are part of the objectification of women and hence Susan was just tarting herself up seems to me to be a generational perspective that's not relevant to Lewis' time.

That Susan should be condemned for moving on from the imagination of youth to the real, on the ground, realities of where she was in her non-Narnian life smacks of infantilised Platonism. The 'real world' is beset with temptation and sin and we would be wise to take shelter in the comforting and inflexible ideology of our childhoods. Part of growing up is indeed leaving behind the safety and comfort of our childhood world view, and CS Lewis wants us thinking about knights, adventure and the peril of the Christian soul in the face of a complex world.  Look at his bigoted interpretation of the Islamic world in his books and then look where all that's gotten us today. 

Actually, one of the most facinating things in Lewis' Narnia books (at least for me) was his treatment of being Faithful to your Beliefs, regardless of how vicious or evil that belief may appear to other people.   Specificly the example of how his "evil Islamics" were worshipping their "evil god" but that evil god was actually just another face of Aslan, and that if those evil people kept faith with their evil god through all the harshness it put them through, they would still go to heaven, but if they broke faith, they were destined for hell as an oathbraker or whatever.   Really makes you wonder.

[Sand]

Well reading his bio it makes me wonder how much his own life was reflected in the books?

For example maybe Susan got the raw end of the stick in his series because as a young man he fancied some chicky who in turn fell for some charming military lad from the US, and it broke Lewis' heart? So he took it out on Susan his character, and would also explain why he didnt marry until after 50?  He married some fan who sent him a fan letter, thats the modern day equivalent of a star dating their stalker.

Also finding out that the series only gets more heavy handed with the Jesus stuff, means I wont be reading the rest of it or watching any further movies.

[Ironwood]

"The Problem of Susan."

[Samwise]

Actually, one of the most facinating things in Lewis' Narnia books (at least for me) was his treatment of being Faithful to your Beliefs, regardless of how vicious or evil that belief may appear to other people.

There was a bit about that in the Screwtape Letters:

But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy, while tens of thousands who do not go so far as that will nevertheless have their attention diverted from themselves to values and causes which they believe to be higher than the self. I know that the Enemy disapproves many of these causes. But that is where He is so unfair. He often makes prizes of humans who have given their lives for causes He thinks bad on the monstrously sophistical ground that the humans thought them good and were following the best they knew.

[Sir T]

"The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman.

Quite frankly I think this is all Lewis meant with Susan. Anyone that reads any more into it is loading all their own prejudices into it.

And anyone that's just offended by concept of Jesus appearing as a literary character really really needs to see this movie and get a life.

[Khaldun]

It's maybe my favorite of the Lewis books, but I figured it would be done badly  even if the filmmakers had been more talented simply because what makes it charming as a book makes it tricky as a film. The charm of the original story is that it's Lewis' version of a picaresque, a story with very little central plotline, just a series of incidents strung together with a few character arcs (Eustace's moral growth, Caspian's deepening into his role as king, Lucy's acceptance of herself).  This was the movie to do a different visual style for, and to get director with a very distinctive vision, if you were going to bother: rather like what Cuaron did for the Harry Potter series.

Of course they didn't do any of that, and the result is bland, boring hackery that is not so bad that you actually hate it, but is never good enough to really enjoy it much. Basically to give the movie more of a plotline, they graft a completely generic World of Warcraft questline into the story and then to make sure that the Christian demographic is happy, they pretty much have the characters stop and look at the screen every ten minutes and say, "Hey kids! Remember to listen to Lion-Jesus and resist Lost-Smoke-Monster-Satan! Go to church!" It takes some work to make C.S. Lewis look subtle about religion, but the folks who made this film pulled it off.

[Ratman_tf]

It takes some work to make C.S. Lewis look subtle about religion, but the folks who made this film pulled it off.

[Mrbloodworth]

Never even heard of it.

The Last Battle seemed pretty awesome to me purely because it was so ridiculously heavy handed and in any context but hardcore Christianity the ending was absolutely fucktarded.

I think you misunderstand. I have never seen an ad for this movie. This thread was the first I have heard of it.