Narnia Movie: Would C.S. Lewis Approve?
From BoingBoing:
CS Lewis: Don’t let Disney make Narnia! Live action Aslan is “blasphemy”
According to nthposition.com, C.S. Lewis wrote the following letter to a BBC producer. In this letter, C.S. Lewis states how disapproval of turning The Chronicles of Narnia into a live action movie, saying it would be a “buffoonery or nightmare” and blasphemy. He goes on to say that making them into a cartoons would be okay…as long as it wasn’t Disney.
18 Dec. 1959
Dear Sieveking
(Why do you ‘Dr’ me? Had we not dropped the honorifics?) As things worked out, I wasn’t free to hear a single instalment of our serial [The Magician's Nephew] except the first. What I did hear, I approved. I shd. be glad for the series to be given abroad. But I am absolutely opposed - adamant isn’t in it! - to a TV version. Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare. At least, with photography. Cartoons (if only Disney did not combine so much vulgarity with his genius!) wld. be another matter. A human, pantomime, Aslan wld. be to me blasphemy.
All the best,
yoursC. S. Lewis
[Letter to BBC producer Lance Sieveking (1896-1972), who has written at the top: 'The Magician's Nephew' and, after the address, the phone number "62963".]
So what would he think about the soon-to-be-released live action movie being released by Disney? Considering how the world of making movies has changed (computer graphics and special effects have greatly improved since 1959 - no more anthropomorphic animals), and as long as Hollywood sticks to the ideals in the book, I think he *could* be pleased. We’ll see come Dec 9th!
Loading ...
an unused console won't have any problems!
Nov 30th, 2005 at 16:57:01
I think that provided they keep the message intact, it will be great. I read recently that Peter Jackson (when making Lord of the Rings) said he wanted to keep all the author’s vision and ideas and not add any of his own. I think that was a big part of what kept LOTR so true to the book. Hopefully Narnia was made with the same intentions. As long as you keep what Lewis said in it and don’t add any other major themes or ideas it should stay true to the story. And if anyone has ever seen the original BBC versions of four of the Chronicles (talk about anthropomorphic), they will understand the difference CGI can make in the world of Narnia.
Nov 30th, 2005 at 17:18:24
Rumor has it that they did not (or at least, did not want to) keep the message intact. Disney is quite a liberally-minded company that didn’t really want to get into the religious aspects of the books. But we’ll see on the 9th!
And to add to Leslie’s comment (and contradict it a little–sorry!), I didn’t care too much for Jackson’s LOTR because I thought he did stray from the book quite a bit–altering some of my favorite parts of the books. Also the reason I didn’t like the 3rd Harry Potter Movie (what was that director thinking?!?)