I anticipated seeing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe since its announcement. Yet something seemed lacking when I watched the trailers, and I couldn't get excited enough about the film to actually set aside time to view it in theaters. Finally, knowing that before long new releases will have pushed LWW off the big screen, I decided to go.
Before I continue, I must say that the movie, directed by Andrew Adamson (director of Shrek), was enjoyable. The set-pieces were generally appropriate, detailed, and believable. Costuming was skilled and, from the colors to the abundant lion-head insignia, fitted to Narnian culture. The casting of the children was excellent and their ages true to the book. The beavers were generally well-animated and perfectly voiced.
The battle scene was not only fascinating, but unique in the strategies employed. I love Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, but the wider variety of mythical creatures and Talking Beasts found in Lewis's Chronicles allow for more unusual battle tactics. Griffins become dive-bombers, a rhinoceros becomes a tank, leopards are skirmishers, centaurs replace traditional cavalry, and (in a chronological reversal of their traditional film role) archers are used to cover a retreat rather than begin a battle.
So did I love the film adaptation? Not quite.
I was disappointed. No, I was abysmally disappointed. Director Andrew Adamson deserves to be flogged from Lantern Waste to Cair Paravel.
The point at which the movie began to go really wrong was, not surprisingly, when it started to deviate significantly from the plot of the book. This happened first when the children collectively discovered Narnia. In the book, the children hid in the wardrobe to escape a tour-group led by the housekeeper, Mrs. Macready. The movie has the four children breaking a window and knocking over a suit of armor, then running to escape punishment. Consequently, rather than sheltering from the undeserved wrath of Mrs Macready who "did not like children," the children are portrayed as hiding from deserved criticism for childish mischief. That aside, however, the script change leads to a puzzled, "Why?" What's the point?
The movie continues racking up "why" after befuddled "why?" Looking over the book I cannot fathom the purpose behind any plot changes in translation from print to silver screen. Certainly such a beloved book, which has consistently remained in print for its 50-year lifespan, doesn't require added spice in order to make the story more exciting. Indeed, the 1988 BBC production of the book, which more than made up in heart what it lacked in budget, was astonishingly faithful to the original novel, and children (like my younger siblings) eagerly sit through it for repeated wide-eyed viewings.
The book was "smaller than remembered" when he reread it as an adult, Adamson said. "As a child, you fill out the imagery. And it was that imagery that I wanted to put on the screen." Perhaps that explains the unnecessary addition of the Secret Police attacking the Beaver's dam before they have a chance to escape, and a chase scene across the melting ice of a rushing river. Perhaps it also explains the decision to have Peter confront Maugrim upon that ice, which leads Maugrim to utter the movie's most cliched line, "You haven't got the guts to kill me." No doubt these scenes were added to aid "pacing," which is odd considering they only result in making the middle of the movie frenetic, and none of the faithful fans of the books, BBC film adaptations, or dramatized audio presentations have ever complained about the story being too slow.
Deliberate discrepancies between book and movie are not only unnecessary, but actually harm Adamson's adaptation. Glaringly absent were some of the most powerful lines from the book: Edmund's snotty "How do we know you're a friend?"; Mr. Beaver's "Aslan a man!" and "It's all right!"; Edmund's mocking "Silly old Aslan!"; Mrs. Beaver's "If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly"; Father Christmas saying, "Battles are ugly when women fight"; Susan asking, "Is it more magic?"; Aslan's "I feel my strength coming back to me."
In place of Lewis' beautiful dialogue we find cheap bits added by arrogant screenwriters. While Father Christmas's line as Lucy receives her gifts is pared to a simple "battles are ugly" from the full "...when women fight," Susan throws an impudently feminist "what happened to battles are ugly?" in his face upon receiving her gifts. Upon encountering Father Christmas, Mr. Beaver tells the children "I hope you've all been good." As Father Christmas leaves, Lucy childishly retorts to Susan, "I told you he was real."
The development of Edmund's personality as truly evil suffers. Absent are his challenges to Mr. Beaver's wisdom and authority, as well as his mockery of the stone lion he presumes to be Aslan. His piggish greed in eating "several pounds of Turkish Delight" until it was "all finished" is stunted in the movie where he eats two or three pieces and then unresistingly allows the White Witch to remove the still full box of candy from his reach. Most significantly, in the book the consequence of Edmund's behavior is that when he is rescued it is literally from under the knife, as the Witch is preparing to execute him. The movie skips this sacrificial attempt entirely, merely portraying Edmund as being dragged after the witch and ignored once she begins battle preparations. The reasoning behind these scripting decisions may lie in Adamson's misguided assertion that "Edmond [sic] isn't a bad boy, he's bad because his father's away at war and his brother's pushing him around."
So the weight of Edmund's sin, the grace of Aslan in forgiving it, and the necessity that someone, whether Edmund or Aslan, be placed under the knife, is minimized. That minimization is where the movie suffers most. The Witch, who would be doing her upmost if she could "stand on her two feet and look [Aslan] in the face," never threatens to "instantly kill" anyone who mentions Aslan's name. Why? Because, according to the director, "In Narnia, everyone is waiting for the children to tell them what to do." The childrens' appearance is not the catalyst for Aslan's sacrifice but a salvation in and of itself, and so Aslan is reduced to a lion who happens to be able to talk rather than the son of the Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea.
I have many complaints about Adamson's "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe," but the greatest is this: the Great Lion, whose arrival would "put all to rights," is morphed into a humanistic cat insisting to Peter (verbally in the trailer, thankfully more indirectly in the movie) that "the future of Narnia rests on your courage," and not on his own death and resurrection.
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©2006 by Pieter J. Friedrich. Read this for reproduction conditions.
