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Narnia to be Created in New Zealand

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the if-it-worked-for-middle-earth dept.

SCS writes "It has been confirmed that the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will be made in New Zealand as part of a five film line-up of C.S. Lewis's Narnia fantasy book series, with New Zealander Andrew Adamson of Shrek fame as its director. Filming begins next year, and Weta Digital has already started the graphics work. Also reported at the BBC and HeraldTribune.com."

2 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. 5 movies? by LDoggg_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is expected to be the first of five films based on CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia books, and has the potential to top The Lord of The Rings in economic spinoffs for New Zealand.

    Strange, there are seven books.
    Anyone have any insight into what is being combined or left out?

    --

    "If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
  2. Allegory in Movies by buckhead_buddy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I suspect (perhaps incorrectly) that the adaptation of the stories of a WWI veteran to movies in New Zealand was given the greenlight because of the success of another WWI vet (JRR Tolkien), but this brings up a question that I've had in my mind for a while "Do good allegorical stories make for good movies?"

    An allegory (at least as I use the term) is a subject that is described by using another subject in it's place (sort of like an extended metaphor).

    Tolkien and Lewis are on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to allegory. Tolkein despising it and Lewis making heavy use of it. On the written page, I think that the use or avoidence of allegory is fine, but I'm not sure that it works on film.

    Film is just such an overwhelmingly visual medium and allegory is such an abstract tool. It may be possible to depict the Lion Aslan as an allegory of Jesus on the written page, but on film you will see such an overwhelming embodiment of "big cat" that unless there's a narrator or someone hitting you over the head with "Lion = Jesus" the allegory will just be overwhelmed.

    The only example of strict allegory that I recall in a modern film was Battlefield Earth but that may be an unfair example (as there were many other reasons why that movie was so poorly received).

    Of course, many people already know the allegory that Lewis used in his tales and no doubt it will be brought up again and again by movie critics and sunday school teachers before the movie debuts, but if people didn't go in already having been told what to expect, would the allegory have been obvious?

    Just idle wondering I suppose...