Behind the Scenes of Narnia's Special Effects

louismg writes "Walt Disney Pictures' Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe took in more than $100 million at the box office worldwide in its opening weekend, riding the back of special effects powering nearly all the movie's characters, from the lion Aslan to the Gryphon, Minotaur, Centaurs and more. VFXWorld has a series of diaries with the technology geeks at Rhythm & Hues behind the special effects. (Part 1, 2) For the fantasy film's special effects, Rhythm & Hues teamed up with Industrial Light and Magic and Sony Pictures Imageworks to deliver more than 1,400 shots for the film, and used cutting-edge technology from BlueArc, NVIDIA and others to keep the effects' production running."

Comments

Anyone seen it yet?

[kadathseeker]

I've heard it's made alot of money, but how does it hold up to the novels? I am sick of novels I love being destroyed by two-bit producers who can't invest the little time and energy it would take to do them right.

Re:actually, christian messaging is subjective thi

[Council]

I'm actually worried that the movie won't have a strong enough Christian/religious theme.

Now, I'm an athiest, brought up Quaker, with little interest in spreading Christianity or anything.

But I read the books before I could understand the whole Christian allegory thing. I loved them. I reread them later, understood, and felt betrayed. Then I matured enough to where I could read them a third time and not take it so hard. And I realize that the whole feel of the stories, the idea that they had weight and importance and weren't just some guys who had beef with each other, that came straight out of the religious treatment of the characters.

If Aslan isn't God, and the White Witch is just some woman who wants to rule this place, the story becomes a cheesy special-effects battle movie. Yay, Dungeons and Dragons. If they can try to instill some kind of reverence and awe, and a feeling that these people are taking part in a larger struggle, that what is happening matters, I think the story can carry itself a lot better.

If you can get over the fact that it's about Christianity, of course.

I never saw The Passion, and I don't think it's a great idea for a movie, and so forth. But think how much more pointless a film it would be if the guy who was being tortured and suffering wasn't Jesus.

My capsule review

[richardtallent]

0: Geared for a young Harry Potter or Princess Bride audience, nowhere near as dark as LoTR.
+1: They followed the book closely.
+1: They didn't butcher the allegory for the sake of over-sensitive non-Christians.
+1: They didn't play up the allegory for the sake of over-sensitive Christians.
+1: Effects were near flawless, even though the film had much more daylight than others in the genre (underexposure is SO forgiving).
-1: The animals in a few scenes near the end seemed to lose a little fur realism. The airplanes at the very beginning seemed too cartoonish as well. Cheetas don't run like that either, IIRC.
-1: Too much of the beavers.
-1: Didn't do nearly as good a job as LoTR in giving a sense of "place." Narnia is smaller than Middle Earth, but it felt a little cramped. So did the Professor's house.
0: Soundtrack was ok.
+1: Great live and voice casting, other than Titmus, who seemed way too young than I imagined him.
0: One thing I never liked about the book was the appearance of Father Christmas. An allegory should not be tainted by its own archetype.

If the Christian Allegory bugged you...

[killbill]

Several of the reviews here say they loved the stories as a child, but have a harder time enjoying them now that they understand the Christian allegories.

To them I would say that perhaps the Narnia stories are the clearest picture of Christianity they have yet seen. I started with the Narnia books, and proceeded to digest and understand a HUGE amount of Christian literature, both highbrow and lowbrow. I now go back to the Narnian books (and the Screwtape letters, The Great Divorce, and some books by John Eldridge) and find them to be probably the most accurate pictures of Christianity written since the Gospels.

That you find other pictures of Christianity repellent could be a combinations of three factors.

1) The "other stories" you are being told are being told badly, or are just plain wrong. God does not approve all articles before publication.
2) The "other stories" you are being told reveal things in yourself that you are not prepared to deal with yet.
3) You understand the greater story, and simply wish to align yourself with evil instead of good.

That's been my life's story anyway. It always seems to come down to one of those three things.