Hunter Baker agrees with me. I, by the way, have yet to speak to anyone who didn’t like the movie, though, as they say, the plural of anecdote is not data.
Update: From the snowy steppes, where it’s always winter but sometimes Christmas, Ken Blanchard calls our attention to this NYT piece, which dances around the allegory. The author is not subtle enough by half, since she doesn’t want to concede how a good story can "baptize the imagination" without engaging in overt proselytizing.
My husband, Ben, didn’t love the movie. He will say it’s ok, but I think that he was expecting more because my brother called us at 2:30 am to tell us how great it was. Ben didn’t read the Chronicles until this year, but my mom read them to my brother and me when we were very little. I think Ben expected LWW to be more like LOTR. I, however, enjoyed it immensely. :)
Well folks, the reviews are in and the news is good! Very, very good. The L, the W and the W is being met with total adoration by all who see it. Some say it’s about a lion named Aslan who’s all Jesus-AKA, but others claim it’s an allegory about admitting you’re gay- you know- the whole "coming out of the closet and entering a whole new world" thing. But I say it’s a darn fun movie and who the heck cares if there’s some underlying message? Fun is fun is fun, right?
BT dub- can’t wait for King Kong- ’cause with a giant ape, ya can’t go wrong!
By the way- the "A" stands for August- but you can substitute "Awesome" and I won’t mind an iota! ;)
I went to see the movie with my husband, who has read the books repeatedly and thoroughly understands the allegory and theology. He was disappointed by two things that may seem minor given that this was coming from Hollywood, but I think caused him to be disappointed in Douglas Gresham, who was collaborating on this project.
1. The point at which Aslan is explaining the magic to Susan and Lucy. He tells the girls that the witch understood the magic differently. That’s not what the book says. It’s not that there are different interpretations. It’s that the witch was simply wrong, and did not know the magic from its inception. Pretty big theological implications.
2. (And this was both theological and political.) When Father Christmas is giving the children their gifts, he tells the girls that war is a terrible thing (paraphrase), but what he doesn’t say is what he book says: War is a terrible thing when women fight. Though my husband recognized why that would have been left out, he couldn’t help but note that the theological impact of Lewis’ words was that the women were off doing even greater things at the start of the Narnian battle: witnessing the resurrection, as did the women in the Gospel accounts.
Interesting tidbits, but all in all an excellent film. I’m so relieved they didn’t kill it!