Creativity Is The Imagination Come To Life - Disney Drops Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Creativity Is The Imagination Come To Life

Disney Drops Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

26th-Dec-2008 09:42 pm

Merry *belatedly* Christmas!!!

I recieved a lot of really good things this year and I hope that Santa was good to all of you as well! But I got a present that I could probably say I wish I could take back to the store and get my money back....

Disney has decided to NOT take part of the making of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. *sad face*

Am I suprised? Actually? No.

Disney has been struggling to remain politically correct with their audiences for the past 15 years or so. The Christian references might have been too much for the company to take on. Too many "short cuts" were made in effort to reach more people ("ex-nay-on-the-Jesus-say) and down play the whole Aslan is a Christlike Character. Which is EXACTLY what CS Lewis intended Aslan to be!

Now, I know that many of you guys aren't going to agree with this and that is okay. But honestly Caspian didn't do that well and you need to ask yourselves why. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe made gobs and gobs of money (approx. 292 Million in America alone!!!) and Capian barely made that internationally (only 141 Million in the U.S)!!! Which is a very large loss for both Walden Media and Disney.

But why did this happen?

Personally, I think they tried to out do LWW in the WRONG ways. The Effects and graphics were awesome in Caspian but they outshined the story that CS Lewis wrote. Another issue that many Narnian Purists, like myself, had with the second film was that they tried to water down some of the most key Aslan moments and add things that weren't even in the book! (*Ahem! Ahem!* A certian kiss comes to mind!! It literally made me way, "um, what the heck was that? CS Lewis never wrote that!!") I was especially disappointed in the scene where Lucy has found Aslan and the Lion talks about Growing. It was changed to appease the non-Christian audiences and the like. But after seeing that changed, it made me wonder what they are going to do in Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Aslan tells Lucy and Edmund that they won't be returning to Narnia so they must find him in another form in their world. CS Lewis meant this as a significant reference to Jesus Christ without actually saying his name.

Someone once told me that if you want to see into an Author's heart, read their books. CS Lewis didn't live a "safe" life, nor did he write "safe" books. He lived openly as a Radical Christian and if you have any doubts, I suggest you read his book "The Screw Tape Letters". The Narnian books were even shunned by most Christians in the 40s for just having a "witch" in the first book! He wrote books that would cause waves, make people think. Books that would impact the audience that read them! THAT'S the difference between books deemed to be classics such as authors like Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, or even Tolken! All of them had such a modern way of thinking for their time and that is why their books and stories have survived for so long.

Those who live "safely" rarely make history.

Disney choose to live safely. So therefore, they won't make history with these stories.

What a shame.

Mandi

Mood:disappointed

Comments

4th-Jan-2009 11:08 pm (UTC)

childofiluvatar

I think you just summed up exactly why I can't stand the Disney Company.

They had such a good opportunity to make a really good series of films, and they over-Disney-fied them entirely. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy them, especially the first - I re-watched Prince Caspian the other day and couldn't get over how much better The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was. Alright it wasn't perfect but it captured the spirit of the book a lot more than the film of Prince Caspian did. PC looked impressive but had very little in common with the book it was taken from.

I can't help compare them to the Lord of the Rings films, which I thought captured the spirit of Tolkien's books and the world he created far more than Disney managed to do with Narnia. (They don't seem to do anything without putting a Disney-fied slant on it; my sister and I wondered if they film through some kind of special lens to make everything just that bit... pinker ;-) ) It's such a fantastic set of books.

I'm not a Christian but I am a fan of the books and I think they could have taken the Christian message a little further if that was what it took to make the films more as CS Lewis might have imagined them. At the end of the day he was a Christian and he wrote the books with a Christian message in mind and whilst I can see why they might be cautious about banging people over the head with it to ignore it entirely takes so much away from what he wrote. You can appreciate the books and the story he tells and the world he creates without being a Christian, so I don't see why the same can't go for a film.

(And, um, hi! I wandered over to look at your graphics and saw this post and just wanted to say I agree; I was really disappointed about Voyage of the Dawn Treader because it's my favourite book and I think it'd make an amazing film.)

6th-Jan-2009 03:02 am (UTC)

blarneybaby

I'm not surprised by disney. I have been working in the acting business for a year and everyone is money hungry. Everyone wants to pay a dollar and expect five dollars in return.

I read it your last blog that you thought that Ben looked a little Oompa Loompa-ish. LOL I thought so "some scenes". The boy is white as a sheet and people like that (myself included) DON'T tan as a rule.

As for the LoTRs movies I think that the reason WHY they were so successful was because Peter Jackson was in love with the books himself. Having a director who is as passionate about the books being as true to the author's perspective makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

The Christian message is in all of CS Lewis's books, but what harm was it? Aslan speak in a non-offensive way. In DT what are they going to do when Aslan says that Lucy and Edmund have to find in their own world. The Christians would take that as Jesus, but kids who have no spiritual background, how are they going to take it? They are going to look for whatever their imagination can think up! At least that's what I "think".

**Hi! Thanks for looking my graphics! I hope you liked them! ;)

7th-Jan-2009 10:24 pm (UTC)

childofiluvatar

I see what you mean about Peter Jackson and the LOTR films - from watching the special features and stuff you could tell immediately he'd lived and breathed Middle-earth for years and got obsessive about all sort of little details and stuff like that. I haven't seen as many Narnia special features as LOTR ones (I fairly lived and breathed LOTR myself a few years back!) so don't know if the level of enthusiasm compares but I'd be surprised if there was anyone quite as enthusiastic as Peter Jackson ;-)

Glad it wasn't just me who thought Ben looked like an Ooompa-Loompa, thought it might have been my TV screen! I guess it's better they used fake tan than sent him off to spend hours sitting on a sunbed, but I thought they got a bit over-enthusiastic at times... mainly the scenes when he was indoors it seemed to me!

I think you just have to accept the Christian message as an integral part of the books. It's never explicitly laid out as that so I guess you can just interpret it how you want. And as for the bit about Lucy and Edmund finding Aslan in their own world, it wouldn't surprise me to see the film-makers cut that out ;-) (Will be interesting to see what they do... IF they make the film, fingers crossed!)

And yeah, I did like your graphics! I'm utterly useless at that sort of thing myself so always like looking at other people's!

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