Narnia, Part 2
I’ve been involved in some discussion elewhere concerning the strong links the movie version of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe made between the battle in Narnia and the World War II London situation that the Pevensee children were fleeing.
I rather enjoyed the connection to the earthly war. At first, I was afraid they were going to pull a Wizard of Oz (movie version) on us…the kids get home and it was all an angst-driven adolescent fantasy based on conflicts in their real lives[1]. The characters talking about the war back home reinforced that fear, but I became most concerned when they had the gryphon “air force” fly in the exact same formation as the German bombers in the opening sequence! However, I breathed a great sigh of relief when they included the little tag sequence in the middle of the credits (which half the audience in my theater missed) where the Professor reveals to Lucy that he, too, had been to Narnia. Narnia is real!
Anyway, once they had settled that they weren’t doing a purely psychological take on Narnia, I was able to enjoy the WWII connection more. I’ve always thought it was more significant than Lewis lets on in the book that he sets it during the bombing of London. Even if he doesn’t make it explicit, there is some connection between our world and Narnia, or at least parallels. Certainly both have experienced a kind of fall that results in corruption and disruption to the whole natural order of the respective worlds, and both are in need of redemption.
[1] I heard an interesting special last week about the Oz movie on public radio. Not having read the L. Frank Baum books, I hadn’t realized until hearing the radio report that the whole “Oz was a dream” interpretation was not in the books at all. In the books, apparently, there is never any doubt that Oz is real. In fact, in a later book, Dorothy takes Aunt Em and her Uncle to Oz.
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December 13th, 2005 at 10:06 am
that’s funny that you should mention that. justin and i talked about the connection (narnia bombing vs wwII bombing). i thought it was a clever touch - the young captain learns to fight…
anyway, there’s no place like home
December 13th, 2005 at 10:21 am
Hey Mark, am I doing something wrong or is your trackback not working? Whenever I click “trackback” to get the link it just does a 404, page not found error.
December 13th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
Hmmm…thanks for letting me know, Brandon. I’ll bring that to the attention of my server host…who, since he reads this blog, will probably have it fixed before I get to contact him!
December 13th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Brandon: You just want to paste that link, not click it. WordPress doesn’t mess with TrackBack autodiscovery.
You rang?
December 13th, 2005 at 11:29 pm
You see?
Ladies and Gentlemen, if you haven’t realized it before now, the handsome man in the fedora is Geof Morris, the brains and braun behind this blog. He set me up with this almost two years ago, and its changed my life in many unexpected ways. Only a few people know what Geof has given in great love to foster community between people around the globe. He’d be on my top ten list of people I deeply honor and respect, no joke.
December 14th, 2005 at 7:54 am
It is way too early in the morning for me to read such effusive praise.
Thanks, Mark. 
December 14th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Thanks. I’ll see if that works.
December 21st, 2005 at 11:50 am
Did it work, Brandon?
December 22nd, 2005 at 12:47 am
I’m able to just paste the link from my post, but to actually get a trackback to work from Haloscan, so that it shows up at this post, it doesn’t seem to be working. Oh well. I’ll just keep linking only.
Have a great Christmas.
January 1st, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Re: LWW, I saw it for the scond time yesterday and I like it less. I know that may make me unpopular with you guys, but I accept the consequences. Lucy, Tumnus, and the witch were very good. Aslan was a disappointment. Edmund was not nearly as wretched as he should have been. Peter was too hott (or so my girls say). The scene at the beaver house was butchered, as was Kirk’s monologs.
Now, I know that my opinion is just mine. The most important thing is that a new generation of TV addict children will be introduced to one of the best children’s stories of the 20th century that the Lord has used in countless people’s lives. For that, I am thankful. Yesterday I happened to sits next two two young mothers of pre-school children. It was obvious they had no clue about Narnia or the Gospel. They were clearly drawn in. (After Aslan is killed and lying on the stone table one of them asked the other, “I wonder what’s going to happen next?”)
January 2nd, 2006 at 7:08 pm
Pete:
I think you’re right that the very best thing that could happen would be for a new generation to be drawn to read the books. We listened to some of them on tape during our drive home from Maine, and I was enchanted all over again.