Cinematical Exclusive: Narnia Sneak Peek
Filed under: Animation, Drama, Disney, Family Films, Movie Marketing
Though The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe isn't due for release until early December, the people seen as its target audience will soon be getting special advance looks at parts of the film. Because of the obvious religious elements in C. S. Lewis' books, Evangelical Christians are of particular interest to those behind the film, both as an audience and as a group who might potentially use the film in their efforts to spread Christianity.
According to a Cinematical tipster who saw 10 minutes of the film at a Christian leadership conference in Atlanta, the advance looks have only just begun - in fact, viewers at the conference were told that they were the first to see the footage. In addition to the movie clips, Tipster and his fellow attendees also saw two chapters of what he thinks will eventually be turned into a making-of documentary. Our tipster was kind enough to provide us with a detailed report on what he saw; you'll find it after the jump.
1. I don't know if this is news or not, but they definitely talked about Narnia as a forthcoming series, not just the single film this December.
2. The preview started with bombers over London, a very well done and exciting shot. All the shots were very well executed special effects-wise, though there were a few that were obviously not complete and utilized pre-renders or partial composites of what the final film will be. Most of the footage was composited in the way you might expect an extended preview to be put together, so maybe we'll see a finished version of this hit the theaters.
3. Edmund is upstairs watching the bombers and Peter runs him to the backyard bomb-shelter at the urging of their mother.
4. Train station good-bye
5. Drive up to the Professor's house
6. Edmund opening the wardrobe
7. Lucy meeting Tumnus who stands behind a tree. In the house Tumnus entertains Lucy and makes strange things dance in the fire.
8. All 4 children outside in the snow... approaching a seemingly normal beaver (Mr. Beaver, who looks to be the size of a real beaver) as they slowly approach the beaver Peter holds something out and beckons "here boy". Finally the beaver is fed up and sits back and says: "Well I'm not going to smell it if that's what you want". They follow the beaver.
9. All sorts of stuff happens. Aslan (who the creators claim is two years in the making) seemed not quite finished in the shots he appeared in, but some test shots showed with him were amazingly life-like. The wolves seemed finished and amazing. The talking CGI ones mixed freely with live wolves... with no ability on my part to tell the difference. 3 production companies worked together on this film, sometimes on the same shot simultaneously.
10. There seems to be some drama with a river breaking up and the children floating along on ice chunks. (oh joy)
11. The battle is 5,000 vs. 15,000... using the massive software that was used in LoTR
12. The whole story is pretty well covered by the preview and the showing ended with the children tumbling out of the wardrobe and being greeted by the smile of the Professor.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-07-2005 @ 7:02PM
B11 said...
looks like another big movie to include no people of color(like LOTR)! actually i was quite excited to see this movie, but the report of the Evangelical set to fuel their cause is enough for me to boycott it. though i'll probably give in because of the special effects.
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10-08-2005 @ 12:10AM
Jette said...
It sounds a whole lot like the 10-minute preview we saw at Fantastic Fest this afternoon, which was excellent (and which I will post about soon).
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10-08-2005 @ 5:14AM
giuseppe said...
I live in Narnia town in Italy now named Narni near Rome.
We like many Narnia's Books and we hope that also the film can give many good emotions . Also the schools at Narni town are very interested to see the new film and work to immagine and Design the Narnia that are in Their Mind. See also " Design your Narnia" iEARN project.
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10-08-2005 @ 11:15AM
Chris said...
"looks like another big movie to include no people of color(like LOTR)! actually i was quite excited to see this movie, but the report of the Evangelical set to fuel their cause is enough for me to boycott it. though i'll probably give in because of the special effects."
It doesn't include people of color because the story wasn't written with people of color in it. If you start creating characters of other color groups or changing race of existing characters you are changing the characters in a way that you really can't change for a 1940s era film. The characters were written as white, they are going to stay that way. Not everything in life can be politically correct....
And Lord of the Rings was originally written as a "fantasy history" for England, pre-Middle Ages. There weren't too many minority groups until alternate methods of transportation were instated to make travel easier.
As for Evangelical, C.S. Lewis wrote Narnia as an allegorical Christian story, with characters being representative of Christian figures. It would be stupid to not try to use this film to convert people.
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10-10-2005 @ 5:04PM
Lisa said...
You go, Chris! Political correctness runs amok with those who would try to re-write history and past works to promote their own ideologies. This story is about one family of English children finding a fantasy world. It would be a bit unusual if they were all of different races...and since most of the other characters are animals I think it would be a bit difficult to make black, white, hispanic and other ethnic races of beaver...
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10-10-2005 @ 10:09PM
Annavalla said...
Amen, Chris!
Although, The Chronicles were not written as an allegory at all.
As we all know, adding themes to the plot or story of a movie based on a book is one of the biggest crimes in cinema. I highly doubt that C.S. Lewis meant to slight anyone by leaving ethnic groups out of his books. I am caucasian, and I cannot imagine not watching a movie just because they didn't add any white people in it! Good grief!
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10-11-2005 @ 5:18PM
Chris said...
Good to see my comment was appreciated!
Annavalla, the story was not written as a full allegory although there was allegorical content as is explained in the Wikipedia article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia#Christian_parallels ). Lewis was a convert to Christianity as an adult so it made sense for him to incorporate it, but at a level accessible for children.
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10-24-2005 @ 11:22PM
James said...
This discussion of "people of color" & PC reminds me of the stupid stunt they pulled with The Pelican Brief.
In the book by Grisham the reporter is white. In fact, he makes a point of talking about, when he is talking with an old black man, how conspicuous and uncomfortable he feels being the only white person in this diner. So what do they do when they make the movie? Cast Denzel Washington in the role, of course.
Race will cease to matter only when we stop making it matter!
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12-23-2005 @ 7:14PM
Jim said...
B11, I wouldn't go see this movie just for the special effects.
I understand what you are saying that there is no people with color (considering I'm a mix myself), but I agree with other comments that it's based on the time the book was written. Maybe there should be more films that's similiar to Narnia and LOTR instead, sort of like The Never Ending Story or The Beastmaster movies.
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