BTRIPP (btripp) wrote,
BTRIPP
btripp

Ho, ho, ho ... pt. 3

So, yesterday, after The Girls had plowed through all their presents, we went off to see The Chronicles of Narnia. The Wife had thought that she was being particularly clever with the suggestion, and was quite surprised that the theater was packed (we did get there a few minutes after the official showtime, so had to sit a lot closer to the screen than I would have preferred) ... heck, some people were "making a day of it", like the couple in front of me in line who were buying tickets for a movie around 1pm and then tickets for one at 4pm!

Narnia was "OK" ... I recall having the books back when I was a kid, but aside from the most general outlines ("uh, there was a lion, right?") I didn't remember any of it. Now, sure, this movie is targeted to kids, but there were a bunch of places that I'm thinking "oh, come on ..." like in the early discoveries of Narnia where you have characters slogging around in calf-deep snow in bedroom slippers and not showing any particular signs of being cold and wet! My biggest "continuity issue", of course, came at the execution scene and those following. If the White Witch is demaning a blood sacrifice how come there is NO BLOOD??? Yeah, stick that "Spear of Longinus"-shaped blade into the lion's heart and not show a DROP of blood? What's the use of the blood gutters on the sacrificial stone? Shouldn't that platform be a nasty sticky gory mess by the time the girls get there? That sort of stuff bugs the heck out of me. Oh, and speaking of blood ... shouldn't Aslan be a bit bloody after he (evidently) rips out the White Witches throat? Did they have to scrub out all the blood to keep it PG?

The other thing that was sort of "left hanging" was the "grown up kids" part ... do they actually live in Narnia for 15 years or so (guessing by the look of the "older" actors) and forget where they came from, only to "stumble onto" the back door of the wardrobe (and once again tumble through back when they went in)? Do the now-kids-again kids remember anything of their years as adults (and wouldn't that be a Claudia-like Hell for little Lucy)? What age would they be if they went back through? Arrrgh! It's amost enough to make me go read the book just to try to figure out what the heck the "backstory" is (which is something I would recommend to anybody encountering Kubricks 2001 for the first time, the whole "black obelisk" thing makes more sense if you read Clark's book beforehand).

Anyway, The Girls liked it well enough, and even the 5-year-old didn't get over freaked out by it all. For being a long movie, it really didn't have any "is this thing ever going to be over" moments (well, in the very beginning there were some "when the heck are they going to get on with the Narnia part?" points), and moved right along, and aside from the gaping holes where the "backstory" ought to be (what was the deal with the White Witch's torso?), it was quite enjoyable ... plus the movie let out 45 minutes prior to the kick-off on the BEARS game, so that worked out well for everybody!


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