Narnia leads the box office

CNN is reporting (somewhat hyperbolicly) that Narnia has knocked Harry Potter from the top of the box-office this past weekend with a $67+ million dollar opening. Of course, with Peter Jackson's KING KONG remake due out next week, Narnia is unlikley to remain at the top spot. Then again, with Kong targetted at roughly the same audience as Narnia, there may be a lot of benefit from overflow audiences. (Overflow audience is when a family goes to a theater to see Movie A - i.e. Titanic - and wind up seeing Movie B instead - i.e. As Good As It Gets - because Movie A is sold out.)

This also gives me a chance to put some of my thoughts about Narnia up here on Mod-Blog. Sean saw it first and did a good job of covering it, I thought, so I'll just add my own spin. First, I liked it a lot and thought it was a great film. Not in the same league with Lord of the Rings, but then LOTR is one of the great works of English literature of the 20th century and the Narnia books are children's books with far less depth or complexity. Second, I thought it did a great job of balancing the Christian allegory with the straight story from the book. If you go in looking for Christ, you'll find Him. If you go in looking for a fun story, that'll be there and you need not be distracted by the Christian undertones. It does a great job at maintaining the "smuggled theology" of Lewis, without ever hitting us over the head with it.

But the adaptation was not perfect. The worst scene HAS to be the Father Christmas section. A lot of folks are decrying this scene as an unnecesary invention, but in the book it fit well and was a lot of fun. In the movie, the problem is the actor they chose to play Father Christmas. He simply sucked all of the air out of the room when he showed up. He did not seem happy to be there (the actor or the character) and screamed "plot device." And then he served to deliver the worst possible version of one of C.S. Lewis's lines. In the books, when Father Christmas gives the girls their weapons, he warns them to use them "only in time of greatest need, because when women fight in battles they are UGLY affairs." i.e. It is essentially a reiteration of the civalric code that women should be kept out of battles whenever possible. We all understand that Disney (parent company) would have a MAJOR problem with this line in a post-feminist world. So, what is the right choice? Simply don't mention it. Instead, the line is changed to simply, "Wars are ugly affairs." i.e. A post-vietnam view of war as horrible for everyone. Not what Lewis had in mind. His idea was that a battle where you are fighting for good is a great thing, even if it has its dark side.

Anyway, now that I have vented, I am feeling happier. If only they could reshoot the Father Christmas scene, Narnia might be close to a perfect adaptation... at least for this Lewis fan.