Endured Narnia this past week-end.
It is not that it is preachy (as the philanderers might say), nor that the sermons obstruct the otherwise-decent narrative (as critics might say). It is that absolutely no justification is given, nor wanted, for any one of the characters' actions.
Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy jump into a heretofore unseen land and a day later, with the experience of one knife fight and an overnight in prison under their collective belts, they're leading a huge army of satyrs and centaurs, proudly and certainly.
Narnia, of course, is in the midst of a holy war, and every creature in the land is passionately wedded to one side or the other. Bully for them, those twee beasts of Narnia, and their needs. It's not clear to me exactly why the White Witch is so disliked, but one always presumes that the people of a given place have a reason for uniting in the way they do, for hating their monarch.
So, cheers to the faun and the rhinos who rally to take care of their business. But why should our identified protagonists get wrapped up? They parachute in and, after hearing from a couple of beavers that "Aslan is on the move," they're ready to give their lives over to the cause. There's some blather they're only interested in rescuing their brother from captivity, but there's no follow-through on that. When we see the girls sleeping on Aslan's slaughtered corpse, there's no way not to wonder what they're thinking about. Aslan happens to be popular amongst a bunch of centaurs and woodnymphs, so they fall in love. Is this a Christian allegory, or one of pop music?
The message of Narnia is clear: Don't ask questions. Trust the first person you meet and stick with it. Raise your ill-begotten sword for it.
Isn't that the message of Christianity, or did I miss something?
I think, or I hope, that you missed something. Unthinking acceptance and irrational ferocious defense apply equally well to any ideology. If that's Christianity's message, it's a bad one.
I see Jesus as more of a questioner, a prodder and a poker against authority's given knowledge. That's a more interesting message, to me, and one that would be interesting to weave into a children's story. Although I loved it as a kid, from my more critical vantage point today, The Chronicles of Narnia seems more like nonsensical rah-rah. Militaristic cheerleading for an arbitrary cause, spoon-fed to gullible innocents.
I read the Chronicles of Narnia at some single-digit age and just adored the tales. Despite having a few years of Catholic school behind me at the time, I never noticed that it was thinly veiled Christian propoganda until it was pointed out to me as an adult (by which time I had forgotten most of the plot points and just remembered various scenes and a general feeling of joy and adventure from the series).
Starting this summer, I reread The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with Mie (a few chapters occasionally at bedtime) so that we'd be finished in time for seeing this movie.
The Christian plot lines were obvious this time, but the story was still somewhat entertaining. so we enjoyed it. We saw the movie opening night here in San Francisco and I was quite disappointed. The book is heavily descriptive and narrative, so I expected there to be difficulty in presenting character motivations, but you're right in observing that there was almost no motivation explained at all.
But the thing that irked me most was the same thing that bothered me about The Polar Express: the obvious attacks on logic and reason. In both films some character is presented as the rational straw man and treated with derision. In this case it was Susan. Having -just read- the book, I know that the author did not go out of his way to attack Susan or her rationality like these film makers have decided to do.
Maybe I'm just over-senstitive to the current U.S. War on Rationalism.
Anyhow, the graphics were pretty.