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fayte, I am preparing your spam for you.Time to get back to the day-to-day workings of my journal. I have read 500 posts back from when I was away - I think I have to go back a couple thousand to actually catch up, which I can't be bothered with. Sorry.
I got loads of presents, but not the two particular things I wanted (which were expensive and unlikely anyway) so I'm going to go off and find Sliders and Ringers...hopefully tomorrow, I suppose. Anyway, good haul this year, my cousin got me a whole box of green things all individually wrapped, he put loads of effort into it. Very sweet. I am also beginning to question whether some of my relatives/family friends know me at all - I seemed to get a lot of jewellery boxes and pretty girly things. WTF? Not that I'm not grateful...just confused. Although it is in fact pretty much all green, so they got that bit down.
What IS it with families that they can't just all get along? I'm always more than willing to get on with everybody but I don't know that I was particularly well-liked this Christmas. One aunt in particular said I'm 'idle, so lazy and never do anything.' Which was, in that instance, rather unfair. My 7-year-old cousin loved me until I neglected to build his Durmstrang Lego ship with him. I got along great with two other cousins, but the one I'm better friends with hates my sister, who was on edge the entire bloody holiday and kept snapping at me the whole time. Augh! I didn't leave a moment too soon, honestly.
I would like to preface this review by pointing out that the actual story of Narnia never did anything for me. In fact, if it had no fantasy elements and didn't focus on Edmund quite so much, I would probably be totally disinterested. I don't care much about Aslan, all the religious symbolism annoys rather than impresses me, and the kids seem largely one-dimensional and unbelievable.
Moving on to the actual movie - I loved it. I think I like the kids most of all - each of them is perfectly cast and they do have a really convincing bond between them that makes it very easy to accept them as siblings, I think. William just killed me as Peter - his wibble face is a wonder to behold, and he manages to convey brave and heroic without being totally irritating (he managed to remind me of Aragorn, of all people, which is DEFINITELY impressive.) He put in an understated performance in a movie where it would be easy to get carried away.
I don't really like Susan much as a character (and even in the movie they didn't really manage to flesh her out to become an interesting character as they did with Peter) but I did think that Anna Popplewell carried herself well.
Everybody keeps raving about Lucy and I have to agree, Georgie is very convincing and charming without relying on being cutesy and cloying. I particularly like her reaction when nobody believes her about Narnia.
The best of the kids for me, though, is Skandar Keynes as Edmund. I mean, Edmund was my favourite character in the books for obvious reasons - he's the only one with interesting flaws, he's the only one who actually seems to make an emotional and narrative journey, and he's written in the mold of my usual favourite characters. He's tempted over to the dark side of human nature and tested but comes through it with a real sense of justice and honour that can't be faked. Seeing him at the mercy of the Witch broke my heart, and his heroic actions are just as impressive.
Tilda Swinton as the White Witch and James McAvoy as Tumnus have to come next. Tilda's just incredible, she completely inhabits Jadis - she's scary and icy all on her own, which is good, because the script adn direction alone wouldn't have cut it. The Witch on the battlefield wearing Aslan's mane and moving through the fight fiercely is definitely a sight to behold - I was on her side for much of the battle. She's JUST SO COOL. Tumnus, on the other hand, is sweet and adorable and sexy and completely perfect. The moment he said Spare Oom I fell for him. I challenge anyone not to fall in love with him. Although if the story weren't so damn tame there would be definitely be weird pedophilic things going on there with Lucy.
And this brings me to my main concerns about the movie. Firstly, the absolutely muted dark and light. I don't want to spoil, but pretty much everything seemed to me to be softened and dumbed down from the book. This isn't because my imagination provided anything better; indeed, I had a huge problem reading the books because NOTHING IS DESCRIBED. I need a good description to know what's going on because I don't think visually, so my imagination provides nothing. It's just that by making it a Hollywood-style kids' film they take out anything truly terrifying or humbling.
Secondly, the computer graphics. Way, way overused, to the point where I didn't WANT to see any more of it, particularly Aslan. I never felt that way with Lord of the Rings. Obviously this is the fault of the director, not the animators.
----SPOILERS----
Particular scenes I liked: The opening, examining Peter and Edmund's relationship, is very interesting. They made a good choice in having a narrative centered around that particular volatile relationship - Peter assuming the role of his father and Edmund resenting him for it. It gave Peter motivation and flaws while also providing Edmund with some much-needed sympathy before he betrayed his family.
On that same track, I also adore the revival of Edmund and Peter's reaction. Those boys just about killed me then.
The White Witch's original seduction of Edmund was lovely - we could feel the danger (even without the overbearing music) while Edmund remained largely oblivious, becoming totally entranced with the idea of being important, rather than looked down on.
Any scene that showed Peter's protective side was good - I loved when he thought he'd lost Lucy.
Does anyone else feel that the winter Narnia is far more beautiful and striking than the summer Narnia? The initial stumbling through the wardrobe to discover the beautiful snow-covered woods, that gorgeous distinctive lamppost, the icy rivers and the White Witch's palace, it's all so gorgeous. I was disappointed when the snow melted away.
The fact is, when all is said and done, on screen Aslan's just a computer animated lion. He certainly isn't going to strike that awe and terror in the hearts of the audience as he's supposed to in the book, which explains why people are so confused over Susan and Lucy's reactions to his death. Oh, and there's another problem - his entire death scene. Was anybody else completely unimpressed? I think just holding the camera on Tilda Swinton's face would have had much more impact. I was equally unimpressed upon his return.
The single most FRUSTRATING scene in the movie was, for me, when Aslan prevented the army from aiding Peter in his fight against the wolf. He's a KID for fuck's sake. You know what you do when a couple of kids are being set upon by wolves? You HELP THEM. In the novel, Peter was forced to kill the wolf to defend his family - fair enough, he did what he had to and proved himself a worthy fighter in the process. That was out of NECESSITY, though, and Aslan completely lost my esteem in that moment.
I also can't comprehend the children forgetting about their poor distraught mother and soldier father to stay in Narnia and forget all about home. I never bought that in the novel and I don't buy it in the movie, not least because of the fact that NONE OF THE ADULTS LOOK LIKE THEM. So, so wrong.
Summary: I'm going to see it again, but really just because of the lovely performances in the movie. I mean, it was visually lovely for a lot of it, but I was just so sick of the special effects by the end.
Link: Slasha Baby Fic Archive
Fuck, it's hot.
Green Queen
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