**Comparing Narnia and LotR**

[alatar]

Not sure how I forgot to add these:

• After his resurrection, the new Aslan leans more on Peter, ever asking his advice and also hopes to glean information from the Witch's dwarf, and almost does get the deep magic information that he needs but at the last is thwarted as the dwarf meets an untimely end on a spikey lamp post.

• The returned Aslan cowers when confronted by the Witch-Queen, and it's only the horns of the centaurs that save his mane.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

But you've forgotten PJ's having Peter being shoved
into the river by the wolves, drifting down unconscious
and being awakened by a unicorn!

(While some PJ changes were understandable, I
think he would have been better served staying, as was
frequently possible, more to the book. It would have
meant the movies standing up better in the long run,
as FOTR does more then the two other films).
And as I suspect the LWW will.

[Parmawen]

This is a similarity I found between the books actually, but it seems to fit in this thread.

In the Magician's Nephew (the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia) the world is created by Aslan singing it into being. I always thought that was incredibly creative: he sang as he thought of the trees, flowers, and people to live there. As well, in the Silmarillion, in the Ainulindalë part, the Ainur sing Arda into creation out of the void.

So I don't know if they both had the idea of singing of creation, or if they discovered it together, but I think it's a really neat similarity. Does anyone else know any myths involving singing to create?

[davem]

Not much time to reply now but certainly the Kalevala has a sung creation.

[Boromir88]

Well I received The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for my birthday and watched it...and I must say it is absolutely wonderful movie. I enjoyed it thoroughly (probably not as much as I enjoyed LOTR, but definitely great movie).

I guess I will start off with an interesting occurence that happened. I was reading some thoughts on Narnia, and it happened that this person was the exact opposite from me. He had read LOTR probably 2-3 times and had read LWW, a countless amounts. For me, it's the complete opposite, where I recently read LWW probably a couple months ago. What was interesting about it is I said that from what I remember it felt like the movies were more accurate to the books than what LOTR was to it's books. And I said, probably because Narnia is much less complex and much shorter than LOTR where it would be easier to work with. And this person had responded with kind of shock, thinking...wow I thought it was so altered and changed from the books. Which again, was exactly opposite of how I felt. But, since I was less familiar with LWW I felt it was closer to the story, where this person was less familiar with LOTR and felt like it was closer. It was just interesting on getting someone who had been a big fan of Narnia and me, being just acquainted with it, and how we felt about the accuracy of the movies compared to the books...as well as Jackson's accuracy to the books.

I was impressed with Narnia, and when Aslan was first mentioned in the Beaver's home I actually got a chill...the same feeling I got when Theoden arrived to Gondor's aid. I think you all know that "chill" feeling you get when the Chutzpa scenes hit you...that's the same feel I got when Aslan was being talked about in the Beaver's home...kind of interesting I thought. Especially since Lewis talks about hearing the name and the "lifting" one gets from hearing Aslan, yet they know they should also fear the name.

I also felt like Peter was similar to Aragorn (in the movies). Both were reluctant to become who they were meant to become...and that was a King. But when the time came, both were able to make that decision and were able to become the "King" as they were meant to be.

Those are just some thoughts I've had after watching the movie.

[Samwise]

Wow. Thank you for posting your thoughts. I, myself, found the LWW movie quite close to the book, though, as I think I've said earlier, part of what they did cut was due to lack of time. However, to parallel, I smiled at the moments when direct quotes were used from the LWW book, just as I smiled when allusions were made to the books in LOTR, particularly in FOTR:

"Oh, a long expected party."

"Riddles in the dark."

"It's 'A shortcut to mushrooms!' "

I haven't read LWW and the other six books for some time, but I still smiled (and quoted the line out loud) when Tumnus is on the balcony with Queen Lucy as she watches him walk down the beach, and Tumnus (and I) said:

"He's not a tame lion, you know...."

Gotta love those moments....

[davem]

Interesting comments from Tilda Swinton, on how she approached playing the White Witch (interview in Vogue of Dec '05)

Swinton, who joined the Communist Party in Britain in her 20 s & uses phrases like 'advanced capitalism' & 'industrial film-making' in conversation without blinking, found an appropriate political dimension to bring to the role which departs from Pauline Baynes illustrations for CS Lewis' original book, by having the White Witch be blonde. Lewis' novel, which was set during the London Blitz, is widely interpreted as a Christian parable, but Swinton's reading was different, with an overtly racial slant: 'I wanted her to be an Aryan. As far as I'm concerned she's the ultimate White Supremicist & I wanted to make the character somewhat modern. I felt it a little irresponsible, particularly at the moment, to portray the epitome of evil as either a Jew or an Arab' she said, referring to the Witch's famously dark hair.

Interesting that she appeared to see a danger in playing the Witch with dark hair - how many viewers would have made a connection between a dark haired Witch & the current political situaltion?

I'm reminded of the way some right-wingers attempted to use the movies as propaganda for the Iraq war. Interesting also, is the way the Communist Swinton can find such a clear 'non-Christian' interpretation of the story.