Dawn of the Geeks

The new Narnia movie is excellent. I saw the BBC version years ago and recently picked up the DVD box set for $25 at Best Buy. I can see why they released in on DVD before the movie came out. The special effects in the original movie were very cheesy with hand drawn cartoons for mythical creatures. At least they tried to blend in the animation with the live action. They did the best they could to make the cartoons look “real.” There’s only so much you can do with 1980’s technology. The new version’s special effects are top notch. Aslan no longer speaks like a badly dubbed foreign film. His mouth is fully animated like you’d expect from modern computer animation.

Plot wise, I didn’t see any obvious changes from the original movie which was very true to the book. The original movie was nearly three hours long which the new version is a little less than two and a half hours even with a much expanded battle scene. What they did it seems was simply to pace the movie better. The original was very drawn out while this movie keeps moving along. It was a very faithful retelling of the story which isn’t what I’ve come to expect from Hollywood so I was very pleasantly surprised. I even recognized some of the shots as been virtually identical to the original movie. I did like the original witch better. The witch in this movie was played by someone who didn’t seem to do “mean” very well.

Apparently in the early 1990’s Paramount was looking to make a version set in California. Fortunatly better judgment ruled the day and the project was canned.

Things to notice. The Professor is played by the same person who played Zidler in Moulin Rouge. The witch’s sled driver is the same person who played the oompa loompa in the new Willy Wonka movie.

Definitly worth seeing at least once. I’m hoping they do as well with the other books in the series.