LW&W
I can't begin to state just how thrilled I am about this. I've known about it for a while now, but it's another thing to see it officially announced:
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
Good ol' WETA is at it again.
Escapee episode 3 is up, too.
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
Good ol' WETA is at it again.
Escapee episode 3 is up, too.
posted by Jeff LaSala at 9:29 AM
6 Comments:
Just as the first movie was called The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, so this one is, in fact, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe.
They're poised to do the whole series, but I think they're just waiting to make sure this one does well enough.
As for Escapee, I'll keep doing them (a) as long as they remain interesting to me and (b) I still have time enough to write them. So far, both are ample enough.
LWW was the first "fantasy" book I can remember reading. My folks had the whole series, and I read them by the third grade, I think. I remember PBS doing a live action series that covered only some of the books. I definitely think this will be popular; it has some of the same attraction that the Harry Potter movies do (though better, IMO).
I'm not a big fan of either (HP books & movies). I saw the first in the theater, and swore I would never pay money for HP again. My wife bought me the first book and I don't think I made it past the first couple pages. I've watched the other two movies on DVD (borrowed them from my mom).
Has anyone re-read The Chronicles of Narnia recently? I hesitate to pick up LWW again for fear that reading it now will ruin the good memories I have of reading it as a kid. (Which is sort of what happened when I decided to reacquaint myself with The Boxcar Children, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, and The Hardy Boys last summer. I now fear for other series, like Tom Swift and Narnia.)
I wouldn't call the HP books great, at least not as far as literary skill is concerned. Rowling is the grand dame of exposition, and even if you consider that she's writing for a juvenile audience, that doesn't - to my mind, excuse the sloppiness of the storytelling. (You could probably excise a quarter to a third of the last book if you just tightened up her prose, for example.) Now -- does she know how to create characters and situations that grab readers' attention? Sure.
But what really grabs my attention with the HP books is the talent of Jim Dale, the guy who does the audiobooks. I first encountered the HP phenomenon in the form of the unabridged audiobook for the first novel. Had I not been enchanted by his reading, I'm not sure that I would have continued with the series. (I admit: I listened to the first four books on tape, unabridged, before I ever picked up a copy to read. I still prefer the audio format to the page-turning one.)
I'm currently rereading them. I have mixed feelings about them. It's easier to say that Lewis could have written them better...but no, these books moreso than even the Hobbit, were definitely written for children and the language is clearly intended that way.
If you're really worried about losing your memory of it, hold off and just let the movies come.
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